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Hello all!
We're currently in Bangkok and just planning our time in Asia including trying to organise our visas.
As its been a while, there is so much to write about but here goes.....
Easter Island
This place is absolutley amazing. You can't imagine how small it is and remote. It literally is just in the way of the Pacific and so you get the most amazing waves crashing around. I think we sat there for an hour at one point just watching them.
We also walked up two volcanoes, one of which was the volcano that was used as a quarry for the giant stone heads. It was so weird. You walk into this crater and you can see where they started carving heads out of the rock.
We hired a 4 x4 and drove round the island (didn't take very long) and saw amazing beaches and obvioulsy stopping every so often to see some more giant heads.
As per the rest of South America there were lots of stray dogs and we (I) made 2 friends - dread dog (he had a dread locked tail) who would follow us in the morning and then Fred who followed us on our walk all the way up one of the volcanoes.
All in all we loved it on Easter Island and would definitely recommend that anyone went there!
Next up was Santiago. This started with a 2 hour wait for our bags because the ground staff had all b*ggered off to see the Chile team set off for the world cup!! We stayed in a lovely apartment (apart from one day with out water as there was THE biggest leak in the foyer) and spent a lot of time strolling round seeing cerro st maria and cerro st cristobel. We also went out and did soem wine tatsing, which we only just made as the bus driver forgot to tell us when to get off! But another bus driver took pity on us and gave us a free lift back to the vineyard. We did manage to taste some wine in the end though and bought a few bottles :-)
And so came our time to leave South America for New Zealand. We did so much in NZ that we're just going to have to list it all with the odd comment. I have to say we loved it there and could have easily spent our entire 4 months travelling round. As it was we ended up doing over 4000km in a campervan that had battery issues and enjoyed every minute (the campervan need jump starting a few times - once by the customer service people of the company that rented it to us as they happened to be on a conference where we were staying. They did give us 2 free days hire though to make up for it)
1. Auckland
- skytower - amazing views, glass floor that tyope of stuff
- Auckland museum - amazing exhibitions including a simulator for if the volcanoes exploded which was pretty scary!!!!
- Walked up Rangitoto volcano (the 600 year old island)
- PwC office - flashy, a tad better than Leeds
2. Bay of Islands
- aboslutley beautiful and would be amazing to lounge around there in summer
3. Far North
- went to 90 mile beach and the most northern point of NZ (Cape Reinga).
- Saw some massive sand dunes
4. Coromandal
- It is really stunning here
- We went to hot water beach and dug a hole for a bath in the rain (unfortunatley a bus load of 18 year olds turned up so we left)
- Cathedral Cove and Stingray Bay - very pretty
5. Waipu forest
- Saw some massive Kauri trees including oldest tree in the southern hemisphere - they really are huge and did a bit of tree hugging
6. Waitomo Caves
- Amazing!!! This is were the glow worm caves are and we did some black water rafting. We ended up on a private tour as noone else turned up for our timeslot
- This is also where we broke down and had to be started by the customer service reps
7. Rotorua
- This is the spa town where it smells of egg! It really does honk
- We went to the Polynesian Spa by the lake which was lovely and relaxing (if you breathed through your mouth)
- This is where we met the All Blacks (seriously) - which obviously made the spa far more interesting!! Not sure Sam enjoyed showering with them as much as I would have!
- We went to the Moari thermal village and saw geysers, mudpools and steaming vents. They actually live there and bath in the geyser water every day. Oh and we saw a Haka - quite scary from the front row!
8. Lake Taupo
- We did jet boat riding - which was brilliant!!!!
- White water rafting which was abit lame after the jet boating in the morning
- We were going to go sky diving but there was too much cloud unfortunately!!!
- Walked to Huka falls and and saw hot water streams (they were no Iguazu). We went right up to the foot of the falls on the jet boat.
9. Wellington
- To get here I accidentally though I'd found us a short cut which turned out to be the smallest windiest road with sheer drops on each sides and New Zelanders driving super fast towards us in the dark cause they know the roads. I might have gotten into a tiny bit of trouble for this decision :-)
- Wandered round Wellington including the Botanical gardens at the top of the funicular and the NZ museum (we both thought the Auckland museum was better)
- Mac's brewery where we sampled all the beers and watched the All Blacks game against Wales. The beers were very good from what I remember.
