Ben and Heather's Travels

Poppy's Arrival

2011-12-03T13:10:00.001-08:00

I'll start with the ending and then I'll tell the story of how we got here...

Poppy Seren Smith was born at 11.47am on Monday 28.11.11, in Tauranga Hospital, weighing a healthy, but not as massive as anticipated, 8lb 06oz.

And this is how it all happened...

My pregnancy progressed in a happily uneventful way, but by the last couple of days I was feeling pretty tired and of course enormous. I spoke to my Mum who revealed that I had been born 17 days late and decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. So there was drinking of raspberry -leaf tea, eating of pineapple, lots of walking, 'hot baths', 'hot sex' and on the evening of 27.11.11 Ben and I headed out with friends to an Indian restaurant for a much talked about labour-inducing 'hot curry'.

Unfortunately I didn't get to eat the thali I'd been looking forward to because half way though the starter my waters broke. One minute I'm in a restaurant chatting and munching on an onion bhaji and the next I'm sitting in a puddle, with water running down my legs! There was much panic among our dining companions as they desperately wanted to call someone who would "know what to do". But we calmly informed then that we knew what to do and Ben even suggested we stay and eat our curries. Had I not been sitting in a pool of amniotic fluid I may have been tempted but the entirely unfazed "don't worry about it madam, it happens all the time" Indian waiter packed us up a take away and we headed home.

We called Judy, my midwife, only to discover she was already at the hospital with our friend Nancy, who later gave birth to little Eli Adolph (but that's her story to tell).

At about 1am my contractions started and very quickly they were lasting a long time and very close together. It was a hot night and we had all the windows open so I was a bit concerned that the neighbours might think that we were having very noisy sex, but once I vomited a few times I imagine that they realised that that wasn't the case after all! We called Judy again around 4.30am and having been home for an hour and a half's break after finishing a twenty-four hour stretch with Nancy she was straight back out (bless her) and arranged to meet us at the hospital.

At the hospital I got into the birthing pool and the world became a much nicer place again. The water helped massively with the pain and my contractions slowed down to a much more manageable pace. I must admit I was a bit peeved when they started to get really sore and frequent again as I thought maybe I was going to be brave enough to push this baby out without any pain relief. However, it wasn't to be. My contractions were so close together I just couldn't get my breath back in between them and when I found out I was only 7cm dialted (you need to reach 10cm to give birth) I decided to opt for the epidural.

Now in my mind once I decided that I was going to take the drugs then they would just give them to me and that would be that. But apparently that's not how it works. Unfortunately I had to get out of the pool so that I could be prodded and poked about on the bed and being out of the water made the pain much harder to manage. The baby's heart rate had to be monitored for twenty minutes, the anesthetist called, various needles and tubes inserted and that half an hour or so (they tell me that's how long it was) seemed a VERY long time. Fortunately by this time I was puffing away like mad on the gas and air and was completely off my head! I could hear what was going on around me but in my drugged up mind it meant all kinds of weird stuff and had nursery rhymes and computer game graphics from my childhood mixed in with it. Some of the time I was laughing away and at one point I thought we were back in our house. I then became convinced that the doctor was with-holding the drugs from me on purpose and true to form was swearing away at him. Ben tells me his favourite quote is when I shouted out "I'm not a statistic"!

It was immediately apparent once the epidural finally did kick in as I was lying on the bed surrounded by doctors and nurses and I looked up, noticed the time and sent Ben off to call our mates to make sure they'd look after our dog for us! By now I was completely pain-free and after a little cry and apology to the midwife for "taking all the drugs" was feeling great. Unfortunately the doctors were becoming increasingly concerned by my raised temperature and the baby's erratic heart beat. There was some discussion as to what to do and finally the call was made that one way or the other the baby needed to come out now.

I was given the option of trying to deliver naturally or opting for c section and said I wanted to try to push her out. Because the chance of needing an emergency caesar was so high if I couldn't push the baby out I was prepped for surgery and wheeled though the corridors into theatre. Once in there I seemed to be surrounded by a whole fleet of scrub-donned doctors, nurses and students and being naked with my legs up in the air I did wonder if the audience of about fifteen people was entirely necessary, but to be honest I had other things on my mind. (Ben was so impressed with the comment that someone made about him looking like George Clooney in his scrubs that he stole them and brought them home!) I think some of the doctors were pretty keen to go straight for a section but I'm eternally grateful for the fantastic support and encouragement of my midwife and the hospital midwife and their calls of "Let's get this baby out!" So with Ben counting me through my contractions, despite being able to feel very little of what was going on down there, I managed to push my little girl far enough down for her poor little head to be grasped by giant salad servers and Poppy was rudely dragged into the world.

Ben tells me he was somewhat horrified by the tiny, bright blue, bug-eyed, slimy creature with a cone shaped head that was dumped on top of me and his first thought was that I'd given birth to an alien! She was whisked away as she wasn't breathing and Ben went and watched whilst she was encouraged to take her first breaths and then he cut her cord (he's still got the scissors).

So that was how Poppy came into existence and she spent the first day of her life lying naked on my chest while I was stuck in bed waiting to be able to move my bottom half again. And that was five days ago. I stayed in hospital for three nights and apart from the to-be-expected crappy food have nothing but good things to say about the whole experience. The midwives were amazing and I honestly feel that I've learned more in the past few days than I have in the past few years. How to breast feed, how to bath a baby, what a hungry face looks like, how to hold a baby without breaking 'it' and most importantly of all, what it means to be a mother.

During one of my nights in hospital I had something of a profound experience. It was late at night, I hadn't had much sleep, I'd managed to settle Poppy and I was lying in bed trying to get some rest before the feeding cycle started again in just a couple of hours time. My body was relaxed and tired but my mind was filled with a deafening chatter, chatter, chatter as everything that I had just been though whizzed around and around my head. I took some deep breaths and tried to bring myself back to the breath, ground myself in the present and quieten down the all noise (all that good slightly hippy stuff!). I then experienced a feeling which was like I was being wrapped up tightly in a big, warm 'blanket of well-being'. I wondered to myself "was that just in my head?" Because it felt like a very physical sensation. A little later I felt my boobs filling with milk and as they did so all my insides tightened up and started to move back into place. It didn't hurt, it felt like a strong hug or maybe wearing some of those big 'Bridget Jones' pants. It's very normal to feel very emotional as your milk comes in as you get a big surge of hormones and it often makes people cry, hence the term "the baby blues". And here I was lying in bed crying my eyes out (quietly so the lady in the next bed didn't hear me) and all I could think was "I'm SSSSOOOOO happy, I'm SSSSSOOOOO blessed, this is what I was meant to be doing!" I know... it sounds pathetic and I'm at a loss to explain how I feel about my baby girl without resorting to the same old cliches. But "blessed" is not a word that is frequently used in my vocabluary and it's not being used lightly here. I truly feel blessed :0)

Ok, so enough with the gooey stuff. We're home now and already the whole labour experience is slipping from my mind, which is why I really thought I should get it out now. The same cannot yet be said for Ben though. He was incredible throughout the whole experience and having him and Judy there meant I felt completely safe the whole time. However it seems that witnessing the event was more traumatic than actually feeling it (and to be fair he did have a lot less drugs!), so with mention of "the next one" Ben's response was "You don't have to do it again Babe, we can just have puppies from now on".

From the first moment he saw Poppy Ben has been smitten (well not counting the whole alien thing), he can't stop looking at her and is already well and truly in love with her. The poor thing has already had her picture taken a hundred times! My bond has been growing more gradually. About three days in I said to Ben "Is she getting cuter and less Gollum-like now or am I just more used to her?" He showed me a picture of her from her first day with her scabby misshapen head and forceps marks down her face, "she's definitely getting cuter".

So does she look more like me or Ben? Who knows? She looks like a baby to me. Have a look at the photos and see what you think. Ben's Mum says she thought she looked like Ben as a baby, but then when she had a look at an old photo she realised that she doesn't at all! My Dad thinks she looks like me, but then I guess he would. She's got fair hair (it's too early to tell if it's ginger!) and big blue eyes, like Ben (but they might change colour yet), she's got the Smith long legs but not the big head. So I guess we'll have to wait and see. Of course we think she's the most beautiful baby in the world but I think we can blame instincts for that!

It's lovely being at home. Twpsyn is coping with all the changes after getting over the initial disappointment that the baby wasn't actually a treat for him to play with! When he first saw me, or more to the point smelt me, he went a bit loopy licking and rubbing himself all over me. Even I can smell the breast milk so it's no wonder he can. I don't know whether he was trying to make me smell familiar again or lay a bit of a claim to me or what, but he's already completely settled down and lies watching me breast feed. I've got no doubt he's going to be a fantastic "big brother". The cat however, hmmm, maybe not. Poor neglected Dotti :0(

Ben has been amazing, running around after me as I spend hours confined to a chair with a baby on my boob and Erin has been fab too. Poppy, so far at least, is a very settled baby and is making it all seem pretty easy. Plus I'm still high on all the hormones! Last night I had another big hormone rush which was so strong it made me feel all 'blissed out' and giggly. And just to prove that it's not all in my head, despite the fact I didn't move or make any noise and was just lying in bed in the early hours of the morning, as it happend the dog completely uncharacteristically came running in from the next room, tail wagging, all excited and was all over me, no doubt joining in the hormone party! Now I don't know how long this stuff lasts for, or more to the point how to prolong it, but I'm definitely enjoying it whilst it's here. If this is the pay off for the bruised nipples then breast-feeding really is the best thing in the world and maybe I'll turn into one of those slightly disturbing women who has a five year old still attached to her tit!!

So that just about brings you up to date with the happenings of the past five days. It's hard to believe it hasn't even been a week and now the whole world is a completley different place, or at least it seems to be. I know everyone tells you that having kids changes your life blah, blah. I knew all that. I knew there would be sleepless nights and dirty nappies. I knew I'd feel confused and overwhelmed. I just didn't get how much love I could feel. I was worried I wouldn't love the baby as much as I love the dog. But it turns out I still really love the dog I just have a whole heap more love in me than I knew about.

Okay, I'm going to stop now as I'm starting to make myself feel sick!

Tauranga 2011

2011-09-04T00:34:00.000-07:00

We've been particularly slack about keeping the blog up to date and it's been almost a year since I updated it. But then I guess that's real life rather than exciting travelling adventures. Mind you, that's not to say that life has been boring, or that we haven't had any adventures, they've just been the more stay-at-home sort of adventures!

Last Summer was a pretty hectic one. It started in November with Ben and I heading off on our first road trip for a while :0) We went down to the Taranaki region, which is the bit that sticks out on the west of the North Island, and really the last part of New Zealand that we haven't explored at all.

We started with a few days in New Plymouth, the highlight of which was doing some hiking on the mighty and picture perfect Mount Taranaki. Even in Summer the extinct volcano top is covered with snow and you can see the majestic peak for miles around. We camped in a gorgeous spot over-looking the sea and relaxed in the sun.

We then drove around the 'Surf Highway' exploring the wild, deserted coastline and ended up in the city of Whanganui. After that was the big adventure where we headed off on a three day canoeing trip through some of the most unspoilt rainforest in New Zealand. We hardly saw another soul the whole time and canoed by day and stayed in huts built by the side of the river by night. One night was spent alone in a Maori marae, in the middle of nowhere, which felt like a real privilege.

The whole trip was a fantastic experience, but I must admit we were pretty happy to see the guy who came to pick us up waiting on the side of the river on the end of the third day, and even happier to be driven back to civilisation for a hearty pub meal.

The next exciting even was the arrival of Ben's sister Zena, her husband, Ian and their kids; Freya and Charlie, to stay for Christmas. they had a fantastic time exploring the North Island in a campervan and we loved having them to stay. It was a fun, chaotic Christmas, with much laughter shared by all. The kids best bit seemed to be hanging out with Twpsyn (our dog). He followed them around the whole time and they all fell in love with each other :0) I think the kids loved body boarding on the beach nearly as much though!

Shortly afterwards my folks arrived and again the dog was centre of attention! It was lovely to have Mum and Dad see our new house and for us all to relax in the garden in the sunshine. One family outing was a trip to the local horse races, which is called "the trots". The horses pull their jockeys in little carts and are not allowed to run - only trot. We put on lots of one dollar bets and it seemed that Mum and Dad won every time, whilst the rest of us came away skint!

We're definitely more settled now and have made some wonderful friends. Erin and Rebecca are particularly close and have both come to live with us at various times, so we've all spent a lot of time together. Some of the fun stuff we've all been involved with include; a big music event, a trip to Auckland to visit Maree and an agricultural fair (they're a big deal over here!), where I fell in love with the piglets even though Ben wouldn't let me bring one home :0( We went to a particularly tragic festival, which despite our best efforts to have fun just couldn't live up to the 'Smoothie Summer'. Also we've taken the dog away camping a few times and have been on countless 'pack walks', with as many friends with dogs as we can muster!

Mind you, when it comes to Twp it hasn't been all fun and games. Unfortunately he's got problems with his joints (trust us to pick a defective pup!) and had to have an operation to put some pins in his knee to stop it dislocating. He may need to have the same op on his other back leg at some point, but hopefully not until we've had time to save up for it! He's still a happy, bouncy, not-so-little fella and we love him loads. He's grown into quite a handsome dog, although he does have a grumpy old man face :0)

Dotti the cat has got a bit braver and will at least occasionally walk past the dog, or will sit half way up the stairs and glare down at him whilst he whines at her. But despite Twp's best efforts they're a long way from being friends. Maybe in another year or so!

Unfortunately we received some very sad news at the beginning of the year that Ben's Dad was unwell. Ben was able to fly back to the UK for a few weeks to spend time with his Dad and the rest of his family, before Peter passed away. We are very sad to have lost him but grateful that Ben had the opportunity to say goodbye and to pass on our very happy news, which we know meant a lot to him.

Our happy news being... We're having a baby :0) So it's all change from here. She (yes, we know that "she" is a she!) is due on the 28th November 2011, which makes me six months pregnant and getting bigger by the day. We've been gradually acquiring everything we need including a bigger car so the dog has been demoted from backseat to boot travel and I've become a second-hand-baby-stuff bargain finder extraordinaire! But most importantly we've been getting used to the idea of becoming a family. Ben is very excited and now I seem to have passed through the denial and terrified stages, with the assistance of my happy hormones, am really looking forward to meeting our daughter too :0)

I've only got 12 weeks (and counting) left in work and am taking a year off. In fact I may not go back at all as my only option may be to go back full-time. But that's a long way away yet so we'll see what happens. Nancy, a good friend from work is also pregnant and we'd like to go back on a job share, but who knows.

Ben's postcard business is going brilliantly and his images are for sale virtually all over the North Island now and soon to be expanding into the South Island too. He's worked incredibly hard and it looks like it's starting to pay off. Plus he's got some geek work for a local web development company, which is great as obviously my income is going to come to an end soon.

Pikitia Postcards - New Zealand Postcards and Photography

We've got lots to look forward to, including another visit from Ceri for the Rugby World Cup next month, and we've all got tickets to go and see Wales play. Then of course we'll be caught up in the whirlwind of new parenthood, followed by the next round of visitors. So I'm sure 2012's blog updates will include plenty of photos of the little one (one of the advantages of having a photographer on hand!) and we look forward to sharing some of the highlights of the next chapter of our lives with you
xxx

Going up in the World

2010-10-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

We are residents of "The Hood" no longer and are now living in a much posher part of town. It's filled with old folk on mobility scooters, with their small, fluffy, white dogs! Our new house is lovely. It's sunny and open and has a big garden for the pup to happily cavort around in. We love living here and are really excited about the Summer to come when we can have loads of barbeque's and evenings sitting in the evening sun drinking wine :0)

It feels like it's been a long Winter, but I guess by UK standards it hasn't been all that bad. It was a lot less cold than last year and we've had plenty of sunny, fine days all the way through. The last month has been really rainy though and it's been dead stormy the last couple of weeks. It sounds like the roof's going to blow off and our lawn is covered in grapefruit that have blown off the tree. We can't even give them away fast enough to keep up. I know I should be making them into marmalade or something but I'm not quite that domesticated yet!!

Twpsyn is of course still the centre of our world's :0) He's seven and a half months old and a whopping 26kgs (nearly 4.5 stone) already. His feet are still too big for him so I guess he's still got some growing to do. He's entering adolescence and so has the odd moment of rebellion but is generally pretty good. One all of our favourite things is to go on "pack walks" with all our friends with their dogs. Ned is his favourite doggy-friend. He's the size of a pony and Twp follows him around adoringly. You can just tell he's thinking "I want to be like you when I grow up" :0) He's about to start "advanced" obedience classes but he's definitely still a "work in progress" and would rather run around with other dogs than do what we tell him to!!

We had our first dog holiday, which was fab. We stayed in a little wooden cabin on a huge farm in Colville, North East Coromandel, and did loads of bush walking and exploring. We all loved it and have lots of dog-friendly camping adventures planned for when the sun comes out. We had a dog-less trip away too (Erin dog-sat for us) in Auckland, where we stayed in a flash hotel because we had vouchers to use up (we obviously wouldn't pay to say in a four star hotel!!). We made the most of being in the city and had lots of meals out and drinks in swanky bars and stuff. It was lovely but we both agreed that we enjoyed hanging out with the pup in a log cabin in the sticks more than hanging out with the swanky folk in suits in the big smoke. Mind you we made the most of the all-you-can-eat breakfast. In fact I had to have a lie down afterwards!!

We've finally (after being here a year and a half) found some friends who like to party. We even went to a fancy dress 80s party recently. I can't believe how much I loved wearing purple leg warmers and pink ear muffs!! Ben looked like a member of GLC in his shiny shell suit :0) Erin even found a rara skirt. One of the many highlights of the evening was when she opened a bottle of champagne and then stuck her thumb in the top to try and stop it spilling. Of course, instead what she succeeded in doing was squirting it all over herself. Classy :0) The trouble is I've acclimatised so well to the kiwi-style early nights that the big nights out kill me now!

Another fun thing we did was go to see a Wales v All Blacks rugby game. I borrowed a Welsh rugby shirt and went clutching an inflatable daffodil! Surprisingly, the Kiwi rugby fans were all really quiet and seemed genuinely horrified by all the shouting and singing of the Welsh. I didn't let it deter me though! Other than that we've been making the most of our new abode and having lots of dinner parties. Now when I say dinner parties, what I actually mean is having people over two at a time because you can only fit four around our tiny dining room table!!

Our other big news is... We have a cat now too :0) Dotti belongs to Bob and Jane who own the house we're in, so she was an added bonus! She's not your regular cat though. She spends about 20 hours a day in bed (our bed) and for most of the time is actually under the covers! She's a bit lardy, I presume bacause she doesn't move much! She hates the dog and avoids him like the plague. I'm sure he only wants to be friends, but admittedly his friendship might involve putting her in his mouth! Fortunately the cat spends her time upstairs and the dog downstairs, so she just has to run the gauntlet past him a couple of times a day!!

So what else should I tell you about? I feel like it's been a quiet few months but then it has been Winter time and everyone 'round these parts goes into semi-hibernation! Work's fine, I won't bore you with the details. And we're still hopeful for Ben's postcard empire :0) He's keeping busy with photography and computing work and has moved his office home, so I'm jealous as he gets to stay home with the dog much more than I do!

We've got a holiday planned for a couple of months, have Ben's sister and her family coming for Christmas, then my folks are back again in January. But they all sound like future blog posts so I think I'll say goodbye for now. We miss you all but are still loving life in New Zealand :0)

Photos can be found here, here and here!

Twpsyn the Wonder dog

2010-06-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

Ben's residency finally did come though so, as promised, we went to the SPCA shelter and got ourselves a dog. We got what we were told is a black Labrador cross puppy, but he definitely has more than a little bit of staffie in him! Mum and Dad were still here when we got him and they decided that he is, in fact, a wonder dog and we would have to agree :0) It was hilarious seeing them with him being like proud grandparents and giving us a blow by blow account as to what he had been up to in our absence. Both Ben and I have totally turned into dog bores and very rarely talk to anyone about anything else! I've been reading loads of books about dog training and being the "pack leader" and we've been taking him to obedience classes too, so it really has completely taken over our lives. Our social lives now even revolve around going for "doggy dates" with friends who have dogs too!

He was about ten weeks old when we got him which makes him four months old now. We've called him Twpsyn, which for those of you who don't know, actually means "stupid" in Welsh. But I keep trying to explain to people that it's not quite as mean as it sounds because it's kind of a term of endearment. Anyway, no-one over here knows what it means so I've started just telling people it's a Welsh name! As I said we think he's the best dog in the world, but then we are a bit biased. It only took him a few days to get the house training thing sorted and he's always come when he's called and all that. We've taught him all the usual sit, lie down, stay stuff and we've even got him doing a few tricks like rolling over and "crawling". He's a bit too boisterous at times though and presumes that everyone is his best friend so goes bowling over to them. He's really strong already so we're working on getting him walking properly on a lead. It's amazing what you can achieve with the assistance of a few sausages! As you'll see from the little video he hasn't quite mastered fetch yet though :0)

We're pretty strict with him and I think it's needed really as otherwise he would think he's the king of the world. He's mostly pretty good but had a mini rebellion the other day when he decided to sit on the sofa which he isn't allowed on. He kept defiantly getting back on it despite being shouted at and sent to his bed! At least he's over the weeing-on-everyone's-feet stage now! Apparently he's at the equivalent of the "terrible twos" in human terms so I'm really not looking forward to the teenage years :0/

He's a very lucky dog as he hardly ever gets left home alone. We have a yard that we can shut him in when we need to but most days he goes to work with Ben and hangs out with him in his gallery. On the whole it works really well but Ben has been a bit grumpy about having to put up with Twpsyn's farts. I think it's just karma! I take him for a walk after work and because weather has been awful lately I've often been seen heading off down the road in a big rain coat and my purple flowery wellies!

Because we live in "the hood" (i.e a fairly rough, by New Zealand standards, part of town) Twpsyn has gone down a storm with all the local pit bull owners! I don't like to tell them we were after a big soppy lab and weren't expecting the muscly little monster we ended up with! It's really funny, I now love rotties and staffies and dobermans and stuff whereas I would never have wanted one of those before. Our favourite TV programme is now "The Dog Whisperer" and I have a new dream to work in a dog rehabilitation centre and run around with a pack of savage-looking dogs!!

The Badgers come to Town!

2010-04-02T01:15:00.000-07:00

It's Easter and the clocks go back this weekend so I keep expecting the Summer to end. It's starting to get darker in the evenings and it's a little bit cooler than it has been, but I just spent the day walking on the beach in my shorts and jandals (flip flops)! The Summer has gone on forever :0) I can't believe it, it's been sunny here pretty much the whole time for the last six months... six months... How amazing is that? I'm not looking forward to the Winter and will no doubt do loads of moaning about the fact that our house might as well be made of cardboard for all the warmth it keeps in, but will try to remind myself that it's only going to last a couple of months and then I'll get another fabulous Summer. Whoop whoop :0)

The Badgers (aka my parents) have been with us in New Zealand for a couple of months now and I think that they're learning to love it as much as we do. We've been away on loads of adventures together including a weekend in Whangamata chilling out on the beach and involved in lots of lake themed activities... We've been camping on Lake Tarawera, spent a few days on the Lake edge in Taupo and have done a four day tramp (hike) around Lake Waikeremoana. That's the first really long hike that Ben and I have done and it was good to have Mum around to organise us all and do all the cooking and Dad to carry the heavy stuff :0) It's pretty amazing being so far into the wilderness that it's a couple of days walk out. We had a bit of rain but it was clear on the day we got the best views so we didn't mind too much. The rain didn't stop us swimming in the lake either, even though it was freezing, but seeing as that was the only way to wash it seemed like the right thing to do. Ben was pretty unpopular with a stroppy South African lady who was one of the others sleeping in the huts with us, as he kept her awake with his snoring! I must be immune these days as I slept like a baby :0)

We had a big barbecue so that Mum and Dad could meet some of our friends and because we don't actually have a barbecue our friends, Colum and Claire, with a very plush house had it at their place instead! Loads of people were there and it's lovely to think that we've made so many good friends even though we've been here less than a year. I, of course, lowered the tone by getting really drunk and loud and ended the evening puking in the neighbours garden! Fortunately I made it back to our house and puked in our neighbours garden rather than theirs. That sort of behaviour is far better tolerated in the rough street we live in than their posh one!!

So what else have the last couple of months involved for us? Well... I made sure that Saint David's Day didn't pass unmarked and made some coconut ice welsh flags, which believe it or not were completely eaten. I am, after all, a baking queen these days. I've even mastered Ceri's carrot cake recipe. Ben had a birthday too and I got him a beach volleyball because we've both been playing in a team all Summer. Now admittedly we haven't won a single game, but we are definitely a lot better at it than we were to start with. I was terrified of the ball for the fist few games and ended up covered in bruises but now I actually enjoy it :0) Anyway, how else would you want to spend your Tuesday evenings but jumping around on the beach in the evening sun?

