Si and Liz's Around the World Trip

Hello from Peru!

We have been a bit slack with this, apologies but this travelling is too much fun. I´ll fill you in with the main highlights as otherwise I would be here for days. Walking on the Fox glacier was hard work but well worth it! We wore crampons and climbed down through holes in the ice and spent about 4 hours on the ice!

The next highlight was quad biking in Taupo which was great fun and muddy. Seeing the geysers and mud pools were another highligs in Rotorua. We stayed with my)Liz´s) second cousin and wife in Hamilton next on the north island which was lovely and great to have a shower in a warm room with under floor heating!

We went quad biking again, this time on the beach towerds the top of the north island where the weather was much warmer, great fun! On the whole New Zealand was great, the scenery was amazing and the people were lovely.

We flew from Auckland to Santiago, Chile on monday the 15th so have been in south america for a week now. Santiago wasn´t anything special, a huge grey concorete city with smog, as far as we saw. Then after 3 days we flew to Lima, Peru, which was much nicer. We stayed in the nice part, which had a park and cafes round the square. Here we went on an open top bus tour of the old part of the city and around the main large church and catacombes. This was very interesting if a little spooky down with the piles of bones! We were still suffering with jet lag here as the time difference was 10 hours backwards from NZ, which stopped us being very productive here. But we did have some lovely meals and got used to the south american culture.

We are now in Arequipa, which is at 3000 metres altitude. We got the overnight bus here for 15 hours and decided to go VIP in the hope of getting some sleep. This gave us large leather seats which reclined almost all the way. We were given a free meal when we got on, watched a film and played bingo in spanish. It was good for testing us on our numbers buut we didn´t really want to win as the prize was a ticket back to Lima, where we had just left!

We seem to be ok with the altitude so far although have been walking a bit slower than usual. Yesterday we had a walk round the city here and went to the old convent which was used from the 1600´s to early 1900´s and then was closed and shrouded in mystery. It was opened to the public in the 1970´s, and was very interesting to look round. We also signed up to do a few basic spanish lessons, the first of which was this afternoon. It was good though started off a little difficult as the lady spoke in spanish all the time. Eventually she realised that we really don´t know much spanish and explained in english. we are staying here for a few more days with 2 more lessons then off to one of the deepest canyons in the world, Colca canyon, for a few days.

Adios amigos for now. Will try to write again before going back to england.

Love Liz and Si x x

Greetings from NZ,

We have been in New Zealand now for about 2.5 weeks and so far it has been absoultely amazing! The scenery here is the best we have ever seen and travelling between places is a challenge to actually get there due to stopping so many times to take photos of stunning scenery. Anywho I will give u an update of our travels since the last blog.

From Arilie beach we went to the Whitsunday Island (photos are loaded) which were really beautiful and very paradise like. We took a boat trip for the day and saw 3 islands, did some snorkelling among the fish and (unfortunately) the deadly box jellyfish! Once we saw a couple of these we were straight out of the water as despite wearing a stinger suit (effectively a lycra suit) 1 sting from one of these small jellyfish on bear skin and we could be dead within minutes...so we thought best to get back on dry land. We also did a glass bottom boat to see the coral and a few hours on Whitehaven beach which is rated in the top 5 beaches in the world...and it really was!

From here we then headed up to Cairns where we caught up with my friend from junior badminton who we bumped into in Sydney and had a night out and did white water rafting before we caught the next flight of our round the world trip to New Zealand.

We then arrived in New Zealand on 4th May where we spent 4 days in the capital of Wellington. This is a lovely city with a good museum on NZ history and lots of architecture to look at from the late 1800's when NZ was founded by Captain Cook. From here we headed to Christchurch on a 30 minute flight for the bargain price of $60 which is cheaper than the 3 hours ferry and 6 hour bus connection.

Christchurch is a beautiful city with a very English feel. They have a college called Christs College which is a carbon copy of King college is Cambridge...except no way near as impressive, naturally. Christchurch was supposed to be the "better Britain" when it was built with churches instead of pubs being built and I think it definitely achieved that and still retains this (despite having numerous pubs these days!). we spent a day here and then picked up Happy the campervan which we have for 35 days! He is a Toyota Hiace van with an additional bit added on top so we can stand up (as per the photos)...and he is fantastic!

