Guangzhou We arrived in China and the first thing that hit us was that all of the signs were now in Chinese. No more english signs for the tourists! We couldn't even have a guess at what they meant. We tried to ask for help but next to no-one could speak english, the only way to communicate was by pointing at the symbols in our lonely planet. When we first arrived in Guangzhou we tried to take the metro into town but we couldn't match the names with the ones in the book. We took a walk along the Pearl river [View Full Entry]

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When we arrived in Hong Kong and caught the train to Kowloon. Here we were met by a guy pretending to be from the guesthouse where we made a reservation. He took us to the same building where he tried to steal our business for his own guesthouse. The first day in Hong Kong we took a ferry over to Hong Kong island. Here we visited a temple, rode the tram and went to the peak to view sunset and the city lights. It was beautiful views but what we did not realise was how cold it would be. We were [View Full Entry]

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Brisbane - Noosa There wasn't a lot to do in Brisbane but we explored the city and went to an aboriginal workshop. There we painted our own boomerangs and there was a crazy aboriginal guy there. He was telling us how he was against the white people of Australia and he showed us how to play the digereedoo. We then picked up Lucy from the airport to join us on the rest of our trip. We left Brisbane for Noosa and from there we visited the Australian zoo. It was a cool zoo and we were able to pat koalas, kangeroos, [View Full Entry]

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Sydney We arrived in Sydney and at the airport called around various hostels to try and find some work for accomodation. We finally got lucky and found work at Base Sydney setting up breakfast in the morning from 7 - 11. Base was an awful hostel, it was filthy and the only reason we stayed there was because it was free. The staff were so disorganised and every morning we had to run to the shops because they hadn't ordered any food. The rest of the day was ours and we visited the Sydney Opera house and the famous harbour bridge. [View Full Entry]

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Picton - Kiakoura - Methven We arrived in Picton off the ferry and jumped straight on a bus to Kiakoura. In Kiakoura we checked into a place called Dolphin Lodge. It was a great hostel but what made it special was the manager Yvonne. She was a very friendly lady, easy to talk to and made us feel very welcome. Whilst in Kiakoura we wanted to swim with dolphins, we tried 3 times before we did it. The first we went out on the boat, sighted the dolphins but the pod split before we had a chance to swim with them. [View Full Entry]

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Auckland (Waitomo) - Pahia We arrived in New Zealand and stayed at the Fat Camel, the best thing about staying here is we got a free dinner everynight. Our first day we spent adjusting to the time difference, 17 hours in front of South America. Auckland is NewZealand's biggest city containing most of New Zealand's population. It is a very beautiful city with sky scrapers lining the ocean front. Whilst in Auckland we took a stray city tour where we visited Mount Eden, Harbour bridge and the Skytower. Sam J answered a question correctly on a quiz and got to jump [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Arequipa and checked into a hostel where we had a private room, it was so nice it was more like a hotel and this time we had hot showers! Arequipa was an old colonial town with lots of plazas and a big cathedral in the main plaza. Whilst there we visited the musuem Santvarios Andinos where they hold Juanita the ice princess. We learnt more about the incas and how Junita was sacrifised on Mount Ampato. Her body had been preserved for thousnds of years by the ice on the mountains. The next day we went on a [View Full Entry]

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On the 27th of July we left Lima with David and Ahora in the car. On the way to pass the time we had a wotsit eating competition. Sam J won fitting 8 wotsits in her mouth. They wasn't just any old wotsits they were huge South American ones! When we arrived in Lima we got a flat tyre and only just about made our bus to Ica. From Ica we took a taxi to Huacachina where we stayed at Casa De Arena. The hostel was really nice and even had a swimming pool but as we were only here overnight [View Full Entry]

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We were recommended to go to Huancayo via Lima as the alternative road is very bad. So we took a 22 hour bus journey to Lima with the intention of staying overnight and get a bus to Huancayo in the morning. We were dropped off in Lima early in the morning in a random street. We didnt have a clue where we were and later found out Lima doesnt have one main bus terminal, we were just dropped off outside the bus office. Trying to find accomodation in Lima was harder than we thought. The first place we tried looked dodgy [View Full Entry]

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Our bus to Cusco was cancelled and no-one told us so we had to wait for several hours in Puno for the next one. We finally arrived in Cusco at 9pm and we were starving, the first thing we did was look for food. Along the way we met some hippis, Alex and Antonio, they made us some gifts and took us to an english restaurant called the Real MCcoy. We had jacket potatoes with cheese and beans, it was so nice to have food from back home. The hippis sat with us throughout the meal and there was a bit [View Full Entry]

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