LindyBear

Well I embarked on a 36 hour bus journey down into Southern Patagonia. The land is flat, thundra and arrid. Siobhan, it kinda reminds me of Mayo 🙂 Check it out…..

And just in case you´re wondering, a few hundred miles down the road, it looks ex-act-ly the same……

It´s hard to believe some of the most famous mountain ranges are going to spring out of the ground down here. I read an article in National Geographic about Patagonia, they stopped in a ¨town¨ that was literally a petrol station and nothing else. Now I thought they were exaggerating but then we stopped there…..

Hmmmmm we were on our way towards the end of the world and the way the wind was picking up, it certainly seemed so. Now I could have gone the more remote and desolate route (believe it or not), the famous Route 40 but it took too long so I went for the conventional bus that literally crosses to the east of Argentina and back again but it was still a day quicker so that had to be my choice. I arrived in El Calafate and it seemed there was some life down here in Patagonia. El Calafate is on it´s way to been another Bariloche, it´s geared towards tourists, offering tours, boat trips and buses all over the region. Still though it´s a nice town and I met some good people there.

I was greeted at my (fab) hostel with the words, we party tonight!! So myself, Kerstin and Albert (who I met in Bariloche) said we´d check it out. It was good craic.

…….and were entertained by the likes of mime artists, a group playing drums and digeridoos (yes really) and then some bands, some of which were good and some of which were ¨entertaining¨ 🙂 Band Good fun though and we drank huge beers……..

Up early the next morning to go to the Los Glaciares National Park. Myself, Kerstin and Albert went to check out Glacier Perito Mereno for the day. We had a couple of nice photo stops along the way.

Anyone who is checking out my flickr page will see I´m getting somewhat obsessed with sky down here, it´s just amazing. When we got to the park, we started off with a boat trip to view the glacier from the bottom up…..

Then we went up to the viewing balconies to see it from the top down……

The glacier was much different to Franz Josef, that I had seen and trekked in New Zealand. It was very much wider but nowhere near in height. It was however, very dramatic!!! It advances at a rate of 2 metres a day so we got to witness it ¨calving¨, i.e. huge columns of ice collapse, break off and plunder into the icy water below, much to the delight and surprise (every time!) of the crowd watching. You can watch a video of it on my flickr ( Perito Marino and Perito Marino 2) but I didn´t capture any good one as it happens so quick. It sounds like loud thunder when it happens. Very dramatic and by the end of our day we were totally addicted!! It was a case of ¨oh let´s just stay for one more¨Good fun though and beautiful scenery. Really amazing.

The next day I went to see Torres del Paine National Park (Chile) Now I have to explain that Torres del Paine and it´s famous granite towers are a huge draw in this part of the world and one that many travellers like to tick off their list by either trekking the ¨W¨or the whole circuit. As the ¨W¨takes five days to complete, I had to settle for a day trip and, for reasons I will explain in a minute, I don´t think I would have been able to do it anyway. We headed off at 5.30am and had a boarder crossing into Chile on the way. Then the landscape began to change from the flat plains to gorgeous mountains with great layers of colours. We stopped at this turquoise lake and in the background part of the National Park was coming into view.

Just beautiful and so dramatic. We entered the park and it was a little cloudy but as soon as we got out of the bus the famous towers came into view.

They are dwarfed here completely as it would take more than a day to actually reach them and see them properly so this would have to do. We continued on and had a little walk to get a closer look at some of the scenery. Just check out these…..

The different types of rock in these mountains are amazing when the light catches them. Anyhoo we were taking photos and the wind there is unbelievably strong. So there was a huge surge and one minute I was standing and then next I was on the ground. This freakish wind just literally picked me up off my feet!!!!

So as I said, I don´t think I would have been capable of it – especially with a big backpack!!! Ah no I would have loved it and when we were leaving I was totally gutted that I couldn´t stay to trek at least the ¨W¨but them´s the breaks and I had some trekking planned on the Argentinian side anyway. Spent the bus jouney bacl to El Calafate staring at the landscape, I just love it here, it´s so unusual.

Even saw some flamingos in a lake. Flamingos are really stoopid though, if I´m remembering a documentary I saw a while back, can´t remember why though……

I´ve been thinking about language again and I have picked up some spanish, enough to get by but the problem is that you don´t really need here so then you get lazy. I´m looking forward to being forced into it when I move out of Argentina. I think that english speaking people have it too easy and I really want to make an effort. Although I don´t know how good my pronounciation is anyway as everyone corrects me when I say Torres del Paine, it should be pronounced ¨Pan-ye¨but I say PAIN and what people don´t realise is that this is on purpose – I maintain that you´ll be in a lot of pain after you trek it so it´s pretty fitting 🙂 It´s also pretty unfortunate that my name is spanish. Linda means pretty is spanish so every time I check into a hostel, they say Ah Linda, Linda, Linda, you know what it means??? – the horrible thing is I´m usually after a 20 hour bus journey, wearing grubby clothes, hungover or just a bit wrecked looking in general so I don´t feel very ¨Linda¨at all. Booo hooo 🙁

That´s about it for now, I´m off to trek in El Chalten, wish me luck…….

