Los Chilenos

Buenos de Chile. So far everything here has been pleasantly surprising, and Santiago was no exception. After managing to book into a nice hostal next to the Argentinian embassy, we settled into trying to interpret the local Spanish, primarily to get our hands on the best food possible. This involved several small errors and lots of Nescafe and Chips. The dictionary we have doesn´t seem to correspond to the local spanish.

Plaza de Armas, Santiago

Ignore the reasonable prices and friendliness, and Santiago could be Paris or Madrid. The metro seems to be better than anything in the UK and nightlife abounds (not so good after 10 hour time difference). Luis, a Chilean friend of Otso´s, invited us for lunch in the business quarter and I had a quick three courses for 2 quid. Digestion took place in the funicular and a cable car up onto the hills around town and we realised just how enormous Santiago is, sprawling outwards in a big valley.

Looking for quick trips away from Santiago before heading north, we went to the coast. Valparaíso is where the Chilean Navy is based and their HQ looks like a chateau dressed up as a wedding cake. It is an obviously colonial town. In fact, the area we´re staying in is the old Bristish quarter, and looks far more Bristish than most of even New Zealand and Australia. The local houses and church look like they´ve been transplanted from Bristol. There is also a lot of German influence here too, including a Lutheran Church. Looking around the town I realised how much the British helped to prize the Spanish out of Chile - Half the places around the town are named after Irish or Bristish independence heros. This might have had something to do with Chile´s mineral resources, rather than Bristish altruism. A relationship based on mutual backscrubbing still appears to exist - a look around the Navy museum found a letter from Margret Thatcher in pride of place, agreeing to help stop the Argentinians get hold of too many weapons. Speaking of the devil, also in a fairly proud postion was the edict declaring the reasons behind the 1973 military coup (Gen Pinochet et al.). I still think Chile is very divided over this, some being very proud of Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda, who both died shortly afterwards, and others backing Pinochet. I saw a soldier using his spare time to peal socialist propaganda from a wall in town. Anyhow, this is only my first nieve impression of history in Chile.

Cerro Allegre, Valparaíso

Pelicans, Viña del Mar (Valparaíso)

Puerto, Valparaíso

The next stop will be an oasis in the Atacama desert, without the aid of a camel.

The stinking, steaming heart of New Zealand

In a fit of sleeplessness due to travelling across the Pacific faster than the speed of light and thus arriving before I left - here are some pictures of the throbbing mass that is the centre of the north island. We visited briefly and looked down some smelly pits. This is in fact the main attraction of Rotorua. We managed to find a campsite with en-suite geyser and volcanic baths.

After this, it was with great sadness that we finally let our camper van go, and you can see how attached we had become to it below. This left us to look around Auckland.

We stopped in a hostal - with real beds! Above is the view of Auckland from Devonport, a ferry ride accross from the city centre. Incidentally, we did go up the tower pictured and watched as someone threw themselves off the top (using a rope and harness) - something people here are very into. We decided not to try this ourselves.

In fact, as a final demonstration of how sporting and optimistic New Zealand people are, here is a picture of a preist trying to convert an ostrich. I am told that this mural is based on a true story.

A fush - My Kingdom for a fush.

Here are some pictures from our arrival in the North Island, and trip up from Wellington to Napier on Hawke's Bay (the East Coast - Wine country). The wind farm we passed is the largest in the southern hemisphere just outside Palmerston.

Well, I finally caught a fish. The trick is to use lots of bait - preferably as smelly and rancid as possible. Here I found some defrosted prawns that were about to walk away from a riverbank near Napier. After the fish stealing the bait several times without getting caught I tried some smaller, nastier hooks and caught myself a pair of diminutive mackerel. Next time I will bring a barbeque. These were then used for bait, which were quickly stolen by some larger, cleverer fish. From the picture you can see how late it was by the time I caught these.


