Our travels

Gallery: Rio II

bob_and_caroline — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:14:00 GMT

Gallery: Rio

bob_and_caroline — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:37:00 GMT

Gallery: Buzios

bob_and_caroline — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:40:00 GMT

Brazil - Rio to Buzios

bob_and_caroline — Sat, 7 Mar 2009 11:10:00 GMT

Everyone we have spoken to about Rio and everything we read about the place suggests that you are unlikely to come out of it alive – or at least with your belongings still in your possession, so we were a little nervous arriving in Ipanema at 1.30 in the morning. The outside of our hostel didn´t do much to allay our concern – there was nothing outside to indicate what it was – just a high wall and a metal gate with a grille and buzzer phone, and on the other side a burly Brazilian security guard. Once inside though (and the taxi driver kindly waited to make sure we got inside safely) the hostel was pretty nice. You did have to have id cards to get in and out though and the gate was permanently locked ´for your own safety´.

We did finally pluck up the courage to venture out the next morning only to feel inadequate amongst the skimpily glad beautiful people on Ipanema beach – so the next day we hopped on a bus out to Buzios, a couple of hours along the coast to relax for a few days. We´re off back to Rio before we fly home for a few days to ´see it´ properly.

Buzios is much more relaxed – with the exception of the ´moke/buggy´we hired to drive around in today – I´ve never seen bob less confident in a vehicle as he struggled to put it into gear as massive buses thundered past us at break neck speeds. I have to say it was absolutely terrifying.

Mokes aside, the place is absolutely beautiful – blue sea, white sand, picturesque bays – real picture-postcard stuff. We haven´t done a great deal here – taking the opportunity to just relax on the beach for a few days after all the constant travel we´ve done over the last couple of months. We also took the opportunity to get some laundry done while we were here, at a launderette near our hostel. We took the clothes concealed in a bag as we´d been carrying them around in plastic bags in the heat for the last couple of weeks and although mine of course still smelt quite fragrant, Bob´s possibly didn´t. Unfortunately the man in the launderette felt the need to empty the bag onto the (very public) counter and proceed to sort through each item individually - shorts, t-shirts, underwear – he held each festering item up, and then weighed it. As if that wasn´t excruciating enough – directly behind us in the queue was the prim little Kiwi girl we´d been chatting to politely over breakfast. She graciously pretended not to notice the pair of Bob´s pants being held up in front of her but in reality I think she´s been scarred for life...

After five nights in our hostel, we´re treating ourselves to a couple of nights in a nice hotel here overlooking the beach (at least I think we are, the vast majority of people here don´t speak English and as we have no Portugeuse we could have signed up for anything) before we head back to see the sights of Rio and then back home on 16 March.

Santiago, Chile

bob_and_caroline — Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:10:00 GMT

A little after the event, but a few words seem appropriate to cover our journey from Auckland to Rio last weekend. However, it would be decidedly inappropriate for me to offer too much opinion or perspective on Santiago, Chile as, along with the brevity of our stop-over, I managed to sleep through important phases of our stay.

The cause of this unseasonal confusion was a flight that left Auckland at 18:00 on the Saturday, crossed the international date line and landed at 13:00 on the same day. A ten hour flight in the middle of a 40-hour day seems to have weakened my resolve slightly and whilst Caroline revelled in the opportunity to shop on 2 continents, 6,000 miles apart without the calendar changing I wilted badly under the usual responsibility of map reading and having the navigational duties for 2 people.

It is likely that the lack of suiatble rest over the previous 34 hours of the day was the main cause of my falling asleep mid-conversation with Caroline whilst sitting on a bench in Santiago´s central square. Another contributing factor is that we have both now admitted to the fact that, having been on our travels now for over 3 months, we each have an uncanny ability to tune-out to the sound of the others voice. Conversations variously take on the form of white noise, utter silence or occasionally the sound of the adults talking in Charlie Brown. The plus side to this has been a relatively harmonious passage around the world with barely a cross word offered or less still received.

Anyway, following my most obvious sign of weariness, we retired early, where again I managed to be asleep in moments – Caroline may or may not have been telling me something at the time.... I awoke ´refreshed´ at midnight to find that nobody else in Santiago was sleeping and that most were directly involved in one of the South American continents better parties directly outside our hostel window. Owing to a lack of currency and energy, we opted not to join them, instead taking the opportunity to lie, Bill Murray-like, listening to their fun until 05:00 the following morning. The brief joy accompanying their departure was lost somewhat when a Canadian film crew arrived at 05:10 and proceded to set up to shoot a mobile phone commercial. Oh how we laughed.

