Hello New Zealand!

We arrived on Saturday 25th October to our home for the next year- New Zealand. Unfortunately it was raining. But we were still excited! We were also very tired after our 13 hour flight from Chile..and a bit confused after losing a whole day while on the flight!! We quickly got orientated in Auckland, it´s a great city and not too big so quite easy to get to know quite quickly. The first thing we noticed about the city was the abundance in Sushi restaurants (YES!!)..and also how like England it was..there is a WH Smith equivalent and a Boots equivalent. It was all so civilised and familiar to us after spending 9 months in South America where nothing is like home!

Our plan for travelling around New Zealand is completely different to our South America jaunt. We decided we would buy a camper van to eat and sleep in, to allow us more freedom and to really go off the beaten track wherever we want. In South America it was all about long bus journey after long bus journey and it really got tiring- the 3 day bus journey we did should never be repeated! So our first mission in New Zealand was to find a van that we could call home!

We spent a few days around Auckland centre seeing a few sights like the magnificent Sky Tower, which at 328m the tallest structure in the Southern hemisphere. We went right to the top on a beautiful day and had amazing views across all Auckland- pretty impressive views! My favourite thing about New Zealand so far is the wonderful colour of the sea- it´s a lovely turquoise blue due to the volcanic minerals and looks stunning in the sun. So it was great to see the Auckland harbour with the sea sparkling below us from the top of the Sky Tower.

We visited all the different suburbs of Auckland- Newmarket has great shopping, Ponsonby is sweet with lots of little cafes and we had a morning exploring Devonport, climbing up two small mountains to see some lovely views. We had amazing Fish and Chips there too- we are very pleased to see that Fish and Chips is a bit of a New Zealand staple meal..as it is in the UK!! Brilliant- that's one meal you really cant get in South America!

Auckland has many great traits, one being that it is full of volcanoes- the city is actually built on 50 of them! And worryingly they are not all extinct! The last volcano to erupt was Rangitoto, which at 260m high is the largest and youngest of Auckland's volcanic cones. Rangitoto is an island within the beautiful Hauraki Gulf surrounding the Auckland region. The Hauraki Gulf stretches between the Coromandel Peninsula and Auckland and is dotted with islands- it is absolutely stunning! So we took a ferry out to Rangitoto Island one day and climbed to the summit of the volcano, luckily it was a lovely sunny day and the views were incredible back over to Auckland's city skyline and over to the other islands in the Gulf..really spectacular! We walked around the craters rim and we found some caves created by the lava all those years ago.

We stayed with the lovely Stickland's in Pukekohe, about 40mins outside central Auckland for a week which was so much fun and an absolute luxury too..it was lovely to have some home cooked meals and watch TV on the sofa! Sophie and Matt were absolutely amazing helping with the bits and pieces we needed for the van, and Sophie even made all the curtains for it- and they are the best curtains ever!! We also had lots of fun with their gorgeous little girls, Olivia and Alice! We all went to a great beach called Graham´s Beach an hour away and had our first BBQ on the beach!

Superbly cooked by Matt we ate sausages and chicken kebabs, and played bat and ball with the girls, it was a beautifully sunny day and Olivia even managed to get Chris in the water! Craziness- I was quite happy lying on the sand! It was great to have such a lovely base as we got ourselves sorted with the van before we set off on our 6 week adventure in the North Island, and it was actually really sad to leave Pukekohe- we'd had a lovely time thanks to our wonderful hosts!

It was very exciting leaving Pukekohe in our new 'home'! Our first stop was a lovely beach called Ahwitu, quite close to Grahams Beach so not too far from Sophie and Matts incase anything went wrong!

We had a lovely walk on the beach and then cooked dinner on our little gas stove in the van, put the bed out and had our first night in the van! And it was a great nights sleep..luckily we have a VERY comfy bed!

Last Stop- Colourful Valparaiso!

So the last stop on our mammoth 9 month trip around South America was the little coastal city of Valparaiso, just 2 hours west of Santiago. We didn´t really know much about it, but lots of friends and other travellers had told us we must visit, so we followed the Lonely Planet´s advice and did a walking tour around the town. The place was fantastic!

The city is built upon dozens and dozens of steep hillsides overlooking the lovely blue Pacific Ocean. There is a labyrinth of streets and cobblestone alleyways and the most colourful painted buildings I have ever seen! There are thousands of murals and moziacs various designs and colours all over the place.

There were so many different coloured houses -it looked great! We walked for hours around in awe of all the artwork covering the city! I took the most amount of photos ever in one day- 289!!! I loved it- the photo opportunities were literally everywhere! Oh and I found a donkey!

We also visited nearby Vina del Mar, also known as The Garden City. We walked around admiring the coastal views and the gardens, but the highlight of this trip was visiting the Museum (normally not a highlight at all!). It had a display of shrunken heads! Actual human heads that had been shrunk years and years ago from the Amazon Basin! Crazy..and a bit scary!!

