Landed in the land down under for a warm welcome from Darryl! There he was milky white with a huge back pack full of goodies for us waiting at the gate! Taxi to Sydney and we arrived where we were staying, with a friend from home in her apartment for a few nights. We stopped for a quick freshen up and then hit the town. Darryl had brought us tickets to a local NRL game Manly sea eagles vs Melbourne storm. So we hopped onto the ferry to take us over to Manly! On route we were able to see and get some great pics of the opera house and harbour bridge. We stopped for a quick bite to eat in the lovely Manly before heading off to the game. Darryl was already into the full ... read more

The weather managed to hold out a little for us for foxes glacier and we decided to take the hours walk up to it for some more amazing photos. As Jo so aptly put it on a quick video- small pappy, small lauren, BIG MOUNTAIN! The scenery is really quite impressive and me and Jo have both become rock/geology lovers overnight! Still on to Wanaka we headed via the Haast national park. Yet another awful awful drive with horrible scenery!!!! (Sense the sarcasm there!) We stopped off at the blue pools- I had been here last year and was keen for a swim this time around. A quick car change later and we were off with our towels to the pools. Covered head to toe with bug spray for good measure- I remembered Auntie Karen had ... read more

Finally we were on board the inter islander ferry, we settled in with a cheeky cider and an ice cream for most of the journey. When we came into Marlborough sounds we went above deck and wow was it fantastic. It reminded me of Milford sounds a bit from last year when I was here. We stayed up there all the way into picton- despite being hit on by a man old enough to be my father (we politely declined the invitation to stay in his motel room- several times!) once off at the other end we headed the long way around to Kaikoura due to the road closures. This would lead us to stop for the night at a place called lake Rotoiti which was beautiful! We camped in a spot literally on the lake ... read more

Having nearly been in New Zealand for a week it was back in the spaceship schnitzel for some more adventuring! We popped into Pukekoe and ended up staying with Kath and Carey for the evening. We enjoyed a lovely BBQ on the 16 burner grill with Whitney playing in the background! Although if you ask Jo there was maybe too much steak!! She hasn't looked at one since! Back in the car the next day and it was off to the coromandels! We had a lovely walk along cooks beach, paddling our feet in the water- we basically had it to ourselves. Deciding we needed to see more we put on our swim wear and headed to warm water beach- unfortunately we had just missed the low tide for enjoying the warm water! Not disheartened we ... read more

A quick stop over in Santiago (no tattoos this time) and we were off to the airport! A few hours later we were in the middle of the atacama desert! The only way to explain this place is, it as though they have picked up a town and literally placed it in the most isolated desolate place in Chile. We got dropped off at the bus station and had to walk to our hostel. It was like a scene from a western movie, the dog was following us and all the houses were mud huts. The locals came out only to have a good look at the silly tourists humping around backpacks in the midday sun. We eventually arrived at our hostel- which actually was really cute. Bag drop and into town (if you can call ... read more