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157613495075799/   http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157613495371415/   http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157613678645418/

So remember I said I´d be taking buses at night so as to not waste the day? Well I took a bus from Valparaiso to Pucon and I´d set myself up for a good old sleep. So around 11.30, most folk were settling themselves so I stopped reading, curled up and proceeded to conk out. 1am arrived and the young fella sitting next to me opened and started eating a packet of crisps……NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!! if everyone´s asleep, I´m sure there´s an unwritten law that you´re not allowed to eat crisps – with “open-mouth” munching noises especially!! In Oz when myself and Kate were annoyed, while telling the story we´d point our fingers and say NOOOOOOO!! If the annoyance really merited it, the finger would waggle from side to side 🙂 Yeah okay we´re weird but you´d have to see it…. Anyhoo this young fella definitely would have got a waggly pointy finger on several counts. I´m a big believer that you only get one shot at sleeping on a plane or bus and yep, you guessed it, I was still awake at 8am when the bus got into Pucon. Now, in fairness, the young fella wasn´t the only cause for concern. Every time I closed my eyes and started to drift off, I get a weird sensation, open my eyes and there was an old lady sitting in front of me (who couldn´t sleep at all) staring at me!!! Hello???? I know it´s public transport but again that surely violates some other type of rule, right???!!!!

Anyhoo, rant over, I arrived in Pucon which is a really cute town (or is it a city, I´m not sure) Now it´s totally purpose built for tourists but still I have to say I really, really liked it. There´s a little bit of a swiss theme going on with all the wooden shop fronts and touristy things to buy. Woolies are the big thing here, hats, scarves, ponchos, etc. the funny thing is even if you have been to Chile, these still look familiar….maybe we had some souvenirs around the house when I was little or something. There are loads of big chunky knits, you know the ones that are soooo soft, squishy and you just have to touch them….. – not in Chile, scratchy hard wool that would drive you mental!!! Anyway I signed myself up to climb the volcano the following day and I was a bit nervous because I´m so unfit but since I didn´t do the full day glacier climb in Franz Josef (and this is the same deal) I said I´d give it a go. Had a walk around the town, but everywhere you look, this volcano is in the background…..waiting…….

So that evening I wandered down to the company to sign (i.e. waiving their obligation for anything at all that may happen to you) forms and there was rain fore casted so the whole thing was called off. So disappointed!!! Of course now I was stuck in Pucon for another day (which was certain to rain), which is a day I desperately need for somewhere else and I was stuck with a wooly hat and gloves……….well at least they´ll be useful in freakishly windy, rainy and massively unpredictable Patagonia. AND aren´t they just fantastic?????? Anyway I met an Italian gentleman in the hostel and he was going trekking in the National park so I said I definitely wanted to something worthwhile with my day. Woke up to thundering rain at 5am and it rained solidly until about 9.30 so that ruled out the National Park. Then the sun came out and there was a 1.30pm bus so I said I do a short trek but of course the bus was full!!! Then the twitching started because I´m not able to do nothing all that well. One positive about staying an extra day was that my legs returned to their normal state and I didn´t look like a 90 year old woman anymore. The bus just seems to swell out the legs big time. I hung out with a Cork lad, Darren, and we chatted the day away. I also got to try one of Pucon famous hamburgers which are pretty much the size of your face!!! If you´re ever there, try one from Rap, I´m not a hamburger fan but they are mighty fine 🙂

So I finally made it to Bariloche, via Osorno where I was going to stop for a night to check it out but now I´m glad I didn´t to be honest!! My friend Pam told me that Bariloche was here favourite spot in Argentina and I have to admit I liked it a lot too. It´s really touristy, kinda wooden fronted shops……

that look like swiss log cabins, chocolate shops, more woolies and trekking gear as it is a kind of gate-way to Patagonia. You also get great views of one of the lakes as you are strolling around the town. 

There is loads to do here and I met up with four german girls……

and we headed off up Campario to see the whole range of lakes and mountains around Bariloche. It was pretty spectacular.

After that we went on a 25km bike ride, which sounds like a lot but it was fine really. You can do the whole circuit which is 60km and I thought that would be a bit much, especially since you have to cycle from Bariloche and deal with traffic. Anyway it was lovely, the sun shining, at least for the first 5km and then of course it started raining!!! Booo to it. Still though we saw a lot, there were beautiful view and we cycled up the hill to a fab hotel called Hotel Llao Llao to take in the view there (needless to say they didn´t leave us in or anything!!!) We all really enjoyed it, I just didn´t feel a knackered as I thought I should have, although this is what we looked like half way through so maybe it was more taxing than I thought 🙂

Anyhoo we celebrated with a steak from El Boliche de Alberto – which is THE place the have steak (medium/rare whether you like it or not……. good job my tastebuds have changed)

around these parts. Even poor Kerstin whose a vegetarian tried the steak, well we are in Argentina. And indeed it was fantastic!!! Totally stuffed though. Ended the evening in the hostel with two of the girls and some Cork lads who´ve been in Bariloche for a week or so. Kinda nice to chat to people from home for a while, especially when they are a good laugh!! Some of them (the ones who weren´t afraid of the rain!!) did the cycle too. The funny thing is, the place that rents the bikes talks you through where to go and what stops to include. The guy really stressed that when you´re on the way back, make sure to take the turn for his place or you´d end up in Bariloche!! Of course one of the Cork boys forgot this and added 20km to his adventure – classic!!!! We had fun with that!!