From Christchurch we drove for 2 hours, which actually took 4.5 hours due to us stopping numerous times due to the fantastic scenery causing us to need to take a photo! Here we camped in a random campsite for free with no heating and proceeded to cook a chicken stirfry in the van then go to bed fully dressed as it turns out it is pretty cold up in the mountains of New Zealand. We woke up after not much sleep, the condensation on the windows frozen and icicles dripping from the tap...but once we opened the door and saw the view of the mountains it was all worth while, it was breathtaking!

From here we made our way south for 3 hours to Lake tekapo which is the second largest lake in New Zealand. We then made our way up Mount John which is a mountain in the middle of the valley next to the lake and afforded fantastic views of the mountains which surrouneded us for 360 degrees. After a murky start the weather cleared into brilliant (but cold) clear blue skies and we had some fantastic views of the surrounding mountains. This is one of our highlights so far and really shows off New Zealand's scenery which we cannot stress how fantastic it is (and obviousy much better in real life).

We then made our way to Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ which was very impressive, and on to the Scottish founded city of Dunedin. This was a brilliant city with an excellent vibe but cities tend to be a bit of a pain with a big campervan as hard to negotiate the traffic and parking so we only stayed for a couple of days then made our way to Lake Te Anau, on the west coast.

This was a jumping off point for the stunning Milford Sounds (which are actually fiords) on the West Coast of South Island New Zealand and from here we took a boat trip. The mountains around here were extremely impressive as they come straight up from the water and rise 1600m above sea level with another 300m below the surface of the sea. This meant very calm waters and fantastic views...a great day out!

From here it was up to Queenstown which was named due to it being a town fit for a Queen and it's the party town of the south island and where bungy jumping was invented so apparently you just HAVE to do it...Liz and I haven't and don't intend to! But nevertheless I'm sure it's great fun if you enjoy throwing yourself off bridges.

From Queenstown we're heading to Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph Glacier then north towards the north island where hopefully it might be a bit warmer...but i very much doubt it.

Hope all is good back in the UK and your weather is getting nice and warm...if only it was that way on the other side of the world!

Love Si and Liz x x x

Greetings from Downunder,

We are currently nearing the end of our Australia adventures and are thus rather far up the coast in Airlie Beach which is the hopping off point for the paradise islands of the Whitsundays. We have been very busy since our last post and will try and squeeze it all in here without boring you too much!

We spent 3 days in Byron Bay after the previous post, which is a beautiful seaside town. We visited the most easterly point in Australia here....and then it rained and didn't stop for 3 days! So we whiled away the time any way we could and eventually just went for it and went to the beach in the rain which was great fun.

From Byron we headed north to Surfers Paradise where we very randonmly bumped into a friend from Uni called Simon who Liz and I played badminton with who is living and working there. We spent 5 days in Surfers Paradise (which ironically is one of the worst places for surfing in Oz as the surf is too rough with dangerous rips and dirty water) and Simon showed us the sights and sounds of Surfers and also took us on a drive to some rock pools further inland. This was a brilliant afternoon out (as we got driven and didn't have to think for once) and Simon entertained us with various rock jumping and waterfall sliding which Liz and I both declined offers to participate in. Simon also took us on a night out with his friends in Surfers too which was great fun and I learnt it was a huge error to mistake a Canadian for an American.

After a nice and entertaining 5 days in Surfers we then headed north to Brisbane over Easter weekend. Easter weekend proved a right pain as absolutely every hostel on the Gold Coast seemed to be full so we were stuck in the worst hostel in Australia which had bed bugs! However there was absolutely nothing we could do as there were no other beds available anywhere so we had to grin and bear it and get out after Easter weekend. All that aside Brisbane is a nice city and everybody very friendly with the highlight being a trip to a wildlife sanctuary where we stroked Koalas, hand fed kangaroos

and saw birds of prey, Lorikeets, Tasmanian Devils, Dingoes, Wombats and any other Aussie wildlife you can imagine which was a brilliant day out.

