26th - 29th August - Amazon Basin Pampas, Bolivia

Turtle Heads
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

We arrived in Rurrenabaque, in the Amazon basin, following a swift but certainly memorable flight from La Paz. The 12 seater Cessna was definitely a better option than taking a 20 hour bus journey - part of which would have been down that good old "world´s most dangerous road" again.

The scenery was incredible as we began at 4000m in the cold, barren altiplano before passing over the snowy mountain peaks to then descend down into the tropical heat of the basin. Stunning changes in the landscape all in just over 1 hour!

As we came down to land we felt even more Indiana Jones, as the runway appeared before us....a strip of grass amongst the thick vegetation we had been flying over!

We did the rounds of various tour agencies and picked Fluvial for our 3 day Pampas (wetlands) adventure and 2 day jungle trip. So all set ready for some serious beast watching!

We have just finished the Pampas trip today, one night back in Rurrenabaque before we head into the jungle tomorrow morning.

The Pampas tour was fantastic - a great little group, brill guide, excellent camp and most importantly - loads of luck with the wildlife spotting! After a dusty and bumpy 3 hour jeep ride to the river we jumped aboard our little outboard powered dugout canoe and started cruising through the Pampas. Within minutes we were spotting aligators of all sizes, heaps of turtles (heaped on top of each other on random branches), masses of beautiful birds, capybaras (the largest rodents on earth - a bit of a cross between a guinea pig and wild boar! - quite cuddly looking), pink freshwater dolphins (although these were not quite so beautiful - looking more like waterborne Morlocks) and loads of tiny cheeky monkeys! At tea time we saw the best thing of all - two toucans come to visit us in the tree above the hammocks along with a couple of howler monkeys - this was the most beautiful sight.

A spot of anaconda hunting (rewarded with a 3 metre anaconda-cobra), pirranha line fishing (rewarded with enough for lunch!), night time aligator spotting, along with a couple of great sunsets and sunrises - all washed down with a few cheeky beers! Fantastic!

Off for a few beers now with the gang before heading out the the jungle in the morning!

P.S - notes for the phots coming soon!

25th August - World's Most Dangerous Road, Bolivia

Ready to roll!
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

Known as 'The World's Most Dangerous Road' due to the number of deaths per year, this is clearly the place to try a bit of mountain biking! It's actually quite a tourist thing to do but that doesn't stop you pooping your pants when you're flying down the single track dirt track, 1000m drop on one side and crazy trucks and buses weaving up and down!

The road starts at 4700m above sea level where it's bloody freezing! We shot off down about 22km of smooth new metalled road at speeds up to 55mph (well some of us did whilst others bimbled down quite nicely taking in the scenery between gulps of icy cold air!)

After the warm up we hit the official beginning of the dangerous bit - 44km of dirt track mosaiced with boulders, streams, dogs and children - and if this wasn't enough to keep us entnertained we had to avoid the knackered old trucks and buses laden with goods and/or people using the road for their daily business.

The ride was truly stunning (although you're not supposed to look at the view whilst riding as some monkey did this last week and cycled straight off the edge!) and we managed to descend the 3600m without any injuries (or indeed without needing to change underwear!). Pol went from bimbler to downhill mountain queen after she realised that trying to negotiate rocks at high speed with a full bladder doesn't do anything for the concentration!

A great day with a great bunch of people and superb guides (www.gravity bolivia.com if anybody wants to do it). In fact, the scariest part of the whole day was the bus ride back up the road!

Flying to Rurrenabaque tomorrow in the Bolivian Amazon to go and explore the jungle and Pampas in search of Aligators, Piranhas, Annacondas and other tropical beasts - wish us luck!

Oh yeah - 1 month exactly till we get home (and till Erika's birthday!)

Photos from Lake Titicaca

On top of the world
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

Pics from our time at Lake Titicaca in Peru & Bolivia.

22nd - 24th August - Copacabana, Bolivia

Copacabana is a great little place nestled on the edge of Lake Titicaca. Lots of brightly coloured buildings, funky eating and drinking holes and seagulls - but still quite different from Dartmouth!