The next day I was leaving in the afternoon so I had a stroll around in the cold, cold wind. Dreading heading south now as it´s going to be sooooo much colder there! Did the other must eat treat, which was chocolates from a shop called Mamuschka. Think I need to get out of Argentina or I´m going to need bigger trousers 🙂

I know I´m really lucky to be doing a world tour but sometimes I do get jealous of people who are just doing one continent as they get to stay somewhere until they feel like moving on. That said I know I´d be really lazy and never see anything. I have to say though I would have loved to hang around Bariloche for another few days but I saw a lot and really enjoyed it and I needed to keep those thoughts with me for my upcoming 36 hr journey south into Patagonia and the first stop is El Calafate…….

Sorry it was such a long one. More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157613443695699/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157613443766439/

…….but I´ll get to that later 🙂 So I crossed the date line – that big milestone finally came so naturally and cheesily enough I had to take a photo of flying into ¨yesterday´s¨ dawn from the plane!!!

Okay, alright it´s a bit crap but it´s more impressive in real life I promise. South America is great so far, so much better than I thought it would be. Flew into Santiago which I expected to be mental but it´s not really, I liked it a lot. Pretty much zero english speaking folk though so I´m learning spanish pretty quickly! It´s easy to practice as the locals are friendly and talk to you all the time. The rest of the time I just make do with body language and gestures and I think they get me – well I haven´t ended up in the wrong place or insulted anyone yet so I think I´m doing okay 🙂

Have made a bit of a plan for what I want to see in Chile and Argentina and am really hoping to get right to the bottom but it´s tight timewise as I need to make Rio for Carnival on the 20th February so I´ll have to see….. You can get stuck in places if the buses get booked up.

Before I came, I got pretty excited about new food (as I always do) but they are just mad for their ham and cheese sandwiches, ham and cheese toasties, ham and cheese croissants, ham and cheese pastries (lots and lots of pastries)……. I think you get the picture 🙂 Now I´d never say no to a ham and cheese sambo but come on I feel like it´s all I´ve eaten since I got here. It´s that or pasta which I´ve kinda gone off at the moment. So feeling extremely unhealthy and sluggish on the food front right now. Steak in Argentina might improve things hopefully.

I have to say the buses are fan-feckin-tastic here, serious comfort people. Planning to do a lot of journeys by night as they are so long and I don´t want to waste daytime on the bus. They also serve you dinner or lunch on the bus – take a guess, oh yeah…….. ham and cheese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyhoo, I bussed it to Mendoza, Argentina and had a nice day walking around. Chilled out on Plaza Independencia and had a stroll through some of (huge – 420 hectares!!) Parque General San Martin. I had pre-booked my hostal here as I heard things were pretty busy but when I got there, they were overbooked. So the guy there said when this happens, people stay in his buddies´ house which I was a bit apprehensive about but I said I´d go have a look. Now I totally regret staying there, as it was this gorgeous Argentinian house with a courtyard/garden, tucked away off the main thoroughfare. It would be such a lovely place to live for a couple of months. I met a couple of french and americans who were doing just that. Anyhoo it´s back to normal hostel living now. I was still trying to catch up on sleep so that´s pretty much all I did the first day. Went horse-riding through the mountains……….

…….the next day and it was just lovely. Really hot and it´s so good to be back in the heat. Again I happened upon another hostel up in the mountains where I met a lovely english called Lucy who has been travelling for the last 3 years now. This place was great and would be just fantastic to chill out for a while but for me, I was off on a night bus to Valparaiso.

Valparaiso was far bigger and more congested than I had expected. It´s a port town and it is quite touristy, a lot of folk from Santiago come here for the weekend. I teamed up with my room-mate, Rob from English and we walked around to take in the sights. They have these ascensors here which are basically rickety cables cars that bring you up to take in the views of the port and the bay.

The little houses and hotels up in these parts are lovely. Tiny little place, reminiscent of seeside towns in England. Valparaiso also reminds me of southern Italy with all the hilly streets, shuttered windows and the way it´s built into the hills. Went for a bite to eat that night in a local restaurant and it was totally worth the money (a tenner is expensive these days!!). There was a band including a guy playing the accordian and a couple of singers. It was just gorgeous, I can´t even describe it properly but it was so authentic, just local people having a simple, relaxing night out. Think of ¨Duty Free¨ (remember that TV show?) without the cheese but it had the same kind of vibe. I would have loved to capture it on video but I think it would have been totally out of place, in fairness though, it was good enough to invade their space for an evening.

I think when you´re travelling, you go through phases where everything breaks and/or you just get really tired. These last few weeks have been a little like that, the zip on my (fantastic) backpack broke so I had to get it replaced (with the worst zip ever – thanks Kiwi bag fixer guy) and of course the kind officials in Chile don´t seem to like the look of me so my bag has been searched at every given opportunity. They kinda look half sorry for me when it takes ten minutes to zip it back up!!! Next my ipod decided to throw a complete wobbly and refused to work any more so begrudgingly I had to wipe it and start all over again – nooooooooooooo 🙁 Having a struggle with my old boss in Darwin to get my last payslip so I can file for tax back. Very tired and kinda fluey after the bussing around New Zealand – don´t know why I feel tired, so much more so than we were doing the driving around ourselves in Oz. Anyway the list of tiny irritations goes on, nothing major but they all come together as they always do. When I arrived in South America, I kinda thought…… god do I have the energy for a new continent???? but having had a couple of good nights sleep, I feel soooo much better and ready to take on the world again 🙂 Oh yeeeeaaaahhhhhhh!!!!