Other significant events include Erin's party to celebrate her gaining her residency, which couldn't have been more Kiwi as it involved drinking, a barbecue and men in gum boots (wellies) shooting at things! Also... Michelle and Phil are due to have a baby any day now, Ben is off photographing the Jazz festival as we speak and we're heading up to Auckland for a few days next week. Mum and Dad are off doing their own thing on their bikes for a while and will be heading back for my birthday at the end of the month before going home.

Finally the big news is... we're going to get a dog! I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself :0) Our landlady has agreed to let us get one and now I can hardly think of anything else! The problem is we need to wait for Ben's residency to be confirmed before we get one and we just don't know when that's going to happen. It could be any day now or not for another few months. It's so frustrating I could scream! But I guess as long as they actually say yes in the end then that's the main thing. But as soon as we get that all important passport stamp we will be headed to the local pound and getting ourselves the biggest, mangiest, three-legged, one-eyed, smelly, old dog we can find :0)

Adventures with Bethan and Ceri

2010-01-30T19:21:00.000-08:00

The day after Ben's folks left us Bethan and Ceri (friends from Cardiff) arrived, so it's been one-in-one-out 'round here! It was fantastic to have them here. Fancy travelling to the other side of the planet to come and see us. I love them! We all went away together "Road trip - HONK, HONK!", so it was a holiday for all of us . Beth and Ceri were a but disappointment by my inability to stay up all night drinking, but even they embraced the early-to-bed-early-to-rise Kiwi way (with the assistance of jet lag!) and I'm sure the trip made of for it in other ways.

Our first stop was Tutukaka where we did some scuba diving on the Poor Knights Islands. The water has warmed up loads since Ben and I did our training so it was a much more pleasant experience. There was loads to see and apparently I don't breath very much, so I got to stay down underwater twenty minutes longer than everyone else! We saw sting rays and all kinds of other fish that I can't be bothered to learn the names of! The whole thing was made even more entertaining by the frequent puking into paper bags of Bethan. Bless her. Fair play though she still struggled into all the gear and joined in. I would have sat miserably in the corner if it were me but then I think she'd have done anything to get off the rolling boat!

Next we headed up to Pahia and explored the Bay of Islands by sailing boat and sea kayak. Look at us go with all our sporting activities! I can assure you that there was more than enough beer drinking and pie eating to balance out any healthy activity though :0) Whilst we were there we stayed in this quite plush (by my standards!) place with a pool and stuff (only because they'd messed up our booking so we got upgraded!) so then when we arrived at our next stop in Hihi Beach the hideousness of the shack that awaited us was intensified. The highlight for me was watching Ceri sweep the dead flies out of his bed!!

We then drove all the way to cape Reinga, the most northern tip of New Zealand. Beth thought we were taking the piss when we told her that we were planning on driving all day to go and see a lighthouse. But she soon found out that we weren't! We also found a beautiful deserted little beach for our picnic lunch and trekked over some massive sand dunes. The idea is that you rent boogie boards and slided down them, but when we got there the lady with the boards said we were too late, so we just had to run about on them instead. Beth turned into the abominable sand monster when the sunblock she had covered herself in turned to glue and caked her from head to toe in sand!

Hokianga Harbour was lovely and the Treehouse, where we stayed, my favourite. Ben and I decided that we want to live in a tree house :0) It was a gorgeous place to chill out among the rainforest. The scenery on the west coast is pretty different to the east, much more wild and rugged, with hardly anyone about. Until, that is we stumbled upon some sort of mini festival on the beautiful Kai Iwi Lakes. Definitely a spot that's on my "must go back" list.

The final stop on our little road trip (HONK, HONK!!) was at Goat Island (where there are no goats and never were?!) at a lovely little campsite, that I immediately fell in love with (partly because dogs are allowed and although we don't actually have a dog yet I am still fairly obsessed with the idea of getting one!). However it did lose something of it's shine when we were kept awake half the night by an accordion playing Frenchman (he may as well have been wearing a blue and white striped jumper and a string of onions!).

So after nine days of adventuring we headed back home to Tauranga. Ben and I went back to work and Beth and Ceri headed off for a few days by themselves and immediately checked into a four star hotel. Anyone would think that not everyone wants to stay on campsites with flies in the beds and accordion playing Frenchmen!! They came back to be sent off in style by a meal out with all our "new" friends and a drunken night out (yep I even stayed up past 9.30 for the occasion!!)

View more photos here!

Christmas on the beach

2010-01-11T01:18:00.000-08:00

It seems that all anyone in the UK can talk about is all the snow and here we are in the middle of a glorious Summer. We're really enjoying it with weekends away exploring and feel incredibly lucky to be in such an amazing country and to have the sunshine to enjoy it. We've taken the opportunity to road-test our new tent. Yep, Marge has gone off on new adventures and we have a boring car (although Ben thinks it's a "sports car"!) and a fantastic huge tent! Check it out with this little video (fortunately the first take didn't work which I was pretty pleased about because all that bouncing around on the airbed made my boobs fall out! )....

Ben's folks flew out to join us for a Christmas barbecue on the beach. It was all a bit surreal, especially when one family arrived with a Christmas tree, put on Santa outfits and built a sandman! It didn't really feel like Christmas in lots of ways but I'm pretty happy with the trade off for a long, hot, sunny Summer. New Year's outdoor Black Seeds gig was pretty cool too :0)

Peter and Pauline seem to love the place as much as we do too, which is always good to hear and are already making plans for their next visit. It's been lovely having them here and without them we may never have visited a volcanic island in hard-hats and gas-masks! Mind you, Ben's Dad's obsession with bird watching has had us all bored to tears at times and I'm pretty sure that as much as we'll miss them I'll probably survive without his regular rant about the evil sparrow!!

There are more photos here!

Parties and other fun stuff!

2009-10-30T00:29:00.000-07:00

The social lives have certainly stepped up a notch. It's been party central over these last few weeks. It seems that the Kiwis have come out of hibernation and are living it large, just as I've become accustomed to going to bed at 9.30 every night too! We had a 'P Party' which saw us scooting about town dressed as pirates, a huge 'do' at Julie's farm where Ben spent most of the evening in the hot tub (and most of the next day being sick) and a 50th birthday bash. When did I get old enough to have 50 year old friends?!! The hospital ball was a big success but was pretty embarrassing for me as my face appeared far more frequently than most in the official photographs (it's who you know!).

Talking of photography, Ben and Phil have launched their postcards, so have a look at their website and click on 'products' for a preview, they're amazing...

http://www.pikitia.co.nz/

Next come the posters. It's fab to see them finally on sale after all their hard work. They tell me that for each card sold they make 5 cents though, so I won't give up my job quite yet!! Ben has been charging about the place taking photos for a competition he's entering too. He came up with the theme "Dream Land New Zealand" and has as a result been taking photos of Phil pretending to be asleep in a bed, in various iconic Kiwi settings. I think he owes Phil a fair few pints after he lay shivering semi-naked in the rain surrounded by sheep in a field and caused more than a few weird looks doing the same by the main road!!

More big news is that I've been granted residency. I'm allowed to stay - whoop, whoop! But it'll be a few more months until we know if Ben can too. There's a very good chance he'll get it, so we're pretty optimistic that we'll be able to stay for good. When we first planned to visit New Zealand we said we'd give it a couple of years before we made a decision about living here permanently, but we already know we love it and want to stay if we can :0)

So... If Ben gets his residency too and we've decided we're going to stay, do you know what that means? It means we can get a dog! I am very excited. I've become totally preoccupied with the idea and started "torturing myself" (as Ben calls it!) by looking at the dogs on the local animal rescue web sites. We can't get one until after the Summer as we're going away and have a full house with all our visitors, but come March then maybe we can. But, and it's a pretty big BUT, we need to get our landlady to agree first and that may be a major spanner in the works. I made the mistake of sharing my dog excitement with my Dad who is now even more obsessed with the idea than me and didn't take the wait-and-see-what-the-landlady-says news well at all. Sorry Dad, I'll work on it I promise!

The other thing that has been playing on my mind (in a way that it has been suggested may be less than healthy) is planning for a natural disaster. OK I know that sounds ridiculous, and Ben and Erin have both been a little concerned for my sanity, but let me explain before you imagine me digging a bunker in the garden or something! So what happened was, I went to the New Zealand Occupational Therapy Conference (which was very dull but that's another story) and one of the workshops was about natural disaster response and talked about the role of health professionals following some sort of disaster, like a tsunami, earthquake, storm or whatever. Everyone was discussing their "Emergency Response Plans" and I was like "Erm... Sorry... What?!" and that's when I found out! In this part of the world, you're supposed to have everything that you need to survive for three days if services are cut off in the event of a disaster. And the really scary thing is that Kiwis all know this and my very unscientific research suggests that most of them have planned for it! In schools they even have earthquake drills where they all hide under their desks whilst the teachers shake them!! The Civil Defence have this whole promotion called "Be Prepared - Get Through"

http://www.getthru.govt.nz/web/GetThru.nsf/web/BOWN-7GY2MF?opendocument

and there are adverts on the TV and everything! So you see I'm not totally mental. I'm not like those crazy Americans who have safe-houses filled with supplies and guns ready for the end of the world, it's actually normal here. They do have disasters in New Zealand, there are earthquakes all the time and we are over-due for a volcanic eruption. Only a couple of weeks ago they evacuated the coastal areas for fear of a tsunami! So you see, despite Ben's ridicule of me putting together our "DOOM BOX" (as he calls it) it's not that weird to have some drinking water, tinned food, candles and batteries in a safe place just in case now is it? Is it?!

OK, so apart from obsessing about disasters and dogs, what else have we been up to?! Well Marge is still with us and we've been away on a couple more adventures. We went around the beautifully desolate East Cape. We even travelled 20km each way along unsealed roads to the most easterly point of New Zealand and climbed the 750+ steps to reach the lighthouse there. There was a worrying moment when we got back in Marge and she didn't want to start. I don't think the AA would have been too impressed! But, as always, she came good in the end :0) It's real Maori country round those parts and you can drive for hours without even being able to buy petrol. It's truly like stepping back in time and you see people (when you see them at all) getting around on horseback. It's amazing.

There's been loads of other fun stuff too; the sailing season started this week and we got to sail around the harbour at sunset with dolphins jumping around the boat - amazing! We also had our first unexpectently energetic hula dancing class and played with animals at a little wildlife park. I've been to the theatre, done lots more baking, signed up for a silver jewellery making workshop and walked with 5000 women dressed in pink for breast cancer awareness. Molly's coming to stay again before heading off to Canada with her sexy fireman boyfriend (who can blame her?!). Ben's been photographing the local salsa festival, there's been much hanging out on the beach in the sun, and at our first BBQ we made use of the free gas BBQs by the sea and fortunately had a Kiwi man with us to show us how they work! Next weekend we might learn how to do dragon boat racing - whatever the hell that is! Never a dull moment these days and it's not even Summer yet! It won't be long 'til our visitors arrive too. Can't wait :0)

View the photos on facebook here.

A year on...

2009-09-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

In a couple of weeks time it'll be a year since we left the UK, which feels kind of weird. It's been such an action packed year. I've just had a little read over some of the old blog entries and we've done so much. It's a great way to reminisce and I hope one day we'll be able to show it to our kids. In some ways the time seems to have flown by but then in other ways thinking back to living in Cardiff seems like another life, which of course it was.

It seems a bit different keeping the blog updated now that we've been settled in Tauranga for a while. I don't suppose it's all that interesting to hear that it's Monday night, which is squash night for Ben, that my bum aches after my circuits class or that I've only got a week left of my veggie cookery course. Knowing that we've spent a few evenings at the recent film festival, bought my first piece of art and hung out in the local hot-pools (a favourite Kiwi past time) a few times doesn't make for the most exciting read. You may be amused to know however that I went to "Heather Fest" an event attended by fifty-one Heathers. Freaky! But it is still a good way to let you all know what's going on with us and I like to think that you can picture us pottering on in our new lives so you don't forget about us :0)

Spring has officially sprung here now and for the first week it was absolutely gorgeous. I was wearing flip-flops to work and it seemed like Summer was well on it's way. However not liking to be taken for granted the New Zealand weather had other plans and then chucked a load of rain at us. Having said that, on the whole, it's pretty sunny now and the clocks change soon so it'll be lighter in the evenings which will make a big difference. The sunshine has inspired us to get some more weekends away in Marge, whilst we still can, because we think we're going to sell her :0( It just doesn't make much sense to have a camper-van as our only means of transport and we just don't use her enough to make it worth while. I think she needs some new owners who will take her off adventuring again. It's like Puff the Magic Dragon (that was a toy in a song who was really sad because he didn't get played with any more - for those of you that have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about) I think sitting on our driveway instead of being out there doing what she was made for may be making her sad. So it looks as if we'll be back to good old fashioned camping again soon.

In a huge step towards becoming a fully fledged Kiwi woman - no I haven't been given residency - apparently they need nine months to make that decision. Nine months! What the hell do they do for nine months?! Sorry I digress... so my significant step towards becoming a Kiwi woman is... I baked! They're all at it here. Not just the posh middle-aged ones like at home (?!) ALL of them. I've been fighting it for a while but then I just thought "why not?". So I tried to do something relatively healthy and made some flapjack cereal bar type things and some cranberry scones. Now there was a point in the middle where disaster seemed inevitable. The cereal bars didn't look like they were going to stick so I thought I was just going to end up with cereal! And the scone mix was just a gigantic pile of glue, which was all over me!! But some how I sort of pulled it all together at the end. Well I did need to cut the burnt bits off the bottom of the scones, but they still tasted good. Ben was particularly delighted even though he got left with all the burnt bits to eat whilst the best ones went to work with me! It's only a matter of time until I'm making jams and chutneys :0)

The other significant change to have occurred recently is the entry of Erin into our lives. She's an American social worker that I work with and she too likes to get drunk and go to music gigs. Hallelujah!! We're so happy that we've found someone to play with :0) We do love the Kiwis but every now and again you don't want to go to bed at 9pm (have I told you they all go to be ridiculously early?!). The three of us have had a couple of good old fashioned nights out, with all the usual terrible dancing and late night revelry, followed by hideous hangovers. She's great, we love her lots even having her turn up on our doorstep unexpectantly one evening and demand a load of cash as she'd just filled up her car with petrol only to realise she'd lost her wallet wasn't enough to put us off. Fortunately having me mercilessly rip the piss out of her and her nation of origin hasn't totally scared her away either. So it's all good.

We had a weekend away to Taupo recently. We weren't in Marge, the hospital (that I work for) owns batches (holiday homes) around New Zealand which we can rent really cheaply. So we headed off with Phil and Michelle (previously featured Brummies) to one of the houses. Phil, another photographer, is now officially Ben's business partner (I'll get to that in a minute) so Michelle and I were pretty happy they had each other to play with as they got up stupidly early to take sunrise photos and stuff whilst we got to stay in bed :0) Taupo is on a huge lake with the mountains, where the skiing antics of a few weeks ago occurred, as a dramatic backdrop. Lovely.

So yeah... Ben has a business partner. I was hoping that he would write something about what he's been up to but he hasn't, so here goes!... He and Phil are in the process of setting up a business selling posters and postcards to tourists. We've got some of his posters framed on our walls and they look fantastic. You can take a look at them if you like at

www.gloopics.com - Benjamin Albert Smith Photography

Both Ben and Phil have also been doing some tutoring at the local photography school. Ben is hopefully going to have an exhibition in the centre of town during the peak holiday season, which also coincides with when his folks are visiting, so that's amazing news. He's doing some web design work for other photographers too. So it's all starting to come together and hopefully all his hard work will pay off. He's not making much money yet, which he finds a bit frustrating, but we can manage for a while so it's OK.

My work is still going well. I'm moving teams again, I won't bore you with the details but the important thing to know is that the Mount (aka the beach) will be my patch again, just in time for Summer :0) I really like the people that I work with and am still enjoying what I'm doing. I'm hoping that my residency will be sorted out by the end of the year because there is a years postgraduate course (in CBT for those in the know) that I'd love to do next year. If my residency is finalised my employers will fund the whole thing and give me the study leave etc I need, so fingers crossed. By the time that's over hopefully Ben will have residency too and be making a decent living so maybe, I said MAYBE, then we can think about having babies!!!!! (I just hope our old bodies will be up to the job!)

We're very, very excited about the Summer now. It looks as if it's going to be one in on out at our place as we've got a continuous stream of friends and family visiting from November through to May! Can't wait. We're officially licensed scuba divers now too, so we'll be doing some more of that and I'm definitely up for some sailing. Other weird and wonderful things we have planned include an eight week course in Polynesian Hula dancing that I've somehow managed to persuade six of the girls in work to do with me! The hospital ball which I will be attending clad in the biggest pants in the world so that I can fit into my dress, whilst Ben will be one of the official photographers. A jewellery making workshop, New Zealand theatre, loads of walking and camping, tonnes of gigs, numerous BBQs and much wine drinking :0) Bring it on!!!

Facebook photos here.
Bens photos here.
Also check out the following websites that Ben has been involved in
Capture-it NZ - Tauranga School of Photography
GATE Photography

Ski Torture

2009-08-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Skiing, as it turns out, is not for me. Now given the fact that the nearest thing I have to phobia is a somewhat irrational fear of slipping, it was never going to be easy. I've never been able to ice skate, even as a kid I couldn't roller skate and seeing one of those wet-floor warning signs causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. But we live three hours away from the snow field where our friend Molly (a regularly featured blog character) is living, so we thought we'd head on down for a weekend and give it a go.

The setting was stunning. I've never been right into snow covered mountains before, so that part of the experience was great. However, the actual skiing part was another matter... I don't actually have the words to describe how much I hated it. Ben thinks I got some kind of karmic payback for when I used to laugh at Karen who was scared of heights and jump up and down on the bridge we had to cross every day on our way home from school, whilst she cried and took baby steps across it. I was genuinely terrified. Even standing still on the flat made me want to cry! It wasn't the falling over that scared me - in fact the only time I felt safe was once I had fallen over! No it was the actual skiing part that scared the living daylights out of me! I lasted about half an hour before I gave up and swore that I will never be doing it again! Don't even think about giving me any of that "if you just give it a bit longer I'll learn to love it" bollocks because I will seriously never EVER be doing it again!

Ben is very keen at this point for me to mention that fact that, in his words, he was a "pro". His shield of optimism again served him well. He faced the challenge with completely unfounded confidence in his abilities to ski brilliantly, never having done it before and, I'm reluctant to admit, was brilliant! He will of course have to find himself another ski partner, because I will never (just to make it completely clear) be doing it again. As I had plenty of time to hang out watching everyone else ski I managed to get some video footage of him in action, check it out.

Despite my instant hatred of the whole skiing fiasco it was still a fab weekend. It was brilliantly sunny, so I had the brand new experience of sitting in a pile of snow in a t shirt repeatedly applying sun block. I loved watching everyone else skiing and snowboarding and the chair-lift concept is one I can get in to :0) We did a bit of hiking too and it was amazing to see the same mountains that we walked among in the Summer now totally covered with snow. Also, of course, it waslovely to see Molly and to get drunk after the whole ordeal was over!

Ben:
My photos from the journey back to Tauranga can be found here.
Heather's photos on facebook can be seen here.

Rarotonga

2009-07-13T03:24:00.000-07:00

Heather:
What a fantastic place! It really is a little paradise. It's a small island, thirty-two kilometres in circumference, surrounded by golden, palm-fringed beaches and a crystal clear lagoon, with a mountainous interior covered in rainforest. It's hardly built up at all, everyone just scoots about on little motorbikes and the locals are really friendly and welcoming. We stayed in a little hut with a bedroom, on-suite bathroom, little kitchen, with patio doors straight on to the beach. Could you ask for more? How about glorious sunshine, a hammock and cheap cocktails?! Perfect :0)

There was an awful lot of lying around in the sun drinking pina-coladas but we weren't horizontal the whole time! We hiked from one side of the island to the other. It was bloody steep but definitely worth the effort as when we reached the top we could see the sea in both directions. It only took four hours but was definitely the most active thing we did in the whole ten days!

We didn't get to do any diving as we were still a bit bunged up (you can't dive with blocked sinuses) but we did do plenty of snorkeling. It was a considerably more enjoyable experience chasing the fish about in the warm, calm waters of the lagoon wearing only our swimmers, than it was flailing about in all that gear in the freezing waters of New Zealand! We saw all kinds of brightly coloured tropical fish and sea cucumbers and lots of other underwater life that I should probably know the names of.

We even went to church on Sunday, as the Cook Islanders are known for their gospel singing. It was quite an experience, made even more enjoyable by the arrival of a bus load of gorgeous Australian rugby league players! After the service we all got invited into a hall where we got fed loads of fantastic local food and cakes made by the ladies from the church. We (in this instance "we" being me and some of the other girls from the backpackers) got to do some more drooling later in the week when we went to watch the Ozzies play the local rugby league team!

Of course we experienced a bit of the traditional local culture too. We went to the weekly market and a show which involved lots of drumming and energetic dancing (to Ben's delight) by girls in coconut bras! We ate at some gorgeous little beach-front restaurants and saw lots of picture-perfect sunsets. There was even loads of friendly dogs and cats (of the non-mangy variety) to play with - vital to make it my perfect holiday. Plus, did I mention the cocktails?!

Whilst we were in Rarotonga some of our friends were at the Glastonbury festival back in the UK and to be honest we were pretty gutted about not being there too. But I have to say the fabulous setting, combined with all those cocktails, was a fairly effective method of numbing the pain! Maybe we should go back every year :0)

Ben:
There are more photos here and some photos on facebook here

Practically Locals

2009-06-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

I reckon Ben and I are well on our way to being Kiwis. Last weekend we went scuba diving, stacked our first fire wood delivery, went to a bbq and frolicked on the beach at the Mount with Maree - a genuine Kiwi (there hard to come by 'round these parts!). Surely that combination of activities makes us more or less locals!!

The scuba diving was predictably FREEZING! We spent ages bobbing about on the surface trying to get all our gear sorted out and swallowing what felt like litres of salt water, but did eventually gain enough control to explore the underwater world. Swimming through the kelp jungle on the sea-bed and was quite an experience and there were loads ofcolourful fish. But even the hefty wetsuits we were wearing weren't much match for the ten degrees centigrade water! You'll all be pleased to hear that I mastered the whole mask-clearing thing in the end - phew and Ben's got some contacts so he can actually see too :0) We were supposed to be going diving again this weekend but I have to say I'm pretty relieved that it's been cancelled because of bad weather as we've both been sneezing and snivelling ever since. I'm sat next to a mountain of snotty tissues with a rug over my lap like an old lady!

The fire wood delivery caused us quite a lot of amusement as we had absolutely no idea how much we had ordered. Apparently $160 buys a giant pile's worth as a truck pulled up outside and emptied it's entire contents on our drive! It was quite a mission to get it all stacked up in the garage. But we're pretty happy now that we're toasty warm :0)

We've got fairly hectic social lives now, which seem to involve a lot of wine and food - so that's all good :0) There's also a seemingly never ending supply of reasons in work of why we have to have cake. There's all theusual, you know birthdays and special occasions and stuff, but who the hell ever heard of a "it's a week until I go on holidays cake"? Oh well, Ben's pretty happy with the situation as I always sneak him home a piece too :0)

Ben's photography stuff is still going well and he's started to do a bit of computing stuff for the photography folk and has been asked totutor a course too, but really he should be the one telling you about that, so I'll write it on his list of jobs and maybe he'll get round to it sometime!!

It's only a couple of weeks until we go on holiday, which seems kind of ridiculous, but I'm not complaining because I don't think we'll be going anywhere else for a long time. When we arrived in NZ I needed an onward flight as I didn't have a work visa when we first got here. So months and months ago we booked flights to the Cook Islands and when I started work they agreed to let me have the time off because the tickets were already booked. So very soon we'll be heading off for ten days on a tropical island in the sun (hopefully). I'm really excited because I went there when I was travelling ten years ago and I've always wanted to go back. We're hopeful we'll be able to do some scuba diving when we're there and I'm really looking forward to seeing the sun again :0)

I've been mucking about with the camera so don't blame Ben for the poor quality of the photos, but at least you might actually see some pics of the local area! Here are some more.

God Save the Queen!

2009-06-01T03:01:00.000-07:00

Heather:
I've never been a royalist but over here we get a day off for the Queen's birthday - so from now on I'm her number one fan! We've made the most of the long weekend and been exploring up the coast. It's cold but beautifully clear and sunny so it's been lovely messing about on the beach and stuff. We had our first night in Marge since we moved into the house and we realised that we've missed her a little bit. It felt like we were home :0) She's pretty cosy too with our little heater. We've discovered that living in a wooden house isn't quite so toasty! Fortunately we have a wood burning fire to cuddle up in front of but first thing in a morning we can see our breath! The weather forcast has come on the TV as I write this and it's all about the snow. TROPICAL they told us. The big fat liars! OK it hasn't actually snowed here but there has been a few hail storms!

