Victoria and Alastair

Our last two weeks in Utah were an almost perfect mixture of big dumps of powder snow and glorious sunny days. We skied all the major resorts in the state with Snowbird, Solitude and Snowbasin our favorites. Utah claims to have the greatest snow on earth and we certainly had some of our best days of skiing ever. The conditions meant that Alastair was able to ski more and more extreme terrain and even I was found off piste and on the occasional double black diamond. For his birthday Alastair took his search for the steepest and deepest powder to new heights with a day of heli-skiing in the back country of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Unfortunately, some of his group could barely muster a basic swing but this didn't stop him belting about and having an ... read more

Leaving the stunning Lakes Hawea and Wanaka behind we headed south west to Te Anau. Amazingly we managed to coordinate itineraries with friends from home and fellow travelers, Andy and Clare. Much swapping of stories and wine drinking ensued leaving us going our separate ways talking of detoxing. Needless to say we haven't started yet! From there we spent two days cruising two of the main sounds of Fiordland. Milford Sound, in particular was breathtakingly spectacular with sheer rock walls going straight up (and down) for over a mile in places. Doubtful Sound, although less spectacular is home to the largest bottlenose dolphins in the world that obligingly put on a dramatic show. The area is renowned for the amount of rain it gets (Doubtful Sound only has 65 dry days a year) so we were ... read more

Since our last entry we have spent a week in and around Alice Springs, looking at and walking amongst rocks, and have driven round the coast from Adelaide to Sydney, again doing quite a lot of walking but relatively little fishing! In the 'Red Centre' we visited all the main rocks which were as beautiful and impressive as it is claimed and also had enough time to visit some lesser known and therefore, quieter sites. We walked every day but as temperatures were soaring while we were there, hitting 44 degrees one day, most of our walking was done in the early morning. I say, 'most' because we did have one unfortunate 'mad dogs' incident. At a place called Palm Valley, a sort of lost world with the only palm trees for 1000km and the only ... read more

The journey back from Broome took us along the Great Northern Highway. It's a long road and for the most part there wasn't much to see, just lots of scrub, the occasional willie willie and the odd dead cow, puffed up like a hot air ballon. This made for a very long day of driving before we reached Halls Creek, the main access point for Purnululu National Park also known as the Bungle Bungles. We took a short flight over the park, which despite a little bit of queasiness, gave us great views of the beehive domes and deep gorges as well as a real sense of the vast scale and emptyness of the region. According to our very proud pilot the Halls Creek shire is 143,000 sq km but only has 3700 people living in ... read more

Although it has not been long since we last wrote we head off into the Outback tomorrow for three weeks so are not sure when we will next be in touch. We have been in Darwin for the last couple of days fighting off jet lag and trying adjust to the 30 C plus temperatures and 70-80% humidity. It is a really nice, relaxed place - big enough to be a proper working city and so not overwhelmed by the multiple backpacker hostels and tour operators but small enough that most stuff is walkable (although the heat did beat us into a taxi once today). We have been to Mindil beach market which is basically geared around people turning up to eat (good) fast food and watch the sunset, visited the main tourist sites, discovered didgeridoo ... read more