From Brisbane we went north to Noosa Heads which we both loved. It is a quiet beach town which is really rather posh with various celebrities owning houses over here and brilliant surf. We only spent 1 full day here though as we were in need of getting to Fraser Island pretty quickly. It has a brilliant national park right on the coast which we did a walk around for a few hours and watched the impressive waves and local wildlife.

From Noosa it was on north to Hervey Bay which is the jumping point to Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world...this is where the fun begins! After spending a couple of days waiting to get on a tour we commenced our trip on Friday 17th April. Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world created by longshore drift over millions of years and reputedly has more sand the the Sahara desert! As a result it means there are no roads as obviously everything is sand so the only way to get about is 4x4. We did a self drive tour where a hostel gets 9 backpackers and sticks them in the back of a huge 4x4, takes an imprint of a credit card, gives them the keys and a rough itinerary and away you go. Altogether there were 27 of us as there were 3 4x4s in our group (all bright pink).

Naturally having no 4x4 experience previously I wanted a go to see how hard/fun it was and I wasn't disappointed. I got my first go at driving once Jim had tackled the inland tracks on the beach. This I thought would be pretty easy as the sand is pretty hard and smooth but 2 minutes in I hear shouts from the back that a plane is trying to land on the beach and I look up and see a light aircraft about 10 metres above the ground coming straight at us! A quick manouvre later and I had pulled up at the side of the beach just in time for the aircraft to touch down where we were just driving... not something I've encountered before it has to be said! From then on I thought it would be pretty plain sailing along the hard sand but then the rocks loomed in the distant and I had to pick my way around/over the rocks in a 4x4 with no clue as to how much the car could handle. This is a video of me doing the rocks in reverse

. We then went to lake wabby and swam with the cat fish and drove up the beach some more to our camp site which was a lonely stretch of beach and put up our tents we had in the vans.

The next day after a pretty rubbish sleep we headed further north to go to Indian Heads, a lookout point but unfortunately we were unable to get through as the beach had been closed due to a horrendous accident where 10 minutes earlier another backpacker 4x4 had rolled while trying to dodge a wave and flipped over for 50 metres. It left 2 dead (1 Brit 1 Italian), 2 paralysed and the other 7 seriously injured! This really shocked us and made us realise just how unsafe what we were doing was as they were doing exactly the same thing as us, not being stupid or anything but just sheer inexperience of driving on sand caused this tragic accident. After that we took it very cautiously and tried not to let it affect us too much, although it appeared everybody we ran into were talking about it and we chatted to a few backpackers who had to help pick up the pieces, not nice.

We then went to the Maheno shipwreck which got blown ashore in a huge storm in the 30's and has lay there being pounded by the waves ever since, very spooky and onto Eli creek and then to set up camp. Another night of fun, frolics, dingoes stealing our rubbish and harrassing us in the night, rain and no sleep, we packed up camp and drove south to Lake Mackenzie. This is another lake perched on dead twigs and leaves from the rainforest (as normally no lake would exist as it would simply soak into the sand) and was really beautiful. Crystal clear blue waters and so refreshing to jump in. We spent the afternoon here and then drove the very bumpy inland tracks back to the boat to get back to the mainland. We had a fantastic time on fraser and met some brilliant people who were mostly in our car including 3 German guys (who were hilarious), a German girl, 2 other Brits from Halifax and an American (Jim).

After our fantastic 3 days we caught the bus north to Agnes water / Town of 1770 (the same place with a rather long name) and enjoyed 4 days of relaxing on the beach and enjoying the laid back atmosphere of this sleepy town. The hostel we stayed in called Cool Bananas was fantastic and they did a meal every night for $5 (2 pound 50) which is as cheap as buying the ingredients ourselves and cooking them (as Australia is very expensive for groceries etc) so we ate here every night. We also did a ride on a chopper bike which is a smaller version of a Harley Davidson which was fantastic fun and saw us in a line of 30 other bikers going 80km/h (or at least I was, Liz stuck to 60km/h as a maximum) for 3 hours seeing wild kangaroos on the way and stopping for sunset over the sea with potato wedges and a coke with everyone else, brilliant afternoon out.

