Hugging the shoreline of Otago Harbour we weaved our way along the 35km finger of land to the very tip at Taiaroa Head. In howling wind we got out and got blown a little way down to a viewpoint overlooking the Pacific and onto a rugged cliff face where scores of nesting seabirds such as Oystercatchers, Spotted Shags and gulls battled with the wind. Although we were not lucky enough to see any as they were sporadically returning from around the globe, Taiaroa Head is the only mainland nesting site of the majestic Royal Albatross. By way of consolation we entered [View Full Entry]

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Back to our amazing campsite for the night where we watched the moonrise over Mount Cook and awoke to another spectacular day as we drove down the coast on our way to Queenstown. With breathtaking postcard scenery at every bend the drive was the most amazing we think we'll ever do. The meandering road brought a new and spectacular vista with every bend. At one point we were worried we wouldn't make it to Queenstown as we were stopping every kilometre to gawk at lake after lake and reflected snow-capped mountains. Drives like this make you realise that certain places in [View Full Entry]

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After two hours on the mildly rolling Cook Straight, we entered the sanctity of the majestic Marlborough Sounds, a series of channels between forest cloaked peaks through which the ferry had to weave. On arrival at Picton, we descended to the Chief and drove off the ferry along Queen Charlotte Drive which twisted & turned towards Nelson. The journey took us past Queen Charlotte Sound and Havelock, birthplace of Earnest Rutherford, the man who first identified the makeup of the atom. Past Nelson which is bizarrely more Northerly than Wellington we veered along the coast to Motueka and the Abel Tasman [View Full Entry]

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After a short stop off in the Chilean capital, our evening flight to New Zealand began with a great view of Santiago which looked just like a giant circuit board. Somewhere over the pacific we were treated to an amazing view of the rising crescent moon and the mesmerising stars. The flight was a whopping 14 hours but strangley it passed in a flash and before we knew it we were descending having traversed nothing but Ocean. Having crossed the date line on the way we actually lost a day so stepping out of the airport at 5am we lethargically boarded [View Full Entry]

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An early rise to catch the cheap Centropuerto bus to the airport and we were on our way to the very middle of the Pacific Ocean. Save for a spectacular view of chile's fog enveloped mountains, the flight was entirely over water so a fairly uneventful 5 hours. It was still funny to see our computer generated flight plan crop up on our personal TV screens showing a lonely little aeroplane on a big blue screen. As the plane eventually began its descent, we caught our first glimpse of the green rolling hills of Easter Island and then another even better [View Full Entry]

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As our bus dropped into Santiago from the Andes the anguish of the previous hours started to drift away as we made amusing conversation with a large group of travellers at the back of the bus. The group were all from varied countries, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Spain and all joked with each other about who was best. Making aquaintance also gave us an opportunity to drink Mate, the hot and herby drink which Argentinians especially can never leave home without and which tastes rather like extra strong tea but is drunk through a metal straw out of a ornate personalised [View Full Entry]

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When you undertake a journey around the World you need first to purchase a vast array of equipment. Of all the bits and bobs we bought before the off, perhaps the finest purchase has to be the 3 pounds spend on a headphone splitter enabling both Claire and I to listen to the same music at the same time. On long journeys (of which there are many) we like to play "MP3 DJ" where each of us takes it in turns to choose a song from our list of 2302 and 192 albums; the aim to create the ultimate DJ set. [View Full Entry]

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After the long bus journey we caught up on some rest and spent our first day back catching up on Laundry and of course, this blog. Now that we were this time staying in Palermo and not San Telmo, in the evening we decided to visit one of many highly praised restaurants in the area and plumped for Desde El Elma (from the soul), an intimate restaurant converted by the owner Alberto Vermi from his own house. The restaurant inside was fabulously decorated with glass ceiling and a beautifully lit tree which ran from inside to out. The Patagonian lamb was [View Full Entry]

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Sad to be leaving Buenos Aires but pleased to be returning, we left the city in the early afternoon on a 19 hour bus journey to the very northern tip of Argentina and Puerto Iguazu. Although the Expresso Singer coach was a "Cama" which is fully reclining, the journey was actually not very pleasant owing to the dreadful food, unbearably loud latin love ballards being constantly looped on the TV and a group of ladies a few seats behind who refused to stop talking until 5.30am despite most of the bus telling them to shut up. Thankfully, despite the lowlights, we [View Full Entry]

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Our flight from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires was on the reputable British Airways, one of only two BA flights on our journey. After the dissapointing Sao Paulo airport where organisation was seemingly not in their dictionary, we were equally dissapointed to find that the BA plane had dodgy electrics, poor legroom and rather than the much anticipated bacon and eggs...a lame ham sandwich for breakfast! On landing in the Argentine capital it was immediately clear why people say it has a European feel as the wide streets are full of Renaults and Peugeots and the land green and flat. On [View Full Entry]

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