Signing Off

We finally made it back to Shetland on Wednesday morning, to flat calm and bright sunshine. Every thing seems to have survived pretty well except the polytunnel which suffered more than a bit in the winter gales. Even that was repairable thanks to the sterling efforts of our neighbours. It's been patched up and the cover might just last the summer.

We promised a few more pictures before we signed off so here goes. This is a typical street scene in Buenos Aires - yes really! It's a pedestrian precinct and there are various sorts of street entertainers everywhere, including tango dancers like these ones.

This is the Plaza Mayor in Madrid last weekend.

And finally this is William, complete with a badge for each of the seven countries he's visited and a Peruvian hat, being re-introduced to Calum and Silvana in Edinburgh.

This blog is now officially complete. In due course we hope to upload a lot more pictures to a photo-sharing website - not sure which one yet - and you never know, we may do it all again some day!

Completing the Circle

After 3 days in Madrid re-acclimatising to Europe - Madrid was cool and cloudy with quite a bit of rain and a huge thunderstorm on Monday - we flew back to Edinburgh via Gatwick on Wednesday. Again it went like clockwork. The flights were on time and our luggage turned up on the carousel without a hitch. In the end we lost nothing on the whole trip, and only one flight (Qantas from South Africa to Australia) was significantly delayed. Every hotel and guest house we booked was expecting us and every airport greeter we were expecting was waiting for us. This world travel is a snip really! Perhaps we best get home to Shetland before our luck fails. We had been planning to get the Monday night ferry from Aberdeen to be home Tuesday morning, but Northlink are on refit schedule so there isn't one. We will be on the Tuesday ferry and home on Wednesday. In fact we nearly couldn't make that because it was almost fully booked when we called this morning.



Meantime we have been catching up with elderly relatives, daughters and grandchildren, all of whom seem to have survived OK without us, and especially young Theo Donaldson, Rona's second baby, who arrived on St. Valentine's Day, when we were in New Zealand. We'll post a few more pictures when we get home and have access to a proper computer.

Buenos Aires

After a 4 hour flight across the Andes from Lima, we had a long taxi ride into Buenos Aires, passing the famous Obelisco and arriving at our fairly central accommodation. We were initially a bit confused by the double currencies of Argentinian pesos and US dollars, and had what we thought was a quite expensive meal by Peru standards, but after a good sleep and some reflection we realised it was actually quite cheap.

Just a few thoughts about money in South America. Ecuador uses US dollars as their currency, credit cards are widely accepted and we had no trouble drawing cash from ATM´s, but cashing American Express Travellers Cheques took most of a morning. In Peru the local currency was the sol, but many prices were quoted in dollars. Peru Rail for example would not accept payment in any form other than cash dollars. Most ATM´s dispensed either dollars or sols. In Argentina the local currency is the peso but the symbol for it is "$". Some things like hotel rates are quoted in dollars but then it´s shown as "U$S". That was the reason for our first night confusion. Most annoying though was that many places, including restaurants and hotels, will not accept credit cards, or will surcharge massively if you want to use one. The ATM´s will only dispense pesos even if they say they offer a choice, and they are all subject to a daily limit of 300 pesos which is less than 50 pounds. Eventually we discovered a bank that could bypass this limit but we had to queue for over an hour to do it. None of this information matched what our guide books told us.

We took a couple of bus trips in and around Buenos Aires, the first being delayed due to mass demonstrations about the complaints of the farmers. It was quite interesting seeing the main square gearing up to the expected influx of demonstrators. The second day was a public holiday to remember the Malvinas ( Falkland Islands ) war. We thought we should just keep our heads down! Judging by the editorials in the local papers there are still some issues to be resolved.

We did a walking tour which was very different and much more informative than the bus tours, then followed this up with a visit to Eva Peron´s grave, the Evita Museum and of course the balcony where she made her speeches (and the other balcony where Madonna practised her speeches for the film ). Eva Peron and Madonna have a lot in common besides being actresses.