The toen of Napier was completely rebuilt around 1932, thanks to a sudden burst of zealous revolutionary art-deco creativity, prompted by a strong earthquake. It has two full streets of art-deco buildings and some great touches in the street furniture and parks. It reminded me of Miami beach, but thankfully the food here is a lot better and no-one has a complex about drinking alcohol. In fact the Hawke's Bay wine region surrounds Napier. So off we went wine and cheese tasting at a vinyard as close to a campsite as possible, . The photos of the wine tasting were too badly taken to be displayed, not sure why. We crawled out of the Clearview Estate at about 5pm.

Only a week or so of our trip to New Zealand left, and the Volcanic parts of the country are next, then up to Auckland.

Attack of the variable oystercatcher

Happy New Year from an unexpectedly sunny New Zealand. After being washed out of the Glacial West Coast by a large portion of the several meters of annual rainfall, we went north to Gentle Annie's point. Here we shared in the local hippie lifestyle and managed not to harm any fish in their estuary. However, we did get some very nice green mussels from the bay though whilst visting the blowholes at Pancake Rock. We chilled out, walked down the beach and watched the sunset over the Tasman Sea.

A quick ride over to the Able Tasman National Park and the next few days have been so hot I was cruelly tricked into snorkelling in the sea. Despite the local scenery being lush rainforested islands and green seas - looking much like Koh Kanta in Thailand - the sea currents between the two NZ islands are viciously cold, and I was frozen after just half an hour snorkelling around the musselly rocks. So drained in fact that I wandered into a nesting ground of orange beaked variable oystercatchers and now I understand that variable refers to their tempers, not their plumage.

A less cold and dangerous way to see the coast of Able Tasman is by Sea Kayak. Lou and I went on a guided trip across to fisherman's island and back along the rocky coast, which is covered with manuka and titrees. It has been so hot that we had to get indoors after the trip to miss the peak of the afternoon sun. After this we went down to see split apple rock, and watch some unattended dogs get in a pickle with the local mob of oystercatchers.

Shortly we will leave the south on a ferry over to Wellington in the North Island. Thankfully even the area around the ferry terminal is a beautiful national park with long coasts and remote campsites. Yesterday we camped in the Marlborough sounds and watched the sun go down whilst fishing in the bay.

Christmas Capers

Merry Christmas from New Zealand! We decided to take a light Christmas walk from Wanaka, near Queenstown, up to see the Rob Roy Glacier. The 60km drive up a dirt track across several fords didn't put us off, and neither did the first little bridge (above). The weather started nicely down in the dry valley, but after 1 hour of uphill treking started to turn. Still, we did get to see the apparently rare Kea (below), which sat on a branch above a group of picnicing tourists and then proceded to land everywhere anyone was eating any food all the way up the valley to the glaciers. Perhaps rare, but not shy! Indeed, yesterday I was attacked by one leaving the shower block at a campsite, then watched it hunting in its natural habitiat: tearing food scraps from a carrier bag on top of a wheelie bin! After our walk we retreated back to Lake Wanaka below, for Christmas Dinner.

Lou has been enjoying driving the van, with me navigating and getting her to take all the shortcuts across mountain passes and unmettaled roads. Now we're driving up the West Coast of the south island, which is only one long remote road, so our van is noticeable amongst the droves of other camper vans. We get lots of comments and questions about it and many people have been stuck behind it long enough to appreciate the artwork.

We have now arrived in Glacier Country on the west coast. Crossing over from Wanaka the change in flora is stark - we are now in a rainforst bordered by mountains. Lots of native ferns (koru) border the paths and moss hangs in football sized clumps from the trees. We have had a few walks in the undergrowth and had some typical weather. This morning was clear and we took full advantage and impulsively took a helicopter flight up Fox Glacier. This was breaktaking and at times stomach churning, but gave us a view right down into crevasses and up onto the fresh snow at the top, which is close to Mount Cook, but on the opposite side to our previous glacier walks.

