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Published: February 26th 2008
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We have arrived in Santiago, Chile and it is just as scary and amazing and exciting as we expected it to be. It is absolutely massive too, we took a trip up in the cable car for a view of the city and neither of us expected what we saw when we got to the top. In all directions the city reaches as far as the eye can see and it is completely built up in a sprawling mass of habitation. It´s like nothing we have ever seen before but I suppose that´s the point of travelling.
Australia was really good to us, as was the family. I know it´s taken a while for us to write about it so this blog is mainly about our stay down under. We flew into Perth from South Africa. My first impression was how slowly people drive there. Both Alex and I agreed that it would drive us crazy after awhile. We went to the beach in Freemantle, as soon as we got there , as that is usually our first priority. Then we drove to Kings Park for a snooze, Alex ran and we took in the view of the city of
operation "FOOD"
this operation started off with alex and i fumbling over each other,spilling, burning and generally making a messof things. Now the world is our kitchen! Perth. Perth looks like something out of a sci fi novel, it´s what it would be like if we all left Planet Earth and made a new city on Mars. Everything works properly and the city hums like a finely tuned machine. From afar you see a steady line of traffic moving into the city and a steady line of traffic moving out, as if the city is breathing. Enough poetic dribble, I am sure you all get the picture, it´s just that for me being a South African and Alex just coming from South Africa the difference was palpable. We spent the night with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins, as they moved over to Perth a while ago. We had a good ol´ braai and caught up on family news. The next day we flew to Adelaide and spent the day visiting some friends of Alex´s whom she had met when she toured Oz the last time. She enjoyed catching up on news of the last 5 years and shared tales of travels.
We hired an absolute beast of a car that made the blood in my head pound whenever a car came near because of the huge
excess on the vehicle. We drove 800kms to Melbourne and with a max speed of 100kms an hour it was tortuous! On the way to Melbourne we stopped off in the Grampians for a night. The Grampian mountain range has loads of great hikes, mountain rivers, and kangaroos aplenty. We did a couple of hikes and set up camp in a huge grove of Pine trees. That night we froze to death. The following day Alex twisted my arm into getting up at 6am to go for a run and we had just set off when we came face to face with a crazed kangaroo that stood at head height, rocked back on its tail and boxed the air as if to say ¨come and get a knuckle sandwich, buddy!¨ We ran a bit faster and in the opposite direction. The next day we reached the Great Ocean Road which runs along the south eastern corner of Australia to Melbourne. Beautiful coastline with wild and rough seas, yellow dramatic cliffs that plunge into such an azure sea it looked Mediterranean ´´click click!¨´ , shouted the camera in agreement. All the campsites were choca so we set up camp on the
Beautiful Beach
this one was especially beautiful and with not a soul around. almost as beautiful as our beaches in south africa...hehe lovely grassy spot next to a river with a view of the sea and saved the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine in money, stoked.
Alex´s go...
Next day found us driving through the city of Melbourne with map book in hand thankfully we arrived safely at Aunty Alison´´s house. We spent two weeks with her and she chauffeured us around the Mornington peninsula. We enjoyed the comfort of her lovely home and her hospitality, practiced our espanol, ran, swam at the beach, fought off the flies )!), visited giant sandcastles, the dandenongs a pretty mountain range, and, best of all, spent time relaxing and catching up with my aunt and my cousins.
During this time, my good friend Fran visited from NZ and we found the cool area of Melbourne thanks to a handy email from Dan´s friend, Tes where she detailed all the bars and clubs to visit and instructed her father Ted to take us out on his yacht. The cool area of Melboune, by the way, is Brunswick St, here you find the perfect balance of trend, sleazy electro music, alcoholic lunies, subversive street art, retro second hand stores, good coffee and the
Fran and Alex and Beer
Oz has some really good beers.This was us after a hard day of walking around Melbourne. perfect eggs Benedict.
The following two weeks we spent at Aunty Christine and Uncle Chic. My cousin, Kim, had time off whilst we were there and enjoys the beach as much as we do, so we had several trips to some famous surf spots including Bell´s Beach where Dan showed the regulars what he was made off! We also caught up with the rest of my cousins on this side of the peninsula and had fun with the kids at some lovely family get togethers. We celebrated with Tia Maria, Aunty Christine´s miraculous recovery from 2 bouts of leukemia and 5 years in remission )some toast). Aunty Christine and Uncle Chic took us to the sporty´s bar for a slap up meal and some slot machine action which saw Dan lose 5 dollars in just under 2 minutes!
Dan again......
We left Melebourne and flew to Sydney for 2 days. Sydney was beautiful as I am sure most of you know, the hostel wasn´t. It was situated on a busy intersection and we slept in an over crowded dormitory that stank of stinky feet, the beds were ridden with malnourished German teenagers who slept during the day
Cool street art in Brunswick Street
there are loads of high quality pieces around this area. this one took my fancy. and only half came alive at night, with the prospect of drink and women. We spent as much time away from the hostel as we could. We saw the amazing and bizarre celebrations of the Chinese New Year. We caught the ferry to Manly for a day spent on the beach. We slept on the awesome grass of the Sydney Botanical gardens taking in the sight of the fruit bats hanging above us in the trees and the magnificent Opera House in front of us. Alex went for a swim at an Olympic swimming pool situated on the water´s edge where the National team train. I watched from a safe distance not wanting the pool staff to think I was a pervert.
Yes, Sydney was great and I would love to spend more time there but for us, for those two days, it was more than just a beautiful city with flashing lights and manicured gardens, it was the fact that it was our last couple of days of English and cultural similarity and the safeness before we landed on another Continent which doesn´t offer any of the above...................................
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