In honour of our housemate Julien's (King of the Lemurs) 23rd birthday, we made an extra special trip out to Treble Cone ski field which is a 2 hour drive from Queenstown. Speights offer a two for the price of one lift pass voucher with their 24 pack so we had to make the sacrifice of drinking of lots of Dunedin's finest and cashed in the voucher like many other beer guzzlers on the slopes. The skies were blue, the piste was uncrowded and the snow was slushy enough to have a lot of fun on, with our new found boarding [View Full Entry]

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The drive to Milford Sound from Queenstown, takes around four hours which meant an early start to make the midday cruise. A quick oil check and a fill-up at the petrol station (there are very few opportunities once on the Milford road) and we were on our way. Although Milford Sound is the main event, the drive is just as if not more, spectacular. From Queenstownto Te Anau the road crosses the Dome-to-Dome region of tiny little hamlets, large dome-like hills (hence the name) and fields brimming with sheep and cattle. You drive past landscapes that take your breath away and [View Full Entry]

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So tramping... well as I mentioned in a previous blog, this is New Zealand's name for what the rest of us call trekking. It's a verb we tend to use to suggest the walking is hard. Here in NZ it's all conditions, all difficulties and they also use the word for noun formation. A person who enjoys tramping is a "tramper" and the path he follows is known as the "tramp" i.e. I went tramping with my fellow tramper, Laura on a short tramp around a lake. So there are the preliminaries dealt with... Around Queenstown and its local vicinity (given [View Full Entry]

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As promised, the Bungy experience was on the list and now the box has been ticked, twice. I decided to do two bungy jumps in a day, two very different jumps and at a discounted rate! Truth is there were three available and I chose not to do the highest and scariest of the three. "Wimp", I hear you say but you'd be wrong. Actually the biggest and highest is an ankle bungy over a massive and bleak ravine - I chose instead to do the wet, head-dunking Kawarau Bridge bungy and the ubiquitous Quenstown Ledge with the amazing backdrop of [View Full Entry]

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Well, it's been a while since we last blogged back in S. America. We now find ourselves in a new country, New Zealand and another continent, although we're not entirely sure what it's actually called; is it Oceania, Australasia or something else? (Maybe someone can help...) We have a room with a view, we own a car (our first ever as it happens), we have pets, we own snowboards, we know how to snowboard (give or take), we've parachuted off a hill, we've done lots of tramping (I'll explain) and we've even done some paid work! Yes, it's safe to say [View Full Entry]

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So here we are 90 days later, 8,200 miles travelled (as the crow flies) and writing this blog in Santiago airport looking out over the illuminated runways, whilst waiting for our flight to Auckland. We've said the proverbial goodbyes to this continent and we take with us some fantastic memories but we're both in agreement that we're ready for a change and in particular the opportunity to put down our bags, say goodbye to bus journeys and make a home (if only for short period) in New Zealand. We have something of a blog backlog so we're attempting to chew through [View Full Entry]

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After spending nearly a month in Argentina, we headed back to Chile crossing through Argentinian passport control, for the 6th and final time. We originally planned to head over to Puerto Montt in Chile's Lake District but made a last minute change to the journey and headed slightly further north to Valdivia, instead. The reason for this decision: our old friend Lonely Planet, who raved about Valdivia's historic fortifications, riverside charm, German influences and fat Sea Lion visitors. Once again, LP pretty much nailed it, although we feel, their suggestion that the town itself was a rea [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately we arrived in Bariloche with no hostel reservation in, what we later found out was, one of the busiest weeks in the Winter season. Our first few hours were spent trudging around in the rain, only to be rejected from every hostel and hotel in the Lonely Planet and then trying our luck on the phone line, uttering potted Spanish to every hotel receptionist in Bariloche. Luckily the Hostel Nauel Willie could take us in, possibly because it was so new, the paint was almost wet and they probably hadn't started advertising yet. Not to let this initial blunder cloud [View Full Entry]

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It was a very long journey down to Puerto Madryn on the northern edge of the Patagonian region. We arrived in the afternoon, leaving us the morning to stare out of the window of the coach and marvel at the sheer nothingness of the barren landscape before us. Puerto Madryn is definitely an upmarket beach resort which would be lovely in the Summer but it does manage to lure visitors in the winter, principally because the Golfo Nuevo bay is the home of the Southern Right Whale during its breeding season! The whales escape from the cold Antartic waters at the [View Full Entry]

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San Antonio is in the heart of the so-called Gaucho country of Argentina's green and grassy Pampas. It's a tiddly place but Lonely Planet will tell you it's where to go if you want to do the Gaucho experience. We rocked in thinking it was going to be brimming with opportunities to go Gaucho and play cowboys on a dude ranch. We did see a few local men wearing the traditional Gaucho beret-type hat, we did hear also of Estancias (ranches) that could be visited if your wallet was the size of a Texan oil-driller's, we also saw lots of green [View Full Entry]

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