And on that note I´m off to Pucon for a couple of days and then on to Bariloche in Argentina.

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157613195065500/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157613156214995/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157613195118756/

Leaving Queenstown was a bit of a milestone as we knew we only had a couple of stops before hitting the North Island. We stopped at Twisel to see Mount Cook and Lake Tekapu which has this amazing turquoise water and was just spectacular. Check out my other photos on flickr as they are pretty impressive me thinks 🙂

Stopped again at Christchurch and Kaikoura but really just to break the journey north. Kaikoura was completely different experience this time as the weather was spectacular. Kate decided to go swimming with Dolphins and I was to go diving with Dolphins and unfortunately we both missed out. If I had been able to get through 5 minutes (literally) earlier, I would have got to go. Anyhoo, them’s the breaks and I settled for cycling around Kaikoura and stopping at some nice beaches and generally just taking in the sun, which we didn’t get a whole lot of in New Zealand.

After what felt like the longest journey so far, we reached Wellington, which is a nice relaxed city, would have liked to check it out a bit more but the time is ticking at this stage and we concentrated on the South Island more so the North Island is really just a couple of whistle-stops. We headed out with some of the crew from the bus and had a good old night.

Met a lad from Port Umna who of course knew the only other person I’ve ever met from Port Umna – such a small world. Of course one of the girls on the bus has worked with my bro Johnny – again proving Irish people are just everywhere!!! Anyway we had a good night but I now vouch that I am never drinking wine again (well at least until Chile), I suffered the next day and we had another mammoth journey to get through plus we had to jump 15000 feet out of an airplane– Oh yeah and please don’t attempt a sky dive if you’re suffering ill-effects from the night before!!!!

It is such an amazing experience, unlike the bungee jump which was great but didn’t live up to expectations, the sky dive more than delivered. Like the bungee, I wasn’t nervous at all and I actually wanted to be – because you need to get hyped up I think. We were harnessed up and up we went.

We circled for ages so we got loads of oxygen into us. I thought that this would perk me up but, again like before the bungee, I started falling asleep. God I’m weird but I think I might get sleepy instead of nervous, maybe it’s my unconscious nerves coping technique or something. Anyway I didn’t really start to realise what I was doing until a girl who was jumping at 12,000ft disappeared out the door….. Hmmmmm THEN I knew something was about to happen!! Also Kate’s turn was up and her pupils dilated to five times their  normal size – absolute classic 🙂 Anyhoo me next and suddenly I’m sitting at the edge of the plane and the next thing we’re free-falling through the air. The funny thing is with the bungee and the sky dive I expected this sort of feeling like you’re flying – don’t kid yourself, when you’re free-falling through the air, you’re incredibly aware of every ounce you weigh 🙂 until the parachute opens and whisks you back up.

Such a great experience, I will definitely do another one if I can. My official photos are unreadable from the disk they gave me though, which is a little disappointing so I´ll have to kick some ass!!

Stopped in Auckland just for a short stop, which was much prettier than I had been led to believe. Briefly stayed in the worst hostel ever!! Allergic because the hostels have been really good in New Zealand this place was dirty and untidy. Even when I stored my bag there for the morning before my flight, it was covered in cockroaches when I came back to get it – nice, huh?

And that ends my time in Australiasia. It´s weird to be leaving, it marks the end of a big portion of my trip. Overall I think I preferred Australia to New Zealand, don´t get me wrong, New Zealand is beautiful but I think it´s a bit too much like home in terms of landscape….. and weather!

The Kiwis are quite similar to the Aussies, very friendly and chatty people, with an affection for meat pies. The Kiwis or the Aussies were never able to get Kate´s name though, we used to laugh about it – because it´s pretty straight forward but she was called everything from quiche to Keish 🙂 I used to tell her she had to said with their accent Kay-ate (phonetically speaking) Also they have these crazy huge car parking spaces, yet I´ve never seen such difficulties parallel parking. I mean in Auckland on the last day, it took 5 people to parallel park a car that really could have been driven into the space – the space was that big!!!

Well that´s it, I´m off to Santiago, Chile. Will be travelling alone for the rest of my time away as Kate has gone back to Australia to work. Of course I´ll miss Kate loads but I´m looking forward to the challenge of South America on my own too. And travelling alone isn´t half as scary as you think, in fact you´re rarely on your own anyway.

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612984838372/  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612986159450/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612940910545/

Decided to stay in Wanaka as we heard it was nice chillaxy place and it has beautiful surrounding mountains and a lake. On the journey from Makarora, we visited Lake Wanaka and stopped at some other nice spots for photos.

Wanaka is nice place to chill out. We resisted doing a sky dive as we are saving that for Taupo – the classic sky dive spot which is our second last stop. The only thing about leaving it until the end is that it could be cancelled at the last minute due to weather conditiions. This happened to Claire, a girl who is travelling with us on the stray bus. She did get to jump the following morning though. Anyway we decided to visit the highly recommended Paradiso Cinema in Wanaka. The seats are big comfy sofas and you can even sit in a Morris Minor.