Buenos Aires is in many ways quite European and a lot different from Lima or Quito. Our walking tour guide quoted a well-known film director (whose name we have forgotten) as saying its citizens are Italians who speak Spanish, and think they are English living in France. We could certainly see all these elements, but there is another side to Buenos Aires. In the evening the smart areas of the town centre fill up with the cartoñeros. They are the hidden poor who come to rake through the garbage in the streets for anything of value, and leave a considerable mess in the streets. Most Argentinians seem not to even notice them. They live in the poorest neighbourhoods like La Boca, and the shanty town under the motorway flyover next to Buenos Aires´s smartest neighbourhood, Palermo, whose inhabitants shop at Armani and Gucci and employ people to walk their dogs for them. Local heroes, much celebrated in posters and T-shirts, include Evita (of course), Che Guevara and Maradona. We passed up the opportunity to buy a T-shirt showing Maradona scoring the famous "Hand of God" goal against England. After all we have a few English friends and family.

Lima

Lima is a huge city, spread over a large area on the Pacific coast. We stayed in Miraflores which is a pretty upmarket area south of the centre. On Saturday we walked down to the sea, visited a very posh shopping mall, then returned via the central square, the Ovalo, where it was party time with lots of people doing the tango.

At night we went to a restaurant recommended by our hotel, which had a fantastic floor show of Peruvian dancing, not to mention some pretty good Peruvian food served buffet-style. The camera battery ran out before the end but this should give you the idea.

On Sunday we took a taxi uptown to the Museu de la Nacion, but it was closed for renovations, so we diverted to another museum. In the afternoon we walked to another archaeological site just a couple of blocks from our hotel. This one was apparently a burial site for one of the pre-Inca cultures. It`s a huge structure built entirely of adobe or mud-bricks. According to the guide it never rains in Lima, so that`s why mud bricks survive so well!

Of course there had to be one final visit to the markets near the Ovalo. We are just coming to the end of five days in Buenos Aires now. It`s on to Madrid and the last leg tonight.

And Now With Pictures!

Finally we found a computer that lets us upload some pictures. First this is us boarding the train from Puno to Cusco.

This is a view of Cusco looking down towards the main square, the Plaza de Arma.

And here is William (yes he´s still with us) trying out a carved Inca seat. Note the smart Peruvian hat!

Finally for now this is Machu Picchu with llamas grazing among the ruins, and Huayna Picchu towering over it.

There are many more pictures on the other camera but one of our memory cards was declared faulty by a camera shop here in Buenos Aires, and we are reluctant to risk the card in the main camera until we get home.

On to Machu Picchu

We left you by the shores of Lake Titicaca. Next day it was on to Cusco on the Andean Explorer, one of the highest train journeys in the world. The La Raya pass is over 4000 metres or about 14000 feet. We were gasping for breath at the stop. For once on a train we were travelling first class. That´s because there is only one class on that train, and it includes a meal, a free drink, and a Peruvian folk group singing and dancing in the observation car and all down the aisles. Sadly we can´t show you pictures yet because we are in Buenos Aires now and the local internet cafes don´t allow us to put in a CD. We´ll just have to save that for later.

Cusco is a beautiful historic town. It was the Inca capital, and the Spanish capital at first until Lima took over. It´s not as high as Lake Titicaca so the altitude was bothering us less. However it seemed to be bothering other people a lot more. We heard a few tales of illness and there always seemed to be a doctor being called to our hotel. This seems as good a point as any to say that the Terra Andina Hotel in Cusco was the best and friendliest hotel we have seen in South America, and none of them have been bad.

We had a couple of days to explore Cusco and the nearby Inca sites at Sacsayhuaman (it´s pronounced "sexy woman" as the guides all tell you) and Pisac. Our guide at Sacsayhuaman gave us a lot of insight into the Inca civilisation, which helped a lot when it came to our visits to Pisac and Machu Picchu.

What can we say about Machu Picchu? It really is the most dramatic and amazing place. We had most of two days there, with a thunderstorm rolling around the first day - lots of thunder and lightning but thankfully not much rain - and a misty start on the second day turning to warm sunshine and perfect views. The normal way of getting to Machu Picchu from the railway stop at Aguas Caliente is by bus up a steep winding unmade road that seems to go on forever. There is a path up but not many people use it. On the second day we decided to walk back down and were rewarded by seeing some amazing butterflies, flowers and birds. In Aguas Caliente we stayed in a sort of tree house at the Rupa Wasi Eco-lodge (sounds very grand but it wasn´t really). The food however was absolutely top class.