Now, we are sat in a full scale west coast downpour, and trying to work out where to camp to escape. I wouldn't mind indulging my new hobby - this being New Zealand, land of plenty, I have started trying to fish in rivers and lakes. I have had little success and Lou waits expectantly for me to bring back a big trout, but no such luck. So far I have had one rod stolen and lost 2 lures at the bottom of lakes. Yesterday however, I caught 3 mussels by dragging my hook too low in the water and snagging them. We had this pitiful snack this morning with our breakfast. Better luck hopefully soon.

Trans Tasman adventures

Otso and Paula guided us to the beaches and wildlife around Sydney, including hiring a car for the weekend and then sitting in it as it was pelted with huge hailstones on the way to visit some Koalas, Kangeroos and Emus. The Emus had to be disuaded from trying to eat our picnic lunch, but fortunately are quite amazingly stupid and easily scared off, even by Lou waving her arms around. In the evening we went for a walk on the North Sydney beaches and watched the Pelicans.

After this, I headed over to Tasmania to catch up with some of my family, and Lou sampled Melbourne. This was a quick visit and we soon flew off to Christchurch in New Zealand. Initially New Zealand foooled us into thinking it was a warm country but having a hot spell in Christchuch the weekend we arrived. We strolled around the botannical gardens and watched locals punting on the river near the colleges before having cream teas. They almost tricked us into thinking we had landed in Cambridge, but everything was too cheap and people were not snooty enough.

We are now well into out trip, and have hired a distinctive camper van to make an impression on the locals. We have come south and walked around the Glaciers at the foot of Mount Cook, sometimes visible through the clouds. My plans to force Lou to walk over the Ball pass (the ridge leading up to Mt Cook) were thwarted by both the weather and Lou's fancy new walking boots wearing in, but it was probably quite an ambitious plan! We stuck to staying in our camper van using the 2 duvets and have not visted any mountain huts yet.

Yesterday we managed to bave to cold to see a colony of seals, fighting and cavorting, and a very rare breeding pair of yellow penguins. We could have paid 40 bucks to watch the night-time 'penguin show' in Omaru, but was much nicer walking around the sea cliffs without anyone else around clapping and throwing fish about. We had to find a camp spot late after this, but managed to camp next to some charcoal burners at the beach in Warrington (nicer than the one near Manchester), and consequently smell of smoke this morning.

If I don't get to write before Christmas, which is highly likely here as most places are pretty remote and sheep don't subscribe to broadband, then have a great Christmas and best wishes from us both. We plan to stock up for a Christmas Day barbeque and have yet to decide where to park the camper to celebrate.

G´day and Moi

Once we had been let into Singapore, with Lou disguising a growing fever at immigration, we were on the home straight. Singapore is slick and expensive compared to everywhere else we've been - for instance the metro makes London seem very clumsy. All this meas that we paid a lot for one night in a doss house, and while Lou slept, I went to see the city. The doss house was strangely close to Lou's old company's Singapore office, which is called the batman building (pictured). The Singapore zoo night safari was excellent, including visiting the bats in their enclosure as they flew around my head. The next day I looked around the Wharf and Chinatown where I sampled some excellent pork and chestnut wantons steamed in banana leaves before heading back to take Lou to the Airport. It was a quick visit to Singapore, but but the time we left I realised I was also catching the fever, so we were greateful to have someone to stay with in Sydney.

Otso and Paula, our local Finnish hosts, had bought some tea and No Frills bread in preparation for our arrival, but hadn't bought any ear-plugs to insulate themselves against my feverous snoring. We proceded to use every ounce of tissue in their house to wipe our noses and mope around infectiously, complaining about the cold. Otso and Paula live in Newtown, South Sydney and there are plenty of bars and restaurants, so much later on Saturday we went out for a meal, which was 4 times bigger than anyone would have eaten in Asia and had more potato than I'd had in two months. Our stomachs adjusted as quick as they could and I still managed to eat most of it.


After a day of hiding indoors we went around Sydney with Paula and have some typical photos of Sydney just to prove we're really here. We still didn't really know where we'd woken up, but we planned to look around more and prove it - So far, we have taken the ferry to Manly and eaten fish and chips on the harbour whilst being called poms. Seems like Australia.