Given that our body clocks were either broken or reading 01:00 on a completely different day and month, we were surprised to feel much stronger at breakfast and set out shortly afterwards to spend some quality time in the city before our flight out to Rio later that afternoon. The city – the bits we saw of it – is quite similar to Madrid or Seville, which given that I saw the former on a stag-do lends further weight to the inappropriate nature of my perspective in this matter. However, there were some fine old buildings which had certainly been missing over the previous 2 months and a very European feel to the place. In addition to the architectural plus points, we also got a pretty decent view of the Andes to the East of the city which provides an impressive backdrop.

In the few hours that we had available we managed to climb a small hill in the center for some excellent panoramic views and hopefully photographs that we´ll post at some stage soon. We also managed to view 3 museums/art galleries, helped in no small measure that all are free on a Sunday and all descriptive text was written in Spanish meaning that we weren´t required to think too hard. After that, we made our way back to the airport and the flight across to Rio, over the Andes and through some electrical storms which were either excellent or terrifying depending on your point of view – we did discuss it, no firm conclusions were reached but Caroline didn´t look happy!

Caroline is currently committing her thoughts on Rio and Buzios to the blog so I won´t go any further with this other than to say that when we arrived and were driving through Rio to our hostel, there was still a game of 6 a-side football going on on the astro-turf pitches at one in the morning. Marvellous.

RJH

Gallery: Santiago

bob_and_caroline — Sun, 1 Mar 2009 09:27:00 GMT

Gallery: Bay of Islands

bob_and_caroline — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:47:00 GMT

Auckland

bob_and_caroline — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:51:00 GMT

Final thoughts from New Zealand then as I sit here in Auckland having just completed a mini-shopping spree in order that some of our clothes look presentable for the beaches and bars of Brazil. Caroline is currently in the latest of our non-budget hotels trying her purchases on and more than likely cramming surplus items in my backpack rather than complying with the agreed policy of binning the things she will never wear again.

In reality, Caroline is most likely asleep now as the adrenalin rush from jumping off the Sky Tower this morning is probably wearing off. I have suffered no such come-down (no pun) in adrenalin having opted to keep one eye on the budget and two feet on the ground 190m below. My awareness of the need to take a fiscal lead on this matter was convenient given that there is no way in the world I am jumping from any tower without having had full access to all maintenance and accident records and personally having interviewed those responsible for the upkeep of both the tower and the jump equipment. No such materials or persons were made available to me.

We have been in Auckland for a couple of days now and have been content to stroll around, shop, eat and drink well and also re-acclimatise to being in a busy city again after the best part of a month out and about in NZ. Since our last post from the Coromandel Peninsular, we have travelled up to and back from Paihia in the Bay of Islands, towards the top of the North Island. In Paihia, our accommodation moved from the 1970’s to the 1980’s, which was again fine by me although Caroline maintained throughout that the standard of cleanliness of the motel was not of a particularly high order. Unsurprisingly, I remained utterly blind to any issues despite being shown a number of ‘problem areas’ on a number of occasions and only narrowly won a debate over the need to purchase cleaning equipment from the local supermarket and give the place a ‘once-over’.

Hygiene aside, the Bay of Islands was great; beautiful weather and scenery with a couple of boat trips to keep us occupied. On the first of these, we hired a small motorboat, which despite appearances was pretty rapid over the calm waters of the bay. We took a picnic and ‘found’ a remote island beach for lunch and then moved on further round in search of dolphins and a swim. Sadly, no dolphins were found but Caroline did have the satisfaction of sitting in the boat while I attempted, for a long 10 minutes, to get back in to the boat without the use of steps or a rope. Her smugness was soon removed when I detoured on the route back to Paihia and took us beyond the shelter of the islands into some relatively lively open seas. My happiness in a small boat bouncing off the waves was matched and bettered by Caroline’s dissatisfaction, which manifested itself in a probably provoked and reasonable questioning of whether I knew what I was doing. Some harsh words were spoken at the time and we have subsequently come to an unspoken agreement that I will not skipper any vessel carrying Caroline on open waters until I have hardcopy accreditation to the effect that I have been suitably trained to perform such a task. In conclusion, it was a great day!

Thankfully, our second boat trip was managed by professionals, and despite an unusually quiet Caroline having certain reservations about the whole thing my involvement was limited to pulling some ropes and bombing off the side of side of a racing catamaran. Another good day and one that we both enjoyed every aspect of…

Anyway, that will do for now as I have to go and either revive Caroline or remove half of her wardrobe from my bag. Anyone who has had the misfortune to read all our posts from NZ will have hopefully come to the correct conclusion that we have loved the place and moreover would definitely hope to return at some stage in the future. Brazil has a lot of work to do to surpass the last few weeks.