On Saturday morning we took a taxi from our hotel to Cusco airport at 8.30 a.m. and by 9.30 we were already in the air on the way to Lima - we were shifted to an earlier flight which was already boarding. Then we had a couple of days in Lima, or to be exact in the rather posh Lima suburb of Miraflores, where we visited an impressive pre-Inca burial site right in the heart of the town, before flying on to Buenos Aires.

Easter in Peru

Now we are in Peru after a short flight from Quito. Our rest day in Quito was spent looking for a laundry (unsuccessful--so back to the bathroom sink to rinse the salt of Galapagos out of our clothes) , and working out how to send a parcel from Ecuador ( successful eventually after a lot of red tape---and parcel tape!) It´s our fifth parcel so far so hope they are winging their way to Mhairi. It´s the only way to combine shopping with travelling light.

Lima was as busy as we expected but we were only there overnight before flying to Arequipa. We were most amused by the amount of people carrying boxes of Dunkin Donuts on board. The people at the airport welcoming the incoming flight with balloons and banners were obviously waiting for their next delivery of Dunkin Donuts.

Our hotel in Arequipa was described as Colonial/ Baroque and it was certainly very splendid with antique furnishings, each room different. We opted for the library room but unfortunately were too busy or too tired to actually read any of the excellent choice of travel books. We explored the very beautiful and old Santa Catalina Monastery which covers about five acres. It´s a very peaceful place, more spacious than we would have thought but originally the nuns who lived there could take a servant or even a slave with them. It also had splendid views towards El Misti--very aptly named as by late morning the mountain seemed to float in mid-air.



In the afternoon we took a bus tour of Arequipa and district, learning about the crops grown there, the Inca terraces which are still in use, and visiting a couple of old buildings. On Good Friday there were special celebrations at the Cathedral and in the main square. We decided to eat overlooking the square so saw the splendour of the Easter candlelit procession with all the local churches parading figures, mostly of the Virgin Mary dressed Spanish style with mantillas.

Next day it was up early (again) for the bus to Puno on Lake Titicaca. This took about 6 hours, a comfortable ride on a newish highway with snacks provided by the smartly dressed stewardesses. Puno is nearly 4000 metres high so we´ve been taking the tablets and drinking coca tea. The effects of altitude sickness have been much less marked than in Quito.

Another early start was required to take a boat trip to the Uros islands--a huge tick in Norma´s case ever since she read about Thor Heyerdahl and the Kontiki, as he came here to learn how to build reed boats. We had a very informative guide and can now tell you how to build a floating island--first you take a few tons of totora reeds......!

There followed a two hour crossing to Taquile, a real island which was equally if not more interesting. The 2000 people live on a beautiful fertile island and as well as subsistence farming they produce fantastic craft work for themselves as well as to sell to tourists. Women spin using a drop spindle as they walk along and then produce very fine woven goods. The men do the knitting--absolutely superb articles, particularly hats---red santa claus type hats with patterns similar to Fair Isle. We could go on about Taquile and its hats forever but will save further details for the lecture tour.

Just one wee story--when we were in the square they were celebrating Easter Sunday in the Catholic Church. When the important people of the island---they wear black hats--came out of the church they were heading up to the top of the island to make an offering to Pachamama--Mother Earth to the pre Inca people. This might be called keeping a foot in both camps!




More pictures when we get a better internet connection. Cusco and Machu Picchu next!

Galapagos Part 2

Well we promised you Galapagos 2 - the sequel - and here it is. Everybody has probably heard of Lonesome George, the last living Pinto tortoise. We called along the Charles Darwin Centre where he lives but he appeared to be out (or more likely sleeping indoors) but we did meet a few of his cousins from other islands. This fellow is about 5 feet long.