We had a couple of days here pottering about - a great climb up a mountain to a Catholic shrine to the Virgin Mary, to have an even better view of the lake than we got at Puno and then a day walking around Isla del Sol which was even more stunning. The island is where the Incas believed the sun was created, so is an important pilgrimage site as well as tourist trip. The boat out to the island takes a couple of hours (although it doesn´t look very far away!) and the journey out was beautiful. The lake is immense and as I said before - so blue!!

The walk was fairly easy going after our Inca exploits before - although I can still tell there´s a lot less oxygen about!! The views of the lake and surrounding snowcapped mountains with bright blue sky were totally lush so we continued building our collection of stunning views that photos just don´t do justice to!!

We also checked out Daise and Steve´s mate´s bar - v. funky joint (Nemo´s) where we whiled away several plesant hours supping fine Bolivian lager. Unfortunately he was away while we were about so we are still yet to meet the illusive Jan the Man!

Moving on (although we could easily have spent more days chilling in Copacabana) we caught the bus today to La Paz. The journey is now part of our unusual bus rides category , not for being dropped off in the middle of nowhere, having mad locals stroking James' body hair, hideous local kareoke, sheer drop offs but for the fact we all had to pile off to allow the bus to be punted across Lake Titicaca on a few planks of wood while we were herded across in a very small, ancient boat with water gushing in through the sides! Not scary- just interesting!

Off to mountain bike down "the world's most dangerous road" tomorrow.......according to Daisy´s mate, Tammy, we are likely to pooh our pants! Bad luck James - just when you thought you were over those little mishaps!!

Photos from Arequipa & The Colca Canyon

The sun
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

Last days in Peru, sight seeing and then spotting the Condors at The Colca Canyon.

16th - 22nd August - Arequipa, The Colca Canyon & Puno, Peru

Arrived safe and sound in lovely sunny Arequipa by a wonderful bus service - even Berry´s Buses in Wincanton could learn a thing or too!! Major comfy, heaps of leg room, quality cheese films to watch all the way, bingo to win another bus ticket, a loo (that splashes up at you as you try hovering on the bumpy roads - not so lush), and a hot meal served just as we were getting peckish!! Couldn´t ask for more.....a part from the possible Peruvian belly bugs hiding in James nosh - or maybe it was our delicious supper in a lovely little place (panpipes and all) just off the Plaza des Armas.

Either way poor Jimbob missed out on 3 days, confined to our bed and the hostel loo. Poor wee lamb! Fortunately the hostel was really great & clean - so not a bad place to be holed up with the first trots of the trip!! - At last my bulk buy of Boots rehydration sachets have been of use!!!

A few days later and he began to risk farting - a sure sign he was better so we carried on with our plans!!

Arequipa is a beautiful city and was really lovely to potter around. We visited a monastery, where there are still about 30 nuns living, but in seperate quarters to where we could wonder about. It was fascinating and very beautiful. I decided that I would have been quite happy there in the 1600s!

The Colca Canyon, which is "bigger" than the Grand Canyon (actually just deeper not wider or longer!) is on the tourist trail from Arequipa. You can go and trek in and out but being short of time we plumped for the mad 'day' trip which actually means leaving at 3am and not getting back to 6pm. Knackering sitting in a minibus for about 12 of the 15 hours but well worth the achey botts!

The drive starts on road so we could drift off to sleep but by about 4:30am we were bouncing around tracks that were climbing higher and higher with incredible full moonlit landscapes bumbling by. In fact, it actually looked like we were on the moon in places with vast inhospitable rocky terrains spreading as far as we could see. As the sun rose, the moon was till pretty high and it really did feel like we were on some strange planet!

We passed a few settlements (one called prominent penis!) where life looks very simple but tough, and amazing Pre-Inca terracing spread across the mountains and the lowerlands. And there were of course the local ladies selling there handiwork - gloves, hats, ponchos, etc etc... and of course I obliged! Shopping opportunities in the most remote of places!