You can also order dinner which is served at intermission. It’s a really quirky funky cinema that has very tempting still warm fresh baked cookies, beer, wine and loads of other goodies to choose from.

The next morning we bused it early to Queenstown as I had to had in my backpack to be repaired (feckin allergic), we were meeting Kate’s friend Michelle and we had to book in for the Nevis Bungy jump. Now all along I said I’d never do a bungee as I reckoned the adrenaline wouldn’t even get a chance to kick in, it would be over so quick. Anyhoo for the last few weeks and some persuasion fom Kate, I kinda thought well I might as well try it or I might regret it. So we said we’d do the Nevis (134 metres) well you may as well go the whole hog, right? Off we went and I was surprisingly relaxed all morning – I even dozed off on the way there for feck’s sake. Still no nerves when we got there and they harnessed us up. Funnily enough Kate was pretty nervous and i thought i would be the nervous one.

Started getting a bit hyper and excited after a while but not the pertrified feeling as I had totally expected. I had really expected everyone to be really pumped and hyper or at least nervous but everyone seemed to be calm, collected and even after jumping people were simply smiling but not ecstatic in the slightest. So my turn came around and they plonked me in the chair to harness up my feet.

Still all good and I bunny-hopped out to the edge. And then I looked down…..and the fear rushed through me. The guys working there are really good though,, he literally stopped me looking down, removed my hand which was clamped to his tee-shirt and told me to look out ahead and on his count jump off. And without analysing it (again very unlike me) that’s exactly what I did!!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/3210886695/in/set-72157612775954272/

Very liberating feeling, free-falling through the air and there wasn’t a big jerk as you bounce at the end, just a feeling of pressure on your ankles. Fantastic but as I had suspected, it’s over way too quickly, I reckon if I could have done it once or twice more straight afterwards I would have got the rush I had expected. Still though I’m glad I did it and I’m totally psyched up to do the sky dive now.

Spend the next day hiding from the rain and then strolling around Queenstown, which is such pretty town carved into the hills. The following day saw us making the 13 hour round trip to Milford Sound. We had some nice stops on the way……..

but it peed rain for most of the time we were there, which is one way made it spectacular with all these crazy waterfalls forming everywhere. Probably the way Milford Sound should be seen. But it also made it very steamy, foggy and us pretty sodden!!

And so, apart from brief stops in kaikoura and Christchurch to break the journey, that pretty much finishes our journey in the South island. Scary, it’s been a very quick couple of weeks and it’s not long now before I leave for South America. Until next time, check out my photos & videos on……

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612775895130/  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612775954272/  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612809066443/

After two nights at Abel Tasman, we took off down the Wild West Coast and did a lot of sight seeing on the way. We saw the Buller Gorge, the seal colony at Westport and the pancake rocks and blowholes at Paparoa National Park.

The west coast of Australia is a lot like the west coast of Ireland, in terms of landscape, sea-scape, the area being slightly neglected by the government in terms of economic investment and of course a hell of a lot of rain. Now we managed to avoid for most of the time but still there is a distinct Irish feel to it! Even the seal colony was in a place called Westport!!! Some of the locals I met in Barrytown remind me of some of the people I have dealings with in work – classic!!! All good fun though. We had a good night out there even though we suspected that the bus company engineer this whole day so everyone stays at Barrytown (which they basically own) We were promised a mad night out, which is wasn’t, but good old craic all the same.

I met a couple of locals in the pub who were openly smoking funny fags, the contents of which they cultivate themselves. Makes for entertaining conversation 🙂 We also got a great home cooked roast chicken dinner with loadsa veggies and roast potatoes (I’m not a fan of roasties – I think they are just shrivelled up potatoes) but nonetheless it all went down a treat 🙂

The next day saw us busing it to Franz Josef, home of one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. On the way, we stopped at this crazy Bushman’s centre. It basically explains a bit about the west coast, the animals that were introduced from other parts of the world and the history of reindeer farming. New Zealanders are crazy, man, they introduced reindeers, then started shooting them awhen the population grew too large and then when the price of meat went up they started capturing them from the west coast. Now the interesting part is how they captured them. They literally flew around in a helicopter and a nominated mad-man jumped and rugby tackled the reindeers to the ground, hog tied them and hooked them on to the helipcopter while they went on to find more victims. The method then developed into using a kind of net gun which dropped a net over the reindeer so the Bushmen didn’t have to wrestle them as much. Seriously, these people were nuts!!!! What the hell is wrong with using a tranquilliser dart????? It was very entertaining though, in particular the cafe menu gave us a laugh…..

….we weren’t tempted to sample any of these “treats” though!!

Anyhoo back to Franz Josef and we had to climb it to see what it was like. it’s kinda spooky though because you get glimpses of it around the town and it’s mighty!!!

It’s so huge that where we started in the car park, you’re kinda thinking, we’ll be at the base of it in about 10 minutes but it actually takes about an hour or so to even get on the ice. We went for a half day trek and it was really good. Amazing scenery and surprisingly warm (hence the shorts) until the sun went in and the wind started. Then it was fricken cold man!!!!!