Probably the most amazing thing about Galapagos is how close you can get to the wildlife without disturbing them. This is a Galapagos Hawk and we were about 6 feet away from him and two others when we took this picture.

You must have heard of the blue-footed booby. Actually they are very similar to gannets and fish in the same way, although they don´t go so deep, and we don´t remember any gannets with feet this colour. This one is hatching two eggs, and the chick you can see was hatched while we were there.

Finally just to prove there really was some kayaking involved, here are a couple of our companions with a sealion swimming alongside.

It Was Awesome!

The title owes something to the fact that we spent our week in Galapagos with six Americans. Five of them are pictured here with us at dawn (yes really!) on Isla Bartolome. The view is apparently featured in the movie (oops! Americanism again) "Master and Commander". We haven't seen it but the view is certainly something special. By the way Hutch our kayak leader is on the right wearing the shirt. They were a great bunch and we had a few adventures which we'll tell about later.


Everyday started around dawn (6 o'clock in the tropics) and included a hike, a snorkel, and a paddle at least. The wildlife was every bit as amazing as everyone told us and every bit as approachable. Here are a pair of Magnificent Frigatebirds in the middle of a courtship ritual - male on the right with the huge red pouch, female on the left with the blue ring round her eye - that apparently is how you tell the Magnificent Frigatebird from the merely Great (and much more common) Frigatebird. Well you learned something new every few minutes in Galapagos, especially with Juan, our extremely patient and knowledgeable Naturalist Guide.

Just to prove how good we were at getting up in the mornings here is another dawn shot, this time on our last morning. This is the famous, and quite spectacular Kicker Rock.

Back to the animals now. Galapagos sealions were everywhere and we have loads of pictures but we thought we'd show you the much less common Galapagos Fur Seal, which despite the name is actually a sealion as well, and related to the New Zealand fur seal.

One of the really special moments of the trip came when one of the crew spotted a pod of orcas during a passage between islands. We were able to get close enough to get a fantastic view of them feeding on a school of fish while blue-footed boobies, frigatebirds, noddies, and pelicans swarmed around hoovering up their leavings. Thanks Miguel! Even in Galapagos these sightings are special.

We could go on - we have around a thousand pictures between us - but we can't fit it all on a blog. Watch out for Galapagos 2.

Peace Breaks Out

We were very pleased to see that, after we had been in Ecuador for less than 24 hours, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela settled their disagreements and there won't be a war. Actually we were asleep for most of that time anyway, catching up after a long and very confusing journey from New Zealand. We left Auckland at about 5.30 p.m. on Thursday, and after about 11 hours in the air we arrived in Santiago in Chile about 4 hours before we left Auckland. We then had to fill in Chilean Immmigration forms and have our passports stamped before collecting our luggage and walking through to the Departures Hall to join our flight to Ecuador. Our passports were stamped again and we reached Quito at 8.45 p.m., still on Thursday. The combination of jetlag, altitude (Quito is over 9000 feet up) and general confusion (it's sometimes called senility) meant that we slept round the clock, but we're fine now and war has been averted while we slept.

Tomorrow we have to be up for a bus at 7 a.m. which is taking us to the Saturday market at Otavalo, which just happens to be in the Northern Hemisphere, so we cross the equator on the way, but thankfully not the International Date Line again - that would be too much. Sunday we are up early again for the flight to Galapagos.

Smelly Rotorua

Actually we didn't find Rotorua nearly as sulphurous as some places in Iceland, but we took the opportunity to go to a Maori concert and meal. The meal was a hangi, which involves steam cooking the food in the ground. We already knew that, having been to one in Voe with Kester.



As you can see there was plenty of food.

The real thing, involving a party arriving in a waka (war canoe) and performing various dances and songs, including a full haka, was quite an experience.

Actually we could have organised our own hangi as the campsite had it's own steam cooking ovens set into the ground. The suggested recipes including cooking times like "4 to 8 hours" and "all day if possible" - definitely not fast food! After the hangi we had a night time tour of the neighbouring wildlife park, complete with kiwis. The Rotorua campsite had hot tubs fed from the same volcanic sources, but on Monday night we stayed at Miranda where the campsite had a full swimming pool fed by hot springs. It really was like swimming in a hot bath - luxury! Just up the road at the Firth of Thames we visited a bird reserve with thousands of migratory wading birds, some familiar and some not so.

