We made to our final destination of the year in Rio. We can´t believe how quickly the year has gone! Next week we will be back in our flat and back to ´normal'life... Rio is a real 24 hour city. The weather has been pathcy but we have manged to catch the main sites without rain, although by the time we got a train up to Christ the Redeemer it was pretty cloudy! It is an amzing site though, not just close up but it seems likeits visible from anywhere in the city. The views from Sugar Loaf are amazing and [View Full Entry]

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We drove back along the East side of the South Island. Our first stop was Christchurch but we only spent the afternoon there in the end because there really is nothing to see or do...it kind of feels like walking around Birmingham on a wet afternoon... We stopped at a really nice place called Kaikoura for a couple of days. From our camp site you could see 100's of dolphins far out to sea jumping around, sadly they were too far out to take any convincing pictures but it really was a site to behold. We also caught the day the [View Full Entry]

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Chile is great. We have really enjoyed the week here. The weather is great and the sites are amazing too!! We have visited loads of interesting museums and art galleries and eaten good food in the city itself. There is also a great square with a lovely cathedal you can visit. They do like a beer here so you do get people up singing and playing the guitar until 6am but we have learned to sleep through the noise, which is a bit of a shock after NZ! We have also taken a couple of trips one to Aconcagua where we [View Full Entry]

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We left the North Island and took the ferry across to the South Island. We headed along the North coast to Abel Tasman national park for a spot of kayaking. Along the way we saved a cute hedgehog from becoming road kill. We took a 2 day kayaking trip in the hope of seeing the seal colonies there. We weren't dissapointed. We saw 3 separate colonies in all the recommended locations and were able to kayak really close, it was amazing, the seals were swimming under and around the boat and the pups were really sweet!! Its hard for photos really [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Auckland and Steve decided he wanted some excitement. His big idea was to jump off the Auckland tower but it looked a bit high for me so we just walked around the edge at 192m up instead. It was a bit scary especially when they get you to lean over the edge for them to take your picture but the views over Auckland are lovely. We wanted to get out of the city as fast as possible so we hired another campervan. This one is a bit more down market than the Aussie van and has graffiti spray [View Full Entry]

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The weather didn't improve for a few days until we arrived at Nelson Bay. This was a really sweet seaside town. It was not warm enough for the beach but at least the rain had eased enough to get out of the car and make something to eat! The town was really nice with loads of harbour side restaurants etc.. We were so grateful to be able to get out of the car we spent a lot of time running and strolling along the beach. There was also a really nice national park for strolling in with some lovely views high [View Full Entry]

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We dragged ourselves off the beach and up the coast to Brisbane. This is the only place in Australia that we've found to have a traffic problem, its really busy!! W found a hostel that would let us park in there back yard so we were staying in the city centre. It was so hot when we arrived that we headed off to the South bank which is on the river, like in London, except that its famous for a Nepalese pagoda and a fake beach. We headed for the fake beach, which actually does have sand, to lie in the [View Full Entry]

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Port Macquarie is a town on the Gold coast between Sydney and Brisbane. There are not many tourists here compared to other towns (Byron Bay!!) so its a really nice spot to relax on the beach which is exactly what we did. We parked the van in the beach carpark and spent a couple of days working on our tan (not very Australian thing to do as they all avoid the sun)... It was hard to drag ourselves away from here as it was so pretty but we forced ourselves into the car and drove to Coffs Harbour as Steve wanted [View Full Entry]

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At last back in the bush!!! The blue mountain national park is beautiful so we put on our hiking shoes and headed off to find some wild life! The first walk we did was to keep fit so we climbed up and down the 900 stairs at echo point to see the 3 sisters. You can see forest for miles and miles and they are really lucky not to have had any bush fires there for the last few years so it all lucks really green. The next day we headed out for a longer walk at Wentworth falls. We wanted [View Full Entry]

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It seems like such along time ago we did this but i'm gonna try to remember everything we did!! We left Adelaide and first we had to head South to the coast, it looks really close on the map but like everything here its miles!! On route we camoed over night in the national park near Port Fairy. We were the only ones there and it was beautiful overlooking the beach. When we woke up, we were having our usual wash in a bucket from a cold tap when 3 emus ran past along the beach, as we were washing we [View Full Entry]

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