The main reason to travel to the canyon is the chance to see Condors. We had an hour sitting up on the rocks watching them cirling overhead and it was wonderful! Huge great things but so graceful, swooping very very close at times!! As with all the others there we snapped away for the full hour - getting some blurry blobs in the distance and some pretty lucky great ones too.

Early start the next day too to catch the bus to Puno, our last stop in Peru, where we got our first views of Lake Titicaca ready to cross the border into Bolivia. We just had the afternoon to stroll about the town so we climbed up to the main view point for the lake ( it´s so blue!) and we met a friendly dog who wouldn´t leave us alone. He then escorted us down the hill, throughout the rest of the town, chasing cars whenever it got the chance until we lost him by getting a cycle back to the hostel!

Photos from Machu Picchu, Peru

Made it!
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

Made it up there before the sun beat us to it after starting out at 5am and climbing over 500m. Lots of sweaty swedes!

14th August - Machu Picchu, Peru

A good hot shower and a comfy hotel bed was a perfect last night, ready for our last early start of the trek: climbing 500m to get up to Machu Picchu before the sun got there!

Up at 4:15am, breakfast at 4:30am (fortunately not mud!) and on the road shortly after 5am. Head torches led the way to the bottom of the mountain we had to climb, but as we hit the stone steps (vicious memories of Nepal haunting me) it gradually got lighter. The climb up was tough, even more so because of the race to beat the sun but when we got to the top it was fantastic.

The city is simply perched on the narrow ridge on top of the mountain, with incredible terracing creeping down the sheer sides. The construction of the buildings is so precise, with no mortar used in most places, just accurate inlocking, enormous, stones. And to think they built it where they did, how they did is quite mindblowing! Abandonned in the 16th century with quite a lot of mystery surrounding the reasons, it was fascinating to wander around.

Our final task of the trek was to go treasure hunting! Erika and Clayton had spent part of their honeymoon walking a similar trek and had left us some surprises carefully hidden amongst the ruins, along with clues, ready for a well earned "liquid refreshment"!

To start with we were thrown by a few red herrings and thought that we would never make effective treasure seeking pirates! We followed the clues and fumbling in nooks and crannies (trying not to draw attention to ourselves for risk of being whistled at by the guards protecting the ruins!) we came across things that we were sure were nothing to do with "liquid refreshment"..

..first a random note to someone's mum and a piece of amythyst, then a couple of bracelets - others were obviously using E&Cs not-so-secret hidey holes and we wondered if these pirates had pilfered our treasure whilst hiding there's!!

But the breakthrough came when we went back to the King's bedroom. We had previously spent ages looking for a particular numbered stone, ignoring it's actual location according to the clue. But amongst a crowd of French tourists I spotted our first piece of treasure nestled in the right location with the wrong number!! Hurrah - we now knew what we were fumbling for (a 1 Soles coin) in the other nooks and crannies and scampered back to the other spots! Before long we had found 3, but there are still 2 out there - maybe someone else got there first, or maybe we are not cut out to be pirates, but if any of you lot plan to visit we'll pass on the last 2 clues!

Photos from the Salkantay Trek

Salkantay Trek - 4600m: The Gang!
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

Just a few of the photos we took on our five day trek to Machu Picchu: snowy mountains, lack of oxygen, lush cloud forest, tropical fruits and a death defying truck journey...

10th - 14th August - Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu, Peru

An early start - 4:30am, swift breaky and then wait for our pickup.

We waited and waited. Eventually at 5:30am Jose (our guide) arrived having lost all his details of which hostel we were in! Still not sure how he found us!!

Wrapped up very warm we were wisked off in a taxi (wishing we'd had that extra hour in the land of nod), and were then dropped at a bus somewhere in Cusco. Herded onto the bus full of sleepy locals, we spotted the other couple we were due to trek with. Phew, we were in the right place at the right time!

There was a lot of shuffling about on the freezing bus and seats were found for us, while poor Jose (and other locals) had to squat on the floor for the bumpy three hour journey. I was squished in on the back seat amongst a family with heaps of small kids who curled up into my fleece as soon as I wedged my bottom in amongst them. They wasted no time going back to sleep so I joined them as much as possible, and they kept me pretty warm!!