Now we are back in Auckland having returned the camper van unscathed. Today we visited Waiheke island just half an hour out into the gulf. This is the view of the ferry heading back to Auckland, just visible in the distance.



Tomorrow it's a flight to South America. Due to time zones and international datelines it seems we will arrive in Santiago about five hours before we leave New Zealand - no we don't understand it either!

Heading north again

As we said in our last entry we hired a kayak for the day on Wednesday. It was a bit crowded with three of us in a double! Here's William getting ready to paddle with us.

It was an absolutely perfect day. We paddled across Queen Charlotte Sound to Lochmara Lodge where we had coffee. As you can see it's an idyllic spot. We must go back some time - for at least a week.

For our last day in the South Island we were walking again. This time it was the last section of the Queen Charlotte Track, so just the middle bit left! Then it was an early start for the ferry on Friday and up to a strange town called Dannevirke, which was originally settled by Danes. On the way we stopped at the National Wildlife Centre at Mount Bruce where we finally saw a couple of kiwis. No pictures though - because they are nocturnal they were in a special building which is dark through the day and lit up at night.

Since then we've visited Napier, which is an art deco town, rebuilt after an earthquake in 1931, and Taupo where we got mixed up with the NZ Ironman competition, and now we are in Rotorua. More on that later.

Time Running Short

After Dunedin we headed back to the west - well after all Mhairi and Mark said we couldn't leave without visiting Wanaka! The campsite was great- spa baths with a view of the mountains.




We resisted the urge to stay longer and headed for the coast through the Haast Pass. The forecast was rain but it never really happened. The gorge at the Gates of Haast was immense and judging by the amount of water in the river it had certainly rained recently. North of Haast we diverted to see the Fox Glacier. We've seen glaciers before but not with palm trees in the background.

We stopped for the night at Hokitika, at a campsite on the beach, and just across the road from the Glowworm Dell. The rain arrived during the night so we didn't hang about in the morning. It was on up the coast, past some spectacular scenery and pounding swell - pictures to follow again! - and improving weather as we crossed back over to Picton. Today we've been walking the outer section of the Queen Charlotte Track, delivered and collected by water taxi, and tomorrow we've booked a double kayak.

New Zealand's Other Island

Stewart Island is about the same distance south of Bluff in New Zealand's South Island as Foula is west of Shetland but the ferry is a bit different. It's a catamaran carrying around 60 passengers at 24 knots, and that's even in a 35 knot headwind which it was on Sunday. Lots of spray and whitecaps and banging through waves, lots of sick passengers, but we reached Oban on schedule in just under an hour. That's right, the only village on Stewart Island is called Oban, and just across Paterson Inlet are the islands of Iona and Ulva. Ulva is a bird sanctuary and the best place to see many native New Zealand birds which have been decimated by introduced predators like rats and cats elsewhere in NZ. This is a weka, which is a sort of flightless native hen, a bit smaller than a kiwi.

We had a couple of days there walking and soaking up the unique atmosphere. There is a strong connection here with both Orkney and Shetland. The earliest European settlers came from Orkney and there was a failed settlement in the north of the island by Shetlanders. Traill, Scollay, Peterson and Leask are all local names, and we found ourselves walking past Vaila Voe on Monday. We loved it and were really sorry to leave, but thankfully the weather had improved by Tuesday afternoon and we had a much more relaxed return trip.

We are now in Dunedin having visited Larnach Castle and the Albatross Centre on the Otago Peninsula today. This is a Royal Albatross and chick on their nest on the tip of the Otago Peninsula. This is their only nesting site other than the Chatham Islands. We were in a hide as part of the tour.
Dunedin is a bit of a culture shock itself. We knew it was a sort of southern version of Edinburgh settled by Scots Presbyterians, and we knew there was a statue of Rabbie Burns in the city centre but we really didn't expect the main streets to be called Princes Street and George Street, or to see buses going to Corstorphine and Portobello. Lots of school pupils seem to be wearing kilts as part of their school uniform, and the Water of Leith flows through the centre and past the Botanic Gardens. There's even a miniature copy of the Scott Monument - in Princes Street of course!