Outside the museum was a huge Easter Island head, a moai, which was pretty cool!

So that was it- 9 amazing months in South America and onto the new chapter- New Zealand! Stay tuned!!

Santiago- Wine and a Reunion!

So we finally left Brazil and took our last flight within South America from Rio to Santiago in Chile. It was a miracle that we made it to Chile- we had a LOT of problems with our tickets and flights due to STA Travel in London being completely useless- but with a huge amount of help from our parents we finally made it on a plane! Santiago was pretty cold after Brazil´s scorching heat but it was quite a nice change- it was really nice to feel a fresh breeze. We had 10 days in Chile before catching our flight to New Zealand so we decided to spend about a week in Santiago and a few days in nearby town Valparaiso.

Santiago was great fun, we stayed in a really good hostel with great owners. We really enjoyed walking around the city- which was lovely and green and very clean. There were some great old buildings and strangely enough there was a castle in the middle of the city- we walked up to the top and had amazing views over the city and the gigantic towering snow capped Andes overlooking us.

The highlight of our time in Santiago was Greg and Elise coming to see us!! We had sadly parted company back in Panama after nearly a month together and we had tried to make plans to meet up again once they were in Argentina and we were in Chile. Unfortunately due to lack of time we couldn´t go back to Argentina to see them, so somehow we managed to persuade them to come over to Santiago for a few days. They arrived on the Wednesday and told us they could only stay 2 nights as they were running out of time to see Argentina and had to get on. It was so amazing to see them again!! We had such a good time with them and really wanted them to stay longer! Our first day together we had a picnic out in the sunny park and consumed a large amount of very cheap good red wine, and of course by about 5pm we were sat in a sushi bar eating a large amount of sushi! We then polished off a few more bottles of red and had a crazy Team Quad style night out which ended about 6am. The next day was spent mostly in bed...which the exception of a taxi ride to Burger King and the Sushi restaurant for supplies!

Chris and I noted that Elise and Greg had done nothing about sorting out a bus to Argentina for the next day as planned..so we kept quiet and hoped they´d stay longer! Hehe! And they did..the next day we had a great trip out to one of the many wineries in the area. It was called Undurraga and was in the most beautiful setting- the scenery around us was lovely and it was an amazing sunny day. We walked all around the vineyard and were shown the fermentation process, the cellars and then the best bit at the end- the tastings! After tasting as much as possible we bought a couple of bottles of our favourite- the Carmenere, a wine exclusive to Chile, and sat out in the gardens of the winery having a very civilised drink or three! I think we started drinking that day about 3pm and after another round of Sushi and another crazy night out we were still drinking at 5am..a long, fun day!! We decided we had to make the most of the lovely cheap South American wine before heading of to New Zealand...where they...also have lots of wine. Mmmn.

So Greg and Elise stayed ANOTHER day..and we had more Sushi and drank more wine..but after 5 days it had to come to an end the useless pair eventually got on a bus to Argentina! It was sad knowing we wont see them for such a long time, although I think after a bit of gentle persuasion they may turn up in New Zealand!! Fingers crossed!

Chris and I left Santiago and got on the 2 hour bus to Valparaiso for a few days of recovery after the momentous Team Quad reunion!

Rio Again!!!

We couldn't wait to get back to Rio again, we'd spent an amazing 10 days there right at the beginning and fell in love with the city! So we managed to squeeze 5 days of Rio right at the end too! We stayed at a great hostel with a bar that served lovely proper UK style roast dinners and cheap capriroskas (vodka, lime and ice), it also had a PlayStation room which Chris managed to spend a whole day in!

Unfortunately the weather wasn't up to the normal sunny Rio standard and it rained for 3 out of the 5 days but I still managed a few runs down the Copacabana beach. However, one day was spent entirely in bed due to excessive alcohol the night before- coincidentally we bumped into a friend from home who was about to fly home after a 3 month South America jaunt so we had a crazy night out with him and his travel buddy. It was another surreal 'its such a small world' moment as Chris bumped into James in the kitchen of the hostel- and had been sitting up at breakfast (and had planned a PlayStation day) with Rich, his mate! Weird. Anyway, we had a great night out starting with a huge sushi meal (of course) and ending very drunkenly in some random Rio club about 4am and poor James and Rich having to be up at 6am for the bus to the airport!

Our last day in Rio the sun was shining and we spent our last ever day in Brazil lying on the Copacabana beach..it was lovely!! And in the evening we went to our favourite restaurant from the whole trip- Garota de Ipanema, a place recommended when we first arrived by my sister, Emily and her husband, Nick who had lived in Rio years ago. And it lived up to our memories..we enjoyed the best steak we have ever had!! It was so sad to be leaving Brazil and very weird as we knew the South America part of our travels was near an end. So it was goodbye Brazil until the next time and there WILL be a next time..we spent 3 months there and there is still so much more to see!! An incredible place.