RJH

North Island - Wellington to Whangamata

bob_and_caroline — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:24:00 GMT

The ferry across from the South to the North Island was slightly disappointing – it’s apparently one of the most spectacular ferry journeys in the world, but unfortunately the mist and rain prevented us from seeing very much at all. Nevertheless I finished the 3.5 hr journey with a sense of achievement having managed not to feel even slightly sea-sick despite Bob recounting stories of people vomiting on tables further back in the boat…

We had one of our periodic (and now all too common) lapses in financial sense and checked into a 5* hotel in Wellington, NZ’s capital at the bottom of the North Island. (The rate on last minute.com was too good to pass up and we did get an upgrade to a suite, for an extra 15 dollars a night…). We fitted in a bit of culture with a visit to the Te Papa national museum but as the weather was bad spent most of the rest of our stay in the hotel pool and sauna.

From Wellington we headed for wine country and the art deco town of Napier – bizarrely enough we could see the Aon office from our hotel room here, which was a little off-putting. As it seemed impolite not to, we took a ‘gourmet’ tour of the local vineyards, which was excellent. Disconcertingly it started at 12.30 and having had a late breakfast we didn’t feel like eating lunch before we left. As a result, I was stupidly (and I suppose inevitably) giddy after the first wine-tasting, which was surprisingly generous. We were taught how to taste the wine properly but that fell rapidly by the wayside and although we were trying to make all the right noises, in reality we had no idea what we were tasting after the second vineyard. Despite this (or maybe because) it was a great afternoon, although we forgot the camera so unfortunately there are no photos of the lovely vineyards we visited or indeed us clutching a wine bottle looking uncouth and grinning inanely… which is no bad thing.

Our activities in Taupo, our next stop, were slightly more sedate than the last time I was there about 14 years ago. Then it was a tandem parachute jump, this time around it was mini golf… Although Bob did manage to haul himself out of bed at the crack of dawn for a swim in the lake – it seemed like a good idea to me the night before but by the next morning there was absolutely no chance of me getting myself into a freezing cold lake at 7.30am.

We also managed a walk from the town to the Huka Falls but were disappointed not to have our swimming things as the route passed an area where a thermal spring entered the river and people were lying in the warm water drinking beer – which looked pretty appealing.

We’re now in the Coromandel, a very pretty area of beaches and seaside towns – we spent most of yesterday in the car on the way here from Taupo, taking a detour to visit a thermal reserve and see the bizarre bubbling mud pools and steaming thermal lakes and springs that are too hot to stick your hand in. (Yes, Bob did try…)

At the moment we’re staying in Whangamata, a little seaside town in the south-east of the Coromandel. Our motel (we have now abandoned our resolve to stay in hostels) is well and truly stuck in the 70s, in fact Bob is convinced it’s a holiday cottage he stayed in as a child in Wales. It is pretty cheap though and has a brilliant view of the harbour and beach so I can deal with the quilted bedspreads and Bob is positively thrilled by the happy memories it brings back!

The forecast for the next few days is heavy rain so we may have mistimed our arrival at the beach but we’re looking into what else there is to do in the area (although probably not the cinema which is only open on Wednesdays and Fridays…)

Gallery: North Island I

bob_and_caroline — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:05:00 GMT

Wellington to Coromandel

Gallery: Queenstown to Catlins

bob_and_caroline — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:05:00 GMT

South Island - The rest of it

bob_and_caroline — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:55:00 GMT

We've managed to fit a reasonable amount into the last 10 days or so; luge in Queenstown, fjords at Doubtful Sound, v.English coastal areas in The Catlins, penguins in Oamaru, a heatwave in Akaroa, whale watching in Kaikora, hot springs at Hamner, rope slides in the Buller Gorge and now a downpour in Picton which has sent us back inside to the computer. Despite all this and the effort required to keep to our schedule, you will be pleased to learn that we are both well and bearing up under the strain - although Caroline did attack me with a large stick that she projected with surprising accuracy and speed towards me last night.

After Wanaka, Queenstown was a little disappointing, being far larger and quite commercialised. However, the surrounding area of mountains and the lake made up for this and we made the effort to sit in a gondola to the top of Bob's Peak from where we enjoyed a couple of runs on the mountain top luge and then ate pies. From Queenstown we drove south to Te Anau, on the eastern edge of the fjordland national park. Our accomodation was (for me at least) the best of the trip, being on a deer farm, in a set of wooden lodges on a hillside overlooking the Keppler Mountains. I very much doubt that the photographs of the sunsets do them justice, but I did miss the first hour of a Will Ferrell film on tv so you can imagine how spectacular the scene was.