You can almost see the cold on my face, can’t you??? And anyone who knows me, will know I’m a serious coldy-cat 🙂 Still though it was worth it to do this…..

…….and see this

The only thing was, I didn’t really feel like I had enough time up there. We really should have gone for a full day’s trek (as everyone who did was on a high afterwards) but the half day was probably 8 or 10km and we thought we might have enough as the full day was 6 hours on the ice, plus I was kinda sick that day so I was speed wobbling a bit – not so good for walking on the ice. It is a bit freaky actually, the spikes totally weld you to the ice but you still think you’re going to fall. Very enjoyable though and I highly recommend anyone to try it – but go for a full day or I think some companies do a three-quarter day. Back to camp and I finished off my day steaming in the sauna and a tasty dinner and it was all good 🙂

We headed off the following day and caught some glances of Fox Glacier and Mount Cook. Our last stop on the wild west track was in Makarora, where there was pretty much a petrol station/hostel/bar/restaurant – exciting stuff!! (I foolishly believed that these might all be in separate buildings, alas no but what do you expect in a town with a population of 40!! Roll on a little civilisation (I hope) in our next few stops – Wanaka & Queenstown.

Until next time…….more photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612546211613/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612636420468/

Do you know what I hate…….Cameras, memory chips, USB keys and computer viruses!!!!!!!! Grrrrrrrrrr our first day in New Zealand was spent trying to sort this crap out. Both of us used “diseased” computers in an internet cafe in Sydney. Boo to it! Anyway we got things somewhat sorted and were able to move on.

Christchurch is lovely, very relaxed and laid back and we just soaked it all in…….

….and fed our Sushi habit 🙂 We decided to take a break from driving and book a bus ticket which will take us all around New Zealand (North & South islands). We have a jammed packed schedule and will have to pick and choose what we want to see because we can’t see it all in 19 days unfortunately 🙁

Our first stop after Christchurch was Kaikoura and we chilled out there for a few days. Plenty of walks planned, however the weather was pretty grim so we didn’t get to go. This also meant whale watching and swimming with Dolphins was out. Bummer. We did check out some seals though, but I have to say they are pretty fecking lazy buggers. There’s not a whole lot else you can do in Kaikoura, apart from sample the famous crayfish but at $75 a head, it’s a little bit out of our price range!! We will pass through Kaikoura again so we might get to swim with Dolphins yet. We did stay in a backpackers that’s worth mentioning, it was kinda like a cross between a convent and your grannies’ house in a comforting yet creepy and damp way too. Anyhoo this sign on the noticeboard really amused us…..

Of course this must be meant in the most innocent possible way, right? 🙂

The following day we bused it to Nelson (including a 2 hour bus breakdown in Picton on the way – groan) which we thought might be a good spot to head out and have a couple of drinks. The first pub had 14 people in it – including 2 bar staff. They closed up about 11pm and we thought that’s it. Oh dear!!! Then we happened upon a pub with some life and some live music. Had a good old session and even met a guy from Cork who’s living there.

Then we were off to Abel Tasman which is a huge national park. We opted to see the park on a full day sailing trip and we got a lovely sunny day (sweet) for it which was just lovely. We got to see more seals, fabulous scenery and beaches and of course famous “Split Apple Rock” used in a lot of tourism advertising for New Zealand…….

………….and basically just took in the great scenery, soaked up the rays and chillaxed lazily for the day. I know this is really boring but I also got to cook which is like a little treat for me 🙂 We do try to cook but honestly it works out cheaper and way less effort to buy the $10 backpacker meals that are on offer most places. We stayed at “Old McDonald’s Farm” (I kid you not!!!)

The bus driver told us that mad scientists successfully mated sheep with camels. Now I presumed he was messing but actually this is the result…..

Freaky, huh? Anyway the 100 acre Old McDonald’s Farm is actually for sale for the bargain price of $7 million if anyone is interested???

Anyhoo with thoughts of e-i-e-o and “shamels” in my head, I’m outta here. Until next time…..

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612595378788/

I was looking forward to Melbourne because so many people talked about nice cafes and funky bars that you find down little alleyways. After Sydney and the rest of Oz, Melbourne felt very, very European but we sorted that out by feeding our latest Sushi habit mmmmmmmm 🙂 God sushi is great!!! And Amy you were right, it’s everywhere around Sydney and Melbourne!! It’s the perfect meal for me because you can have little bits of everything 🙂

We rented a car (a bucket of shite but damn it was cheap!! 🙂 ) for a few days and drove the Great Ocean Road which is just breath taking. Everyone says it’s beautiful but that doesn’t even sum it up to be honest. We drove through little towns like Geelong (where we stopped for lunch by the water), Torquay (and resisted buying surf gear – oh it’s soooo hard) and visited Bells Beach which is just outside. This is pretty much the most famous surfing beach in Australia.

It’s really lovely but the current is so so strong, it’s not really recommended to swim there – even though we did see some idiot attempting it. We drove on to Lorne where we stopped for the night (as we had set off a little late) Lorne is lovely, a nice small town with good bars and restaurants but it was a treat to have a home cooked dinner in the hostel, cooked by our friend, Remi – so thanks for that mister 🙂 . The following morning we headed off to see nearby Erskine Falls and then headed on to Apollo Bay. The road from Lorne to Apollo Bay is basically carved into the cliffs and the views are out of this world, kinda distracting when you’re trying to drive!!