From Agnes Water we then did an overnight bus for 10 hours north to Airlie Beach which is where we are now waiting to sail to the Whitsunday islands and see the paradise this has to offer. Liz went here when she was a kid and has said how good she remembered Daydream island being on Christmas Day when she was 6 so we are going to visit here again and see how much it has changed from 17 years ago.

That's all for now, the next update will probably be in our campervan in New Zealand.

Lots of love

simon and Liz x

Goodday Mate,

Greetings from down under. We have been in Aus for a week and a half now and are loving it. We flew to Sydney from Singapore on the Sunday and Stayed with Liz's friend Amanda and her house mate Zanna there. Liz met Amanda when living here at the age of 6 and has managed to keep in touch since. We had a comfy sofa bed and it was brilliant to be able to use a washing machine, watch TV and just has a house to call home for a few days rather than a hostel room and an uncomfortable communcal area! We can't thank them enough and it made our Sydney trip even better.

On the Monday we went to Circular Quay where the harbour bridge and Opera house are and it was stunning, just like you see in the pics but better! The weather was a perfect 27 degrees with a cool breeze too. We had a walk up the South East pylon of the bridge to see the views of the harbour which had fantastic views

We then headed to a revolving restaurant on the 41st floor of a Sydney sky scraper in the evening with Amanda and Zanna which again had brilliant views, just a shame that "thongs" (or flip flops to you and me) weren't allowed in after 6 due to a strict dress code and as Liz and I had "thongs" on we had to leave at 6...wouldn't want to offend anyone with our travellers attire. We then headed out to Kings Cross which is the party area of Sydney for a few drinks later and saw the sights and sounds of Sydney's night life.

We explored Darling Harbour on Tuesday and Amanda very kindly offered to take us on a drive up the Sydney coast to see all of the beaches including the world famous Bondi Beach and finish it off with wine and cheese in the park at Sydney harbour whilst watching the sunset. Naturally we took her up on her offer and had a great time, the Sydney coast is really beautiful and fantastic surf.

We then headed over to Manly on the Wednesday which is 30 minutes away by boat from the Opera House and spent the afternoon there and had rather a surreal moment and I bumped into a friend, Aaron Wong, from my county badminton days who I haven't seen since I was 17 on Manly Beach...it truly is a small world! So after a catch up with Aaron we headed back to Sydney on an evening boat to ensure it was dark so we could see the Opera House and Sydney skyline lights. This didn't disappoint as we also got a thunderstorm with some of the best lightning we have ever seen. I tried for a good 10 minutes to take a photo of some of the forks of lightning but naturally cmpletely wasted my time as I didn't get any of the good ones but have uploaded some of the best 1s I did manage to capture.

This concluded our Sydney 3 days and then it was off (at 4:45am) to fly to Melbourne. We arrived in Melbourne on Thursday morning and met up with my friend from college, Andy, who emmigrated to Melbourne 6 weeks ago and very kindly offered us a bed at his which was very much appreciated and gratefully accepted. We spent the day exploring around the city and Andy showed us Federation Square where there are lots of art galleries and the focal point of the city centre, some English buildings and the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). We went for a couple of drinks in the evening and then early to bed as we were shattered from our early start.

Friday saw us attending the Australian Grand Prix practice session. This was a brilliant day out and excellent to see the F1 cars up close. They are unbelievably loud and the ear plugs they gave us as we went in were essential after a few cars had been past because it really began to hurt! We also saw quite a few races from supercar races to Mini races and various other exhibitions going on outside of the tarmac. We also had the Aussie equivalent of the Red Arrows doing some flyovers and then a military jet showing off, which were also brilliant to watch.

Saturday we went to see a game of Aussie Rules football (the one where they plan in vest, punch the ball with their hand and occasionally bounce it on the ground and generally perform a lot of baffling rules that seem to constitute a sport and make sense to all those that know) which being foreginers we didn't have a clue what was going on but had a great time none the less and very impressive to see the MCG and sample the atmosphere.