Later we arrived at our start point; a pretty mountain village where our group grew to nine, as several other guides seemed to vanish! After the lengthly horse / mule negotiations (which we all had assumed would have been previously organised!) we were well on our way.

The group we were with were great - all from the States (a part from a Brazilian couple who live in Glasgow!) and they even instigated an "American Sterotypes" game! (We were then repaid with the Brit version!) Two of the couples were on their honeymoon, sadly the Brazilians had to return to Cusco shortly after starting out as one of them was sick but they met us on the last day for Machu Picchu. The others were young and very fit scampering up and down all the steep bits like little mountain goats!!

The views we had throughout the trek were just stunning. We started off at about 2700m where the hills rolled about us, gradually climbing to more typical mountain scenes with the snowy peaks looming ahead. After our exhausting climb on day 2 to 4600m we then began the descent into the beautiful cloud forests and on into the lush jungle areas with tropical fruits (passion fruit that you can't even get in Waitrose!!) and orchids to be spotted. It was amazing passing through so many different environments - and of course this meant different temperatures too! With freezing camping on the first night (2 degrees when we got up the next morning!) to burning sun during the days we needed thermals as well as shorts and t-shirts!

Day 2 was definitely the toughest - about 10-11 hours walking starting at 3700m, climbing (with someone punching my lungs with each step) to 4600m, then down again to 2700m. I learned quite quickly that I was not born to be at altitude unless I have a pair of skies strapped to my feet!!

The food was interesting!?! Lots of soup and lots of potatoes, along with random bits of meat - not ideally tasty but when you think of how hard the horses and the cooks had had to work we couldn't grumble...except for the mud porridge one morning - think they were seeing how far they could push us with that!! The coca tea (made with leaves from the plant used to make cocaine) was good though and so was the hot popcorn each night!

The trek wasn't all walking though - a few extras were thrown in just to scare us wet tourists sensless!

We took a 40 year old truck laden with passion fruit (yum) and locals at one point. This was fun in hindsight but at the time I don't think I have ever EVER been so scared in all my life! I just kept telling myself that I was sure the driver didn't want to die either as we bounced down the side of a mountain on a single dust track, negotiating hairpin bends with near vertical drops of hundreds of meters. Sadly we don't have many pictures as James didn't dare let go to get the camera out many times . And I'm sure our pictures or stories would never actually do the journey justice anyway!!

We also had the opportunity to wedge oursleves into a small shopping basket type contraption to cross a river on a zip wire! We could have tried swimming but we thought it best to risk the cables instead of being smashed against the river bolders as the water was moving pretty damn quick!!

65km of fantastic fun and exhaustion!!

Photos from Cusco, Peru

Roof tops
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

A few days acclimatising in beautiful Cusco before setting off on our trek to the lost Inca city, Machu Picchu.

8th - 9th August - Cusco, Peru

After the very unsociable flight times we had to arrange due to our balls-up with our Easter Island flights, we landed in sunny but chilly Cusco at 7am. A Peruvian pipe band greated us in the airport and our pickup was already waiting. (We had prebooked our first official hostel - all our other stays have been hotels but now things are pricier in S.America and we've been spending a lot on cameras we're hitting the budget traveller scene!)

So a swift journey through the pretty town and we arrived to our chilly, damp, windowless room. Great! Still, it had a bed and I was desperate for some sleep so wrapped up and curled up for a few hours shivery kip. James, meanwhile, decided he wanted fresh air so went off exploring and to collect the sticks Erika and Clayton had left for us. He came back a few hours later to wake me up and tell me it was scorching outside! Chilly room but roasting outside!! (But as soon as the sun set it got icy cold again - making our room even more chilly!)

We pottered about for the rest of the day and the next, getting used to the thin air (its about 3400m up there) and finalizing details for our trek. It really is a very beautiful city with stunning hills surrounding the pretty rooftops and whitewashed walls. We visited the Inca Museum to get a feel for what we were about to trek to and of course I made sure we had an obligatory visit to a market!