A full-day boat trip on Lake Manapouri and across the the fjord at Doubtful Sound lived up to all expectations, exceeding them in respect of the weather which was uncharacteristically hot and sunny all day long in one of the wettest places on earth (between 6-8 meters of rain per year on average). Hopefully some of the photos will better demonstrate the points that my limited vocabulary would fail to do. If not, it was right good.

Following the fjords, we drove into the Catlins, our luck with the weather running out a little, but not stopping us from reachng the most southerly point of the south island and obligatory photo opportunity on a windswept headland. Accomodation, food, water and general civilisation proved hard to come by for most of the day, however when we did finally settle for the night we ended up in cottage that wouldn't have looked out of place somewhere on the Chatsworth estate. Strange but nice.

Our next day saw us heading north again, initially involving an aborted trip to the Otago Peninsula. Again we encountered limited accommodation so decided to move further north to Oamaru - we had now realised that our policy of turning up and 'sorting something out' might not be without its challenges or equally opportunities as we ended the day penguin watching, having spent part of the afternoon discussing the frustrations of heritage work in NZ with a Dutchman. Penguins were good, weather was cold, beer and hotpot at Victorian pub were welcome...

Further north from Oamaru, we headed to the French settlement of Akaroa on the peninsular running east from Christchurch. All earlier statements about the cooler weather were put to one side as the Australian heatwave hit the South Island and brought with it the smoke from the bushfires and a quite unnatural orangey brown light in the late afternoon.

Following a developing pattern of stopping one night and then moving on in a vain attempt to see all that the south island has to offer, we travelled up to Kaikora home of whales, seals, dolphins and tour boats/planes from which to see them. Caroline decided that being in bed at 6:15 in the morning was preferrable to throwing up 5 miles out to sea, so I headed out alone (with 30 other people) to watch the whales who were in fairness pretty dull compared to the pod of 200-300 dusky dolphins who appeared to have nothing better to do than mess about near our boat and show-off. I was impressed. The whales need to try harder or they will lose their billing on the trip. About 8 of the other 30 were sick at some stage on the trip. I was not and looked on smugly.

Rushing on, we moved back inland to Hamner Springs to unwind in the hotpools. Thankfully no photographs of the two of us in trunks exist, however, we have included a picture of us on the gayest bike in the world which hopefully will satisfy those looking for undignified shots of us. Speaking of which, there may also be a picture of us on the rope slide at Buller Gorge, assuming that our technological capabilities enable us to transfer it from the disc we bought.

So, whistle stop tour of the south island almost complete. A brilliant place, as good as the billing it received from Ian, Jane and others and almost as beautiful as The Lord of the Rings trilogy suggested. The North Island may be a bit more relaxed, ie. we may stay somewhere for more than one night, but it will have a lot to do to beat the last 2 weeks.

RJH

Gallery: Catlins to Picton

bob_and_caroline — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:16:00 GMT

From Haast to Wanaka

bob_and_caroline — Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:19:00 GMT

I'm thrilled to say the weather has improved significantly since we left the west coast. We drove from Haast over the Haast Pass to Wanaka, stopping off en route at various beauty spots for photos or to be assailed by my nememis - sandflies.

I was ready for them this time though - covering myself in DEET - but they still managed to somehow find their way into the one spot without repellent and as a result I have a line of bites under my ankle strap on my sandals - evil little buggers!

The water here is incredibly blue, being glacier-fed, and so when the sun comes out the rivers and streams look absolutely spectacular. We're curently staying in a fantastic hostel in Wanaka, overlooking Lake Wanaka itself, where Bob bravely swam in the icy waters this afternoon for some reason. The hostel's in a great location and we've had to force ourselves to move on tomorrow with so much else to see.

We went on the most brilliant trip today - having been quite careful financially over the last week or so we decided to splurge on a trip that incorporated both a helicopter ride and jet boating and, for once, we had the perfect day for it weather-wise - cloudless blue sky and sunshine. The helicopter ride was fantastic - we skimmed the mountain tops and flew through a crevasse in a glacier, cresting the top of the mountain to see streams pouring over the side of the hill creating rainbows as the sun caught them. It was one of the best (and scariest) things I've ever done.

