Page 9 of Sophie and Dale Travel Blog Posts


Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Sydney December 6th 2008

We were more than a bit sad to be leaving New Zealand, especially when the weather had just turned into gorgeous sunshine, but after a good flight we landed in sunny Sydney and were immediately happy that we would no longer need all the alpaca jumpers we'd been lugging around with us for months! As a 30th birthday present to us both Sophie's family had booked us into a posh hotel for 3 nights which was such luxury after 2 months in the campervan and to make it even better we both got the surprise of our lives when we arrived at the hotel and none other than Sophie's sister was sitting in reception waiting for us to arrive! It was just so exciting to see her and Sophie immediately tried to catch up on 6 ... read more
The Opera House
Dale and the Harbour Bridge
Us and the Opera House

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island November 28th 2008

Keen to do some more walking after our experiences in Abel Tasman we headed from the very West of the South Island at Greymouth then to the centre and Arthurs Pass National Park. The drive there yet again was a very scenic one especially when you travel through the actual pass itself and the enormous viaduct that was built to make access across the island much easier. At the viewpoint overlooking the viaduct we had our first Kea experience, these are large parrots that live in the snowy higher ground around the South Island. They are very inquisitive and cheeky and as soon as you turn your back on them they will be on your car trying to pull over whatever they can lay their beaks on... aerials, window rubber surrounds, windscreen wipers etc so you ... read more
Purakaunui Falls
Dale in Fiordland Walk Forest
Dale celebrating having made Sophie get to the top!

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island November 9th 2008

Our ferry crossing to the South Island lived up to all expectations and gave us a beautiful journey along the Cook Strait and our first view of some of the South Islands famous Sounds (sea inlets). It was nearly a completely smooth crossing so enabled us to keep down the delightful(!!??) cooked breakfasts we had treated ourselves to onboard. We'd decided to head straight on down to Kaikoura so we wouldn't have to rush Dale's long awaited birthday present from Sophie.. a Whale Watching trip. The 2 hour journey down there was spectacular through winerys then to the coast where we had turquoise water on one side and snow capped mountains on the other. This scenery was definately what we'd been waiting for since arriving in NZ, and to make it even better the sun shone ... read more
Kaikoura Coastline
Waving goodbye to us!
NZ Fur seal

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island October 30th 2008

We arrived safe and sound in New Zealand after losing an entire day of our lives on the way.. how strange! More importantly for us it meant we were both one day nearer to our 30th birthday's because of this! We were not however greeted with the sunshine we had hoped for on our arrival.. more like the weather we had been used to all our lives in the UK.. grey skies and rain, great! We'd only just arrived though we thought and it might only be a minor blip so we did our best to ignore it and hopped on the bus that would take us into central Auckland where we were staying for our first night here. It was so refreshing to actually be able to fully understand the bus driver and be able ... read more
Mt Ruapehu
Matariki Falls
Mt Doom

South America » Argentina September 30th 2008

(note: this is quite a long blog as we have lumped our final 3 weeks into 1 blog.. might be an idea to take an afternoon out to get through it!!) With only 3 weeks left in South America and a little sad at the thought of leaving we were glad that we were back in Argentina where they have the best of seemingly everything.. food, drink, music and people (both Sophie and Dale have developed a liking for the Argentinians!) Our last few weeks consisted of mostly city experiences and we took in the sights and sounds of Salta, Cordoba and Mendoza before having to go back into Chile for our flight out of Santiago to New Zealand. We were particularly looking forward to getting to Salta because our friend from good old Northampton was ... read more
Barrel label
Wine barrels in the cellar
Wine bottles


As we said in the previous blog the difference between Bolivia and Chile hit us the very second we crossed that border... the landscape is pretty much the same just on the other side of the mountains but the roads, houses, food and most noticeably the price could not be more different. San Pedro de Atacama is one of the main routes in or out of Chile and most people just use it as a cross point to get up to Peru or Bolivia or further down to Chile or Argentina which is exactly what we were doing. In saying this, there is a farily major attraction close to the town and that would be the start of the driest place in the world.. The Atacama Desert, in some places this desert have never ever seen ... read more
Us!
The moon.. in the Valley de La Luna
Strange rocks

South America » Bolivia » Potosí Department » Salar de Uyuni September 9th 2008

We had been looking forward to our latest tour since leaving the UK and after being recommended a good tour company we booked ourselves on our trip to Salar de Uyuni for Friday 5th September along with 3 Germans (Sebastian, Basti and Fabian) and 1 Israeli (Danny). Day 1 As with all of these tours we set off in our 4x4 to first visit the train cemetery just outside the town of Uyuni. This is such a funny sight with lots and lots of rusting trains sadly neglected and left to the elements of the wind, dust and rain. We were told that there were plans to make this into a proper museum but as with lots of things in Bolivia the intentions are there but the funding isn´t. After a quick stop in a souvenir ... read more
Lago Verde
Us and the car
Sophie balancing on a bottle

South America » Bolivia » Potosí Department » Potosi September 3rd 2008

We had a relatively uneventful bus ride from Sucre to Potosi which was only interrupted by a flat tyre meaning we all had to get off the bus and wait for a combi minivan to come past and take us the final 1 hour to our destination. Potosi is the highest city in the world resting at a mere 4,090m above sea level and is famous for backpackers to do one thing.. visit the mines and play with dynamite! We hadn´t planned to spend very long here so were glad when we found an agency that had places on their 2pm tour and we could leave the city following day. W got ourselves booked on in a small group with just 3 other people, 2 from France and one from Israel. Our little minibus left the ... read more
Flat Tyre on bus
14 year old boy working
Diablo figure

South America » Bolivia » Chuquisaca Department » Sucre August 31st 2008

Our last few weeks haven´t really been much to write home about with a lot of disappointing towns and hours and hours of bus rides. We took a long way round to arrive in Santa Cruz but were immediately disappointed with this city too after getting our hopes up that it would be somewhere to spend a few days. In reality there really isn´t that much to do, it´s not that pretty and our 2nd of 2 days there consisted of a citywide strike so nothing was open at all.. no breakfast.. no lunch... no fun! We left Santa Cruz with a new travel plan lined up to visit the places that Che Guevera spent his last days. Unfortuantley for us Santa Cruz region decided to put up blockades on all the roads out of the ... read more
Vallagrande market
Sucre Plaza
Mural by the laundry room

South America » Bolivia » Beni Department » Rurrenabaque August 13th 2008

To keep you all in check with our log of terrible bus rides we are pleased to announce that the bus ride from Coroico to Rurrenabaque has just jumped to top spot....! We had both read a few blogs where people had said how bad this ride was but we hadn't really thought much about it until we got on the bus! The buses in Bolivia are quite different from the ones we had got used to in Peru and Argentina.. a lot more basic! Unfortunatley for us we were sat on the back seat which is the worst place to be for a really bumpy ride of 14 hours along a gravel road! The second worst part was that half this road is along the 2nd World's Most Dangerous Road and we didn't like being ... read more
Typical house in Rurre
Tarantula
Our cabin




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