Scoffed some good tasty local nosh; mainly seems to be soup, with large potatoes followed by meat and rice, with large potatoes (apparently they have hundreds of potatoe varieties). Also pushed some terrible local nosh about a plate; mainly soup, with large potatoes followed by meat and rice, with large potatoes!

So, in order to stock up before the trek we went Western and had a great last supper in the world's highest Irish owned pub! Shepherds Pie and a huge juicy homemade cheeseburger and yum crispy chips!Philistines I know, but somehow we felt Guinea-Pig wouldn't be nourishing enough for 5 days on the road, and we were bored of potato soup!

Easter Island Photos!

A gert bigun
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

Hurrah!! Memory stick still Ok!! Phew!!

More from Santiago

Rush hour
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

Some more pics of Santiago thanks to our extra time back here waiting for our flight to Lima (and shopping for replacement cameras!!)

3rd - 6th August - Easter Island, Chile

Well we regret not buying an underwater housing unit for our camera even more now!

Not because we went diving again or anything which meant we would use it for its proper purpose but because I am a clumsy oaf and need one for daily use.

7 months away and 2 cameras down - this is turning into bit of a habit and an expensive trip!!

My downfall didn´t involve holey sandwich bags and kayaks (as did James´ Fiji efforts) but merely the mother of all downpours, clinging onto the back of a quad at 60km per hour and not having my superdooper-paclite-Goretex-protects-you-in-all-weather zip done up properly......bugger!!

....so we missed our flight, buggered the camera and had quad puncture on the top of a mountain 20km from civilisation.....Unlucky Geoff clearly passed the genes onto me!!

Despite this we had a fantastic time and it was worth the temporary hassles - James says it was possibly one of his fave places!

Roaming about on our quad, on this pretty much deserted island in the sun (and rain!) was wonderful. The huge stone swedes we had gone to see are simply enormous and look amazing (almost eerie) scattered around the shores of the island. Most of the heads around the coastline have all been toppled and destroyed when the people began to war amongst themselves years and years ago.

The quarry where they were originally carved was an incredible sight with so many heads left standing, still waiting to be taken to their final resting places. How they actually carved them and transported them is still a mystery, although many archeologists have their own conflicting ideas.

We´re waiting with fingers and toes crossed that the memory stick hasn´t gone to the great memory stick place in the sky and that we´ll be able to salvage our pics! We´re trawling Santiago now for a new camera (for one of us to destroy, somehow involving water no doubt!) ready for our flights to Lima then Cuzco, where we start our trek to Macchu Picchu on the 10th (at 4:30am - ugh!)

29th - *3RD* July - Santiago & El Colorado, Chile

Well, we´re still here!! Bugger!! Although I can think of worse places to be stuck!!

As I write this we were supposed to be landing in Easter Island! Duh uh! We missed our flight! Our fault - unless the Sleeping Fairies in the bedroom actually turned off or muted our alarm on purpose!

Anyway we´ve had heaps of fun here so I´ll start at the beginning!

Arrived and it is bloody chilly in Chile - but it´s a refreshing change from the sweat-fest of South East Asia! We were super efficient on day one here, straight to the tourist office to plan and book our ski trip and suss out other touristy things to do in Santiago itself. During the evening we strolled out to Bellavista, one of the nightspot areas, and enjoyed strolling round peering into the bustlng warm bars and restaurants. Of course we were obliged to partake in the Friday night festivities and first found a place with yummy Pisco Sours (bit like a Caipirinia - good start to the evening!), then a good warm place for good grub and then a heaving little smokey place with great live musicos and cervezas! Hit the pillow at about 3am - then rudely woken at 3pm by the hotel staff wanting to clean our room! Either too many beers or jet lag - we had managed to gain a whole day at funny times when we left NZ!

With our late start we didn´t manage to do much the next day, but we did do a quick city stroll and headed up to the Santa Lucia Park which overlooks the city for the evening lights. We´ve noticed that Santiago is Snogsville! Everywhere you look people are snogging!! Romanticos Romanticos - providing they´re snogging who they should be of course!!

