http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Steve-and-Jenny/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Steve and Jenny en-us Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:26:46 +0000 Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:26:46 +0000 We made to our final destination of the year in Rio. We cant believe how quickly the year has gone Next week we will be back in our flat and back to normal039life...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 http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Rio-de-Janeiro/Rio-de-Janeiro/blog-393627.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Santiago-Region/Santiago/blog-392164.html 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 jumpi http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/blog-392156.html 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 abl http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/blog-385428.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/blog-382078.html 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 st http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-376275.html 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 N http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Brisbane/blog-373450.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Coffs-Harbour/blog-372059.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Blue-Mountains/blog-370549.html 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 hav http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Great-Ocean-Road/blog-370548.html We crossed the border into South Australia which at first didn't really look any different from the road. The first town was called Coober Pedy which is an old and still current opal mining town. As you approach it you see all the devistation the dynamite blasts have caused to the landscape and it feels really strange after being in the midddle of the bush for so long Lots of the town itself http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/South-Australia/Adelaide/blog-367213.html We made it to a hot hot australia from nepal for a relaxing xmas in Darwin It was weird though lying by the pool sunbathing on xmas day its just not right is it and there was no turkey or xmas pudding either Just one big barrrbie After xmas we hired a chubby van and began the mammoth the long drive through the northern territory... we started off going via Kakadu national park Steve go http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Northern-Territory/Kakadu-National-Park/blog-363165.html Forgot to write this before we left Nepal but after Steves man flu we took a couple of days away from Kathmandu and went to royal chitwan national park in the search for a tiger Alas we didnt find a tiger but we did ride on a elephant and see rhinos mugger crocodiles a wart hog tons of birds and a gharial in the water next to our boat which was a bit daunting The park is really big and we http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Chitwan/blog-356348.html Wow How cool was that The trekking was hard work walking up and down all those hills but the views were amazing we were so lucky with the weather we hardly had any cloud apart from one afternoon on the way downThings didn't start to well as we were held up in a road block for 7 hours on the first day as some locals blocked the road. A driver had killed a motorcyclist and the locals accu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Himalayas/blog-351491.html The boss from the trekking company was there to meet us from the flight which was really nice and took us to the hotel where we could try to make our backpacks as light as possible to start trekking The next day we had a whirlwind tour of the major sights of the city which was ace. We saw the main buddhist temple with all its prayer flags and the cool eyes. We got to visit a painting school w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/Thamal/blog-351487.html We only had one day here before we flew to Kathmandu so we decided to do the really touristy thing of taking a 1 day all in tour from dawn till dusk It was actually really fun We started off with a dawn boat ride on the ganges which is horribly polluted but we did see a dolphin it was alive not a plastic model We got to see people swimming and washing and generally life there as well as t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Uttar-Pradesh/Varanasi/blog-351484.html We finally made it to Agra the home of the world famoud Taj. We arrived in the morning so didn't go straight to the Taj as we wanted to catch it at sunrise. We went to visit the Agra fort on the first day instead which is really lovely. The building is amazing and the builder of the Taj was held prisoner there overlooking his magnificent structure There were loads of cool wild parrots flying http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Uttar-Pradesh/Agra/blog-351483.html It seems at bit of a long time since I wrote this as it was hard to find a computer in India and then we have just got back from trekking in Nepal but i'll try and remember what we did Steve was sick this first day so I did the city palace alone and then again the next day. It was really quiet the day I went as it was the day before Diwali but when we went together it was packed The palace http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/Udaipur/blog-351477.html We met loads of lovely people on the train all Indian we saw no other tourists. There was on older couple the guy was an amputee and then a couple who had an arranged marriage 10 days before. They actually seemed very happy Being India they kept plying us with food and tea and also an apple With 3 hours still to go of a 20 hour train ride I knew something was amiss 3 hours in a trai http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/Jaipur/blog-338599.html We caught the train from the hectic Delhi railway station to Amritsar. We took the more expensive Shatabdi express and it was actually really quite good All the food and drinks were free. Looking from the window of the train we took loads of pictures but really they only seek to highlight further poverty. Amritsar station was a choatic experience those pesky rickshaw drivers do like to follo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Punjab/Amritsar/blog-338594.html