10. Ferry to Picton (South Island)
- Not very exciting and took ages
11. Marlborough wine tasting
- Sam volunteered to drive for this which meant I got reasonably drunk from all the free tastings :-) We bought a few bottles inc some bubbly (came in handy for the promotion news the next day!). Also bought some sauvigan blanc which the region is famous for.
12. Kaikoura
- The plan was to come here and do some whale watching but unfortunately it got cancelled due to bad weather so we had to make do with looking at the seals (which were cute)
13. Pancake Rocks
- Amazing natural formations that look like pancakes and have blow holes
14. Franz-Josef Glacier
- Did a full day glacier walk which was brilliant (a bit cold). We got to wear crampons and Sam made us go in the lead group which meant we were the ones making the route for the 5 other groups to follow.
- I may have gotten stuck down a crevace (so narrow you could only just fit in sideways) - not because of the size of my bum which is how Sam tells the stroy but because he had climbed out of it first and ruined the tiny foot holds and I didn't hacve the strength to pull myself out. I did as you may have guessed make it out eventually with the help of the guide but it was a little traumatic!!!! In summary had to be mountain rescued. Offically.
- We also went to a lovley hot pool that even which was glacier water and helped our aching muscles and warmed us up after the walk.
- We then got up early the next day to see Lake Matheson (mirror lake) which has Mount Cook reflected in it. This was slightly ruined by the stoooopid ducks but the pictures kind of give the idea.
- We also went to have a look at the Fox glacier which is just down the road and on the way to Queenstown.
15. Queenstown
- We had sooooo much fun there despite how freezing it was!!
- We had a days snowboarding lesson which was kind of fun except for the bruises (which I still have now). Sam was a natural at it and by the end was doing some spin turn things and the instructor was spending more time with him cause he was doing so well! (he is slightly big headed about how good at this he is)
- Next day Sam did more snowboarding and I went back to skiing and we had a good day on the slopes followed by some apres ski and a visit to Fergburger. This place is never empty and does huge burgers!!
16. Christchurch
- We then had to travel back to CHristchurch to give the van back :-( We were quite sad about this as even though it was small it was great just being able to do what we wanted and just the views whilst driving from one place to another were amazing! I think we'll be getting one when we get back!
On the way back we tried to stop at a view point for Mt Cook but there was so much fog we could barely see each other. This was also one of the scariest drives due to all the snow and ice on the roads witht he odd little skid (I'm glad I wasn't driving)
- Christchurch is v small but lovely and we wandered round the gardens and had some 'fush and chups' (how they say it in NZ).
Sydney
We spent a fortune here but had a wicked time. It was Sam's birthday while we were here so we did the Bridge climb at twilight. For some reason we were the only people on it and so again we got a personal tour. The view was amazing expecially seeing it go from dusk to night. We then went to the Opera bar and got v drunk on bubbly (well you have to splash out occaisionally).
Whilst in SYdeny we also went to Bondi Beach. Sam had a surfing lesson (I don't like fish so didn't) which I am happy to say he wasn't as good at as snowboarding! he he! We also did the coastal walk round to Bronte whilst trying to avoid joggers! They bloody love running in Sydney.
We went whale watching and saw some Humpback whales as they migrated north. They were amazing and even saw some breaches. Unfortunately it was a super choppy day and so as with the Nazca lines flight I saw a lot more of a sick bag then whales than I wanted to!
We went to the Opera House to see a play called Just Macbeth. Ok so it was primarily aimed at kids (as the woman we bought the tickets off told us but what she didn't realsie is that it was the cheapest thing on). It was bloody brilliant though and we had a right laugh.
We also went to the aquarium and saw sharks and to the wildlife centre and saw kangaroos and koalas. I think seeing the Kangaroos was a highlight for Sam as we have about a million pictures of them!!!
We also wandered through the botanical gardens, went to the Australian Musem (rubbish) and up the sky tower (not as good as in Auckland) and then it was off to Bangkok. We got an upgrade to premier economy too!! Which was very comfy and made the 9 hour fligth much easier to bear!!!
We haven't done much in Bangkok yet apart from try and sort visas and so I think we're pretty much up to date!
S & S
P.S. Other random highlights
1. On the way to Santiago airport we saw a woman curling her eye lashes with a spoon - odd
2. Being driven to Chirstchurch airport by a one legged bus driver from Milton Keynes
3. Oh yeh and very weirdly while 17000 km from home, we turned round and quite literally bumped into somone we used to work with (Rob Lee) - weird.
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