On Sunday (our anniversary - crikey - a whole year!!) we headed up into the snowy mountains for our anniversay treat! I was pretty nervous about the whole skiing biz as it´s been a long time for me and I really didn´t want to do any damage - but I was so chuffed as I pootled around with no trouble at all!! Avoriaz here I come!! The snow was perfect - completly flat pistes with lovely fluffy stuff on the surface and plenty of good runs to get confident on!! Hurrrahhh!! Bit chilly in Chile and James had to wait around a bit for me but luckily I had my Nepal mountain hat and my pink stripey one for him to look pretty in!

Our chalet was wonderful! We were really lucky as there was not much available anywhere, as it´s mid-season here, so Lady Luck was defo on our side. It´s really small place where they prepare your nosh included in the price, a lovely lucious roaring fireplace surrounded by sofas and a fantastic mountain view form the dinning room. The people there were lovely. And when James told them it was our anniversary they spoiled us with lovely extra treats! The evening meal was totally lush...delish Bet...TLD....toe curling in glee stuff and merrily washed down with a scrummy bottle of Chilean red - of course! Really one of the best meals ever!!

The next day we were due to ski but there were massive wind storms so all the lifts were closed, still snoozing in front of the fire with Harry Potter wasn´t exactly disappointing!!

Now to today........flight departs 8:40am!

7:50am - James bolts upright swears loudly.
7:50 something - we are racing down the hotel stairs and grab a cab
7:50 somethingabitmore - the cab driver understands my "aeropueto rapido por favor" and we begin weaving in and out of the morning traffic
8:05ish - he says something about his speedo and his bleeping meter, somehow we understand that he needs to turn the meter off to break the speed limit for us - si si beuno beuno gracias muchos gracias!!
8:15 - I´m racing through the airport towards a desk where the nice man grabs our tickets & passports and urgently calls others over on walkie talkies. I yell and wave to James who comes steaming up with our bags and we think its all going to be alright.....but no! No possible! Hence us back here catching up on blog and not exploring the huge swedes of Easter Island!

Fortunately we´ve been able to alter our next flights between here, Lima and Cuzco and will make it out tomorrow....if we get up in time!

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary!
Originally uploaded by Polly and James.

Using our unexpected time in Santiago wisely we´ved put up some more phots...

NB - we´re checking out this new photo site called www.flickr.com recommended by Dunstan - cheers mate!

25th - 29th July - New Zealand

We arrived at Erika, Clayton and Robyn´s new pad on Monday night and were greated with a yummy sups of good old Kiwi Fush and Chups. It was really lovely to catch up on all the news, hear the exciting plans for their lush new home and get some top tips for our forthcoming trip to Peru.

Tuesday was spent pottering around Tauranga and The Mount - before a good curry and the 150th Jam Night at The Mount Mellick. It was great having been there before as it felt really homely being back and seeing lots of their mates again.

Wednesday was our hard core adventure day! Deep sea fishing out near Mayor Island. The boat left at 7am but an early start meant we had amazing views of the Mount as the sun rose and a pod of dolphins pottered by as we boarded the boat! Totally lush!

Unfortunately it didn´t take long for the smile on my face to change to a rather uncomfortable grimace. Clayton joined me in the wobbly tum club but I was the only one to try tempting the fish with three great chunders over the side. Of course I maintained a thoroughly ladylike disposition throughout, chatting with the old boys and sharing their crystalised ginger - it was just the chunks in my hair and the vocals that gave me away! Nice.

Still, it was a really brilliant day! We all managed to catch a few goodies to take home for the pan and Bags the puss - although we decided to leave Erika´s gooey Slippery Eel behind!

That night we were back at The Mellick for the quiz - our world travelling has obviously paid off as we did much better than our past efforts. It´s just a bit concerning that we were rubbish at the geography section yet top notch for the food and drink round! Funny that!?

Thursday was spent chilling, doing odd jobs and a lovely walk around the beach. Annie cooked up our catch of the day for the evening. And yummy it was too!! Definitely tastes better when you´ve caught it yourselves!!