A Perfect Day

We awoke about 5.30 a.m. with a text from Mhairi to say that Rona and Keith had a new addition to the family born on Valentine's Day-- Theo Finlay Donaldson, 6lb 8 oz-- mother and baby both doing well.

Seriously we were awake anyway as our kayak trip was to start at 6.30 a.m. with a two hour bus journey to Milford Sound. After a stop for coffee and biscuits we proceeded to our start point and were given suitable clothing to wear and thorough instruction. The weather was clear--not always the case here where there are 200 days of rain a year. After breaking into two groups we set off in doubles across Milford Sound avoiding the many tourist boats and admiring the magnificent scenery. Our group tried sailing and once we got the sail up and running we certainly made good progress. After lunch on the rocks we separated to help a couple of less experienced paddlers who were struggling a bit in the breezy conditions. We met a few NZ fur seals along the way, swimming behind us and sleeping on the rocks.


We met an interesting Welsh couple on the tour. We thought we were quite adventurous but they had done most of their early travelling by train and bus as far as Mongolia, China and Vietnam. Mmmmm--food for thought for next time!

On the return bus journey we had a couple of stops to admire views and have hot drinks by the river. Back in Te Anau by 6. Days just don't get much better!

Routeburn Track completed!

They said it was one of the best walks in the world and we are certainly not going to disagree. Despite a series of gloomy weather forecasts and tales of how wet these mountains are we had three days of glorious weather, especially the middle day when we were mostly above 1000 metres crossing the Harris Saddle. The views over the Hollyford Valley were absolutely spectacular and the path itself seemed to be going through the most beautiful alpine rock garden. Here's a shot of the view from Harris Saddle with the shelter in the middle and the Darren Range mountains behind.


Although we were reasonably fit for the walk itself it was the first time in years either of us had walked any distance with a heavy pack, so it was great to relax in the DOC huts at night. The path was beautifully maintained and the huts were excellent with onsite wardens. The Mackenzie Hut warden in particular has an alternative career waiting for him as a stand-up comedian. Dehydrated food was fine on the Track but it was great to get back to Queenstown and a really good Indian last night. Which reminds me - we nearly didn't get back to Queenstown at all when the bus we had booked seats on drove straight past us without stopping, leaving us over 150 miles from our camper van. Needless to say there was no mobile phone coverage, but we are eternally grateful to Linda and Harold from California who cheerfully volunteered the back seat of their hire car to our muddy feet. They took us as far as Te Anau where we cadged a lift on a Real Journeys tour bus. Never mind Kiwi Discovery - at least you came clean on the mistake and gave us a full refund - which paid for the Indian!

Queenstown - Adventure Capital?

After an excellent stay at the Banks Peninsula, we travelled on to Queenstown via Lake Ohau, visiting some MacKay relations--Norman and Barbara--who must have one of the best views in New Zealand.

We had a very pleasant night there before continuing on our journey to Queenstown. The adventure continued with a jetboat trip on the Shotover River. That's us in the second row with the empty seat behind me. We only lost one --- only kidding!

We are now preparing for our three day walk on the Routeburn Track - watch this space.

Have camper, will travel - south

We are now in Akaroa on New Zealand's South Island, and we have certainly had a few adventures already. First we collected the van, filled up at the supermarket and headed out on to State Highway 1. First night was with the surfies at Raglan on the west coast, then on to the glowworm caves at Waitomo and the Tongariro National Park. This is Lord of the Rings country and we had a splendid walk in the shadow of Mt. Doom, sorry Ngaurehoe, for that is its real name. Next day was dull and misty, a bit like Scotland, so we moved on down to Wanganui and the Kapiti coast just north of Wellington where the sun was shining. However it wasn't shining next morning. What do you do on a wet day in Wellington? You go to Te Papa, the national museum, to see an exhibition about the Scots in New Zealand (and a few other things) then you get the ferry to the South Island. The next couple of days were spent at Kaikoura, the main whale watching centre. Again we went for a walk then, after a couple of false starts, we got out on a boat trip to see the sperm whales, which are more or less always around there. We also saw dusky dolphins, New Zealand fur seals and various seabirds including albatross. Now we're in Akaroa which is picture postcard beautiful, and a little bit French. Tomorrow we're off to see more dolphins, and we've hired a kayak. Should be fun!