We then flew back up to Sydney to get a connecting bus up to Port Macquarie which is 7 hours noth of Sydney and arrived here late on Sunday. We then decided to have a day relaxing and doing absolutely nothing as we realised we have been city hopping for 2 weeks solid ever since Kuala Lumpur and were starting to get fed up, so we took a day to ourselves and just stayed in the hostel and read books etc. This worked well with the weather as it rained all day. However, this weather appears to have not been a one off and it hasn't stopped raining since and is apparently raining on the whole of the east coast for the next week, great fun. We took a walk along the sea front in Port Macquarie to one of the choppiest seas we have ever seen and went to a Koala Hospital to watch them feeding. The Koalas were extremely cute but also quite ill which was a shame, but hopefully being nursed back to health by the hospital.

We then jumped on a bus and headed 7 hours north to Byron Bay and luckily managed to make it though the severe floods which Coffs Harbour and much of the east coast is experiencing (1 bus was 10 hours delayed because the road was closed - the photo below is apparently a golf course!)

but we made it through no problem and are currently finding something to do when it is raining.

We hope to head further north to surfers paradise, Brisbane, Fraser Island, Whitsunday Islands and Cairns...just got to hope it stops raining.

That's all for now, will update again in a week or so. Hope everything is good in the uk and it's getting warmer. All the most recent photos should now be up and working.

Lots of love

Simon and Liz x x

Hi all,

Where to start! We have been rather busy since we last posted on here. We finished off some home comforts in the Cameron Highlands enjoying many a cup of tea, scones and rather too much rain. Had our first rain day too so had to spend a whole day just sat in the hostel lounge…but luckily we had nothing major planned and it turned out to be quite a welcome break to sit around and catch up on chores and dairies etc and just generally relax. we went to visit the Boh tea plantation on our final day in the highlands which was a great day out and very beautiful with the rolling hills covered in tea bushes dotted with tea pickers harvesting the leaves.

After that we headed to the Perenthian Islands on the East Coast of Malaysia. These islands are relatively new to tourism and are only open for 6 months of the year because of the monsoons and only receive 12 hours of electricity a day from 7pm to 7am so it was very different to the Thailand islands. After a horrendous speed boat to get there (50km/h, overcrowded and very choppy) we arrived and checked in to another beach hut. Met a Slovenian couple called Marta and your guess is as good as mine as to the other name, even after asking him 5 or 6 times, and had a few drinks with them. Perenthians are beautiful and so peaceful, it’s just a shame that they will probably end up being ruined by tourists before too long.

From the Perenthians we headed to Kuala Lumpur (KL) where we spent 3 days exploring the city and the delights KL has to offer. First of all it was over to the Petronas Twin Towers to see the main attraction, which didn’t disappoint. 492m high I believe, the 4th tallest sky scraper in the world (was the tallest in 2004 but got overtaken by Tapae 101) and very impressive architecture. Also explored the colonial district with all of the British built buildings and had a visit up the sky tower that connects the 2 twin towers which offered excellent views of the city. KL is a fantastic city with loads to do and the rain every day at 5pm is most welcome as it cools down the very hot and humid air.

From KL it was on to Singapore where we are to catch our flight to Sydney tomorrow. Arrived in Singapore after an interesting journey with the locals (not a tourist in sight) being shown where to go by a lovely deaf Singapore girl who was extremely helpful and excited that we were from England! Have been here now for 3 days and are very impressed with Singapore. It is unbelievably clean and probably the safest city we have ever been to with everybody very friendly. You do have to watch yourself though as you get fined $500 for drinking any liquid on the tube and stations, $1000 for riding a bike under the underpasses and $500 for not flushing a public toilet and many
many more! Highlights of Singapore include a visit to the world famous Raffles hotel which was very posh and unfortunately out of our price range, the colonial district with yet more British architecture and a ride on the luge on Sentosa island which was great fun. I also ate a chicken foot today that came with my curry noodles...it wasn't the nicest delicacy in the world and I think it was all skin so I don't think I'll be having another one!

So that is the end of our South East Asia leg and off to Sydney tomorrow where we will be for 6 weeks when we will be heading up the East Coast with the Aussie Grand Prix in Melbourne (so keep an eye out for us).

Will update soon and most recent photos should be up and working.

Love

Liz and Simon x x x