Friday came around too soon. We had such a lovely time with the NZ crew again and it was very hard to leave. After a lush stroll round The Mount with Erika (and an unexpected seal!), our shuttle for the airport was waiting and we had to head on towards the next stage of our round the world jaunt.

South America - the homeward stretch! Which is exciting too!!

Photos from us back in New Zealand

Relaxing
Originally uploaded by >Polly and James.

Having a bit of unexpected time in Santiago we´ve uploaded some photos from our visit to Erika and Clayton.

NB - we´re checking out this new photo site called www.flickr.com recommended by Dunstan - cheers mate!

20th - 25th July - Sydney, Australia

We arrived in Sydney to be met by Lou (an old Colindale mate) and Chris who moved out to the good life two and half years ago. It was great to see them again and share all the goss over several glasses of wine! By chance we timed our flights in and out of Syndey amazingly - it was Lou´s 30th birthday the day we arrived ( a good excuse for a posh nosh and swanky cocktails in the Shangri-La overlooking the harbour) and they had a weekend booked in the Blue Mountains for more birthday celebrations which we were invited to join!

We ticked most boxes on the Sydney Tourist Trail; the Opera House where Leighton Hewitt and Rebecca Cartwright (pretty one from Home & Away) were getting married (although James misheard one of the papparazzi guys and thought he´d said Matt Cartwright so not thinking there´d be a pretty dress to see we didn´t hang around!), the Botanical Gardens, Hyde Park, posh shops and Bondi Beach (where Lou is Baywatch sylee lifeguard). After a day or so doing the sights - and civilised afterwork drinkies of fine wine and nibbles overlooking the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge - we headed to the Blue Mountains for the birthday bash and Christmas Dinner in July!

The chalet Lou had booked was stunning!! A huge new place nestled in the forest - perfect for the ten mates originally going and two pikely travellers kipping in the pool room!

The Blue Mountains are beautiful - huge landscapes of forested valleys with great steep escarments - ´blue´because of the bluey hue as far as you can see given off by the Eucalyptus trees. The boys went for a hearty walk (which James says was pretty knee trembling in places but beautiful) while us girlies did more ladylike things like window shopping in the pretty shops (some dedicated to Christmas goodies) and having tea and cake!

Later on Saturday evening we had a mass preparation for the Christmas feast followed by a 1930s Murder Mystery. As we´d forgotten to pack our fancy dress gear in our backpacks we were lucky that Lou had raided her school costume cupboard. After greasing the hair with masses of conditioner, application of plenty of eye liner (for boys and girlies) and donning our costume cupboard goodies we were all in role and set for a jolly good bash with jolly good chums - what´ho!!

As the pics show we had a great time with all Lou & Chris´ lovely mates and even James cremating my dates in bacon didn´t spoil the fun!!

On the Sunday we had a good stroll through the bush to clear the cobwebs and then headed to a picnic area to scoff the remainder of the cheese and chicken. We were greated by a huge flock of Cockatoos (which look pretty but sound just like crows), who took a fancy to our leftovers. Luckily they weren´t Kookaburas as Lou has told us how determined they can be when you have a good looking picnic on offer - although the boys didn´t believe a word of it!! And we saw our first wild kangaroos!! Lush!!

Back at Lou and Chris´lush flat we scoffed more cheese and wine (lush!) and loafed on the lush sofas. (Thank you for having us - it was lush!)

!! More Ozzy Phots !!

Hello all!!

Sadly our time is up in Australia but we've stuck up a few more photos from our final weekend celebrating Louise's 30th birthday out in the Blue Mountains. Cheers Louise and Chris - we've had a wonderful time!

Click Bertie to see the pics!

14th -20th July - North Queensland, Australia

I categorically retract any comments I have ever made about not being very interested in visiting Australia! - we've had a fantastic, if short, time here.

Within in a couple of hours of landing in the refreshing climate of Cairns we were trundling up the stunning Captain Cook Highway coast road towards Cape Tribuation. A very sparsely populated area marked by the crocodile infested Daintree River, the far north of Queensland is one of the few places in the world where tropical rainforest comes right down to meet the sea. Crossing the ferry over the Daintree we read large signs telling us to beware of the salt water crocs that live in the creeks, water holes and even the open sea around the area. Luckily or unluckily, depending on your point of view, we didn't see any of these prehistoric carnivores in the wild - although I'm sure we were were watched by one or two!