We're on the scrounge for furniture because the stuff in the house at the moment (in the video) is due to go in the next week or two. We've had a few offers of freebies so who knows what kind of tatty second-hand stuff we'll end up with. Ben thinks we're going to spend the money we have got on a huge flat-screen LCD television - I don't think so!!!

The scuba diving torture sessions, I'm sorry, I meant lessons (?!) are well under way. I've done a bit before and I really don't remember it being so bloody difficult. Even just in a pool wrapped up in all the clobber I just cannot make my body do what I want it to! We have to do this horrible thing where you take your mask off under water and then put it back on and blow all the water out by blowing hard out through your nose. I just cannot get it right. They actually sent me home with a mask to practise with IN THE BATH! And... the worst thing is, when I had a go I still just ended up coughing and spluttering everywhere. How the hell am I going to do it in the sea? We're due to go on our first proper out at sea dive on the weekend and I'm actually really scared. It's bloody freezing. It wasn't like this when I did it on a Florida beach!

I am feeling a little bit smug too though as I did that a 10km run around the Mount yesterday and I didn't even find it hard :0) I may be eating like a horse and not losing anymore weight but at least I'm fit. Which reminds me I had a health check at work. I had to have blood tests and stuff and to jog up and down a step for a few minutes, have my blood pressure taken, answer lots of questions blah blah. With all the results they calculated my body's physical age as apposed to my actual age and.... I'm 29 apparently which is a bit of a bonus seeing as I am 33 :0)

Our social lives are definitely improving. We were even invited to an eighteenth birthday party and I have to say I wasn't entirely happy being on the "adults" table. They were the best behaved teenagers I have ever encountered and they "don't drink alcohol". The teenage years without alcohol? Can you imagine it? No thank you!! We were wondering if all Kiwi teenagers are the same and then discovered that they most definitely are not when we went to a gig (Katchafire, they're a Kiwi Reggie band and are surprisingly good so look out for them) and everyone was completely bolloxed!

We had Michelle and Phil, a couple of Brummies who moved here a few months ago, over for curry and lots of wine. We've got plenty in common as Phil's into photography too so Michelle and I can compare stories as to the lengths our other halves are prepared to go to to get the perfect shot. Ben has recently had me hanging about in the cold and dark dressed in hoodie impersonating a graffiti artist whilst Michelle has been forced to pursue old folk in mobility buggies. I keep nagging Ben for photos of the local area so you can actually see what it's like here but apparently it's more important that he takes photos of his guitar or a hammer on my dressing gown (?!) Ben and Phil are both doing photography courses and it's "homework" apparently!

The whole hoodie thing was another experience that highlights the differences in the way people treat each other over here as compared to the UK. Instead of calling the police, as you might expect the law-abiding owners of the shop Ben and I were suspiciously hanging about behind pretending to be vandals, they came out to see what we were up to and offered to hold the flash! Kiwis, you gotta love 'em :0)

Ben:
There are more photos here. Most are homework from my course. The photos named "one spot" were some of ten totally different photos that were all taken from one spot. The guitar photos are from a series of ten different photos of my new guitar.

House in Tauranga

2009-05-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

Here's the long awaited video of the house. :)

New Zealand - Autumnal Trees

2009-05-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

Ben:
Heathers been nagging me to take some photos of the local area. So I took my camera to a local park to capture some of the amazing autumnal colours. You can see some of the results here.

New Zealand - Settling in

2009-05-07T23:06:00.000-07:00

I've had nearly two weeks in work now. I'm working as an Occupational Therapist - Case Manager in a Community Mental Health Team. The office base is in the grounds of Tauranga Hsopital but we mostly visit clients out in the community. We cover a massive area, about an hour north and an hour south of Tauranaga city. My patch is no longer the Mount (a long and not particularly interesting story) but instead is the city and up the north coast. It's early days but I think I'm going to like it, the people are really friendly, which is the main thing and it seems like a pretty supportive work environment. The client group is more varied than I'm used to and the role seems pretty flexible so hopefully I'm going to enjoy the post.

There was more than a little action on Monday though when a client turned up at the office with a gun! We were evacuated from the building and the Armed Offender Unit came out. They had all the gear, full-on black outfits with balaclavas, bullet-proof vests and the biggest guns I've ever seen! They shut down all the roads and we were made to wait for hours out in the cold behind one of the nearby shops. No one seemed very traumatised by the incident, we were mostly just pissed off with being kept late and not being able to go home! Fortunately no one was hurt and of course it made front page news as it's the most interesting thing to happen here for years!!

During my first week of work we were still living in Marge but last weekend we finally moved into our house. There's so much SPACE! We were literally dancing around the day we moved in :0) After living in a small van we're not quite sure what to do with ourselves, we don't have anything to put on the shelves or in the cupboards. In fact one room has absolutely nothing in it!! It doesn't quite feel like home yet but I'm sure it won't be long until we're settled in. We've been eating lots of food that needs to be cooked in the oven, as we haven't had one for so long, and are going to do a big shop on Saturday to fill up the enormous fridge! I'm pretty happy that it's just around the corner from work too. I can wander over in five minutes. It's bliss after my last OT job where I had nearly an hour commute each way every day.

Ben's been a bit of a house slave seeing as I've been going out to work and he hasn't. Each day I've left him with a list of jobs to be completed that day! He's been doing all the cooking and washing too - bless. It's kept him busy for most of the week but he's getting a bit bored now. I dare say it won't be long until he's driven into employment :0) He's started organising things so that he can make a go of his photography but is pretty frustrated about the fact that out phone line and Internet connection haven't been sorted yet. He must check the phone about fifty times a day! I'm sure once he has full access to his geek technology he'll be able to entertain himself a bit better!

Obviously we don't know anyone here, so our social lives aren't the most happening that they have ever been, but we're starting to make friends. We've latched on to a few people to go for dinner and drinks with. I've even joined a book club! It seems to involve lots of women sitting around chatting and drinking wine, so I think I'll fit in OK :0) Ben's gone off to photography club this evening and next week we start our scuba diving classes. I've also joined the gym and have been doing lots of running in anticipation of a 10km run around the Mount at the end of the month. Whilst Ben's finally bought himself a guitar and is meeting some potential music buddies next week (we have a suspicion that they may turn out to be fifteen though!) So we're definitely keeping busy.

It's pretty strange that it's May and we're heading into Winter. I think that's going to take lot of getting used to. After all that torrential rain we had when we went for our little jaunt up the Coromandel the weather has been pretty good. It's cold in the evenings and early morning but during the day it's sunny and clear, although not particularly warm. It's certainly a lot nicer than October in the UK, which is the equivalent time of year. It starting to get dark earlier and earlier though, which is a bit sad when I know that Summer is on the way at home. Still you can't have it all and I'm sure next Summer will more than make up for it :0)

So that's kind of it for now. We're back to the 'real world' as it were. It's a bit different from our old lives and we're excited to see how it all works out. But it's a bit sad too now that the holiday is finally over and of course we miss everyone more than ever now that we're developing something of a routine. It's been a really long time since I had a proper girls night out or we all went to a music gig or everyone came over for wine and a take away :0( But we are very excited that some of you are coming over to see us next Summer (Yey for Bethan and Ceri!!!!!) and are really happy to be here. I keep nagging Ben to take some photos of the place and we're going to do a little video of the house so look out for those. In the mean time... remember we love you x.

New Zealand - The Coromandel

2009-04-22T23:04:00.000-07:00

The Coromandel Peninsular juts out of New Zealand's eastern coastline only about an hour north of Tauranaga. It's a relatively undeveloped place, with a few small beach towns, but mostly consists of mountainous rainforest and deserted beaches. The more remote roads are unsealed, which makes for pretty nerve-wracking driving in a campervan. We're slightly worried that Marge might just have a tantrum and refuse to go on if we push her too much! The scenery, as you have come to expect by now, is beautiful and the beaches gorgeous.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the weather! It is pouring down :0( We've done our best during the periods of slightly less torrential rain and done a bit of 'bush tramping', which involved a fair bit of wading through streams and clambering up river banks. We've also been on a cute little narrow-gauge railway journey through the wilderness. But on the whole we've been taking note of how lovely a lot of places will be when we come back again in the sunshine!

Digging a hole in the sand and wallowing in hot springs at Hot Water Beach, having a go at the Department of Conservation's snorkeling course in Cathedral Cove Marine Reserve and seeing a 1200 year old, 41m tall and 9m wide kauri tree will, I'm afraid, have to wait. Still never mind, it's not far away and we've got plenty time to come again :0)

New Zealand - A New Home

2009-04-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

We've seen quite a mixture of houses. The first was down the longest, bumpiest, steepest driveway I've ever seen. There was no way we would have got Marge down it, or more to the point, back up it again, so that was a no go. Another looked like sheltered accommodation for old folk from the outside and a student house from the inside - no thanks. We were very tempted by a gorgeous little flat we saw though, it only had one bedroom and we nearly went with our sod-all-the-visitors instinct when we heard it had water views and a hot tub! But you were saved by the fact it wasn't completely self-contained and the idea of the owners', who live upstairs, grand-kids coming tearing through whenever they felt like it, was enough to put me off.

The winning house does not, unfortunately, boast sea views or a hot tub, but is; absolutely lovely, has lots of character, is really sunny, less than five minutes walk from my work, has three bedrooms (so loads of space for visitors) and has a garden for Ben to grow us some veggies, a yard for BBQs, and a big lawn for my Dad to pitch his tent on (don't ask!) :0) We're very excited, but can't move in for a couple of weeks yet. The girl who owns the house is even going to leave her furniture with us for a month or two, until she's ready for it in her new place, which works out well for all of us. (I'm going to make sure we do a video to show you the place whilst her nice furniture is still there rather than wait for it to be filled with whatever second-hand stuff we can scrounge!)

So with that all sorted and still a week before I start work we're heading off for one last trip before it's all over.

New Zealand - On our way home

2009-04-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately our travelling time is pretty much over. We headed back to Picton to get the ferry back to the North Island but called into Blenheim again on route to buy some of our favourite wines from it's wineries (I won't be drinking any of it of course, as I'm sworn off the booze!) We also called in on Ben's second cousin Naomi and husband Mark who live there. They fed lots of delicious home made veggie food, then made us earn our keep by playing a torturous board game with their kids!

Back on the North Island we stopped off to say hi to Molly and check out her set up in the ski fields. Then it was back to Hamilton (yet again) for sorting final paperwork and grovelling at the Immigration Service. We even managed to call in on Monia in Cambridge (Molly's boyfriend - Jaco's sister. Following? One of the people in our losing pub quiz team. Ringing any bells?) before finally heading back to Tauranga.

So now we're 'home' and all we need to do is find somewhere to live, so wish us luck! It's only just over a week until I start work and we're sort of looking forward to settling a bit. Don't get me wrong I absolutely love travelling in Marge (now we've got to know her a bit better she's called 'Marge' rather than 'Margery'), but it will be nice to get to know people and have some of the comforts that being in an actual house provides, like cupboards that don't empty their contents at you when you open them and a toilet that can be accessed without a run through the rain!

In the mean time, the big news is... we finally bought a heater after we found ourselves cuddled up, pajama clad, in bed at 7.30 the other evening. We just couldn't take it any more, and as it turns out it only cost us NZ$10 (about £3.30) so we should have got one ages ago! Ben has excitedly put it on even though it's not that cold yet, so Marge feels a bit like a sauna!

And finally.... I'm being forced to allow Ben to re-instate his junk food eating habits as all this exercise is causing him to completely lose his bum. He has taken up the mantra "A pie a day stops me wasting away"! So while I struggle on with my dieting efforts he gets to scoff lots of goodies (don't you hate boys and their metabolisms?!)

New Zealand - West Coast

2009-04-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

The West Coast is pretty remote.There are even less people here than in the other parts of New Zealand, and that's saying something because a lot of it's pretty deserted! Most of the land is designated Scenic Reserve seperated by areas of farmland. It's too wet to grow much but there's cows, sheep, deer and apparently a roaring trade in cannabis! The coastline is gorgeous - completely untouched. Mile upon mile of beach with nothing but driftwood on it, and strange rock formations.

With the coast on one side, the mountains on the other are again those that we have already visited. We can see Mount Cook again, but this time from the other side, complete with a new covering of snow. Having failed to get the usual photo of Mount Cook reflected in Lake Mathison as we got hailed on in the attempt, Ben resorted to clambering over fences and through mud into a cow field to photograph it reflected in a puddle!

New Zealand - Fox Glacier

2009-04-09T20:26:00.000-07:00

Heather:
We hiked on a glacier!! It was fab :0) It's called Fox Glacier, but apparently has nothing to do with the mints! The hardest bit was getting on to the glacier in the first place. We walked up the valley floor until we reached the foot of the glacier, then had to climb through the bush next to it so we could get on it from the side. There were over seven hundred dug-out steps to climb and we were wearing huge hob-nail boots, so it was like having feet of lead! There's recently been some rockfalls brought on by all the rain, so our safety briefing included being told "If I say run... Then RUN". Hmmm, not very reassuring.

It was worth it though. The weather was glorious, finally some sun :0) Once we got to the glacier we were given crampons to strap to our boots and our guide led the way. She was only little but seeing her swing that axe around you wouldn't want to mess with her!! We had to stomp our feet like teenagers having a strop to make sure we didn't slip and at times there were chains fixed to the ice to haul ourselves up with.

The ice looks clear, white and even blue in parts and it's really not possible to comprehend the scale of it. It looked massive but we could only see a tiny proportion of it. It's shape changes all the time and there were all kinds of formations and tunnels to explore. I nearly disappeared down a hole when I was hiding behind a rock having a wee and nearly slipped in the stream I created! It was a pretty fantastic feeling to be on top of a huge lump of ice, with rainforest to each side and a view out to sea. Nature is an incredible thing.

Ben:
Heathers photos are here and mine are here

New Zealand - Wanaka

2009-04-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

Heather:
It really is Autumn here. The trees are beautiful. They're all starting to change colour. Everywhere I look the leaves are yellow, red, brown and purple. The weather's still pretty ropey but it almost seemed worthwhile when we emerged from the van this morning to find ourselves in the clouds. As it began to clear we saw that we'd had the first of the year's snowfall. It was bloody cold but looked fantastic!

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Whilst here Ben insisted that we visit 'Puzzling World'. He excitedly dragged me around a maze, then we had to walk through these "illusion rooms", which were kind of all wonky and made me feel a bit sick (the hangover still hasn't completely gone), then we got to look at holograms from the 1980s. I tried to fake enthusiasm but there really is no getting away from the fact that it was a bit crap! The only good thing about it all is that they had this strange display of a roman style toilet and Ben found someone weeing in it thinking it was the real toilet :0)

Ben:
Heathers photos can be found here and the few I took can be found here.

New Zealand - Queenstown

2009-04-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

Having taken the tramping knock-back rather badly the obvious thing to do was to drink wine! Unfortunately because my tolerance is so low I accidentally got really drunk. I'm not entirely sure what happened, one minute I was fine and the next minute Ben was forced to take me home as I got us chucked out of the pub. He was in the loo at the time, and I can't remember, so we have no idea what I did! As if that wasn't bad enough I shouted and cried for no apparent reason and then woke Ben up in the middle of the night being sick on him!! The next day he had to wash all the bedding, including our duvet, whilst I couldn't keep my head out of a bucket. He was even sympathetic and made me cheese on toast when I finally could eat something. I know, I know, I'm a cow and he's lovely and I don't deserve him :0( Needless to say, I will never be drinking again!

Our time in Queenstown hasn't got much better either because that forecast horrible weather has hit us. We're pretty glad we didn't go ahead with the tramp after all, as it really is awful. We stood in the rain and watched a few brave / foolish people throw themselves off a bridge with elastic around their ankles, but haven't been able to do any of the exploring or walking we'd planned, you just can't see anything - boo!

New Zealand - 'Tramping'

2009-04-05T17:25:00.000-07:00

'Tramping' (a.k.a hiking) is a popular pursuit in New Zealand and the country is crisscrossed by thousands of kilometres of walking tracks. Eight of the best tramps have been classified as 'Great Walks'. They're all between three and five days long and follow well-worn paths through unspoiled wilderness. You either camp or stay in simple huts with bunk beds and gas burners (but no bedding, pots and pans, food etc) so you need to carry a pack and quite a lot of kit.

The whole system is organised by the Department of Conservation (DOC), who maintain the facilities and keep records of who is using the tracks etc. You need to sign an Intention Form and nominate a "panic day" on which they will alert the emergency services that you are missing, if you haven't returned. Oh yeah, they take it all very seriously. It's proper wilderness out here - unpredictable weather, tracks which are days and days walk from the nearest settlement, no mobile phone coverage etc.

One of the reasons we have been doing so much hiking (apart, of course, from the fact we love it) is because we've been building ourselves up to undertaking the Kepler Track. It's one of the 'Great Walks', it's three days long and follows a loop through the Kepler Mountains, along an exposed sub-alpine ridge, and through virgin beech forest. We've mentally and physically prepared for it, bought a supply of disgusting dehydrated food, tested out our new waterproof coats and got ourselves quite excited!

But when we arrived at the DOC centre at it's start, we found that the MET office had issued a Severe Weather Warning. Bollocks!! They forecast torrential rain, strong winds, hail and the track is likely to be up to half a metre deep in water. That doesn't sound like much fun! The weather isn't likely to clear for a few days and we just don't have the time to sit and wait it out. So we're not going to do it but are really disappointed :0( Well actually, I'm really disappointed but I think Ben's a bit relieved as he's just come down with a serious case of man-flu (yes, yes he's fine - don't encourage him!!).

We're hoping to come back and do it another time, so if any of you fancy doing it with us when you visit, then let us know (I am aware that most of you would rather boil your head in fat, but that goes without saying!)

New Zealand - Milford Sound

2009-04-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Milford Sound is not, in fact, a sound at all. 'Sounds' are valleys that lead to the sea cut by rivers whereas the Milford valley was cut by a glacier making it a true fjord (does that mean anything to anyone or did I just say "blah, blah, blah"?!). The result is massive vertical valley sides dropping into a really deep narrow channel, which weaves between cliff faces before reaching the open (Tasman) sea. I don't think I'm explaining myself very well and hopefully the pictures will save me again. Anyway, we went on a cruise (oh yes we are very posh - didn't you know?!) as the only way to see the fjord is from the water (and we woosed out of kayaking as it's SO cold).

Fiordland (that's the name of the region as there are lots of fjords, Milford is just the most well known as it's the most accessible i.e. there are no roads to the others) has about eight metres of rainfall a year (that's a lot) and it hasn't rained for the last six days which officially makes it a drought (mad!). So because it's so wet there are hundreds of waterfalls which flow down the faces of the valley sides making it look absolutely magical. Stirling Falls is 155m tall, which is actually three times as high as Niagra Falls, but you'd never know it from looking at it as it is dwarfed by the mountains either side of it which are 1700m (or a mile) high!

Even though the valley sides are almost vertical they're covered with trees in what seems to be the most impossible way. It's called 'catastrophe forest' (apparently) and only about a quarter of the trees actually touch the rock-face. They're held in place by a complex system of roots which all cling to one and other. So when one tree falls it has a "catastrophic" domino effect and whole swathes of them fall into the sea (see how much I've learned? I even took notes - what a swot!!).

The person to discover the place was a Welsh fella (Cook sailed right passed it as you can't see that there's an opening from out at sea. The Welsh guy - yeah sorry I didn't write his name down, had some sort of problems with his ship so came ashore only to discover the place by accident. Of course the Maoris had known about it for generations and had been visiting regularly, despite it being so inhospitable, in search of jade, which has huge spiritual significance in their culture, and can be found on the near-by beaches). So the Welsh fella named the place Milford, after his home town, and all the mountains and rivers surrounding it have Welsh names too.

Ben:
There are more pictures here!

New Zealand - On Route to Milford Sound

2009-04-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

The road to Milford Sound winds up though the mountains, with a huge drop next to it and inclines that had Ben wishing for a two-and-a-half gear as we chugged along. Freezing fog added to the drama of the place and there was a lot of stopping to admire views and venturing along tracks to find lakes, waterfalls and a forest which felt like it was enchanted. It seemed as if fairies were bound to come out to play if we just sat quietly for long enough!

It's really cold now. We're wearing practically all of our clothes all at the same time! Marge (the campervan) found it all a bit much this morning and we had to push her into the sun and let her warm up for half an hour before she'd start! I know how she feels, at night when we're all tucked up in our duvet it's fine, but in the morning it's really hard to get out of bed and midnight wees are a nightmare!

New Zealand - Catlins Coast - Curio Bay

2009-04-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

I just went to have a shower but the door was locked because "a sealion was trying to get in there"! It really does feel like it's us on their territory and not the other way around, which is the way it should be. So this sealion is just wandering around the campsite - cool :0)

There's a 'petrified forest' in one of the bays where a forest has quite literally (in the correct sense of the word) been turned to stone. Ben however confused all the other tourists looking at plant fossils (which are really rare apparently) by standing holding his jumper over his head and taking photos of seaweed! It does look kind of spacey though, so at least I didn't think he was mental :0)

It's an incredible place. There are often little hector dolphins in the bay but we haven't seen any because it's a bit rough for them today, which makes me a little bit sad. But the sight of the waves crashing onto the rocks kind of makes up for it. I've somehow managed to resist the compulsion to run into the spray (proving that it is no longer the case that whenever I'm near the sea I can't resist getting soaked right though to my knickers, which my Dad tells me was always the case when I was little - mind you the water's bloody cold!)

One side of the campsite is all jagged cliffs with crashing waves and the other side is swathes of golden beaches. There's no chance of a grumpy guy with a scary-looking dog telling you to be quiet, so I thought it would be the perfect place to hold - Geekfest Goes Down Under - what do you think?!

New Zealand - Catlins Coast - Top Track

2009-03-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

Heather:
We're now travelling along the south coast of the South Island, so we're really far south! It's pretty remote; a couple of hours drive to a supermarket, no mobile phone reception, very few places to buy petrol. Farming and tourism seem to be the only industries. We've hardly seen another soul.

Most of the hiking that we've been doing has been on tracks managed by the Department of Conservation, so they're really well looked after, sign-posted and kind of difficult to lose. So we decided to do something a little bit different. We did a two day walk called the Top Track, it was over private land on much rougher terrain and was a bit of an adventure :0) We had a booklet with instructions to follow and the way was marked with all sorts of brightly coloured way-markers, including old wellies on sticks, I felt like we were on a treasure hunt! The walk took us along deserted beaches, through forest, along cliff tops and over farm-land (I got a bit scared by the cows), then to our treasure... the Top Bus! An old bus that had been dragged to the top of a hill, that we spent the night in, before walking back a different route the next day.

Ben:
There are more photos of the Catlins coast here

New Zealand - Dunedin

2009-03-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

The European New Zealand settlers demonstrate their lack of imagination, yet again, in the development of a city which is, this time, supposed to be Scottish. Well, there are lots of old buildings (which is pretty rare for New Zealand) and the weather's crap, so I guess it is a bit similar to Scotland! There's really very little I can say about the place, it seemed nice enough but it was Sunday so it was completely deserted.

We ended up spending most of the afternoon in an Internet place, because it was cheap! But the experience has slightly damaged me. It was like being in a teenage boy's bedroom! It was full of boys with poor personal hygiene, lacking social skills, who clearly don't get out much, playing computer games. I felt like I'd been transported to 'Teenager World' and was completely invisible because as Ben put it "geeks don't notice girls"! Using the toilet was quite a traumatic experience too but I think that's enough about that.

New Zealand - Otago Peninsula

2009-03-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

Yellow-eyed penguins are one of the rarest types of penguin in the world and... we saw them! We went into these hides which looked like something from World War I and got really close to these penguins who were just standing under trees looking scruffy! They moult at this time of year and so can't go in the water for a few weeks until all their old feathers have fallen out and the new ones have been coated in some sort of oil that they produce to make them properly waterproof. Hence the standing around under trees looking scruffy! Bless them :0)

We saw little blue penguins too, but to be honest the sight wasn't quite as impressive as they don't come ashore until dusk, by which time all we actually saw were little dark shapes waddling up the beach! We did see a huge sea lion though, which is different to a seal because they're bigger, the males dark and the females light in colour. They have flatter noses and walk differently plus they have external ears (see I do learn some things, just not about boring old rocks!) Unfortunately by the time Ben got his camera out the sea-lion had decided he'd had enough and hauled his ass back into the water and swam off. He did get some shots of the huge endangered albatrosses that flew overhead though :0)

Obviously there's been more hiking too and it all seems to finally be paying off as both Ben and I have had to make new holes in our belts to keep our tatty old trousers up - whoop whoop!!

