Jennifer Bocock
We are about to spend 12 months not working and seeing some of the world and are very excited!! Steve and Jenny
Travel Blog Posts
Ending it all in Rio
Published: April 25th 2009South America » Brazil » Rio de Janeiro » Rio de Janeiro
April 25th 2009
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 we had much better weather on that day. Other than that we have been relaxing on Copacabana and Ipanema beach and drinking Capirinhas, its a hard life isn´t it!! Rio feels pretty safe despite the ... read more
April 19th 2009
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 crossed the boarder into Argentina for the day to take a walk up a bit closer and another trip to a lovely vineyard (with the best tasting ever, you get full glasses!) and 2 seaside ... read more
April 19th 2009
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 mutton birds migrated so 1000's of those were flying over the sea too! We had a really relaxed time watching the wildlife, we even had a seal join us for dinner on the 2nd night.. ... read more
March 28th 2009
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 to do justice to the experience.. There were also loads of lovely beaches to stop for a rest on even if the sandflies drive you mad, this is the worst country for getting bitten!! We ... read more
March 16th 2009
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 painted all over it to hide the dents but it works! We first of all headed up to the north of the north island to the Bay of Islands and Cape Reinga. The weather was ... read more
February 23rd 2009
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 above the bay. After realxing here, we wanted to have one last bush walking experience so we travelled to Ku ring gai chase national park only about 25km outside of Sydney. We spent the day ... read more
February 14th 2009
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 water and cool down. After we had been ther half an hour or so we bumped into Jason who was a freind of ours from the volunteer programme in Borneo, how random is that? We ... read more
Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour
Published: February 9th 2009Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Coffs Harbour
February 9th 2009
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 to jump of the pier there and get over his fear of jumping into water!! The main beach in town has really strong current and is onyl safe for a few mad surfers so we ... read more
The Blue Mountains
Published: February 9th 2009Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Blue Mountains
February 5th 2009
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 to walk a slightly less well trodden path so we didn't walk the whole national pass but diverted slightly further down along the wentworth pass. We only saw 1 person along here so it really ... read more
The Great Ocean Road and Melbourne
Published: February 5th 2009Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Great Ocean Road
February 5th 2009
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 couldnt take any pictures but it was so amazing to see them right there in the wild. Back on the road, we headed to a town called Mount Gambier to restock with fuel and supplies. ... read more
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