The pilot dropped us off in the Siberia Valley for 3 hours for us to walk through the forest and along the river. We were then picked up by a jet boat for a 20 minute hair-raising ride back to Makarora, where we started. After 360 degree turns which soaked us I looked bedraggled and Bob just looked like a slaphead, so no photos post the ride...

It's on to Queenstown tomorrow then south-west to the fjordland of Milford Sound.

Gallery: Wanaka and Makarora

bob_and_caroline — Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:03:00 GMT

Lake Wanaka and helicopter and jetboating

Gallery: Christchurch to Haast

bob_and_caroline — Mon, 2 Feb 2009 17:36:00 GMT

NZ - First Impressions

bob_and_caroline — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:43:00 GMT

We're now in New Zealand and have undergone something of a weather turnaround that is probably fitting given that we are now effectively on our way home. For starters, the temperature is now around 30C lower than it was last weekend which is a massive positive as it facilitates us actually going outside. We are experiencing rain, cold rain, the stuff that we are used to from home rather than the Aussie stuff that your can just outlast and expect to be dry 5 minutes later. There has also been mist, drizzle and cool winds, all of which we hoped to have left behind until March.

The strangest aspect of the weather shift over the last 7 days has been the fact that Caroline has responded well to the adversity. This may sound a little on the harsh side, however it should be considered that a drop into the mid-20's in Sydney prompted the purchase of a body-warmer. In light of the 'challenges' faced, a couple of half-hearted hat trials and positive comments about NZ wool products is a victory of sorts.

In terms of details, we arrived in Christchurch on Tuesday and have travelled across the Tranz-Alpine railway to the west coast, where we picked a car up for the next 4 weeks and headed south. We're currently in Haast, half-way down, having spent a couple of nights in Franz Joseph waiting for the clouds to lift in order to take a helicopter flight over the FJ/Fox glaciers. Sadly, the conditions didn't permit us to get airborne, however we were lucky to get the best half an hour of the day at the top of the Fox Glacier valley walk, and the view/photo's (which we hope to post soon) made up for any disappointment.

The drive down has already lived up to expectations and offers far more to keep the driver engaged than the endless straight lines of Australia's highways. Hairpin bends, stunning views and a pensionable car (it is being retired in the coming weeks) should also hopefully keep me on the right side of the NZ highway patrol

We move onto Wanaka/Queenstown tomorrow, home(s) of adrenalin sports and various opportunities to watch your breakfast pass by your face at 100mph! We are hoping for a boating lake and pedalo's...

We'll try to get some photo's online in the next couple of days, and if these first few days are indicative there will be many more to follow.

RJH

Sydney and Kincumber

bob_and_caroline — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:13:00 GMT

We have set aside the budget somewhat over the last week or so to make the most of Sydney and the surrounding area. In fact, the whole principle of backpacking has been completely abandonned in favour of some civilised accommodation and decent food. This will of course make it all the more painful when we revert back to budget travel this week but for now we're enjoying all the benefits of a good hotel in central Sydney, within strolling distance of the harbour and Opera House.

As part of this disregard for the budget, we signed ourselves up for a sailing trip on the harbour on a yacht last week. Bob and the other 3 paying guests on the trip spent much of the time pulling at ropes and hoisting mainsails while I on the other hand sat back and enjoyed the view - I was just a little disappointed that there was no champagne on offer to complete the experience but it was fantastic nevertheless, even when Bob took the wheel...

We also spent a day exploring Sydney and trying to track down places I had lived/worked when I was here in 1994/5. However, my feeble memory and appalling sense of direction meant that we actually just spent most of the time wandering aimlessly and didn't actually locate most of the places we were looking for. Having said that we did come across some really nice spots in places like Balmain and Kirribilli, before bob's patience with me ran out completely!

We've been up in Kincumber, about an hour's drive north of Sydney, for the last couple of days visiting Bob's schoolfriend Leon and wife Kate and family. They have four extremely cute children, who we've enjoyed spending time with (even if they did accuse us of 'sleeping in til lunchtime' because we were still in bed at 8 am!)

It was incredibly hot while we were up there (45 degrees yesterday) so we didn't spend quite as much time on the beach as we might have done but the area around Kincumber is really beautiful.

Tomorrow is Australia Day, and our last day in Oz, so we're looking forward to the celebrations which seem to include loads of stuff right across the city (fireworks, tall ship races on the harbour, bands, bbqs, etc) before we head off to New Zealand on Tuesday.

Gallery: Sydney & Surrounds

bob_and_caroline — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:46:00 GMT

City, Blue Mountains & Booths

Gallery: East Coast Australia

bob_and_caroline — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:22:00 GMT

Townsville - Sydney