Ben:
There are more photos here.

New Zealand - Moeraki Boulders

2009-03-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Back to the coast again and on to Moeraki Village. We passed through the strange town of Oamaru on route, which had one street which seemed to be a bit of a time-warp with old buildings, traditional crafts and people in Victorian clothing whilst the rest of the town was tatty and smelt of sheep poo!

Moeraki Village, for some reason, has loads of Welsh street names. It's a bit weird walking down Cardiff Road and seeing signs for Tenby and Glamorgan Street. But that's not why we're here. It's all about the boulders! There are these big round boulders on the beach here. I think this is going to be another one of those occasions where Ben's photos are going to do a better job at painting the picture than me. Basically there are these big spherical rocks caused by some boring geological process that I can't remember (I just asked Ben and his description of "some sort of stuff crystallizes and forms them in certain conditions" probably isn't much more help!). Anyway they were fun to play on and make for some pretty interesting photos :0)

For the last few days we've been "freedom camping", which basically means that we've parked up over night in spots without any facilities (it's allowed believe it or not). It saves money but means we haven't had a shower for days! It's a bit like when we were working at the festivals, except then everyone else smelt too! I've started to fantasize about being clean. We bought some cheap DVDs from the supermarket and are planning to watch them on the laptop. I love how all this makes me appreciate the things I usually take for granted :0) It's funny how in the course of a few days my perspective on what constitutes luxury can change from spa pools to running water and electricity!

Last night I woke up in the night and I could hear the weirdest noise. It was a sort of whirring and sounded like it was coming from all around the van. I started to worry it might be a spaceship! I had visions of a flying saucer hovering over us. Rather surprisingly though my reaction was to refuse to look out of the window because I didn't want to be like one of those nutty Americans who claims to have been abducted by aliens! As it turns out it was a train, but I think I learned something about myself :0)

Ben:
There are more photos here!

New Zealand - The Southern Alps - Mount Cook

2009-03-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

Mount Cook is New Zealand's tallest mountain (3754 m) and no we haven't climbed it! It's actually not as big as some of the mountains that we trekked through in South America but these mountains are really rugged. They're capped with snow, which doesn't seem much higher up than we are (but that's probably some sort of illusion of perspective) and don't forget that it's Autumn here now, so this snow has stayed put all though the hottest Summer in decades.

We headed off for a days hiking in Mount Cook National Park in our boots, hats, sunscreen etc and had our waterproofs, lunch and water in our packs . But I must admit that my conviction that we were well prepared was slightly shaken when the fist thing we saw was a memorial. It was covered in little plaques describing the tragic deaths of ALOT of people in the park we were jaunting off into! All over New Zealand there are these big road-signs with a kind of swing-o-meter indicating the level of risk of fire in the bush on that particular day, so we're pretty used to seeing those, but this is the fist time I've seen one to indicate the risk of avalanche!! Hmmmm bit of a worry, but the risk is low at this time of year, so completely by chance we're here at the right time - phew!

Our hike took us among glacier topped mountains, over swing bridges, through bush and over scrubland before leading us to the glacier at the base of Mount Cook, where a lake was filled with mini icebergs. Now that, you've got to admit, is cool :0) Now we're parked next to a lake with the reflection of Mount Cook in it and Ben swears he's going to get up early tomorrow and take some photos. He's also promised that afterwards he'll drive the van to the nearest loos a few kms away with me still in bed (naughty!).

New Zealand - The Southern Alps - Lake Takepo

2009-03-24T16:37:00.000-07:00

We've taken a detour from the east coast road and come inland to do some hiking in the Southern Alps. Our first stop, Lake Takepo, is so nice we've stayed an extra day! It's a glacial lake and is really turquoise so it looks a much darker colour than the sky, which is kind of cool (something to do with dust particles in the water). We're camped over-looking the lake and surrounded by mountains and once again are blown away by our setting. (I apologise if it's getting a bit boring hearing "it was really beautiful" over and over again, but it IS all really beautiful! I feel like I'm running out of ways to say that though. I hope Ben's pictures will be a bit better at showing you what I mean).

There's a tiny, pretty church on the lakeside and instead of having stain glass it has a huge clear window overlooking the lake. But Ben had something of a strop when he was trying to get a photo of it because bus-loads of Japanese tourists kept pulling up in front of him! The final picture was worth the wait though :0)

I'm pretty taken with the sheepdog stature nearby, which is a thank you to all the generations of working dogs who have aided the local famers in managing their land. Ooh and all the rabbits (a.k.a. "fluffy bunnies") we've seen playing everywhere (no doubt hated by the locals for eating all the vegetation and disturbing their precious flightless birds. I'm thinking of starting up a we-love-introduced-mammals-as-well-as-kiwis-It's-not-their-fault-you-brought-them-over-here club, but I'm not convinced there'll be many members!)

We hiked up the nearest mountain today and found little observatories scattered all around. The skies are so clear and free from light pollution here that the nearby university does lots of astronomy studies. Looking up when running to the loo, in the cold, during the night showed me why. The sky looks massive! And there's tonnes of stars, way more than you ever see from home. Obviously I don't know what any of them are, and can't maintain my concentration for long enough to learn any, but none-the-less I am capable of being impressed!

We had a big treat after our walk this afternoon and went to a brand new hot spring spa pool complex. It had three pools all at different temperatures and loungers to lie in the sun. It was proper luxury and Ben loved it too, mostly because for some reason it only cost us about three quid each :0) I could definitely get used to this sort of lifestyle.

I have a confession to make... the significant drop in temperature, especially in the evenings and mornings, coupled with my distinct lack of appropriate clothing (and the fact that we're in New Zealand and fashion is not a big thing over here!) has lead me, on several occasions, to be seen in public, sporting my favourite pink flip flops (or "jandals" as they call them here) teamed with big, brown, woolly, knee-high socks covered in llama patterns, from South America, which were a typically rubbish Christmas present from my brother (cheers Clump!).

Ben:
There are more photos here

New Zealand - Christchurch

2009-03-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

I really liked Christchurch last time I was here, but maybe the fact it was summertime and Christmas might have had something to do with it, because this time it's wet and cold and just a bit average. The city is sort of English, there's punting on the River Avon, old fashioned trams, parks, and the cathedral of course. But mostly a place (like most) which is more enjoyable in the sunshine. It's definitely Autumn now, we've had to buy jumpers and big coats and are headed into our first Winter in quite some time. We've still got a way further south to go too so it's only going to get colder - bbbrrrrrrrr! I wonder at which temperature it stops being fun in a campervan?!

Anyway my Christchurch highlight was shopping (for the nano-second that Ben can tolerate) and watching a rat playing on the riverbank - not something most people would enjoy, but then I'm not most people and I miss having pet rats :0(

Ben's highlight, however, was being proven right after I was annoyed at his suggestion that I'm "not very good with art galleries" when after only twenty-five minutes of art gallery action I text him to say I was bored and went to wait in the foyer. Yeah, yeah, whatever!!

Ben:
There's another photo here.

New Zealand - Kaikoura

2009-03-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Ben finally got some photos of seals :0) They're all along the coast and you can just walk right up to them. If you get too close they soon give you a bit of a warning growl though, as Ben discovered. He reckons they're not too fast on the rocks but I don't think he's as fast as he thinks he is!

We saw dolphins too. Hundreds of them. They were really close to the shore and leaping out of the water putting on quite a show! They were jumping in formation, doing somersaults and back-flips and everything. They were totally showing off! It was fab :0)

They have the some of the best seafood in the world here and even I - the vegetarian fish-hater felt I should give it a go. It was beautiful, but the massive plate full of assorted battered seafood I was presented with seems to have caused the blood flowing through my veins to be replaced by liquid lard!

Ben:
There are more photos here

New Zealand - Blenheim

2009-03-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

We're in wine country again, nothing but vineyards for miles, so what's a girl to do?! Wine tasting of course :0) Seven wineries later Ben declared "I find as you go around they all start to taste good". I have now officially confirmed my suspicions that my favourite wines are Sauvignon Blancs from the Malborough region or "sav" as they rather classlessly refer to it here. Ben religiously made notes on every wine he tasted, which later didn't prove to be that useful as he had described one of his favourites as reminding him of ham!!

I found a lovely little gift shop, selling jewellery, Maori arts and so on. The reason I mention it is I just wanted to give you another example of the Kiwis' intense hatred of the possum... In this shop you can buy chocolates shaped like run-over possums! Now come on, is that really necessary?! (I feel now is the time I should make a little correction about my previous statement that the reason for their unpopularity is because they kill kiwis. Apparently they don't often kill kiwis after all but they do devastate their habitat. I'm sure most of you don't care but you know I like to get these things right.)

New Zealand - Nelson Lakes National Park

2009-03-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Another national park and equally spectacular but totally different. This setting is a gorgeous lake surrounded by mountains. It's picture-postcard perfect and even inspired Ben for the first time on this whole trip (despite several declarations of intent) to haul his arse out of bed and photograph the sunrise :0)

So more hiking and healthy outdoor action had by all, but it hasn't all been fun and sunshine... Ben dropped his camera and damaged his filter (but not thelens fortunately which would have been much more of a disaster - do you see the dull, geeky things I'm forced to know about these days?!).

My mini disaster was to ruin the dinner, which in itself is not that much of a drama but it has resulted in Margery and her contents (a.k.a. everything we own!) smelling like the last burger that has been forgotten about and left on theBBQ! Fortunately we've discovered that fabreeze exists over here too, so now all our stuff smells like fabreeze with just an gentle undertone of charred burger!

The big news though is... Remember my new hobby - "puzzling for prizes"? Well it worked because WE WON A PRIZE! I told you we were bound to :0) Now admittedly the prize (which we have yet to see) is some kind of shitty magnetic thing you stick on the fridge and a key ring, so not the car or LCD TV we were hoping for. But it is a start. However, despite our success I'm afraid I need to let you know that Ben continues to "puzzle for pleasure", what is that about?! In fact I recently discovered that his new habit of buying daily newspapers is not so he can read about the latest non-event that has occurred on these fair isles, but to do the bloody crossword! So in a bid to save trees I got him to buy a crossword book, however it appears he was a little ambitious in his choice of "Times Cryptic Crosswords" as he can't answer any of them, so probably should have gone for the big print old lady one after all!

Ben:
There are more photos here

New Zealand - Abel Tasman National Park

2009-03-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

Heather:
The spectular-ness (I don't think that there is such a word, but there should be) of the South Island scenery was apparent before we even arrived! The ferry took us through the Marlborough Sounds; rugged, unspoiled coastline, with the occasional house, accessible only by boat, being the only development for miles and miles. We then drove north up the coastline to Abel Tasman National Park, on possibly the windiest (as in zig zaggy not as in blowy) roads I have ever been on in my life (and bare in mind the South American adventures so I do not make that statement lightly) and Margery took it all in her stride. Against all the odds and despite the few extra thousand KMs we're put on her (so far) she is doing brilliantly (so far). Ben has now fully mastered the way that you have to sneak her into third gear by almost going into fifth, and she's even been treated to a bit of interior design make-over in the form of photos of you ugly lot on her walls :0) I can't believe how at home I feel in a space which is about five metres by one metre and more to the point that I have to share with someone else (yep, he is still alive)!

The national park runs along the north coast of the South Island and we've done a bit of kayaking, which has got to be the best way to explore the park's pretty little coves and see it's dramatic cliff faces. The rocks have been worn into strange, smooth shapes where they enter the sea, which changes colour from blue to green and back to blue again (something to do with the colour of the sand apparently). Our guide (who insisted on talking like a pirate?!) pointed out some of the local bird life and I'm not really a big fan of birds. Animals of the fluffy, cuddly variety I can get excited about - and do, all the time, but birds generally just don't do anything for me. Now there are a few exceptions to this rule, the kiwi for instance (possibly because it is a bird of the fluffy, cuddly variety) and in Abel Tasman I found another one - the pied shag. Now admittedly it's comedy name does help, but that is not the whole reason. They look kind of like flying penguins and apparently they have really dense, heavy bones and webbed feet. These physical characteristics make them ideally suited to diving in water, but not so ideally suited, to our delight, to landing in trees!! Oh how we laughed as they had to make several attempts before crash-landing in the tree tops :0)

We've been doing a lot of hiking along the coastal track too, which I love but doesn't make for very interesting reading. But we were involved in a bit of drama when a woman who was walking near us fell and (I suspect) broke her hip. I hadn't really thought about how remote it is until that point.There are plenty of people around and lots of facilities, but no mobile coverage and an hour and a half walk to the nearest phone. I used one of my best practised skills - shouting loudly and got the message to a kayak guide who radio-ed for help. Not much later a doctor happened to be walking past and stopped to help, giving Ben and I the excuse to slope off and leave them to wait to be rescued.

The highlight of our time in Abel Tasman though has to be our seal swim :0) I actually tried to do this when I was here ten years ago and it was freezing and the seals all sat on their rocks looking at us like we must be mental for being in the cold water! They were having none of it! But not this time... it was still freezing, even in wetsuits and the like, but we were taken out by this old sea-dog character, who looked like Uncle Albert and kept bursting into song! Well he might be a bit odd but I think he's great after he took us to a seal "nursery" and this time the seal pups were more than happy to come and play (one, two, three... aaaawwwwww!). It was amazing, swimming in the sea with these gorgeous, wild animals, with huge eyes, who were swimming round and round us and coming right up to our faces then darting away at the last minute. Even the mums were joining in the fun.

The absolutely best bit was when one of the pups was resting on his flippers with his head out of the water, on a little rock which was sticking up. I went over and really slowly joined him there. The next thing... another one popped up and then another and another! They obviously all wanted to see what they were missing. In the end I was surrounded by six baby seals. It took all of my will power not to shout "BEN... LOOK AT ME!!!!!" at the top of my voice (no, no there's no photos, Ben was splashing about in the water too and the camera was safely tucked away in the dry -boo!)

Heather's little rant...

Ben's photos are beautiful, I love seeing them on the blog and I know that they are the real reason that most of you (not you Dad - thanks) bother to look at it at all (of course I'm not bitter!), but it's not always all that much fun hanging around waiting for the right light (blah, blah!) for him to get the perfect shot - AND we're hardly ever in any of them! You should know that every photo of me has been battled for and the ones with Ben in as well are usually following a row about the fact that he won't be in any photos! So anyway the point of this little rant is that I had a bit of a rebellion and took some of my own "snaps" of us muppetting around, so have a look here.

Ben:
Or you can look at my photos here

New Zealand - Going Down!

2009-03-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Finally we are on our way down south. In fact I'm writing this whilst on the ferry from Wellington to Picton in the South Island. It all worked out according to plan and I've accepted the job in Tauranga. I probably could have taken my pick of jobs in the end. It's the first time I've been really pleased that I did my OT training - it's so nice to be in demand! The paperwork for my work permit is working it's way through the bureaucracy mill ready for me to start on April 27th, and hopefully I'll have residency within a few months too :0)

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We've been to see Molly again -yey! Who lives only about three quarters of an hours drive from Tauranga - yey! But is just about to move to a place three hours away - boo! But is going to be working in the ski fields - yey! So we'll have somewhere to stay when we want to go skiing for the weekend in the Winter - yey! Surfing, sailing and scuba diving in the Summer then skiing in the Winter - can't be bad :0) (Maybe I should point out at this point that neither Ben nor I has ever been skiing in our lives, but hey, it's be rude not to right?!)

Molly got us all dragged into the quiz at the pub she works at, and we all won booby prizes at half time for coming last! Given the distinct lack of Kiwis in our team though it's not too surprising that we only scored one out of ten on the New Zealand history round! We did make something of a comeback though and managed not to come last over all :0) It all turned into something of a session and we blame the Africans! (Molly's South African boyfriend and his sister are a terrible influence!)

It was with the news that I'd got the job, and hangovers, that we finally got on our way towards the South Island. We had a couple more days with Rich and Vicky in Wellington on route. Another carnival and more fun in the sun made us wonder if we'd made the right choice with Tauranga over Wellington. But then came the rain, the traffic and that bloody awful wind and we realised that "you'd never get that in Tauranga" and that we've made the right decision :0)

Ben continues to attempt to counter-act my healthy living regime with his slobby lorry-driver impression and non-stop fish and chip eating! But once again has upped his opinion of New Zealand, this time from "good" to "choice" (a Kiwi word which means just about anything positive!)

Ben:
More photos here!

New Zealand - Tauranga

2009-03-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

Tauranga is New Zealand's fastest growing city. By our standards it's not really a city at all. It's not even that big a town really. But this is New Zealand and "things are different here" as our friend Molly put it :0) It's in the Bay of Plenty which is on the east coast of the North Island and another place with a potential job for me. This was top of my list of places to live (not an easy thing to write when you haven't actually seen the places!) and on paper it's great. It has one of the best climates in New Zealand, lovely coastline, geek job opportunities for Ben, as well as potential photography opportunities and a location making it ideal to visit some of the nicest parts of the country within a day or weekend.

However, I've got to be honest my initial impression of Tauranga city itself wasn't overwhelming. It's just over a third of the size of Wellington, doesn't have such an impressive harbour setting and is lacking it's cultural vibrancy. But we always knew that was going to be the case. It does have everything you need from a city centre though in terms of shopping, bars, restaurants etc. Armed with a property rental listings we checked out some of the areas that maybe we would live it, but again were not overly impressed.

Don't worry this is the bit where it gets positive!... But then we went over the water, a bridge separates Tauranga from Mount Maunganui ("The Mount") which is sort of a suburb of Tauranga but feels more like it's own lovely, little beach town. We discovered that we could afford to rent a property really close to the beach and the town feels like it's got it's own little community with shops, cafes etc. We're finding that a lot of New Zealands housing is among sprawling suburbs, which mean that the houses are spread out and surrounded by greenery, but to our minds, lacking in a local community feel. We don't want to have to get in a car and drive every time we want to go somewhere. By New Zealand standards The Mount is "over developed" but to us it's small, tasteful and tranquil, with a gorgeous unspoiled beach :0) I'm not sure what that says about us! I even saw a poster up advertising belly-dancing classes, so who needs Wellington?!

So we're now, feeling really positive about maybe living here. We're not dead set on living in The Mount even if we do end up here because there's the commute to think about and lots of other things, and of course if we found something that we loved in the city then maybe we'd take that. But we are feeling positive that we could find something we really like here for a lot less money than we could in Wellington. Plus we'll have the sunshine and the beach :0) And it's a great place for people to come visit us at (hint hint!). I feel like a life in a little town on a beautiful beach is something that is really different enough from what we left behind to have come all this way for. Does that make sense?

Having said all that... I've got to get offered the job first! I've got my interview on Monday, so wish me luck! I've also got some other interviews lined up so it's not as if all our eggs are in one basket or anything, but I have a feeling about this place. Unfortunately the excitement is starting to flip over into anxiety as it all gets a bit more real - but I'm trying to ignore it and Ben's keeping me calm :0)

Despite Tauranga having supposedly the best climate in the country we're currently holed up in the campervan with a tropical storm raging around us! It's Ben's birthday tomorrow and we're supposed to be going out to celebrate but so far running to the loos is as far as we've got and that's got us soaked! The wind is blowing the camper around so I'm really glad we're not in a tent. We've been cooped up all day and cabin fever is starting to set in now! I've promised myself some wine tonight so I'm determined to get some, I just haven't quite worked out how I'm going to make it happen yet!

A few days later...

Well the important thing is - I did get some wine :0) The storm finally died down enough for us to be able to drive to the supermarket and run inside. So wine was bought, as was birthday treat fish and chips. Fortunately the next day, Ben's actual birthday, the weather was beautiful again and it was hard to believe that the storm had happened at all. We spent the day on the beach and then went out for a thai meal in the evening, so it was all good in the end.

I had my first job interview yesterday and it went really well - I think. I waffled a bit too much and could have answered some of the questions a bit better but I think I got away with it! They're not allowed to offer me the job until they've spoken to my referees (which is a bit of a pain with the time difference and stuff - thanks Beth, it's much appreciated) but it seems apparent that they are going to offer it to me.

It's a Community Mental Health Team Occupational Therapist post - for those of you that that means anything to. Basically it means I'd be working as part of a multi-disciplinary team, with people with mental health problems, in the community, so in their own homes rather than in hospital. It's similar enough to what I've done before to not freak me out too much, but different enough to still be interesting. And funnily enough my "patch" would be The Mount! Which is pretty cool as I'd get to go for walks along the beach with my clients and stuff :0) It may be a reason not to live there though. We shall see. Tauranga town seems to be growing on us anyway so maybe we will want to live in the city after all.

I went back again today for a look around the facilities and to meet some of the team and stuff and it was all very plush! The OT who showed me 'round was lovely and actually apologised about the offices being "a bit shabby" but it was way nicer than most other places I've worked. The hospital itself is all brand new so the inpatient facilities look fantastic. The place had a really positive, friendly, relaxed but professional feel to it. I was impressed. As far as it's possible to tell in this sort of situation I feel like it would be a good place to work. So all we need to do now is wait for them to actually offer me the job!

We've just spent our last day in Tauranga (hopefully only for now) lounging on rocks and cooling off with dips in chilly river water pools, right next to a waterfall :0) We're parked up for the night now, next to a gorgeous lake. We'll be going to sleep to the sound of quacking ducks :0) It's back to Hamilton - yet again tomorrow for another interview (even though I think our minds are already made up to take the Tauranga one) to at least have something else to compare it with (and just in case Tauranga don't offer me the job after all!)

It'd be really good to have it all sorted out so we can put it on the back burner for a few weeks and have yet more holiday time! We're itching to get to the south island.

New Zealand - Tongariro National Park

2009-02-24T11:48:00.000-08:00

On our journey back up north we couldn't resist stopping off in Tongariro National Park for a couple of nights. With volcanoes, some of them snow-capped, on every side it's a hard-to-beat setting. We hiked through heather and gorse-filled scrub lands, with yet more waterfalls (anyone bored of photos of waterfalls yet?!) as well as more tropical forests and spotted (and even more surprisingly photographed) an owl.

Today we completed the Tongariro Crossing, dubbed the "Best one day walk in New Zealand". I actually did it the last time I was here too, but in total white-out conditions! This time the weather was glorious and so I got to see all the breath-taking views and Ben to photograph them. One of the big mountains we walked alongside was Mount Doom in 'Lord of the Rings', and it looks pretty bleak and scary even in the sun.

The 5.30am start and seven hours "tramping" (as they call it here) took it's toll though, and we had to put the bed down again when we got back and have a snooze, before heading to the bar for a glass of wine for me and a bowl of chips for Ben! My legs are pretty achy now too and I've got blisters, so maybe I'm not quite as fit as I hoped I was!

The other bit of excitement to happen here was that Ben electrocuted himself! Well he's not actually dead, but he did get a nasty shock. I heard him shout all the way from the toilet block! It was nothing to do with Margery I hasten to add, and the fault of the fitting we were trying to plug into and of course he's fine now and had lots of TLC from me, so don't fret.

Ben:
There are more photos here.

New Zealand - Wellington

2009-02-23T11:39:00.000-08:00

Wellington is miles and miles from Napier, especially in Margery! It's right on the southern tip of the North Island and it took us seven hours to drive here. It's the capital of New Zealand, although it's much smaller than Auckland. If we were travelling around New Zealand on any kind of sensible route we wouldn't have come this far south until we were ready to head to the South Island, but we've come at this time for two reasons. The first reason being that this is another place that might have a job for me so we wanted to see it in order to decide if it would be worth our while bombing down here from the other side of the country should I be called for interview.

The second reason is that Ben has a couple of friends living here; Rich and Vicky (friends from uni in Swansea - Rich is the one who looks freakishly like him!) and Rich was performing in the Wellington Carnival this weekend. So we've been parked up on their driveway for the last few days, despite the fact the they've just had a baby and Vicky's parents are her too.

I've been to Wellington before and I hated it! All I remember is arriving here the same weekend as some kind of children's sporting event was on. We couldn't find anywhere to stay and the cold, windy, rainy, steeply sloping streets were choc-a-block with matching shell-suit clad kids! However I vowed to not let that experience cloud my view of Wellington this time and visiting a place as a holiday destination and somewhere you may live, we are discovering, are two very different experiences.

Saturday saw us hit the Wellington Carnival. It's a big, free festival in the city centre, with all the usual stuff; bands, hippy clothing for sale, food stalls (none up to the standards of Groovy Smoothies though obviously!) and then a big carnival parade though the streets in the evening. It was the best behaved festival I've ever been to though! Ben and I got a few disapproving looks for drinking beer in the streets (which as it turns out is illegal, but no drinking outside at a festival? Come on!) Anyway, Rich plays in a samba band and their huge fish float, fifty drummers wearing fish on their heads and loads of scantily clad, glittery belly-dancing girls looked fab. In fact they won first place! Ben and I were so impressed whilst we were "backstage" watching them practice that we vowed that if we move here he'd join the drummers and I'd join the dancers (I'm not entirely comfortable with the tiny outfits though!).

