V n V

Greetings from Koh Tao (or as the locals would say, "you wanna tuktuk?"), a small island off the east coast of Thailand. We've come here to do a bit of diving and relax in tropical paradise for a few days before we start to head homewards. Let me take you back a couple of weeks.... We stayed in Perth with the very kind Karen and Rich for a couple more nights, long enough to see the World's Largest Australia Day Fireworks Display. Next stop was Singapore for a couple of nights. Yes it is as clean as you have heard and a strange mix of western and eastern. A few temples, a fantastic night safari at the zoo (you see all the nocturnal animals whilst they're awake) and some cheap shopping. Highlights of the zoo were ... read more

We arrived in Alice Springs, the centre of Australia and the middle of a desert, to be greeted by rain and a closed town as it was a bank holiday. Luckily the flying doctors station was open for a brief tour, as was the excellent reptile centre where all the local creepies, crawlies and slidies were kept. Ness particularly liked the python! Luckily, the following morning we got out of town and started a tour of the "local" (meaning within about 600km) sights. We first headed for the craggy, colourful features of Rainbow Valley. After a brief stop to meet the world famous Dinky the Singing Dingo, we drove to Kings Creek Station, a cattle station in the middle of nowhere, to spend the night sleeping under the stars on swags. The following morning after an ... read more

Howzitgoin, eh? If you're feeling Christmassy then goodonya. Right, that's enough kiwi talk. I know we've been slack and not updated this for a while but we've been too busy (and having too much fun) to spend a lot of time in net cafes. Anyway, on with the story of New Zealand... After Rotorua, we headed for Waitomo. The lure? Obviously the Shearing Shed. In NZ you have to go to a shearing, so we went to see animals being shorn. A rabbit to be exact. By the end it was no longer a fluffy bunny, but still cute. We also visited the caves which involved abseiling into the stream where we collected our tubes for the blackwater rafting through underground tunnels lit by thousands of glowworms. It looked like a clear night with blue stars. ... read more

Hola from Cusco. As we rest our weary muscles after the Inca Trail it gives me a chance to update you on travels so far. After Puno, we spent a couple of days in Arequipa, a pretty city set in a valley with volcanoes in the distance. There are two things you need to know about Arequipa. It is the home of Juanita, an Inca Mummy found at the top of a nearby mountain when a neighbouring volcano melted the snow, thus revealing the body. She was a teenage girl chosen as a sacrifice in a time of crisis who walked up to the 6,000m + mountain top to her fate. There were several mummies found in the region and it is a grisly insight in to Inca Culture. The Santa Catalina Monastery was toted as ... read more

Hola from Potosi in Bolivia, the highest city in the world (about 4,100m). We've been quite busy over the last couple of weeks - here's why... In Bonito we spent our last day visiting the Blue Cave (a cave where the water is deep blue). It was then time to find some more wildlife so our tour headed to the Pantanal for 4 nights in luxury accommodation. The Pantanal was fantastic with an amazing array of birds and wildlife all over the place (including green parrots in the tree outside our bedroom window). We explored the dry bits on foot on a guided trek. For the flooded parts we spent a day on horses wading through the metre deep water. Some of the shallower areas we visited on the back of a jeep. And of course, ... read more