Our first wildlife spot came completely by chance as we wandered down a pathway to our beach hut in the middle of rainforest at Cape Tribulation. Pol heard a rustling to her right - now bear in mind that we were on high alert for salties, snakes, spiders and any other dangerous creatures we could think of! - and there in amongst the thick trees and vines was a fully grown Cassowary forraging for lunch! It was only later that we found out how lucky we had been to see one - and also that we hadn't tried to get too close as they can rip you open with their claws!!

The beach hut at Cape Tribulation was lush! - and the scenery even better. We have never seen a sea so flat and blue - it was almost mill pondy - all the better for spotting any prying saltie eyes or nostrils floating towards us! The place was deserted too so we could stroll along the huge open beaches in complete peace. Walking up into the bush again we quickly got used to the thought that we were surrounded by snakes and spiders until Pol stopped in her tracks and pointed up a tree shrieking "baby crocodile!, baby croc!" - luckily it was just a lace monitor lizard coming down for a feed!.

The following day we headed back down to Cairns to get ready for our 3 day Live Aboard dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Despite planning it for ages we had waited till we got to Cairns to book up the trip - a good wheeze as we saved a couple of hundred dollars in the process! After an evening out in Cairns we got our heads down ready to wake up at some unsociable hour of the morning to meet our dive pick up.

It was still dark as we stumbled into the minibus and met up at the Pro-Dive shop in Cairns to be fitted up with wetsuits and the rest of the paraphenalia! By about 7 we were on the boat heading out to sea and munching breakfast. At first the sea was lovely and flat but as soon as we got beyond the headland the swell started and a fair few faces started to turn green! It took about 3 hours to get to the outer reef where we moored up in much calmer waters for our first dive.

....Mine was one of the green faces (Pol here now)!

We were really lucky on our way out to the reef as we watched about five Humpback Whales larking about for ages. Absolutely amazing!!

The diving was wonderful - not as brightly coloured as Fiji (how spoiled to I sound?!) but the waters were filled with massive bommies (huge tall and wide coral areas) and heaps of fantastic living things to watch amble or zoom by....turtles, nemos, cuttlefish, huge bumphead parrot fish and Maori wrasse and lazy sharks loafing on the sandy bottom.

We did our first unguided dive too. It was certainly an interesting experience to add to our repertoire....picture this.... an animated stroppy Pol engaging in a full on one-sided argument of newly designed scuba hand signals, random gesticulations and who knows what being said into my regulator! Poor James - all he´d done was swim off at full pelt without me so that by the time I´d caught up I´d used most of my air and was sweating like I had been in South East Asia. He soon understood my frantic gestures and since then we´ve been excellent underwater buddies!!

We also did two night dives - something I never thought would appeal - and strangely it still doesn´t that much - although with a little mental discipline I did manage to dispell the images of gigantic toothy creatures looming into view in our piddly little stream of torch light. I kept telling myself they wouldn´t be sending us down in the dark if things really did find you more tasty when you can´t see them coming. Nevertheless, it was worth the adrenaline and I may be tempted to do it again sometime. But with Steve´s Big Bertha (a mother of a torch for those who haven´t met her!)

After dithering about whether to splash out on underwater housing for our camera we regretted not getting one! We borrowed the gear from the dive boat (at huge expense) for two of the dives and were amazed at the quality of the pics. Defo wish we´d had one for all the dives as I loved taking off in hot pursuit of the turtles and lying in wait for the nemos. But all my skills were lost with concentration on the camera and I found myself bobbing about like a cork most of the time so I need more practice with the camera. Quel domage - will just have to plan another diving holiday!

To top things off the food was totally lush too!! All in all another fab adventure marked with rubbing our tummies-like-drums and curling our toes with glee at the end of each day!!

Once back on dry land we phoned home (for the first time since we left - mush mush!) to wish the birthday girls a belated good one and it was lush to have a natter again!!