Wellington is an attractive city set around a bay, complete with sailing boats :0) It's a manageable size (three hundred thousand population) but has loads going on. In fact it promotes itself as being the culture capital of New Zealand (which admittedly doesn't give it much competition!) but means it has some of the best restaurants, nightlife, theatre, music, shopping etc and loads of events going on. It also has a surprisingly rugged coastline running around it's suburbs, as well as lots of green areas which make it feel as if you're miles away from the city as soon as you get out of the centre.

As you're probably gathering by now... We really like it! However, we're very torn. All the stuff that goes on in Wellington appeals to us, and we would make the most of it, but... Do we really want to live in a city? Did we come all this way to move to another city? I honestly think that Wellington has more to offer us than Cardiff does (which is of course where everywhere inevitably gets compared to). It is beautiful, I'd be happy and proud to have people visit us here and I think we could have a much higher quality of life here than at home. Plus this is the best option when it comes to geek jobs for Ben.

BUT... the climate is nowhere near as good as in other parts of New Zealand. The Winters are pretty bleak and Wellington is famous for it's wind - and it REALLY is windy, even when the sun is shining like today. It's also more expensive to live here than most of the rest of the country and obviously comes with those other city delights like commuting and traffic jams (which you hardly ever see in the rest of New Zealand) and people who are less friendly and have less time for you.

So there you have it. We do really like it and could, I'm sure, be very happy living here but maybe it's not quite different enough for us to have moved to the other side of the World for. We will have to see what the rest of the country has to offer :0)

Ben:
More photos here.

New Zealand - Napier

2009-02-19T11:32:00.000-08:00

We decided that we should really go and visit some of the places that potentially have a job for me, so we can decide if we want to live there or not. Top of Ben's list was Napier and sure enough the guide book makes it sound lovely. It's in the middle of New Zealands wine growing territory (can't be bad!) on the east coat of the North Island and famous for it's art deco buildings. It's often described as "Mediterranean" in terms of it's climate and scenery and with the combined population of Napier and neighbouring Hastings at around a hundred and twenty thousand, it should have a fair amount going on. It's a fair old drive away from everywhere else though. It took us a good five hours, through the separating mountain range, to get here. Admittedly Margery wasn't quite a nippy up some of the steep, windy roads as other vehicles, but none-the-less it is quite a long way.

Knowing that the beach in Napier is pebbly I presumed that it would have a sea-front something like Brighton's, but with a bit of Miami Beach (art deco) thrown in for good measure. However, we pulled up on the front one grey, cloudy evening (Mediterranean?!) and found ourselves next to a crazy golf course - it felt much more like Barry Island than Miami Beach!!

We've been trying desperately to keep and open mind though and have spent a couple of days exploring the region. We happen to be here during their biggest event of the year too, which is some big art deco thing. It's pretty cool seeing people wandering the streets in 1930s outfits and lots of old fashioned cars driving around. We even stopped to listen to a 1930s style band which proved to be pretty amusing when we realised that we'd sat down in the middle of a big group of adults with special needs. Ben coped very well but was heard to say "I'm hoping for one that the crowd doesn't know" as they all sang / groaned along to "Down by the Riverside"!

It's not that there's anything wrong with the place exactly but it's just not special enough to come all this way and settle for. The sea-front is really disappointing and the surroundings are Mediterranean, which thinking about it means quite barren. Admittedly it's handy for wine but you know what? They transport that all over the World! What there is around here however, are some absolutely beautiful beaches (no not the one in town!) but they're at least three quarters of an hours drive from the town and loads of places in New Zealand have beautiful beaches. Plus it's so far from everywhere else it's really quite isolated. Anyway, the long and short of it s we don't want to live here. But in the mean time we've made the most of the beach and the sun and spent last night parked up right next to the beach and this morning I went for a run along it. Can't be bad :0)

The highlight of our time in Napier though has undoubtedly been going on a wine-tasting tour. When we did one in Argentina we went to three wineries and tasted a couple of wines in each one. Not in New Zealand! We went to four wineries and tasted eight or nine wines in each one! We were battered by the end of it! It was a really good laugh and believe it or not we've learned something about wines too. I'm proud to say I now can tell the difference between a Malborough Savingion Blanc and a Hawkes Bay Chardonnay, so I have a new method of choosing which wine to buy which isn't based entirely on what's on offer in Tesco!

New Zealand - Rotorua

2009-02-17T11:22:00.000-08:00

Rotorua is smack-bang in the middle of loads of volcanic activity. There are volcanic "wonderlands" to visit where and walk between incredible multi-coloured pools, geysers that spew water twenty meters into the air, bubbling mud ponds and hot springs. But you can see a lot of it just walking through the town's park. It's even weirder in a way to see smoke coming out of holes in the ground right next to people's houses! We've seen some fantastic sights, but to be honest I think I'm a bit volcanoed out! What with this and all we saw in South America I'm reaching the bottom of my volcano-related awe pools!

Also I have to admit that my views might have been slightly tainted by the experience of standing on a wooden viewing platform over-looking some bubbling lake or other when I somehow managed to get my leg wedged between the wooden bars! Ben's so-called attempts to help me just resulted in me shouting at him, so he ignored me and carried on taking photos (not of me - I'd have killed him!). I was stuck there for ages and in the end had to scrounge some suntan lotion from some strangers to use as a lubricant to squeeze my now bruised knee out! How embarrassing!

The countryside around here really is beautiful though. Rivers and lakes with water so clear you can see right to the bottom, surrounded by tropical forests full of ferns. I'm loving exploring and seeing what mother nature has to offer, and we've parked up in some spectacular spots. What views to wake up to in a morning.

We had a lovely, romantic Valentine's Day here too :0) We celebrated with a BBQ (not something you could do in the UK!) and some delicious New Zealand wine (which went straight to my head thanks to my current healthy on-the-waggon status!) Ben's Rotorua highlight though is probably the 3D maze that he got pretty excited about and (unsurprisingly given my very recent semi-conversion to puzzling) was far better at than me!

Ben, you'll be pleased to hear, has now upped his previous "it's alright" opinion of New Zealand to "it's good". Not particularly articulate but an improvement none-the-less!

Ben:
There are more photos here.

New Zealand - Hamilton (again!)

2009-02-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

I'm diseased! Really I am! It was those bloody (not literally - that really would be a worry) poo samples! Apparently in South America (probably) I picked up some disease that means I've had to be reported to the Communicable Diseases Department! By rights I should be really ill. Some kind of nasty food poisoning apparently. Anyway I'm not, I'm fine, in fact what will all this running and healthy eating I'm the fittest I've been for ages. So they're not going to treat me they're just going to leave it and presume it'll make it's own way out at some point. So lets hope so.

The other crappy thing to happen during this, our most recent, visit to Hamilton is that whilst we were in the supermarket, even though we couldn't have been more than ten minutes and it was a busy carpark and the middle of the day, someone broke into Margery and nicked our stereo :0( The stereo was pretty rubbish so we don't really care about that and but it's a bit scary how easy it was to do. Luckily they didn't take any of our valuables from the back, all Ben's camera equipment was in there, ipods, laptop etc etc, and our insurance doesn't cover us anymore (I won't bore you with why) so it could have been a lot worse. But now Ben's obsessive-compulsive traits have gone into over-drive with repeated doorlock checking and curtain pulling! We've got a steering-lock and stuff now too so fingers crossed we'll be ok.

The good news though is we have a clearer idea about where there are some potential jobs for me. Now we can have a think about where we might want to live and be on stand-by to head off for interviews etc. So far the places on the list basically cover all corners of the North Island, for anyone that wants to check a map they are: Wellington, Tauranga, Napier/Hastings, Hamilton and Whangarei.

New Zealand - On route to Waitomo

2009-02-12T11:07:00.000-08:00

Even just driving from one place to the next in New Zealand is something of an adventure. All along the way there are places next to the road that you can pull over in and disappear into the "bush", on incredibly well-maintained paths, to see some other natural wonder! We've wandered through forest and jungle and seen yet more waterfalls for Ben to photograph :0)

We've also called into a native-bird house to catch our first glimpses of the famous kiwi. For those of you that don't know, New Zealand has no native land mammals. So due to the lack of predators loads of flightless birds evolved, including of course the kiwi. Some of them were huge (we saw a model of a moa in the museum and it was way bigger than an ostrich). They used to be really common but the bigger species have, over time, been hunted to extinction for their meat and feathers. Also the smaller species have been hunted by the mammals introduced by man. There are several species of flightless birds remaining in the wild in New Zealand, but they are endangered and heavily protected. The possum, which I personally think is a lovely, fluffy little creature is considered slightly less evil than Satan himself by the kiwis! They were introduced from Australia and have decimated the native bird population. Resulting in them being generally hated by all and killed whenever possible. You can buy all kinds of possum fur goodies which come with a little "Congratulations you have helped preserve the New Zealand environment" label and are actively encouraged to go possum shooting!

I have a vague memory of visiting a similar bird-house last time I was here, and standing in the gloom (they keep the enclosures dark during the day in the hope that it will encourage the nocturnal birds to be a bit more active), struggling to spot a little brown thing among lots of other brown stuff! Well, not this time! Bold as brass they were, bouncing about and coming right up the the viewing glass. Some of them were fed while we were watching and they wanted to be stroked and everything. (Easy to see why they wouldn't be too difficult to hunt though ay?! - Ooh look at that... "Ay?", how very Kiwi of me. I must be assimilating already!) So back to the kiwis... they're much bigger than I thought, their bodies are about the size of a football and they have quite long legs and necks, as well as beaks, so they stand quite tall. In any case you'll have to have a look on the net or something because we weren't allowed to take any pictures. But we did get a nice one of a duck that seemed to think it was a puppy and kept following me around, not quite the same though is it?!

So Waitomo is where we were headed to see it's amazing caves. The caves themselves are pretty impressive in their own right, but the main reason to come here is because they are filled with glow worms. But this being adrenaline-fuelled New Zealand, just walking through the caves and looking up is not good enough, oh no! So instead we got wetsuited up and wedged into a big rubber ring each, and more or less pushed bum-first over a couple of waterfalls, in the dark, before we were allowed to look up and see the glow worms!! And very pretty they are too (even with the knowledge that they're not worms at all but maggot-like creatures with glow in the dark poo!)

With such action-packed days our evenings in the campervan have been unsurprisingly sedate. However, I have a confession to make about a new past-time... Ben really likes puzzles. He has received much stick for this particular geeky quirk as I think they're nothing but a frustrating waste of time. Or at least I did... But then I discovered that you can puzzle for prizes!!! I've taken to buying trashy magazines, you know the sort "That's Life" or "Take a Break" or whatever and entering all the competitions, the thinking being that given the fact that there are so few people in New Zealand, we're bound to win. Right?! Now don't ask me why but "puzzling for pleasure" feels wrong but "puzzling for prizes", even when what we stand to win is a Candy-floss maker or My Little Pony game is somehow so right :0)

We've had a call to say I have to go back to the clinic where I had my immigration medical done to discuss some of the results :0( That doesn't sound good does it? I bet it's those poo samples! So it's back to Hamilton - again!

Ben:
More photos are found here and here

New Zealand - Raglan Bay

2009-02-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

So now we're at Raglan Bay on the West Coast of the North Island. We're on a campsite, plugged into the power, sat in our van, drinking cold beer out of our fridge. We've had our first meal cooked in the mini kitchen (thanks Ben, it was lovely!) and will shortly be setting up the bed (and discovering if Ben fits in it!). The plan is for a few relaxing days on the beach. Well that's my plan anyway! Hopefully Ben can do some surfing and then I can get some peace to lie in the sun and do nothing :0)

It's actually the hottest weather they've had in New Zealand in over a hundred years. It was 32.4 degrees C and 100% humidity in Auckland recently. After the unbearable heat of Chile and Argentina it doesn't feel all that hot to us but the weirdest thing is that all this is going on whilst the UK has the worst snow for 25 years! I must admit that I am a little bit jealous when I hear everyone's sledging and snowman building stories but I'm sure the novelty of the snow will wear off a lot quicker than that of the beach in the sun. So I shouldn't complain :0)

It's so funny; nothing actually happens here. Well nothing really bad anyway. A loud siren went off earlier which called all the voluntary firemen to action (apparently almost the whole fire service is voluntary) and we could see smoke in the distance. The whole town had an air of excitement about it. It's obviously the most interesting thing to happen here for months! Don't believe me? The national weekend newspaper today's front-page headline is... "Couple accused of rent scam". Amazing!

I definitely feel that coming to New Zealand was the right thing to do. It's early days obviously and it's sunny and I don't have to start work yet and all that, but I really do love it. It feels like home - only better!! Ben's apparently "reserving judgement" before stating any opinion on the subject of whether he likes it or not other than to say "it's alright" (like a teenage boy!) but I'm convinced he's going to love it too.

A few days later...

Well all didn't go exactly to plan. We did have some well appreciated beach time and explored Raglan, which is a friendly slightly arty/hippy little beach town, but Ben never did get to do any surfing. As we were about to drive to the surfing beach we discovered that we had flattened the engine battery. Duh! (There are two batteries in the campervan; one for the lights and fridge and stuff and the usual engine one, and it turned out that we'd been using things that run off the engine battery rather then the other one.) But to cut a long story short a lovely Kiwi couple, with the biggest motorhome I have ever seen (which they let us have a look around!), came to our rescue and Margery is good as new :0) (Ben is also very keen for me to mention that he's been hard at work with his newly acquired tool kit and beloved WD40 and has now fixed the slightly dodgy door. Well done Ben, extra testosterone points for you!) We'd have both been happy to spend a few more days in our little beach haven but unfortunately the rain has set in, so we're off.

New Zealand - Cambridge

2009-02-08T16:02:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Margery got a gentle introduction to life in the Smith-Gourley household as our first stop was only twenty minutes away! (Actually all the locals say it's twenty minutes away but I'm starting to wonder if a Kiwi twenty minutes might be a bit different to ours, well it definitely is in the van anyway!) Molly's a Welsh friend of ours that we worked the festivals with over the Summer. She lives out here now, so we came to stay. It's so nice to see a familiar face and we had a day on the beach together, as well as a night on the beer. As we were walking home (baring in mind Cambridge is a VERY small town) the sight of Ben with two women on his arm caused enough of a stir to cause someone to shout "Respect to the man in the glasses!" That's our Benji - Super Stud :0)

The people here are so friendly. I know people say that about everywhere, even Wales, where in some places you're lucky to not have your head knocked off! But here it really is true. A prime example being that when Ben was messing about in the campervan outside Molly's house, one of the neighbours came over. I was completely convinced that she would complain about the van being parked in the street. What other reason would a neighbour have for coming over at home? Well it turned out that she has a campervan too and wanted to compare notes! We were taken over the road to see her's, introduced to the three dogs, chatted to "gramps" etc, etc. It really is different here, I promise.

So after a few lessons in Kiwi; chilli bin = cool box, jangles = flipflops and trundlers = shopping trollys we leave Molly to go back to work and finally head off in Margery...

New Zealand - Hamilton

2009-02-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Next stop is Hamilton. Not particularly a tourist destination, in fact it's main selling point seems to be the fact that it has good transport links and is near to other places (much like Birmingham) but it's not a bad place (unlike Birmingham)! Anyway the reason for being here is that this is where the agency who are (hopefully) going to find me work and help me with my visa / residency application etc are based. We're actually staying with the couple who own the business, in their own home, which is really nice. Anyone who knows me well will realise that something as huge as moving across the globe and starting a new job in a place where I don't know anyone, has the potential for causing me major stress and drama! However the whole process (so far) has been remarkably crisis-free. Christine and John have held my hand and guided me through the whole thing.

We still don't know where we're going to end up living. I'm waiting to hear where the jobs are and then we can go and visit places to see if we'd want to live there or not, and I can have interviews etc. I've said I don't want to start until late April anyway, so there's plenty of play-time left yet :0) Also, the good news is that it may be possible for me to get full residency (rather than just a work visa) within a year, which would be great. That would mean that I wouldn't be tied to one job, or even remaining in healthcare if I didn't want to. Also we'd be free to move somewhere for Ben to get a computing job if needs-be.

There's been paperwork to complete and I've had to have a medical. Much to my disgust (and Ben's amusement) it included having to give poo samples! And as a result of the poking and prodding I found out that I'm apparently two inches shorter than I always thought I was! The most devastating thing about that news is that it massively reduces my healthy weight range!! I had to have a breast exam too, and when I told Ben that the doctor had been poking at my boobs he asked me if he had done it with a stick (weirdo!).

We've both had our hair cut, which is just as well as Ben's had become like a big, blond helmet! He said it felt like Lego hair that you should just be able to pick up and take off in one solid piece! I did get a bit scared when I was having my haircut on the other side of the salon and I couldn't see Ben but heard the clippers come buzzing on, I was convinced I'd find him with a shaved head (fortunately it looks pretty good).

We spent an evening with John and Christine at the races. It's not like horse-racing at home though (not that I know anything about horse-racing at home). Instead of jockeys riding the horses they sit in little carts behind them and the races are called the trots (I think that's right!). It's a big family event and you all sit on the grass with a picnic and occasionally bet a dollar or two on the races. Needless to say we didn't win any money! But it was certainly a fairly different way to spend the evening.

Our plan for a while has been to buy a campervan to travel around New Zealand in, but it looked at one point that it just wasn't going to happen. We even got laughed out of one place when we said how much money we wanted to spend! But just when all hope was lost... We found Margery (that's what we've named her. To be honest Ben's not totally committed to the whole naming thing but I think he'll be won over!). She's a little two birth campervan with a fridge and sink and stuff and a table and chairs that folds down Into a double bed (we're not actually sure yet if Ben fits on it though!). She's not exactly a spring chicken though, in fact she'll be celebrating her 21st birthday this year! Plus she's done almost 350 000 kms and there's a bit of a knack to closing the door, but she goes, and at the bargain price of less then two thousand pounds it would have been rude not to! So we've spent a lot of time cleaning her, kitting her out, getting advice from campervan owning neighbours and preparing for life on the open road (this preparation includes us singing a song with the line "Long distance Benji" repeated over and over!).

Ben:
More photos are here

New Zealand - Auckland

2009-02-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

So a thirteen hour flight brought us to a new country, a new continent and a new day (I still can't get my head around the whole date line suddenly-it's-another-day thing. Some how it went from being January 28th to being January 30th. But my Mum's birthday is on the 29th, so it didn't exist for us!). The jet lag has been the hardest thing to adjust to. I keep waking up really early, but in the spirit of the healthy, sport-crazy Kiwis I've been getting up and going for a run.

Our first stop in New Zealand is Auckland. It's the country's biggest city (although not the capital), but it's not huge in population terms compared to a British city (1.4 million I think). It's really spread out though, mostly miles and miles of incredibly clean, very green suburbia. The city centre isn't really up to much but there's some pretty nice bits to it, especially the coastline. We've done a bit of a mix of boring admin-type things like open bank accounts and touristy things, like visit Underwater World and laugh at the fish and huge penguins. We've sat on the beach and met a friend of mine that I stayed with last time I was in New Zealand - ten years ago. We've got excited about the fantastic food and lovely, cheap wine. I've attempted to do some shopping, but Ben's minuscule capacity for shopping tolerance has meant it hasn't been particularly successful! We've wandered around the city, and it's parks, and I've even been persuaded to visit the city's museum. The highlight of our time in Auckland is definitely when we had lunch in a restaurant over-looking the harbour. There was a telescope and binoculars to watch all the sailing boats zipping around. After talking to some of the locals we discovered we were watching the Louis Vuitton Sailing Championships (actually it's probably not called that but it's something like that). We saw the China versus America leg and one of the sails of China's yacht completely riped in half (unfortunately Ben missed it because as-per-usual he was in the toilet!)

Argentina - Buenos Aires

2009-01-28T06:41:00.001-08:00

We did it!... We finally managed to find a genuinely luxurious bus! We travelled the fifteen hours from Mendoza to Buenos Aires, our final South American journey, in comfort and style :0) The seats reclined and the foot-rests lifted up so we could lie completely flat. They brought around a meal which was too much for me to eat and it turned out it was only the starter, so then they brought around even more food! There was wine. We played bingo (a surprisingly common occurrence on South American buses) and despite the fact that Argentinian Spanish is really hard to understand, I won! Yet more wine! We watched a couple of films on the flat-screen TV that folded down in front of us. By the time they brought us glasses of champagne Ben was nearly wetting himself with excitement! (I think they may have guessed that we're not used to travelling first class!)

So our last stop in South America is Buenos Aires. We've eaten possibly the best ice-cream in the world, we've drunk great wine, Ben's eaten a huge steak, we've seen a Tango show as well as the famous (?) obelisk. We've wandered around and seen some of the city's sites, my favourite being the sight of the "professional dog-walkers" wandering the streets with ten dogs at a time! I've got blisters on my feet due to over-use of the beloved Havaianas (obviously due to defects with my feet rather than the sacred footwear!) and we've reflected on our time in South America.

It's been a wonderful experience, we've seen some incredible sites; Macchu Picchu, some of the highest mountains in the world, flamingo-filled lakes, salt plains, women in coloured skirts and bowler hats and monkeys in the jungle, to name but a few. We've met some lovely folk too and managed, more importantly, not to kill each other! But it feels like we're ready for something different now. We're both really excited about flying to New Zealand today. It feels a bit scary too though. This is the start of our new lives - or is that a bit dramatic?! I'm not so keen on having to start thinking about jobs and bank accounts and the like, but am really looking forward to the New Zealand greenery, being able to understand what people are saying (I'm sure we'll get the hang of the Kiwi accent in no time!) and seeing the sea again. We're thinking of buying a camper-van to do some exploring and my mind is filled with romantic images of sitting outside our little van, wine-glass in hand, BBQ on the go, overlooking the beach :0) So I think we may have a few more travelling adventures left in us yet before the big adventure of settling somewhere new begins.

Argentina - Mendoza

2009-01-25T07:09:00.000-08:00

Heather:
To be honest we were a little bit disappointed when we first arrived in Mendoza. We were expecting a more rural location, but instead found that Mendoza is another big, modern, European style city. It's very nice but once you've finished getting excited about the shops, bars and restaurants what do you actually do?! Well... Mendoza is at the heart of Argentina's wine growing region and that's why people come here.

Our guidebook suggests hiring bikes to explore some of the local wineries, however I must confess at this point that I've had something of a diva-style strop! I've been a bit poorly and it has not been helped by the fact that it is ferociously hot here. So hot it makes me want to curl up and die! I can't cope with it at all. I've taken to walking around under an umbrella, parasol-stylie and demanding ice lollies on a regular basis! In our bedroom, in the shade, with the windows open and the fan on full (no he hasn't taken me somewhere with air-con!) the temperature is 33 degrees centigrade. (I know that because the previously mentioned, and remarkably still working, Bolivian alarm clock, which is inclined to shout the time at us in Spanish and cuck-coo randomly, tells me so!!!) Bikes are a definite no-no and I have refused to go anywhere without air-conditioned transport!

And so it was that the wineries were visited on an air-conditioned minibus :0) We were tempted by the £100 posh tour which went to all the finest wineries and included a five course meal with a different wine selected to compliment each course. But in the end opted for the £9 WANKA tour! It was a fab day though. We went to two wineries, an olive oil farm and somewhere where they make liqueurs, among other things. I learned about the process of making wine and got to taste lots too, but unfortunately the thing that seems clearest to me as a result of the day is that I like young, fruity, light and therefore cheap, poor quality wine the best! Oh well having in-expensive tastes isn't such a bad thing :0) I am slightly concerned, however, at Ben's newly acquired desire to make his own wine and the confidence he's gained that he knows how to do it! Can't we just buy it and then at least it's likely to taste nice?!

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I've had a few favourite moments in Mendoza, including eating huge pieces of chocolate cake in smart cafes and gorgeous fancy (yet surprisingly cheap) meals in lovely restaurants. In contrast however, Ben ate some of the local fast food - Mr. Dog, and sitting outside waiting for him to be served I was treated to something of a 'Jerry Springer Show' as all the dregs of Argentinian society scratching each others eyes out to get a seat! But my most favourite of all moments actually came about one evening as we were wandering though the streets and it began to rain. Yes rain! Oh how I've missed the rain! Of course I was delighted I finally had a brief reprieve from the scorching heat, but my joy of the occasion was magnified by the sight of the gathering of all the local emo kids scattering for shelter, hands above their heads, desperately trying to prevent the rain from spoiling their massive, ridiculous hair styles!!