Goodbye Oz - Hello NZ

Another week another country as they say. Our last few days in Tasmania were taken up with good deeds - clearing out the elder Smiths' garage mainly. Here are the Smith family gathered together and smiling for the camera, all except Vic. Well someone had to take the picture.




We are still down under but a little bit further right - about 1500 miles in fact. Auckland is busy and hot and we've met some old friends from Burra. Not one of those "small world" co-incidences, we knew Bobby and Mabel would be here and we had a phone number for them. We spent a pleasant evening in the Queensferry Hotel (!) catching up on news of home, and comparing notes on forthcoming grandchildren and winter holidays in hot countries.

Yesterday we went up the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, and watched some slightly crazed kiwis (or tourists maybe?) jumping off. The longest bungy jump in the world it's claimed.

Today we took the ferry to the volcanic island of Rangitoto in Auckland Harbour where we shared our lunch with some very friendly small birds. Finches we think but if anyone knows better we'd be interested to know.

Tonight we had the most amazing Thai meal here in Auckland, but tomorrow it's back to pasta when we pick up the camper and head south.

Adventure Before Dementia

We are back in Scamander now after almost a week in Tasmania's Wild West and a short visit to Hobart - still one of the most relaxed cities we've ever visited. But the west of Tasmania is world class and we saw it in perfect weather. First we stopped at Crayfish Creek, staying overnight in a rather creaky treehouse with Jane and Vic. We all went on to Footrot Flats and Dismal Swamp - those early explorers really knew how to make a place sound attractive! We drove over a road called the Western Explorer, nearly a hundred miles of gravel with almost no other traffic, through a mixture of temperate rainforest and button grass plains, to an old mining village called Corinna on the Pieman River, deep in the Tarkine Wilderness. There we took a boat trip to the mouth of the river, and paddled up one of its tributaries in an open canoe.

We also did a couple of walks in the rainforest and fed the wallabies and possums in the evenings. Here's William making a new friend at feeding time.

But perhaps our most memorable encounter was in the canoe on the Pieman River when we met a tiger snake swimming along, and, yes, they are poisonous.

After Corinna we crossed the river on the famous Fatman barge and drove through the old mining town of Zeehan to Queenstown. From there we travelled the West Coast Wilderness Railway to Strahan, panning for "gold" on the way.

In Strahan we came across a camper van from Queensland with a slogan that really appealed to us. It said "Adventure before Dementia". That'll do us!

While we're talking strange encounters, we drove back from Hobart on the Midland Highway, which goes through places with names like Brighton, Campbell Town, and Jericho (on the Jordan River of course!) As we were driving through Bagdad (local spelling) we met a convoy of Australian Army trucks heading south. Hmm...

On the Water Again

This is Coles Bay, about 50 miles south of Scamander on the Sunshine Coast. It's on the Freycinet Peninsula, just on the edge of the National Park that includes the famous Wineglass Bay, said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. We walked there the last time we were in Tasmania two years ago, but this time we wanted to paddle. We hired a double kayak for the day from Freycinet Adventures and explored a bit. There are plenty of other beautiful beaches in the area, most of them deserted like this one. We were staying just down the coast at Swansea Backpackers - a very modern and fairly luxurious hostel with a pub and restaurant attached. There are also several wineries in the area plus a large walnut plantation.

The next day, Wednesday, we went over to Campbell Town and up the Midland Highway to Launceston. On the way we detoured into the forest to look for the Lost Falls viewpoint. They were certainly lost - there was no water at all! This whole area has been suffering badly from drought for years, and in the farming areas the fields are brown and dusty. We're off to the west coast this weekend and the Tarkine Wilderness.