The real must see spots started after this when we reached Port Campbell, The Twelve Apostles……

 Ahhhhh seriously just look at it!!! There’s only 6 of them left now but it’s still massively impressive, don’t ya think? We got a great day weatherwise too so our photos came out really well. Next up was The Arch…..

London Bridge…….

Bay of Islands, Bay of Martyrs, the list goes on and on….. and you can check out the rest of them on my flickr site. We basically filled our cameras (for a change!!) and even though the pictures came out pretty well, they still don’t do it justice. It is just AMAZING!!!!

Back to Melbourne and we met up with Snowie (Cork girl) and Heath (who we worked with in Darwin) and they showed up some of the Melbourne nightlife.

We found ourselves wandering down a very dark dodgy alleyway (where you find the best little spots in Melbourne) to find a cracking bar with a kind of science lab theme. These are the bathrooms……

Good fun, and one too many glasses of wine for Lindy – oh dear!! Melbourne is great but I do think you need FAR more time here to explore or else someone needs to show you around – big time.

And so that ends my time in Australia and I’m really sad about leaving actually. I didn’t think I would be as sad as I am so it’s a little unexpected. There’s so much to see here and I’m gutted we didn’t have the time to see the west coast which I think would be really beautiful but unfortunately I’ll have to wait til next time…….

But for now it’s on to the next chapter…… New Zealand, which will be action/adventure packed!!!!

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612280266032/

A word of warning, this blog could be long and muddled up. Sydney is the longest stop I’ve had for a while so I can’t really remember what happened on what days. Anyhoo I’ll start at the beginning, I drove from Byron Bay to Nelson Bay and it really took it out of me. Headed for Sydney on the 22nd and after a couple of slanging matches with the satellite navigation lady, I arrived in Coogee Bay, home for Christmas 2008.

Coogee is like a mini Bondi in a lot of ways but a bit more relaxed. Stayed in the Coogee Bay Hotel which is a hive of activity and big hit on the pub list in the area. Anyhoo headed into Sydney that night and had a stroll around China town and the following day myself and Remi, who I first met in Darwin and was going to be hanging out with us for Christmas, started hitting the must sees list. Had a look at one of the Cathedrals and a stroll through Hyde Park and around the Market Street area. Resisted shopping but went to some really lovely shopping malls including the Queen Victoria Boulevard which had the nicest Christmas trees I’ve seen in Australia. It spans the 3 floors of the mall so you can see a piece of it on every level. Just gorgeous to stand under. It felt sooooo Christmassy 🙂

It also had a grand piano which played Christmas songs all by itself, very cute!! (you can watch the video on my flickr… http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/3176542082/in/set-72157611510055485/

We walked through the Strand Mall which is really old fashioned and quaint (apart from the prices!!).

Then we headed to Darling Harbour which I wasn’t massively impressed with to be honest but later I went back there at night where it is much prettier when it’s all lit up.

Next was the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge and they are just as awesome as you would imagine. We had a great day weather-wise and got billions of photos. Went for a drink at the Opera House bar which offers views of the bridge and the Opera House so we hung out there for ages. 

We also went on a cruise of the harbour which was okay but there was no commentary!!! It gave us some more nice views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge though.

Also had a stroll through the Botanical Gardens where you’re invited to hug the trees, smell the roses and walk on the grass. It’s really beautiful and absolutely massive.

Christmas day saw us taking the walk from Coogee Bay to Bondi.

It’s a nice walk in ways but a little strange in others, like when you walk through a massive graveyard (with many Irish buried there), a car park and a housing estate. Still though you walk through some beautiful beaches and eventually you find yourself walking on the cliff top with the sun shining and gorgeous views.

Suddenly the sprawl of Bondi beach hits your eyes. It was just so packed with people………

Full of Irish in GAA jerseys and designer sunburn and english with no jerseys at all really 🙂 Christmas dinner was a picnic so I did miss my Mammy’s cooking but Christmas day on the beach is just lovely and such a novelty!!! As is wearing a bikini and having a swim!!

Headed off to Manly on the ferry. Manly is a lovely area with gorgeous beaches, some were really packed but it’s summer time here and all the kids are off school so everywhere is busy. The water there is lovely and clear and I took advantage with a long swim.

We also had a stroll across the Harbour Bridge (which we were meant to climb but it was booked out – gutted!!!) and through the first settlement area in Sydney which is called The Rocks. It’s pretty much like Coronation Street (English Soap Opera) with tiny little corner shops, terraced houses and pubs with rooms to stay over them.

Sydney is quite British overall, from the street names like King Street, Queen Street, George Street, to their obsession with meat pies, slow steady all day drinking and just a generall feeling of Britishness!? I suppose I just forget that it’s long live the Queen over here.

We also hung out in The Rocks for most of New Year’s Eve day and evening as it is really close to the harbour so we walked down and watched the fireworks there with the masses and it was spectacular. There’s a few videos on my flickr site that show some of the action.

Took it very easy on New Year’s Day, I literally only went to the new South Wales Gallery to see an Impressionists Exhibition and did pretty much nothing else all day!