Another Mendoza highlight worth mentioning, as far as I'm concerned, is my quest for the perfect Havaiana. Now I'm no shoes and handbag girl (you know who you are!) but if there has ever been a greater invention that the flip flop, then I am yet to discover it! Havaiana are the original and best makers of flip flops and they're a South American company (Brazilian actually, but we're not going there!) and everyone here wears them. So we've been searching for my perfect pair (yes I'm sure Ben's enjoyed the quest just as much as I have!) and I'm pleased to report I've found them! They are of course pink and there has been much praise sung to their wonder! I've tried to get Ben to photograph them but apparently they won't look too good in his portfolio!!

Ben:
A few more photos from the wine tour can be found here.

Chile - Whoops

2009-01-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Instead of taking the tour all the way back to Uyuni we opted to get off at the Chilean boarder. We didn't plan on doing any travelling in Chile but just couldn't face any more Bolivian bus journeys! Also, we discovered that flying out of Bolivia to Buenos Aires, in Argentina, from where we're soon due to fly to New Zealand, is more complicated and expensive than we thought. So we decided to make our way to Buenos Aires over-land instead.

The jeep dropped us off in a particularly unremarkable spot in the desert, from where we were herded onto buses to be taken to the boarder. We knew instantly when we had reached Chilean soil as the tyre tracks in the sand suddenly became paved road. Paved roads... Only after spending a few weeks without them can you truly understand the joy of paved roads!!

It should have been simple, the plan was to spend a night in San Pedro de Atacama, the Chilean border town, then the next day jump on a direct bus over the Argentinian border and onto Salta. But "the best laid plans..." and all that. We were (naively) expecting that by passing over the border from Bolivia into Chile we would be immediately transported back into the developed world. So imagine our surprise at finding ourselves in a small, dusty town, built entirely from mud-brick, with far more of an Indian feel to it than European, or even South American for that matter, without even twenty-four hour electricity!

Someone told me that San Pedro is the hottest place in the world and I'm pretty sure that that's bollocks, but none-the-less it's bloody hot! So there we were, wandering around this little mud-brick town, carrying all our stuff, in the relentless heat, when we discovered that all the hostels were full. We staggered from place to place feeling less and less optimistic until finally a lovely lady took pity on us and sent us to a new place, which was kind of like a campsite, on the edge of town, with a few rooms to rent. Despite the fact that it actually cost more than we were used to paying for a nice room with private bathroom, cable tv, WiFi etc, we were pleased to take it!

The next disaster of the day involved us discovering that the only cashpoint in town wouldn't accept our cards. So we had no way of getting any money. It was very stressful I can tell you. With all the money in the world if you can't actually access any and you're miles from home and don't know anyone, what can you do? We couldn't even leave town to try and get somewhere with another cashpoint as we didn't have any money for the bus! Nightmare! However, that potentially disastrous situation was resolved remarkably easily in the end by someone showing us the location of the town's "secret" cashpoint (?!) that did take our card!

Once we had some money in our pockets and could relax a little we discovered that San Pedro is actually a nice place, something of an oasis in the desert, so things seemed to be working out again. Until... next disaster... the buses over the Argentinian border are all full for the next week. Bloody marvelous! Anyone who would like to look at a South American map will see that the potential options for crossing over from one side of the continent to the other are somewhat limited by the fact that the mighty Andes mountain range runs down the middle of it. Our next nearest option, therefore for crossing over was via the country's capital, Santiago, a mere twenty-two hour bus journey away!!!

So to cut a long story short, that's what we did, and believe it or not the bus journey wasn't half bad. Then once in Santiago we found that European-style Chile we'd been hearing all about. So there's really not too much more to tell about Chile really, we spent a couple of days taking in the cities' sights and rode on a cable-car through a huge park over-looking the city and got to eat some nice food and drink some good wine, for a change. But do you know what? It just doesn't feel like South America.

Ben:
I only took the one photo in the entire of Chile!

Bolivia - Salar de Uyuni

2009-01-17T05:22:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Ok, so the reason for enduring the hellish bus journey and being in the hot, dusty desert town of Uyuni, is the remarkable surrounding geological formations, most importantly the incredible salt plains. We joined a tour and headed off in a jeep, for three days, to explore...

Our first stop, strangely enough, was a "train graveyard". Uyuni used to be an important transport hub for the export of locally mined minerals and metals. However, once the trade ceased and the trains were no longer needed, it seems they were simply left where they stood. The surrounding land has been reclaimed by the desert and so among the sand, in the middle of nowhere, are these huge, rusting trains. It's a pretty freaky sight and seems to bring out the kid in everyone as it is impossible to resist climbing all over them and making "choo choo" noises!

The sight of the salt plains themselves is one that is difficult to imagine without having seen it for yourself. Hopefully Ben's photos will give you some impression of the vastness of it. The sky is impossibly blue and apart from the vague outline of distant mountains on the horizon, all you can see, in any direction, is white! It's so huge that you lose all sense of perspective; you can't tell how big anything is or how far away (hence the fun illusion photos - Ben under my thumb, me in his palm etc :0)

Some of the salt is mined locally, so from time to time we came across a series of piles that had been dug out. It's pretty easy to see why salt isn't very good for you when you see it as large lumps of rock that have just come out of the ground! The salt is also used to make bricks for building, as well as all kinds of other kinds of crazy sculptures. Ben was very excited about staying in a hotel made entirely of salt, but to be honest I'm not sure that the salt-brick bed and sand-like salt floor quite lived up to his romantic expectations!

Just, it would seem, to make things even more bizarre, right in the middle of all the whiteness there are "islands". Literally jutting up from the "sea" of salt there are big rocky outcrops, covered in cacti! The cacti are like none I have ever seen before either. They are ridiculously tall, some over 40 metres high, and old, I mean really old. One of them is apparently over one thousand two hundred years old! How can a plant live that long?! (Please don't anyone actually try and tell me the answer to that question. I prefer to remain in ignorant awe. I find this technique quite useful in any number of situations!!)

Once leaving behind the salt plains we were in the desert. In preparation for this, Ben and I had replaced the remains of our previous hats with (controversially) caps bought from the local market. My pink, fake Nike cap cost the equivalent of a pound, Ben demonstrating his usual bargaining skills paid one pound fifty for his :0) I feel the need to explain this in order to justify the appearance of the terrible head-ware in some of the photos. Now under normal circumstances Ben would not, of course, be allowed to wear a baseball cap! But come on, it was the desert! I am, unsurprisingly, however regretting the decision to allow such a purchase to be made as the intended-specifically-for-use-only-in-the-desert head-ware has since been sported in any number of less appropriate environments! (I make no apologise to any cap-wearers among you - they look ridiculous! )

Anyway, back to the desert... It is filled with weird and wonderful volcanic sights; smoking volcanoes, geezers squirting hot steam high in the air, other-worldly bubbling mud pools, hot springs, strange rock formations and lagoons of different colours. We saw emus, llamas and vecunas and the wondrous sight of hundreds of pink flamingos standing in coloured lakes. (Photographing them, however, was made infinitely more difficult by a group of loud Germans who kept turning up close behind us everywhere we went. But I guess it's them we have to thank for the beautiful picture of three flamingos in flight, as it was them that had just scared them off!)

Ben:
There are some more photos from the tour here and some more fun illusion photos here

Bolivia - Uyuni

2009-01-14T05:17:00.000-08:00

Our attempts to travel in comfort were thwarted yet again when we discovered that there were no flights and that the train, to our next stop Uyuni, was full. So we had to endure yet another overnight bus journey, but this time Bolivian style - generally agreed to be the crappest buses in South America, and we were not looking forward to it. We bought tickets for what was promised to be the best bus in the country, complete with an impressive flyer detailing it's numerous luxuries (the most important to us being the toilet) and turned up as instructed.

We should have realised by now that the fact that a bus ticket costs twice as much, does not mean that the bus is twice as nice. In fact the bus that we had bought tickets for (you know the flashy one in the pictures) wasn't even there! Instead, an hour late, we were put on a completely different bus, distinctly lacking in promised luxuries - including toilet, and told that despite the slogan of the bus company - "Why change buses? We offer a direct luxury overnight service", we would change onto a better bus in a town three hours away. What can you do?

We got on the bus and arrived in the town we were due to change buses in four and a half freezing-cold hours later, at two am. Was our luxury bus there? Not likely! Was I desperate for the toilet by then? Oh yes! So we sat around in the stationary bus for an hour or so while frantic phonecalls were made to locate the promised luxury bus. Then we carried on to search for it in person.

At four am we got off the bus and stood around in the street while they chucked off all the tourists on the now located luxury bus (doing the same journey in the opposite direction) and put them on our rubbish bus, much to their disgust. So we were finally put on the luxury bus - yey! To be fair the bus, once we were finally on it, was pretty good, and most importantly, it had a toilet. We even got blankets and bottled water.

However, the remainder of the journey was prevented from being a restful one by the fact that from this point on there was no road! A lot of the roads in Bolivia are not paved, which makes them pretty uncomfortable to travel on, but I don't mean that for the rest of the way there was no paved road. I mean there was no road! The route was flooded (which seems pretty weird given the fact that we've hardly seen any rain for weeks and we were in the desert!?) and so the bus had to find it's own way through the wet dusty lands, in the dark, with no way (as far as I could work out) of telling which way to go. So every now and again the bus would stop and men would get out and wander around poking the puddles and the tyres for a bit, and then we'd carry on!

Against all the odds, however, we did eventually make it to Uyuni, in one piece. Uyuni, however, was horrible. Just a tatty, dusty little town in the middle of the desert. After having had no sleep we were shattered, and it was boiling hot, and the hostel we were planning to stay in was closed. Then... I fell over! Because I was carrying my rucksack I landed on my hands and knees and couldn't get up again! I was not a happy bunny!

Bolivia - Lake Titicaca

2009-01-12T16:47:00.000-08:00

Heather:
The observant among you will know that this is not our first time on Lake Titicaca. We were on the Peruvian side a couple of months ago, but the Bolivian side is a hundred times nicer. Copacabana is like a little beach resort (which it sort of is, as Bolivia had it's only coastal region "stolen" from it by Chile, who wanted it for the bird poo that exists there which can be used as fuel. But that's another story!). It has donkeys to ride walking up and down the lake shore, there are pedalos to hire and even something of a beach, with the odd brave / stupid gringo lying in their bikini. The setting is beautiful, especially at sunset, as long as you can block out the rubbish which has been dumped everywhere and the resulting smell.

Ben and I went for a 12 mile hike along the lake shore and that really was lovely. The countryside is completely unspoiled and we saw people working in the fields and pigs, sheep, cows and llamas. Ben even chased an unsuspecting lady, taking a pig to market on a rope, up the road, to try and surreptitiously take her photo! All this with the backdrop of an unfeasibly blue sky, Lake Titicaca, who's size is difficult to comprehend and snowy mountains all around.

My brother is also travelling in South America at the moment, but going in the opposite direction, so we met up with him and a couple of his mates, in Copacabana and all went out to the Isla del Sol together. The island has major cultural and spiritual significance as it is said to be the birthplace of Pachamama (Mother Earth), however we managed not to learn any more about it and saw only one Inka ruin, which was unanimously described as "rubbish"! We did, however, have a lovely time. We did some hiking (only once getting lost and ending up in a pig sty!) and relaxing, but mostly just made the most of the beauty and tranquillity of the setting (only occasionally interrupted by the unnecessarily distressed ee-ore sound of a donkey!). Our hostel looked down from a ridge over fields to a small cove where we could see little boats coming and going. We sat on deckchairs, drinking beer, watching the sunset and thinking ourselves pretty lucky. That was until it was just about turning dark and we noticed the even more impressive view the other way, with the white mountain peaks reaching up into the sky! Duh!!

Scott has been very disappointed to discover that Ben has made me "go soft". We have been staying in nice places, eating in restaurants and travelling on "luxury" buses (luxury? Really? Come on!), whilst he and his mates have been haggling over every penny, sleeping in windowless cells, eating non-specific meat from the street vendors and travelling on livestock-filled buses, pumping out loud repetitive music! However, we got our comeuppance due to a ridiculous lack of cashpoint in Copacabana (what?!) which meant that we were stuck with hardly any money and had to resort to eating horrible, inexplicably llama-flavoured, food. We also paid double what they did for our transport and instead of being picked up at our door by a "tourist bus", as promised, we were picked up by a lady in a taxi, driven to the bus terminal, walked past all the nice buses and put on the same type of crappy bus as them, and not even sitting together!!

Ben:
There are more photos here.

Bolivia - La Paz

2009-01-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

Heather:
La Paz, the highest capital in the world, is our first stop in Bolivia. The airport is 4058m above sea level and the sight of the city 500m below, lying at the bottom of a steep canyon and ringed by snow-capped mountains is breath-taking. It's good to be back on the road and exploring the world again, La Paz is brightly coloured and lively and surprisingly, given that I'm not a fan of big cities, I like it.

We're definitely back in South America proper now. The streets are clogged with collectivos (minibuses on set routes around the city) with someone hanging out of them shouting completely unidentifiable place names. The streets are lined with stalls selling every imaginable item, although a lot of them seem to be stocked from those bins you see in airports which are full of all the confiscated sharp items! Most of the women wear traditional outfits of full, brightly coloured skirts and bowler hats. What is it with bowler hats? In a country where the weather flits from burning hot sunshine to freezing cold, what the hell use is a bowler hat?! It doesn't offer protection from sun or cold. It's also a complete mystery to me how they stay perched on the top of their heads. Why don't they fall off?! What are the huge bundles they all constantly carry around on their backs in stripy cloths all about too, and do they really need to be carried up steep hills by old ladies?!

We've been stopped a few times on the street by dodgy-looking characters. Only once, however, have they been trying to sell us drugs. Every other time they've flashed us a fossil they're trying to sell. I'm not sure why fossil selling needs to be done in such a cloak and dagger fashion, or why they think we might want to buy them!

Bolivia is by far the least efficient country I have ever been to! It's a huge mission to get even the smallest thing done. When you order something in a restaurant it takes a ridiculously long time to come, comes all in the wrong order and is horrible anyway! Everyone tells you something different, no one ever has any change, the price of things fluctuates from one moment to the next and the ubiquitous shoe-shiners, who lurk around in black balaclavas looking distinctly sinister, insist that "it is possible" to shine flip flops!

Even getting a new alarm clock has been quite an adventure. Mine was stolen out of my rucksack on the flight here (it could have been worse) and we searched the city to find a replacement. The total lack of clocks for sale may go some way to explaining why everything here is always late! Eventually we found one and after some haggling, of which Ben was very proud and resulted in us getting a whole 20 pence off, we bought it. It lasted until ten o'clock! We now have another one that (fingers crossed) actually seems to work, but this one shouts, and I mean shouts, the time and temperature in Spanish when we least expect it! It also plays us little tunes and makes cuck coo noises from time to time too :0)

"You haven't been to Bolivia unless you've been tear-gassed", so we're told! So when a big political rally passed in the street setting off fire crackers and surrounded by lots of police armed with rubber-bullet firing guns and tear-gas canisters, we went the other way!

Whilst here we've explored the Witches Market, from where you can buy all kinds of herbs and potions, not to mention a llama foetus, should you ever have cause to require one (?!). We've been to the coca museum too and learned all about the cultivation and uses of coca throughout history. One of my favourite parts was where it described the way that the women working in the fields harvesting the coca wear their best brightly coloured clothes to attract the attention of the watching (notice not working!) men, who respond to the ladies flirtation by "playfully throwing rocks at them". It'd work for me I'm sure! We also explored the plush part of town, the Bolivian version of Beverly Hills, one of the best-known inhabitants of being the owner of the local beer company. We also visited the near-by Moon Valley, which Ben helpfully informs me is named such because it looks like the moon (!) and a cactus garden, which was disappointingly lacking in cactuses (I know it's cacti, but it sounds stupid!)

Ben:
There are more photos here

Happy New Year!

2009-01-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

Heather:
The local New Year's custom is for men to dress in drag and set up road blocks, then refuse to let anyone pass until they've paid them some money to feed their "baby" (nasty doll under their arm)! How strange. All the kids run around in masks asking for money too. We all headed to Banos, in masks of our own, and joined the huge street party. For us it was the usual drunken affair, with a little bit of Ecuadorian danger, in the form of out of control fires and fireworks, thrown in for good measure! There was much drinking and dancing in the street - much to the amusement of the locals. To be honest it's all a bit of a blur, unfortunately I foolishly video-recorded most of our antics, so I can't just pretend it never happened!

New Year's day was spent wondering if I'll ever be grown up enough to spend the first day of a new year without my head down a toilet!!! Which meant I completely let the side down and was too sick to get back to the centre in time to help with the animals. In fact we were all so late back that Gary (who had stayed behind to look after the place) had already done nearly all the work -what a hero!

Other notable happenings in our last week at the centre include; releasing the owl, having to round up the pig that kept escaping (don't picture a scene from 'Babe', these are wild pigs with massive teeth!), Ben completing the rubic's cube he had in his secret santa stocking (yep, still a geek!) and we almost couldn't leave on time as a three-legged monkey was loose in our room! We nearly managed to complete our time at the centre without any major animal bites, illnesses, injuries or accidents, until our final few hours, when Ben did a fairly spectacular twisting-fall, whilst trying to sit down (?!) resulting in a huge gash to his side.

So that's it -sob, sob! Our time in the jungle is over and we're back on the road. I'm really pleased to have had the opportunity to work at the centre, I've always wanted to do something like that and don't know if I'll ever get the chance again. I'll miss the animals, and yeah I suppose the people too, but I'm also quite excited about carrying on our explorations. Bolivia - here we come!

Ben:
Again we have a video of the above but it will have to wait until we have more time!

Christmas in the Jungle

2008-12-28T12:56:00.000-08:00

Heather:
A few days before Christmas we were invited to the childrens party at the local school which proved to be a sight worth seeing. The phrase "Health and Safety Nightmare" springs to mind. They had a game where all the kids had to run over to a big bowl of water at the same time, suck up as much as they could, run across the room and spit in into a bottle. The first to fill their bottle was the winner! That left the floor good and slippery for musical chairs of death, before they brought out the pinatas made of clay which fired sharp pieces all over the room. We then went outside to watch the kids attempt to climb a huge greased pole with presents at the top. The winning tactic seemed to involve standing on each others faces! The adults weren't left out either as there were drinking games and a blow dart competition.

It was at this event that we were all finally forced to partake of the local alcoholic drink, as to refuse is to deeply offend. Not such a bad thing you say? So how would you feel about drinking a big bowl of fermented root vegetable that has been repeatedly chewed up and spat out by old ladies? I kid you not! The chicha of these parts is still made that way. After the second drink with more on the way Ben and I actually ran away!!

Christmas day itself started out like any other day at the centre as we cleaned and fed all the animals. After that though we ate too much, drank too much and spent the day wearing santa hats. There was turkey and party games and it was good to be among friends. I had to keep looking around to remind myself that we were actually in the jungle after all! The night ended particularly early for Glen who was a victim of his own drinking game and we were sent to sleep to the sounds of his retching!

So apart from the brief Christmas interlude life at the centre goes on... highlights include; seeing the tortoises lounging in the sun, watching the baby woolly monkey climb her first tall tree, finding hamster remains at the bottom of the owl's cage proving she can hunt, introducing the tyras to their new enclosure, going for a jungle walk and seeing Glen fall in the river, eating the fish that Sarah caught and cooked for us and having Vanessa have the puss squeezed out of her hugely swollen hand after getting it bitten by a coati! But I get the feeling that you probably had to be there :0)

Life in the Jungle Continues...

2008-12-22T12:40:00.000-08:00

Ben:
Here's a video we've put together on life at the Rescue Centre.

Heather:
Life has carried on very much as before but now at least we have a bit more of a clue about what we're doing. Although if you saw some of the things that we've helped build you may doubt that somewhat! We're almost used to the fact that the electricity and water cuts out numerous times throughout the day and forgotten what it was like to not have monkey poo under our finger nails! I'm still not very brave when it comes to the giant insects though.

Most of our promised reinforcements didn't turn up though so volunteers are still a bit thin on the ground. We have two long-term and four-short term volunteers which means there's a lot of work to do, but it hasn't stopped us enjoying it. The Dusky Titi monkey is still my favourite and she comes back to me when we let her out now. In fact she likes to sit on my shoulder and look for nits in my hair (quite worryingly she seems to find them too!) And today Ben was the only one that the baby woolly monkey would come down out of a tree to (apparently it was his Jonny Morris impression that did it!)

During our last day off we couldn't resist heading back to Banos for a bit of luxury in civilisation, and treated ourselves to a night in a relatively plush hotel. Other than going out and drinking lots of ridiculously cheap cocktails, and buying some goodies, there's really not much to report though. So now we're back in the jungle for Christmas and have stocked up with booze, food and silly hats and even have some fairy lights up. It's not the most Christmassy of settings but will be one to remember I'm sure.

Ecuador - Flor de la Amazonia Animal Rescue Centre

2008-12-14T20:35:00.000-08:00

The Project
Flor de la Amazonia project rescues animals that have been involved in animal trafficking. Wild animals are captured in the jungle and sold illegally as pets. The conditions that the animals are kept in are inappropriate and often cruel. Baby monkeys, for example, are sold for just US$20 and kept tied up or in tiny cages in people's homes. This can become especially problematic when they grow larger and harder to handle. The project aims to rescue these animals and rehabilitate them for release back into the wild. Where release is not a viable option, because an animal is no longer capable of learning to survive in the wild, they are kept in large, stimulating enclosures and cared for appropriately. The project works closely with local communities in order to support them in developing alternatives to hunting wildlife for the illegal pet trade. For example, they have encouraged the growing of fruit, which is bought at a reasonable price, as food for the animals and supported the development of a tourist jungle adventure walk enterprise. It also hosts English Language classes, which it hopes will provide a forum for awareness raising and education about the project and further strengthen links with the local community.

The Animals
Currently the project is home to rescued; woolly, capuchin, and dusky titi monkeys, a margay (large) cat, tyras (playful but ferocious large weasel-like animals), coatis (remember them from the Costa Rica photos?), tortoises, a turtle, a toucan, macaws, parrots, parakeets, a spinx's guan (turkey-ish bird), a kinkajous (a gorgeous but extremely vicious little thing that looks like a gremlin!), collared peccaries (boar-like pigs, they're beautiful but have huge teeth!), an owl (yet to be identified), a pet/guard dog (doberman/jungle mongrel!), three pet cats, various mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and chicks (but they don't really count as they're live food for the margay and owl!), the trees are filled with semi-wild squirrel monkeys and of course there's us; the volunteers. Gloudina is the permanent project coordinator, there are a couple of long-term volunteers, a local family, with whom the centre has close ties and those of us who join for a few weeks at a time. Generally the centre has about twelve volunteers at a time but at the moment there's only a few of us here, we are promised that reinforcements are on the way though!

Location
The centre is located in the beautiful setting of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest at an altitude of 900 metres, with a warm wet climate. It's about an hour and a half into the jungle by bus from Puyo (the nearest town), and about a five minute walk, up hill, from the road. It is made up of wooden buildings; "the house" which has four dorm rooms and two bathrooms, the kitchen with big dining room table (and make-shift table-tennis table), the "meeting room" - seats under a roof, a couple of sheds for fruit and tools and a shelter with hammocks and a fire pit under it. The conditions are pretty basic, although we do have electricity and running water (most of the time), which is about as luxurious as it gets around here! At the moment Ben and I have a room to ourselves, but seeing as our beds are separated by a wall of mosquito net and a big gap, and the walls don't reach the ceiling, so you can hear EVERYTHING, there is absolutely no naughty business!! Spreading out from the centre, among the trees, are the enclosures which have been made for the animals.

The Work
It's hard work and a long day but I love it. Every morning we start work at 8am and clean out and feed all the animals. We're split into teams and work with the same animals every day so that they get to know us and vice versa. On my list are; the big woolly monkey, the dusky titi monkey, a coati, the tortoises, turtle and pigs. Ben's critters are; a capuchin monkey, baby woolly monkeys, another coati, the kinkajous and the tyras. We're not supposed to interact with or name the animals that are due for release but because monkeys are sociable creatures and get depressed without contact we're allowed to talk to and cuddle those that are on their own.

Once we've finished cleaning and feeding the animals it's the dull housework type jobs until lunch time. We get an hour and a quarter off for lunch then after a bit of lounging in the hammocks it's back to work. We help build enclosures and do other maintenance work, although our fixing of a table resulted in us giving it three additional legs! We collect insects to feed to the animals, which is quite a sight to see; Europeans leaping among the undergrowth with nets, wrestling grass-hoppers into pots! We pick up birds that have fallen/climbed off their perches. Also we walk the coatis, it's not ideal putting wild animals on leads but they get sick if they don't eat enough insects and they're much more effective at catching them than we are! The worst job is carrying the sacks of building materials or fruit and other heavy stuff, that has been left for us by the road at the bottom of the hill, up to the centre. The favourite job is getting some of the smaller monkeys out of their enclosures so that they can practice climbing among the bigger trees and have some company and cuddles. Then we check on all the animals and give food to those that need evening feeding before finishing work, usually tired and minging at about 6pm.

