Surprise stop, Uruguay

Having had our fill of overnight buses we cheated and took a flight from El Calafate to Montevideo in Uruguay. Uruguay had not been in our plans but it sounded fun! Uruguay, we discovered thanks to our lovely taxi driver from the airport, is the same size as Wales with the same population size, so Ed felt right at home!

Gluten free meal on plane=rice cakes and for desert? more ricecakes!

We spent ten fun days soaking up the sites of the capital city Montevideo with its fabulous Gaucho museum, went on to the beautiful Punta Del Diablo which being out of season was like a ghost town! Thanks to Wedding Gift no.19 and Kate, Nigel and Lyra and the Bridesmaids we upgraded our room to a sea view and it was fabulous, waking up to see the waves. We ate well and drank well and soaked up our last beach time on the trip. Next beaches will be beautiful Pembrokeshire and Dorset coast-just as gorgeous but not nearly as warm!

hmmmm yum, Parilla!

Lapping up the sunshine and sand dunes

Beautiful sea view, thanks to the Smiths and Bridesmaids x

We then decided to travel through Uruguay back to Argentina rather than get back to BA so it was an eight hour coach up to Salta for Ed’s birthday. By this time we were quite accustomed to the local specialities of Chivito (ED) a breaded steak sandwich and Medio y Medio (SARAH) a half and half mix of sparkling white and white wine, not the most sophisticated of drinks having sampled Argentine Torrontes, NZ Savignon Blanc and Ozzie Chardonnay over the last few months but it became my guilty pleasure, not least because they only sell it by the bottle and Ed refused to drink it ; )
So, Ed’s birthday came around and I took him off to the local thermal pools, a kind of centre parks of a place with dozens of pools all different temperatures. It was a fun and relaxing day out, being a Sunday it was full of locals and being Uruguay and a fairly random spot in Uruguay we only saw one other tourist! It was a giggle of a day. Happy Birthday hubby!

South America, the last leg of the trip

An eleven hour flight took us to Santiago de Chile. We hadn’t read up much so didn’t know what to expect but we’d booked into a hostel in a nice area of town for two nights. Only problem was I’d managed to forget that Chile is behind NZ by about a day so while we may have left on the evening of the 31st, this did not mean that we would arrive on the 1st of course it meant we arrived on the 31st! Unfortunately I only realised this on the plane so there wasn’t a lot I could do about it and unfortunately for Ed it wasn’t an April Fools.
Luckily for us the hostel had a space so they changed the rooms around and we were all sorted. No one speaks English here so we are getting by on my pidgin Spanish. Having not slept at all on the flight - can anyone sleep in economy?? We grabbed a couple of hours to feel more human and then just went to a local restaurant for a local dinner – Mexican-local ish??

Day two we explored the city centre and a couple of their museums. The weather here is really lovely, we had anticipated cold and were prepped with jumpers and rain jackets but in Santiago I mostly wore dresses and Ed shorts, it was a nice surprise to be basking in some sunshine.
Santiago is a pretty nice city, very nice in comparison to many South American capitals. We discovered a super cool area stuffed with bars and restaurants that night and had a fun time trying out the national cocktail ‘Pisco Sour’ and local beef.

Steak, Chile style

After another chilled out day in Santiago we grabbed our first bus of this leg to Argentina. Buses in Argie are SO much better than Thai buses, comfy seats, food and drink included and most importantly, films! A very twisty windy route took us up and around the Andes that separate Chile from Argentina and we crossed the border into the Fatherland. On arrival into Mendoza-the wine capital of South America-we strolled to our hostel with our bags on our back, problem was we arrived at a very swanky looking hotel. Turns out there is a Hostel International (where we booked into) and a Hotel International (where we currently stood) we wandered in just in case we hadn’t made a mistake but on the Concierge’s demands of a voucher and a slight grimace at our rucksacked selves we realised we were in the wrong spot. Half an hour more of walking in the warm midday sun led us to our hostel, the correct one. It’s never a good sign, we have decided, if your hostel is painted a ridiculous bright colour. This Orange monstrosity was clean enough but full of really young ‘travellers’ that don’t seem to travel the world just travel the worlds hostels, hanging out in the communal areas all the time and playing on Facebook!

Anyhow, Mendoza is a really nice city and was a great introduction to Argentina, we scoped out town and booked ourselves into a wine tour. There were budget ones we could do on a bike but we chose a more expensive one that took you to further away vineyards in a comfortable bus. The guys on our tour were lovely, a couple of grandparents from America, a young swiss couple, us and a gal from San Francisco. We had a really good day and an excellent long 5 course lunch with matching wines thanks to Wedding gift number 15 thanks to the gorgeous bridesmaids and also Nathan, Mari and Isabel. It was great to try some delicious Malbecs and the speciality here of Torrontes- a really beautiful white wine. At one of the vineyards we were lucky enough to see them working with the grapes as it is harvest time, handpicking out the bad grapes and bugs before it all goes into a machine to get rid of the stems. Having got somewhat squiffy at the New Zealand tour I tried to pace myself a little more in Mendoza and it worked, I just loved all the wines ; ) We have researched how many bottles you can bring back to the UK so if we are staying with you while homeless in the UK you may be lucky enough to try some. Assuming I don’t quaff it all!

Yey, arrival into Argentina!


Ed does some beer tasting in Mendoza!

Don't worry they were 'taster' size glasses!

Steak, Argie style- it must have been at least 2 inches thick.

Needless to say I couldn't manage it all

Wine tour with snow covered Andes just behind us. Big thanks to Meli, Zoe, Hannah, Nathan, Mari and Isabel xx

'Tropical' Queensland

Queensland passed by in a week or so of rain and exotic daytrips. We squeezed in some surfing and beach spotting along the way too.

Fraser Island (Wedding gift no. 6) was great fun, Ed enjoyed racing around on the sand and the interior of the island in a huge 4 wheel drive. Next up was the gorgeous Whitsundays trip which unfortunately most of the images from that trip are on cameras we cant hook up to the computer. But suffice to say the sand was brilliant white and the sea beautiful shades of blue. Massive thanks to brother Nick and Godfather Ian Morrison for the very generous wedding gift (No.7)

We then headed up to Cairns for Wedding Gift No. 8, thanks to Lindsay and David, Toby, Ginia and the boys, Rowie and the Bridesmaids, - Barrier Reef trip. The journey to Cairns (7+hours drive) was mostly a wet one, with nearly constant rain and this pretty much was our weather for the following 5 days.
We saw some of the affects of the Cyclone, mostly trees and forests flattened but there was one village we passed where houses had been particularly wrecked by Yasi it was pretty heart breaking but amazing that no one got hurt from it.

Rainy season in Northern Tropical Queensland is really bloody wet! We took ourselves off to the cinema one day just to escape the noise of the rain on the camper roof!
We nearly didn’t do the reef what with the weather being so awful and for fear of bad ferry trips but we are so glad we did, it was the most amazing snorkelling we have both seen from the gazillion fish we saw to the amazing corals-absolutely fantastic and one of the best things I have ever done.

Next stop is New Zealand, starting with Auckland before heading up to the Bay of Islands...
We are excited to visit a new country.

Probably Ed's highight- a visit to the Bundaberg Rum Factory, needless to say I drove for the rest of the afternoon!

Fraser Island


Yey, some awesome fishes!