Our last day in Sydney we headed off to Blue Mountains, it is just beautiful there, the air is sooooo clear that I couldn’t stop sneezing! 🙂

Believe it or not I also relaxed and slept a bit over Christmas, which isn’t like me at all!! But it was nice to recharge the batteries. I was really sad to leave Sydney, it felt like a huge goodbye in many different ways. Even though we have Melbourne to follow, I kinda feel like leaving Sydney behind was a huge milestone. It’s also 2009 and I’ll be home in a few short months which is very, very scary…..

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157611510055485/

Now really, how often do you get to try out a trapeze? I wasn’t nervous at all, I don’t think I quite thought  it through to be honest. So I drove to the place, sun was shining, happy out and while I was parking the car, I knocked over the instructor’s scooter! Can you believe it? I’m such a moron. I’ve never crashed in my life. No major damage done but I have to say I got a bit of a fright and then climbing up that HUGE shaky ladder (which turned out to be the scariest part) and swinging into the abyss, certainly got the nerves going! After a couple of times up I began to relax and the adrenaline started pumping in a good way. The trapeze is a lot of fun and if you live in Byron you can actually take a proper course – check out some people on my flickr page, it’s pretty cool. Gutted I don’t have a good pic or video of me doing it but I managed to hang from my knees on the swing, catch a lift to the person on the other swing and somersaulted backwards down to the net. Fun, fun fun!!!!

Byron Bay is definitely somewhere you can embrace and nurture your inner hippie (if you have one and you certainly will have by the time you leave). Following strong recommendations, I stayed in The Arts Factory hostel and it really was brilliant.

Total hippie joint, you can learn massage and take yoga classes in the Tepees dotted around the massive complex. You can also play volleyball, table tennis or even paint your own didgeridoo. No shortage of music, either people strumming guitars or live music in the Buddha Bar (not kidding – it really is called the Buddha Bar) or if you’re feeling really lazy you can have savage scrambled eggs and a smoothie and then lounge in one of the hammocks overlooking the lake. It really did have fantastic facilities and the staff were really great. There’s so much more I could say but I think that’s probably enough. By the time I left the Arts Factory, I could see why people stay there for a couple of weeks or more. If you do manage to tear yourself away from the hostel, you can venture into Byron town itself where all these activities are on offer or you can choose to stroll around the many tiny art galleries, stop in one of the gorgeous organic (naturally) cafes or hit the beach for good surfing, sun basking and people watching. There’s piles of other activities like sea-kayaking, surfing and of course a compulsory day trip to Nimbin, to name but a few.

Aside from me swinging from the stars, I decided to go diving too. Byron has a good reputation for diving, not in terms of corals but the wildlife was supposed to be great. We headed off from the beach through the rough surf and honestly the boat ride like a feckin roller-coaster!!! So when we got to our spot my stomach was sitting somewhere in the back of my throat. It was a bit scary actually, because I’m new to diving and had been graced with the calm waters in Queensland, I found the rough water and poor visibility a bit daunting until we submerged. It was bloody freezing too, even though we had really thick wetsuits on, it took a while to warm up afterwards. As for the dive itself, as I said poor visibility but the big stars of the show were a huge bull ray and some sting rays.

There are also some lovely walks around Byron Bay, you can go from beach to beach, to Cape Byron and then end up at the lighthouse which is the most easterly and strongest lighthouse in Australia. 

You get some spectacular views of the bay up there too. I also met up with a few from the hostel to have a few drinks in the Buddha Bar and we headed off to Cheeky Monkeys nightclub to finish off the night. Byron Bay is great because you literally can be a total hippie and are almost expected to be. At the same time, I really felt my age in Byron, a few young fellas joined us for a while and one of them showed me his ID and he was born in 1988!!!! He and his buddies were a full decade younger than me!! Now that’s depressing. Anyhoo, we all partied so I guess you’re never too young or old to have a bit of craic. I have to say it’s a place I’d go back if I had more time.

And so that was the last real stop on the road trip which ended up being 3500km, I reluctantly (because it really just a place where you constantly find yourself sighing, ahhhhhh) left Byron Bay the next day and drove the 8 eight hours to Nelson Bay just to break the journey, was totally shattered so didn’t even leave my room. The following day I arrived in Sydney and had to give the car back – no more “flash-packers” – booooo!!! Will be staying in Coogee Bay, which is next door to and a miniature version of Bondi, for Christmas and New Year. Lots of friends from travels to meet up with and I’m really looking forward to that and to sitting still for a while. Have been blogging a lot this last week or so due to all the stops but I’ll probably take a little break now, sit back and enjoy Sydney. Will fill you all in on what I get up but apart from a couple of things I want to do, I intend to relax.(yes really!!)

It still doesn’t feel very Christmassy, although a stroll around Sydney helped matters a little today. Might try and catch a night mass on Christmas Eve and will be eating Christmas dinner on the beach on Thursday. I’m sure the party season is well started at home and I wish everyone Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enjoy it!! I will miss family, loved ones and friends very much over the next few days. It’s really weird not being there. So Happy Christmas everyone, hope it’s a great one!!!

P.S. I heard the ham situation has been resolved at home. I’m going to miss my Christmas sandwich which is wholemeal bread, ham, honey mustard, a layer of stuffing, turkey and cranberry….drool. Someone send me one, please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157611391796082/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157611510055485/