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Free Time
We take it in turns to cook the evening meal and sit around chatting, listening to music, playing darts or table tennis, chilling by the fire, playing with the dog, stroking the cats etc etc. We work a full day Monday to Friday, a half day on Saturday then have Sundays off. Most people head off to Puyo, Banos or further afield for the weekend, but this week Ben and I stayed behind and enjoyed the peace (but not really quiet with all the squawking birds, buzzing insects, squirrel monkeys jumping up and down on the roof and Ricky the dog begging for attention!).

Life in the jungle...
So life in the jungle... mostly I love it. I really enjoy working with the animals and the setting is stunning. I'm not so keen on the bugs, and there are some HUGE bugs. I'm covered in mozzie bites (we can't use repellent as it's harmful to the animals) and had to take my first ever shower here whilst being dive-bombed by a moth the size of a bat! There are even some bugs which impress me though, like the grass-hoppers the size of my big finger (which I can appreciate from a distance!) and the beetle we saw with two bright glow-in-the-dark spots on it's back. I like not having to worry about what I look like and spending every day in the same dirty t-shirt, jogging bottoms and wellies, but am missing my pink wellies and am not so keen on spending most of my time smelling of a mix of my own sweat and various animals' poo! A couple of the highlights of my day are searching through the undergrowth for tortoises and watching the pigs charge at full pelt at the food I've just put out for them. I love stroking the tiny, fluffy dusky titi monkey, although last time we had her out she wouldn't come out of the tree to me until some squirrel monkeys ganged up on her! Ben is often seen with a baby woolly monkey clinging to his head or trying to teach the parrots to whistle the Linda Mcartney theme tune!!

For more photos click here

Ecuador - Puyo

2008-12-08T05:56:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Puyo is a dump! The only reason that we're here is that we're on our way to a voluntary work placement and we needed to stop off to buy wellies and mosquito nets (the obvious tourist purchases). It's really grim and we won't be in any rush to come back!

Tomorrow we head into the Amazon to join an animal rescue and rehabilitation centre for a month. Here's a link to their website so have a look...
Flor de la Amazonia

We've been on the go for what feels like a long time now and want to stop in one place for a while. We thought we'd like to do some voluntary work and found this place on the net. We're going to be there for Christmas too which has to be nicer than being in a hotel or something, at least we can cook a nice dinner and stuff.

We weren't even planning on coming to Ecuador, but the opportunity to work with animals in the jungle was not to be missed. My plan is to cuddle all the animals back to health but I'm sure there'll be be much more in the way of shovelling poo! Maybe Ben can get some animal photos if I hold them down (in a loving and rehabilitative way of course!!!)

Unfortunately I don't think we're going to get much in the way of Internet access for a while so this is bye bye for now.

Oh.... and

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!

Ecuador - Banos

2008-12-07T05:30:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Still loving Ecuador :0) Banos is a little jungle town and it's perfect. It's pretty and friendly, with loads of hot springs and tonnes of vegetarian restaurants - what more could a girl want?! The setting is spectacular as it's perched on the side of an active(!) volcano and surrounded by forest covered mountains.

We hired bikes to explore near-by waterfalls and found some ropey little cable-car things. They zoom from one side of the valley to the other, way above the river and even right over one of the waterfalls. We made a cheesy little video of our adventures so be sure to check it out.

As well as enjoying the scenery, relaxed atmosphere and great food we also had a go in a steam-bath. It was free in our hostel so even though we had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for we gave it a go! For anyone who doesn't know... A steam-bath actually involves being shut in a wooden box with only your head sticking out the top whilst the box is filled with hot steam. Obviously you get very sweaty and I presume it's supposed to get rid of toxins or something. To be honest it felt like some sort of torture device, especially as we really weren't sure how we were supposed to get out again! Fortunately we were released by someone who then got us to sit on a big basin of freezing water whilst she threw more cold water at any bits of us that had escaped being submerged! Hmmmm... Still not convinced.

Unfortunately we only had a couple of days in Banos and would love to have stayed longer, so we may go back at some point. The only other disappointment was the fact that we didn't see any monkeys when our guide book promised us them in our hostel garden and Ben put a lot of effort into calling them :0)

Ben:
Not many photos again and the ones I've got are of yet more waterfalls! I promise to take some photos of other things next time! The photos are here.

Ecuador - Quito

2008-12-04T19:07:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Quito - a breath of fresh air. As soon as we stepped off the plane the difference was noticeable. Quito is full of parks, the buildings are all finished (in Peru if you build a house you have to pay tax on it once it's finished. So they never finish them! Almost everyone lives in a building with big, ugly metal supports sticking out of the roof and surrounded by piles of rubble), the roads are clean (Peru - rubbish everywhere), the cars do not threaten to mow each other down at every opportunity and it's quiet - no car horns or desperate whistle blowing!!

It's like coming home. Only nicer! I mean it, I REALLY like Quito. It's a modern, relaxed, green, friendly, small - one million people, city, and it's got way better public transport than we do (plus it's all wheelchair accessible). I love it, I want to live here, and the food is amazing, and the people have all been really friendly and it's really cheap (well compared to home anyway). Plus we arrived in the middle of a huge fiesta so the streets have constantly been filled with parades and brass bands playing on the roofs of trucks. A boy in a suit gave me a rose and we were both forced join in and dance with costumed folk!

OK maybe I'm getting a little bit over excited, it is just a city after all and actually the old part is not as nice as we imagined it would be, but I think it just goes to show how unbelievably badly governed Peru has been as Ecuador, it's far less rich in natural resources neighbour, is clearly prospering so much more.

Having said all that... Ben has been a big fat slacker on the photography front so you're going to have to take my word for Quito's fabulousness as we don't have any pictures to prove it :0(

Peru - La Merced

2008-12-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

Heather:
There's no rest for the wicked so after a days sight-seeing in Lima we were straight onto another night bus. The buses have surprised us in how comfortable they are, but this nine hour journey over some really high mountains on windy, windy roads wasn't the easiest on our delicate western constitutions, so I was feeling slightly poorly by the time we reached our jungle destination. Antonieta and her husband Jeremy have a house in the scenic spot of La Merced, between the highlands and cloud-forest, and we arrived at their home just in time for my vomiting and diarrhea to kick in!! So, for me, the first twenty-four hours of our stay involved running to and from the bathroom and whimpering pathetically (I am an AWFUL patient) whilst Ben, bless him, ran 'round putting wet flannels on my forehead and the like.

Fortunately for us all I was feeling much better the next day, so we were able to do a bit of exploring. We did some hiking, found a waterfall and really appreciated all the greenery. It was a welcome break to be away from the city and lovely to stay in a family home rather than a hotel / hostel. Chatting to Antonieta and Jeremy meant we got to learn a lot more about Peruvian life and politics and our brief time in La Merced showed us that had we spent more time in the jungle and smaller towns our experience in Peru would have been a very different one. We feel like we've spent a lot of time in cities and buses and not nearly enough time enjoying the countryside. We've realised that we're definitely not cut out for desert life and have both really missed greenery and vegetation. That's not to say we haven't enjoyed ourselves, because we have, and trekking the Inca Trail in particular was a wonderful experience, but we haven't come to love Peru in the same way as we did both Cuba and Costa Rica.

Ben:
A few more photos can be found here

Peru - Lima

2008-11-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Ok... this time we actually got to see Lima, well as much of it as could be squeezed in in a day anyway. We were met from the Nazca bus by Antonieta who is the mother of Ben's cousin's wife (tenuous link!) and we spent the night with her family. It was lovely, we were like guests of honour and met all the extended family and had a traditional Peruvian meal with them (potatoes and corn based - the Peruvian staples). The following day we had a whistle stop tour of Lima, which is ridiculously big; eleven million people, but nicer than I anticipated, with some beautiful buildings and squares and a pretty coastline. (Well that is when I was able to open my eyes, as every time we had to get into a cab I genuinely thought we were going to die, so coped by just not looking!) The whistle stop nature of the tour means there's no photos of Lima though - sorry :0(

Peru - Nazca

2008-11-26T17:08:00.000-08:00

Heather:
About a thousand years ago the folk of Nazca made strange markings in the desert. They're still there. No-one really knows what they were for. In fact no-one even realised what they were until relatively recently, when someone flew over them and saw that they weren't just random lines in the sand, but in fact geometrical figures and designs. There's a dog, a monkey, birds (one with a wing span of over a hundred metres), a spider, a tree and hands to name but a few. From the ground you can't see anything, which is why their function is such a mystery, as presumably they didn't fly too often a thousand years ago (although one theory suggests that the Nazca people actually had hot air balloons). Some people say that they mark out some sort of astronomical chart, others think it's about water sources, it may be a form of worship and one theory even has them down as running tracks! Who knows? Anyway the point is there's these really big, really old weird marks in the desert and we went to see them...

In order to see the Nazca lines we flew over them in a tiny six seater (including the pilot) plane. I have to say the markings really are impressive, the designs are so intricate it's impossible to imagine how they were created without being able to see them from above. From the pictures you can get an impression of what they look like but really no idea of the scale of the things. They are HUGE! However, my personal enjoyment of witnessing the spectacle was somewhat hampered by the fact I spent the majority of the flight trying desperately not to be sick. In fact the only point at which I wasn't trying not to be sick was when I actually was being sick! Fortunately it was into a bag provided for just such an event. It happens all the time as the pilot insists on flying the plane around each shape completely on it's side then turning around and flying past the same shape banking steeply on the other side. It's something that I'm finding incredibly difficult to describe without the use of hand signals and sound effects! But take it from me it was far from pleasant and I wasn't the only one turned green by the experience. The point of this crazy behaviour is to allow you to take photos of the lines but with all that swooping about and trying not to vomit even Ben's photos are a bit crap, so apologise in advance! (Look out for the alien Nazca line which we're sure is someone taking the piss!)

The other thing the Nazca people did was bury their dead in the desert. They intended for the bodies to be preserved for as long as possible so they would be whole when entering into the next life. As a result archaeologists (and treasure hunters) have been digging them up ever since and we went to have a look. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about looking at corpses lying (actually sitting as they were always in the foetal position in order to be born into the next life) in their open graves. It's all done fairly respectfully but to me it just looked like something from the "Goonies"! Good photo ops though...

Ben:
A few pictures of the bodies can be found here. Whereas the Nazca line photos have been relegated to facebook and can be found here.

Peru - Arequipa

2008-11-24T19:13:00.000-08:00

Heather:
It feels like we've been in Arequipa a long time. We were ready to leave a few days ago but the buses were full so we've had to hang around a bit longer. We're in a lovely hostel; luxury room, cable tv, WIFI, pretty garden and little pool, but it's a bit of a trek from town and that combined with the fact that we've really seen everything that there is to see in town, means that we seem to have turned into Wayne and Waynetta Slob! We've had take away pizza twice - twice! I never have take away pizza at home. It's no wonder I'm bursting out of my clothes - a situation not helped by the fact they've been shrunk in the tumble dryer! Anyway we leave today on the night bus, on which we have bed-seats booked, whatever that means. I wonder if it'll be like first class on a plane where they bring you wine and massage your feet (that is what happens in first class isn't it?!).

So, Arequipa... Another city. We're pleased that we've been on the treks into the countryside because otherwise it feels like we've been in cities a lot, and we don't really like cities, and they're ugly too. Arequipa is the second biggest city after Lima (but Lima is ten times the size so they don't really compare). The centre is pretty but most of it is just really dusty and the streets are gridlocked with little yellow taxis spewing fumes. Each crossroad terrifies me as the right of way appears to go to whichever vehicle gets there first and fastest whilst hooting it's horn the loudest! On every corner is a police man or woman who blows their whistle constantly, but as far as we can tell several aggressive bursts of the whistle means "Everyone carry on doing exactly what you're doing"!

The touristy sights to see here include a museum telling the story of the recovered bodies of children sacrificed by the Inkas. They were trying to appease the angry mountain gods, following a volcanic eruption. The bodies and other sacrificial items were preserved as they froze solid on the mountain until they were uncovered by archaeologists. It was pretty spooky looking at a five hundred year old corpse!

There's also a huge nunnery here, which is like a whole town behind walls within the city. Most of it is open to the public now and you can wander around the beautiful old buildings and gardens. Apparently there used to be a tunnel leading to the near-by monastery, but the tour guides deny that. It reminded me a lot of home as the decorators seem to share Ben's taste as most of it is painted either bright orange or dark blue :0)

The main event during our time in Arequipa was a night out on the town with some of the people from the last trek. Given that Ben and I have been in bed by half nine most nights and not really drunk since our leaving party, I blame entirely the influence of the Irish boys for all drunken behaviour!! A deadly mix of rum-based beverages ensured that the night was carnage! The Irish left the club to get straight on an early morning flight - nutters! I just about made it to breakfast (it's included, of course I wouldn't miss it!) but then promptly puked it back up and had to spend the day in bed!

Ben:
Didn't take many photos in Arequipa, but there are few more photos of the nunnery here.

Peru - Colca Canyon

2008-11-21T19:15:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Another trek; this one in the Colca Canyon, which is (apparently) twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. A group of twelve people from all over Europe: Switzerland, France, Lithuania, Holland and Ireland (plus Wales of course), a guide and a driver on a three day adventure together...

For most of the journey to the canyon the landscape was incredibly barren, with desert stretching between mountains and volcanoes. On route, we hung out in a "rock forest" (big, weird rock formations in the middle of the desert) and saw strange high altitude plants which are as hard as rock. We visited villages and saw little kids waving placards with their striking teachers. We learned the differences between llama (bigger, longer neck, tail up) and alpaca (smaller, shorter neck, tail down, woolly face) and that only the males have coloured wool threaded through their ears, the more wool - the more important - like llama bling! We failed to get excited at the sight of condors (birds - yawn!) but did get excited about seeing little chinchilla / rabbit things (cute, fluffy and cuddly!), of course Ben didn't get a picture of either, they're too fast (or he's too slow)!

The valley that narrows to become Colca Canyon is green and farmed, with animals grazing in it, a relief after so much desert. No-one (not even wikipedia!) seems to know the difference between a canyon and a gorge, but it was deep and steep and there was a river at the bottom. It looked pretty far down - and it was! We spent the first night in a hotel in a village at the top, and the following morning walked down into the canyon. It was dusty, steep, slippery and hot and took about three hours to reach the bottom. Fortunately mules carried most of out stuff and we were greeted by an "oasis", complete with flowers, palms and swimming pools, where we camped for the night. (Although it wasn't quite as luxurious as it first appeared with dodgy toilets, tents that didn't zip up and midges but I'm keeping the focus on the positive!)

There was great debate over dinner as to whether the group should get up at three am to climb back out of the canyon, in the dark, to look for more (boring, boring) condors or have a lie-in until six (when the hell did six am become a lie-in?!) and fortunately good sense prevailed! So after our "lie-in" we climbed back up the canyon side (a thousand metres - that's a kilometer - straight up - higher than Snowdon - from sea level!!!!!) and I'm pleased to say that I didn't even require the services of the "emergency mule"!

After lunch (where we were entertained by an ever-present panpipe player - Ben's personal favourite) we had a dip in a hot spring. A bit weird in the blazing sunshine (once again... rainy season?!) but good for the aching joints. Then we headed back, with a stop to see hawks (I think? Some sort of big birds anyway!) that even Ben could manage to photograph as they were tied to their keepers!

Ben:
There are more photos here!

Peru - Lake Titicaca

2008-11-16T11:35:00.000-08:00

Heather:
Having already discovered that long bus journeys are not Ben's favourite way to spend his time (and I'm not really a fan either) we weren't really looking forward to our first long Peruvian bus journey. However, once we established that there really was a toilet on-board and Ben discovered that he had plenty of leg room, we relaxed. In fact I think it's fair to say that we were quite impressed, especially when they brought around sandwiches and put on a film in English. But, inevitably it all went a bit "tits up" when we ran out of water just in time for the bus to grind to a halt because the road was being blockaded by striking farmers. In both directions for miles, as far as the eye could see, were bus, after truck, after bus stopped in the middle of nowhere. The time spent sitting in a stationary queue of traffic extended our supposedly six hour journey to more like eight, and we were really thirsty and starving but there was nothing to be bought. Finally an enterprising local woman appeared selling bananas and Ben put his bargaining skills into action, resulting in us acquiring five of the smallest bananas you have ever seen!

Eventually we made it to PUNO, which is the main town on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. It hasn't impressed us much. It's ugly and smelly and I fell on my arse in the street! Ben decided to buy some ripped off DVDs for us to watch on his laptop,and as a result of we are now the owners of twenty-seven Hollywood classics dubbed into Spanish. He wasn't a happy boy!

However, the reason to come to this part of the world is to see Lake Titicaca, which is unbelievably huge, and to visit it's islands and their people:

ISLAS DE UROS is a series of floating islands made from reeds by the people who live upon them. It's pretty bizarre to be on a man-made island and to see what the inhabitants manage to make with the reeds. They build houses and boats and eat them too (that's the reeds, not the houses and boats!) Usually several families live on one island but apparently if they fall out they can just saw apart their islands and float their separate ways!

My favourite bit was seeing the guinea pigs running around. I should probably explain for those of you who don't know at this point, that one of the main local dishes here is roasted guinea pig. They're not too popular with the tourists because they arrive on your plate whole, complete with claws and little teeth, and as Ben says "a lot of people don't like their dinner to look back at them"! But the way I see it, if you're going to eat meat, those guinea pigs looked a lot happier snuffeling around in the reeds than the battery-reared chickens you get at home. Anyway...

ISLA TAQUILE is the second island we visited, it's very pretty and home to another unusual community of people. We learned about some of the local customs, such as the different coloured bobble hats worn by the men to indicate whether they are married or not and that the people greet each other not with a handshake but with an exchange of coca leaves (which they keep in brightly coloured bags that are the exact same ones in every hippy shop in the UK!). Also only men on the island are allowed to knit, and when couple's get married instead of handing over a ring the bride presents her man with a belt woven not just of wool but also her hair. Nice!

Ben:
There are more photos here!

Peru - The Inka Trail to Machu Picchu

2008-11-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

Heather:
We did it! It was "punishing" and "utterly exhausting" at times and little men carrying huge loads did jog past me, but I didn't need oxygen or a piggy back :0) The trek involved hiking for four days through the peaks of the Andes, along the old Inka Trail which runs from Cusco to Machu Picchu. The scenery was breath-taking, in both senses of the words; walking among mountains so high that they contain glaciers left me feeling both in awe and short of breath!

We were lucky enough to be in a group of only four people. But my hopes for the other couple being fat Americans (to make me look better!) were dashed when we met the fit Bob and Sharon from Scotland. For just the four of us we had a guide, Fernando, and nine, yes nine, porters. We carried our day-packs, with water and a jumper etc in, and the porters carried everything else. They would bring us coca tea and a bowl of hot water for washing, to our beds in the morning. They'd arrive at our lunch spot ahead of us so that we could sit down at a table in a big tent (which of course they had carried) and eat the lunch they had prepared. After a little siesta on the sleeping mats they'd laid out for us, we'd trot off, leaving them to wash up, pack up and come rushing past us on the trail, so that they could have our overnight camp and delicious three course meal ready for our arrival in the evening. We'd then be tucked up in bed in the tents that had been put up for us by eight o'clock every night. It felt like we were part of the Raj or something! But seriously, seeing the porters, who were all about half the size of me, some of them just boys really and others old men, carrying packs bigger than them and wearing tatty old sandals, charging up and down the mountain sides was a very humbling experience.

The first day was relatively easy. We stopped regularly for breaks and for Fernando to tell us all about the increasingly impressive Inka sites that we passed along the way with contagious enthusiasm. But day two was the really tough one. We set off early in the morning and over the course of the day climbed the two highest peaks on the trail, the highest being around 4500 metres and rather disconcertingly called Dead Woman's Pass! The uphill sections were unbelievably steep and even the porters looked like they might collapse at any moment. We all sounded like a troop of Darth Vaders panting our way to the top, sporting ridiculous head-wear to protect us from the unforgiving sun (what "rainy season"?!) and leaning on our trusty sticks. But it was worth the pain as it was a truly exhilarating experience to look down from the top of the highest pass, quite literally "on top of the world"!

Ben has, we've found, a remarkable ability to somehow leap gazelle-like up the slopes disappearing into the distance only to periodically reappear, puppy-like, to make sure we're still following painfully slowly behind! This was fortunate as he captured some fantastic shots whilst waiting for the rest of us to catch up. I remained well behind for the whole trek with the only exception being the time when I was desperate for the loo and had to run off to camp to avoid making a terrible mess!

Day three was in comparison an absolute breeze, although it was just as well, given that we were all (even Ben!) hampered by our aching muscles. The idea was that we'd all be bright and breezy the next day, despite getting up at four am, for the final push to Machu Picchu. Of course everyone wants to be the first to see it, so there was something of a "Wacky Races" feel to the last few miles as lots of trekkers jostled for position along the path, despite the sheer drop to one side, and the excitement built!... Then that first view of Machu Picchu, from above, with the morning mist rolling around it, and the feeling of a pilgrimage complete, really was magical.

The site is enormous and impressive both in terms of it's architecture but also for it's position among the sheer mountain tops. No one really knows what it was for, but it's clear that it was religiously significant, and one theory goes that it was a place for witches and mediums to worship the Inka gods of the mountains, water, earth and so on. All I know is that for someone with very sore legs there are a ridiculous amount of steps!!

Ben:
There are more photos here!

Peru - Cuzco

2008-11-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

Heather:
For the last week we have been in Cusco. It's the 'gringo' capital of Peru and is filled with tourists of all kinds, from backpackers to posh five star holiday-makers. The city itself is dusty and sprawling but the old town is made up of beautiful old Spanish colonial buildings, lots of pretty squares and a ridiculous amount of churches, all linked by steep, narrow cobbled streets (with mental taxi drivers flying down them!). But the reason that everyone comes here is because of it's setting among the colossal snow-capped mountains of the Andes and the numerous ruins of the mighty Inka civilisation. Cusco is the place from which the famous Inka Trail to Machu Picchu begins.

Cusco is located more than 3300m above sea level. Now figures like that don't really mean much to me, but think about it... Nearly three and a half kilometers up!! (How many Billy Wints is that Karen?!) Because of the altitude we were pretty rough for the first few days we were here. We felt like we were moving through treacle and would end up wheezing like old ladies with a 40 a-day habit from simply walking up the street. We were both grumpy and shouted at each other a lot too! Our grumpiness was not helped by the fact that we went to some really shit museums (I'm sorry but I just can't get excited about bits of broken pot, even if they are really old!) or Ben having a tantrum when he locked the keys for his camera bag inside his camera bag!! However, things have definitely improved since then. We've been to the Sacred Valley to see a number of important Inka sites and even I have to admit that some of them really are impressive. Although whilst Ben was off taking photos I did fall asleep at the last one!

Cusco is filled with women in traditional dress with babies strapped to their backs (or in the absence of a baby a lamb!) and grubby children leading llamas around, all hoping to have their picture taken for a tip. Obviously this is something of a show for the tourists but even when you get away from town the women working in the fields are dressed the same way and there's still llamas all over the place! There also seems to be some kind of parade or other around Cusco's main square every other day. One day it's the military, the next a marching band, today lots of kids dressed in various traditional outfits are dancing along. Bless them though they've been at it all day and look pretty knackered now!

Initially Ben wouldn't let us go out after dark, which was pretty awkward when it came to getting dinner as it gets dark at 6.30pm because he'd read about "strangle muggings"! However, I'm pleased to say that there has been no evidence of the aforementioned "strangle muggers" but that might be partly because we've been in bed by 9.30pm every night (even when we went for a beer in the obligatory Irish bar!) because even though it's sunny by day in the evening it gets really cold.

As well as the odd bit of site-seeing we've been trying to acclimatise and mentally and physically prepare ourselves for the four day Inka Trail trek that we embark on tommorrow. Ben's only concern is his new hat which he is convinced gives him a headache and so has gouged air-holes out the side of with his "trusty pocket knife"! However, I have to confess the words "punishing climb" and "utterly exhausting" which are used to describe various sections of route in the guidebook have slightly freaked me out! I just know that little men with giant loads on their back are going to jog passed me in bare-feet whilst I have to be given oxygen and a piggy-back!

Ben:
There are more photos here.

Peru - Lima

2008-10-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

We flew into Lima from San Jose and as we were flying out again the next morning stayed in a hotel near to the airport. We asked in reception about somewhere to get some dinner and were handed a pile of takeaway pizza menus. We had a wander and found nothing but shops behind bars. In order to buy anything you had to point (in our case) to what you wanted and pay before it was handed through the bars. We decided that this probably indicated that we weren't in the nicest part of town, so we went back to the hotel and ordered takeaway pizza!