News from the Sunshine Coast

The northeast coast of Tasmania is called the Sunshine Coast and it's a popular holiday area, mainly for Australians. The weather on average is warmer and sunnier than the rest of Tasmania, and there are miles and miles of clean empty beaches. Scamander is just a small village at the mouth of the Scamander River, about ten miles from St Helens, which is the district centre. Today we were walking in the Winifred Curtis Reserve, then along the beach where there was a surf life saving carnival taking place. Tomorrow we are off to Coles Bay where we hope to hire kayaks.

Meanwhile William has been making new friends. Here he is on top of Table Mountain (you probably can't see it but he now has a South African flag pin alongside the Shetland one) then with a young lady friend called Pollie, here in Scamander (and now with an Australian flag pin). Note the beach in the background.

Down Under At Last

First of all check out the last two posts - there are pictures now.

Can't believe it's almost a week since we posted from Jo'burg. At that time we thought we'd be flying to Perth WA that night. In fact our flight was delayed almost 24 hours thanks to technical problems with Qantas. They put us up in a pretty classy hotel, but we still spent pretty much all day Saturday and all day Sunday at the airport. It was quite a relief to finally get airborne. The result was instead of three days in Perth we only had two, and one of those was taken up by the booked trip to Wave Rock on Tuesday (Norma's birthday). We did our best with a boat trip on the Swan River and a walk in the park on Heirisson Island but really Perth needs more time. Then it was another Qantas jumbo to Melbourne and on to Launceston in a Dash 8. After our earlier experience we didn't much enjoy reading about the Qantas jumbo that lost electrical power 15 minutes out of Bangkok. According to the Australian paper we read in the air as we left Perth the battery backup was only good for an hour, so it would have been bad news if it had happened over the ocean. This had all happened while we were flying over the Indian Ocean in another Qantas jumbo that was almost a day behind schedule because of a technical fault. Lovely!


Wave Rock is over 200 miles east of Perth in Western Autralia, so it was a long day in a 4WD bus, which fortunately was air-conditioned because it was very hot (41 degrees in the shade and there wasn't any shade). We've never been so happy to climb back into a bus! The rock itself is one face of a huge granite mass which has been eroded by the wind over millions of years into the shape of a huge breaking wave about 15m high.

Much more about Tassie to follow.

Leaving South Africa

As promised a couple of pictures from Addo Elephant Park. We have an elephant and also a bunch of dung beetles clearing up what the elephant left behind. Everything has a purpose!

We are now in Johannesburg Airport filling in time - about 8 hours of time - before our flight to Australia. Yesterday we visited the Addo Elephant Park, which is just east of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. By lunchtime we were thinking of renaming it Addo Warthog Park, and our guide was scratching his head wondering how you can hide 450 elephants in a wildlife park. We had seen plenty of warthogs and kudu (antelopes with curly horns), vervet monkeys, lots of colourful birds, a large tortoise and a lion's pawprint - mustn't forget the amazing and enormous dung beetles - but no elephants. Then in the afternoon we found them, at least 50 ranging from a large bull to baby around a couple of weeks old. They paid us not a bit of notice, grazing right up to the road and strolling across in front of us. We also saw zebra, a solitary jackal, and several other varieties of antelope, then right at the end a small group of buffalo. What a day! Our guide was great as were our hosts at the V&A Guest House in Port Elizabeth who organised the trip for us.

Happy New Year

Greetings from Mossel Bay, South Africa, and we hope you have all had a great start to 2008. We certainly had a great finish to 2007 in Cape Town. We've been to the top of Table Mountain by cable car then down by the so-called easy route - our legs are only just about recovering. We took the train to Simonstown - that was an experience to be told later under the title "Welcome to the South African experience". Then on the 31st we had a truly memorable day, touring the townships with Cape Rainbow Tours, finishing on Robben Island, from which you get the best view of Cape Town and Table Mountain.

Again much more to tell - William is having quite a time of it. New Year at the V&A Waterfront may not quite match Edinburgh's Hogmanay but it was great fun and the weather was probably better! Then up again at 5.30 to get the bus to Mossel Bay, where the local motto seems to be "Live life slowly!" I guess we'll have to work on that!