Costa Rica - San Jose (again!)

2008-10-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

Ben:
After another long arduous bus journey, we arrived back in San Jose. At which point I had a stinking headache and had to lie down. Got to the hostel... moaned a lot... got Heather to place a cold flannel on my head... and tried to sleep whilst feeling worse and worse. In the meantime Heather went to get some food. In the ten minutes whilst she was gone I threw up all over myself and all over the laundry room floor (the bathroom was occupied)... and immediately felt fine again, though a little damp! Half an hour later feeling amazingly recovered I went to get take away for myself too!

The next day we wanted to go shopping in the city centre. San Jose is not the prettiest of cities. The 'Lonely Planet' guide book has most of it's San Jose space dedicated to warning you of all the bad areas of the city. It gives advice such as "if at any point you're held at knife or gunpoint, do not resist or fight back". So having taken off all our watches and jewelry and stashed money for the day in secret pockets we venture into town. First thing you notice is how all the local lots have security guards with big guns and large razor wire fences around them! Thankfully the trip went without incident and I even managed to buy some nice new shorts to replace the army camouflaged shorts that I've been advised not to wear in South America! Suffice to say the camera didn't come with us so there are no photos.

Today, our final day in Costa Rica, we've spent the day white water rafting in a national park near San Jose. It was a three hour raft trip over class III and IV rapids. To be fair I didn't know what class IV rapid really meant. Now I know it means you get very wet! Apparently it's one of the top five white water rafting rivers in the world. There were five people in a raft, a guide who would give commands to the other four who would then paddle appropriately. I was at the front of the raft and I realised at one point that I was failing to hear some of the commands when after a particularly vicious rapid that involved me getting drenched and almost falling off, I was wondering why no one else was still paddling. Turning round I noticed everyone else was lying on the bottom of the raft and I had missed the vital "get down" command! It was amazing fun and a great way to end our time in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica - Parque National Rincon de la Vieja

2008-10-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

Heather:
We've left the major tourist trail behind now and have headed into a much more remote national park. There's no town, we're in a lodge a few kilometres from the park entrance, and once again you can''t get anywhere without 4WD. It's a beautiful setting and we've got our own porch, complete with hammock, rocking chairs and dog, from where we can enjoy the view.

Getting here was something of a mission though and in the process we have learned that Ben doesn't really go in for the whole economy travel thing! As we got off our bus I commented "See that wasn't too bad" and Ben's response was "I'm trying to imagine in what way it could have been worse"! Now admittedly I wasn't the one contorted into a strange position, stuck behind a girl who wouldn't move her chair forward or next to an overweight woman who allegedly kept farting (no it wasn't me!) with a ridiculously heavy camera bag in my lap but hey, it REALLY could have been worse!

The environment is completely different from where we've been so far. The forest is much more like woodland that we have at home, but much older and more gnarly-looking. It's like an enchanted wood in a fairytale. I keep expecting one of the trees to start talking to us or a vine or tree root to wrap itself around my ankle and hold me captive! There's spooky things caused by volcanic activity too like pools of boiling mud, multicoloured lakes and smoking holes in the ground that add to the surreal feeling.

Our animal watching was fruitless until we sat down to eat our lunch and the wildlife came bounding out of the forest to try and get a bit! The trees were suddenly filled with whitefaced monkeys (but not close enough for photos - obviously!) and a ridiculously bold coati actually jumped up onto the picnic table and tried to unzip our bags (no we didn't feed it). It looked like it would have been happy for me to give it a little cuddle though but I was just a bit scared of it's huge claws!

Ben:
More photos here!

Costa Rica - Monteverde

2008-10-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

Heather:
We travelled to Monteverde via 'Jeep-Boat-Jeep' and despite Ben's excitement that doesn't mean we came here by transformer! Just a jeep, a boat and then another jeep. Bless him! It was more than exciting enough for me though as the roads are unsurfaced and we were sliding all over the place even in a 4WD trying to get through the mud without getting stuck. We made it though and are now in a little town surrounded by tropical cloudforest. Not being an ecologist I can't tell the difference between the cloudforests and the rainforests but I guess it's to do with being higher and the clouds tend to settle in the forest giving it something of an eery quality.

We've been doing lots more hiking and a little bit of tree hugging - the trees are incredible and definitely worth hugging :0) In parts of the forest there are hanging-bridges set up so you can actually walk through, and above, the cloudforest canopy, which is pretty special. It feels totally different walking through the canopy than on the forest floor. As you look down you can't see the ground as the plants are so dense and beingamong the tops of the trees gives you a much better understanding of the symbiotic relationships going on around you (and some not so symbiotic but I'm sticking with my romantic vision). Each tree has so many other plants growing on it and is obviously supporting loads of insects, and birds, and other animals, each tree is an ecosystem in it's own right.

We're still wildlife spotting and keep finding that as we walk quietly for miles in the forest, looking up, trying hard to spot things we don't actually see much in the way of animals, yet as we get back to the ranger station, and Ben packs his camera away, wild animals seem to practically dance through the car park!!! We've spotted quite a few fury friends right by the road. We saw a grey fox and some coatis (Ben even managed to get some photos - I take it all back!). Also, in one spot someone has set up lots of bird feeders filled with sugar water and so there are literally hundreds of beautiful multicoloured humming birds flying around. They were hovering so close it felt like I could have just reached over and picked one straight out of the sky.

My special reward for being so incredibly patient whilst Ben takes all his photos (!) was to go zip-lining. When I signed up for it I thought it was going to be one of those 'death-slide' things you see atassault courses, but there were actually fifteen of them and the longest one was 600 metres! It was so exciting! I had to wear a climbing harness thing then was attached to a metal cable right upamong the tallest trees and then just zipped along from platform to platform. Some of the runs were really fast and scary and some of them you could just enjoy the views below whilst hanging in mid-air. I loved it apart from thisTarzan swing thing they got us to do, which basically involved falling off one of the very high up platforms and then swinging around in the air until one of the (young buff!) instructors jumped up and hung off your feet and dragged you back down to earth. It was all a bit too much like a mini bungee jump for my liking. (Sorry there's no photos so you'll just have to take my word for it. Ben was off photographing more things that will stay still for him!)

Ben:
More photos here!

Costa Rica - La Fortuna

2008-10-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Heather:
La Fortuna is our first real stop and it's a small town pretty much entirely dedicated to providing services to the tourists (mostly American) of Costa Rica, and it does so very well. It's built up at the foot of a volcano called ARENAL, which believe it or not is still active. So one of the most popular activities here is to watch the lava which constantly flows down it and lights up at night. It's pretty amazing to see, well actually it's not all that impressive - not like in the pictures in the postcards with flames spewing out the top - but pretty amazing in a if-you-think-about-it sort of way. In reality it looks a bit like a few rubbish fireworks going off in the distance! But doesn't that seem a bit unwise to you? Building a town at the foot of an active volcano I mean?! There are big eruptions every now and again, so there's certain things you have to do to make sure there will be as few casualties as possible in the next one, one of which is to always park your car facing away from the volcano. I've got to say, I'm not entirely convinced that that's going to be all that effective in the event. But then who am I say?!

Apart from the active volcano there's loads of dormant ones, so we climbed up the one next to Arenal. It was very, and I mean VERY, hard. Practically straight up! My legs have hurt ever since. It was pretty amazing though because we had to climb up through rainforest. At the top there was a lake in the crater and I was just paddling and contemplating a swim when I pointed out the "little Ely things" to someone who informed me they were leeches (everyone seen 'Stand by me'?) and that put an end to that idea! It did look impressive though and really green. Also we got some really good views (and therefore photos of course) of the top of Arenal, which doesn't often reveal itself from behind the clouds. We were a little disappointed though not to spot any monkeys in the rainforest (I imagine my heavy-breathing may have put them off), that is until we were on the way down and could hear the loudest, angriest sounding monkey noises ever and imagined huge ferocious gorillas would appear at any moment to rip us limb from limb, at which point we were very relieved not to have seen them! (We've since learned that tiny cute little howler monkeys were responsible for the racket!)

Our more successful rainforest wildlife spotting endeavours have meant we've seen deadly snakes and frogs (cute tiny little bright red tree-frogs), tonnes of birds, most of which I have no idea what they are (apologise to both Ben's Dad and Karen!) but do include toucans, humming birds and some sort of special heron (sorry!!!!), hundreds of butterflies, lizards and iguanas (massive ones in trees, sitting on branches that look like they might give way at any moment), black squirrels, a howler monkey and most excitingly as far as I'm concerned... Sloths! (Now this might be a good time to warn you not to get too excited about seeing photos of most of the afore mentioned species, this is for two reasons, the first being that rather annoyingly the animals do not pose attractively waiting to be snapped, and in fact the sloths mostly looked like balls of fur wedged in the trees! Also secondly, those of you who have experience being photographed by Ben - standing with a stiff smile for an inordinate amount of time whilst he twiddles camera dials, will not be surprised to learn; a wildlife photographer he is not! So expect to see photos of things that don't move!)

Ben:
There are more pictures of immobile objects here!

Costa Rica - San Jose

2008-10-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Heather:
I can't actually tell you about San Jose as although we spent our first night in Costa Rica there we didn't actually see it! We were so excited by the novelty of all the luxuries of modern living and so put off by the rain, not to mention all the tales of how hideous and unsafe the city is, that we didn't venture out of our (scarily reminiscent of a youth club) hostel. We are flying out from there too so maybe we'll make it out the front door next time!

I must admit that despite the fact we knew it was rainy season the relentless torrential rain that greeted us did catch us a bit off guard. We weren't comforted to be told it had been that way all day, every day for the previous nine days, or by the terrible forecast (we've got WiFi of course we can check the forecast). However, I am very pleased (and a little bit smug) to say that since then it's been pretty good. I mean it does rain, we're in the rainforest (the clue's in the name) but we've had lots of sun and only brief showers most of the time. The 'showers' do result in an absolute drenching when you get caught in one though!

Costa Rica

2008-10-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

Heather:
After three weeks in Cuba it's been something of a culture shock arriving in Costa Rica. It feels like the two hour plane journey didn't just bring us to another country, but also shot us forward in time several generations! Suddenly the roads are filled with cars, with not an animal-drawn vehicle of any kind to be seen. There are people cutting the vegetation with strimmers instead of huge macheties. Suddenly the billboards displaying Communist slogans are replaced by blinding adverts for all kinds of tempting crap we don't really need. The American pollution (did I say 'pollution'? Maybe influence is more polite) is everywhere in the form of Dennys, Burger King, Wendys and of course the evil Mc Donalds. Prices are all in dollars, the locals all speak perfect English (if you can call American English 'perfect'!) and refer to us as "guys" and our counterparts are all teenagers who appear to have stepped straight out of an episode of 'Beverly Hills 90219' - aaagggghhhh!!!!

However, the up side of all this of course is... The food is fantastic. Everything runs ultra-efficiently. You know exactly what you're going to get when you hand your cash over. The facilities are astonishing; WiFi internet access in your room? Swimming pools? Roof-top bars? Hammocks? Cable TV? Folks that arrange everything for you? Pick ups from the door? Whoever said this travelling lark was hard?!

Cuba - Havana (again)

2008-10-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Unfortuntely our time in Cuba is now over. We're back in Havana for the night as we fly out early in the morning. We really have had a fantastic time though and have learned loads about a country which is no doubt going to change dramatically over the coming years. There are still a lot of things that remain something of a mystery to me, such as how a government can call itself Communist then have regions of it's own country where only foreign tourists are allowed to go, or introduce a second currency that can't fail to increase the divide between those that have and those that don't. And I certainly won't miss the bloody awful food, not being able to access the internet or constantly being asked if I want to buy cigars!

But I think my Spanish is improving, and I'm definately understanding more and getting better at interacting with people, whereas Ben seems to have advanced from saying "Si" to everything to answering any question that he's asked with "Cerveza" (beer), not always that helpful in practice!And I will miss the scenery, the relaxed lifestyle, the sunshine and most of all the people, who are so friendly and have a real sense of community.

Still tommorrow... Costa Rica!

Ben:
There's some bonus photos from Cuba taken on the small camera that can be found here!

Cuba - Bens little bit on Politics

2008-10-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

Ben:
After writing all the blog entries for cuba Heather has told me that I have to write something too! So I thought I'd write a bit about my polical observations of Cuba!

Being in Cuba it's hard not to form opinions on the political system here and to speculate on where it's going. Back in my Swansea university days people selling Socialist Worker papers would wear che t-shirts and would idolise cuba as a how revolution can work. I don't doubt that after the revolution first happened there were good intentions within the new regime. This is shown through Cuba's health and education services, both of which we are told are very good (though thankfully we never had to put this to the test). Though che's efforts to encourage moral incentives to work rather than materials was never sustainable. The buildings are crumbling, the streets are full of potholes, the shops are empty, the food is rationed and many people each year try to "escape" to the states.

Over the years Fidel has blamed USA for all of it's problems (this can be seen in Havana's very biased Musea de Revolucion!), and to be fair there is some truth in this. The trade embargo from cuba's closest and largest neighbour has made the importing and exporting of goods expensive. Until the late eighties Cuba's economy was mainly held up by their close ally Russia. But when the Berlin Wall fell in Europe Cuba lost trade and credit of $5 billion dollars overnight. This resulted in a five year spiral of poverty. To stop the riots in the streets the government was forced to legalise the US dollar and promote tourism. Ploughing the money made from tourism to eleviate poverty. This has created the cuba we see today. Two economic systems running side by side, the national communist peso and the more capitilist tourist money (the dollar was taken out of circulation in 2004 to be replaced by this second cuban currency of equivelent value). This of course is creating a divide that the initial revolution was trying to stop. Now beggars and touts on the street collecting foreign tourist money can earn more in a day than a doctor on a government salary can in a month. This double economy is not sustainable and will eventually have to change. I cannot see communism lasting in Cuba and I imagine as the government changes power over the next few years we'll see more capitilism coming back into Cuba. Hopefully, though, change won't come too quickly so that the country won't lose it's culture, identity and sense of community.

Cuba - Trinidad

2008-10-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Our time in Cuba has carried on getting better and better :0) We spent most of our last week in Trinidad, and haven't wanted to leave as we've made ourselves well and truly at home in another 'casa', headed by Ramonita, a wonderful tiny energetic little old Cuban lady.

Our initial arrival didn't quite go according to plan though as we were whisked off the bus (which had broken down on the way) by a guy pretending to be from the casa we were looking for. He dumped us on the back of a bicycle rickshaw, that didn't cope too well with carrying me, Ben and all our luggage and promptly broke! This led to some comedy antics as we were dragged around town by a second rickshaw, with our driver holding on to the back. The streets are pretty hilly, so every time they got up some momentum there was no way they were going to stop at junctions, regardless of whether or not there were motorbikes headed straight for us!

We realised pretty sharpish that we'd been taken to the wrong place and sought out the right house (on the same street) where we found Ramonita. We then hid behind her, as she let rip at the dodgy guy, despite the fact she was too small to reach his doorbell! Then took us home to her beautiful house, complete with peacock in the garden.

Since then it's been all plain sailing. We've explored Trinidad, which is a pretty, biggish town, with cobbled streets and multicoloured houses. There are lots of great bars, with all manner of rum-based beverages, and fantastic music and dancing. Even I can recognise some Cuban tunes now but still haven't learned to salsa.

Ramonita has kept us well fed, but always gets upset when we're not able to finish the mountains of food she lays on for us every night, but to be honest I could probably do without the microwaved cheese sandwiches she gives us for breakfast!

There's a beach (PLAYA ANCON) near-by, so we hired bikes and cycled there (resulting in sore bums but surprisingly no strops) and spent a couple of days lounging around occasionally venturing out of the shade to work on the tans (I've got a bit of a peely belly) and went snorkelling on a near-by coral reef. The best bit for me was sailing out to it on a tiny catamaran, hanging on to the side as the waves splashed over our heads (not quite so health and safety mad over here!).

I'd say the highlights though have involved hiking in the near-by mountains (TOPES DE COLLANTES and RANCHON EL CUBANO) where we walked through incredible tropical vegetation (again generally with a mangy dog or two at our heels!) to reach waterfalls where we could swim. And as if that wasn't cool enough already... at one we swam right through the waterfall into a cave which was full of bats! Amazing.

Ben:
You can see some more photos here.

Cuba - Vinales

2008-10-08T15:57:00.000-07:00

Heather:
Havana was hectic and Playa Del Esta was deserted, we're now in Vinales, which is tranquil. It really is lovely. We're properly in the country, with chickens and pigs snuffelling past and the farmers going about their business with Ox-pulled ploughs. We also seem to constantly have a mangy dog at our heels (and I don't encourage them and really don't need Ben to keep shouting "Don't look at it! Don't give it eye contact!").

The scenery is fantastic; with these huge imposing limestone mountain things (I can't really describe them, have a look at the photos) all around and all kinds of crops growing including tobacco, coffee, sugar cane and tropical fruit (finally fruit!!) among the palm trees. We've done loads of walking (and I mean LOADS, even though it's like a million degrees and we're bright red with sunburn). We've also seen lots of evidence of the major hurricane (Gusto) that hit here about a month a go.

Instead of being in a hotel we're renting a room in a 'casa', the home of a local family (it's the main form of accommodation for tourists in Cuba away from the big resorts). The family were recommended to us by some Americans we met (one of whom, bizzarely, is the nanny for Eddie Vedder from Perl Jam's kids - cool hey?!) It's been such a positive experience, the family (and in fact the whole town) have been so warm and welcoming. Also, finally, we've had some good food, as the Gran of the family has cooked a feast for us every night (still no fresh veg though and I seem to be on a four eggs a day diet, which I'm not entirely convinced is good for me!).

One of the neighbours took us on a guided hike and we met some of the local farmers who showed us how to roll cigars, fed us pinapple straight from the plant and gave us sugar-cane drinks (with rum - obviously!). After this our guide (having drank a LOT of rum) proceeded to strip off down to his pants and jump in the nearest river. He semed confused by our refusal to join him in the muddy water!

Being here has definately won Cuba over for us. We're starting to love the place and the people and are excited about moving-on tomorrow to continue our explorations :0)

Ben:
You can see some more photos here!

Cuba - Playa del Este (part 2)

2008-10-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Heather:
The rain did clear, but not until we'd had some fantastic storms. The lightening was so close I was sure it was going to hit and I was torn between wanting to watch and wanting to run and hide when the thunder rolled around us, especially when all the power went off. It was all worth it though because what followed was perfect beach weather. We're both looking browner and blonder now (Ben looks even more like a German!) and it feels a bit more like we're actually on holiday.

The whole food fiasco continues though. We have both actually been dreaming about fruit and veg and even pizza has deserted me now. Last night the restaurant we ate in had no milk or bread and I was served a pizza base covered in tinned tomato soup and cheese! Other memorable low lights include for Ben a plate of various tinned meats arranged neatly on a plate (everyone loves spam, right?!) and for me the local speciality dessert that I naively believed couldn't actually be what it sounded like, but no sure enough was a saucer full of marmalade covered in grated cheese! After nearly 20 years of vegetarianism following a week long diet of white rice and raw grated white cabbage (as yet the only veg not from a tin we've eaten in this town) I've been driven to eating fish! I'm also developing quite a taste for mojitos :0)

Ben:
There are some photos here.

Cuba - Playa del Este (part 1)

2008-09-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

Heather:
We're at the beach now and it really is beautiful; white sand, clear water, palm trees, the lot, but... and it feels like quite a big 'but' at the moment... It's raining! We thought we'd sussed the weather - sunny in the morning, downpour at two-ish then clear again afterwards. So I wasn't too impressed this morning when I bounded out in my bikini, ready for my first day of luxuriating, to see the drizzle. Still I'm sure it'll pass, surely?!

Thought I'd shard with you the teachings of our 'Latin American Spanish Phrasebook' in the 'Romance' chapter...

Kiss me - Besame
I want you - Te deseo
Take this off - Sacate esto
Touch me here - Tocame aqui
Do you like this? - Esto to gusta?
I (don't) like that - Esto (no) me gusta
Please stop! - Para!
Please don't stop! - No pares!
Oh my god! - Ay dios que rico!
Oh yeah! - Asi carino, asi!
That's great - Eso, eso.
Easy tiger! - Con calma!

faster - mas rapido
harder - mas fuerte
slower - mas despacio
softer - mas suave

[ a line of butterflies ]

That was amazing - Eso fue increible
It's my first time - Es me primeria vez
I can't get it up, sorry - Lo siento, no puedo levantaria
Don't worry I'll do it myself - No to precupes, lo hago yo
It helps to have a sense of humour - Ayuda tener un sentido de humor

Genius!

Cuba - Havana

2008-09-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

Heather
On our second night away, in the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep thanks to jet-lag, there were tears as it finally started to sink in that we really have gone! But we're starting to settle in to the travelling thing now, which is a relief after getting fleeced about five times within the first day and a half of arriving. Fortunately the 'I've-just-stepped-off-the-plane-and-don't-have-a-clue-please-rip-me-off' look seems to have worn off!

We spent three days in Havana, just doing the touristy thing really. We saw the sights, got used to shrugging off the touts, attempted to put our spanish classes into action and tried to make some sense of this crazy place. We went to the national museam about the revolution, which was basically a giant (tatty) shrine to Fidel Castro. I may have seen countless items that Fidel once touched but I still feel pretty clueless as to what it's all about!

There are two currencies used here; one for the locals and one for the tourists (supposedly) but in reality everyone uses both. Prices are really hard to understand because both currencies have the same symbol but are worth completely diferent amounts, and everything seems to be either surprisingly expensive or ridiculously cheap. The tourists are clearly spending a lot of money but it's hard to see where it's going.

We are coming to the conclusion that Cuba is WEIRD! I'm trying to get my head around it but lots of things just don't seem to make any sense. We've seen those things that you always see in the postcards; old American cars, tonnes of musicians, wall to wall cigars, tropical beaches, Che's face all over the place and stuff but then there are all these amazing big beautiful buildings everywhere that are falling down, I mean properly crumbling to pieces.

In Havana the touristy bit is relatively plush but as you walk down the road there's like a line and from that point on it's all really grotty. It's bizzare, no gradual decline but a specific point where suddenly the buildings are half collapsed, the road is more holes than anything else and the rubbish is piled in the street. This, by the way, is the route by which our taxi driver who brought us from the airport on our first day chose to take us. It was pretty bloody scary bouncing down the delapidated narrow alley ways with the driver shouting out the window to find out the way!

Another freaky thing is the food. Or rather lack of it. Since leaving Havana we haven't seen any fresh fruit or veg and in the shops we can't even buy bread, though they do all stock a plentifull supply of rum and beer! For breakfast we've just eaten crackers and honey. That can't be right! We even tried to buy some tinned fruit but it was more than two years out of date. What the hell is that about?! It appears that for the foreseeable future I will mostly be eating pizza (praise the lord for the Italians!).

Anyway, my personal highlight so far was queueing up with the locals to buy a 'peso pizza' for 30 pence and then sitting around in a Havana park with everyone else to eat it. Now admittedly I didn't feel quite right afterwards as it seemed to swell to the size of a football in my tummy and Ben's piece with 'chorizo' looked like it was covered in dogfood, but I refuse to let my moment be spoiled!

Ben
there are more photos here

End of the Road

2008-09-21T12:30:00.001-07:00

The last festival of the season. It was sad saying goodbye to the festival scene and all the new friends we've made. It wasn't so sad saying goodbye to camping in a field though! We took great delight in binning our broken tent and punctured airbed!

You can see a few photos here.

Bestival

2008-09-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

After two days of torrential rain and knee deep mud we renamed bestival worstival. But Ben at least got to drive a buggy and dig a trench.

See more snaps from bestival here.

Of course before the rain there was actually grass in the campsite. As can be seen in this little video we made.

Electric Picnic

2008-09-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

The fantastic Electric Picnic in Ireland reminded us why we love festivals. The Irish are relentless in their drinking and partying! There was no end of bizarreness to keep us entertained and we were even inspired to make a "montage"!

Lots of arty pictures too

You can see some more here.

Greenbelt

2008-08-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

By far our dullest, well behaved festival, the christian; Greenbelt. The best entertainment was provided by beer and hymns in the Jesus Arms and break dancing for God!

Take a look here.

Beautiful Days

2008-08-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

A festival full of crusty aged Levellers fans rolling around, drunk on cider, in the mud.

There were plenty of photo opportunitues, which can be seen here!

Big Chill

2008-08-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

Big chill is Heathers usual festival so were able to catch up with lots of friends.

Here are a few of Ben's photos.

Heather's are mostly people in dodgy costumes and can be seen here!

The Secret Garden Party

2008-07-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

Our best festivals to date; mud wrestling, burning ships, tonnes of costumes, lots of sunshine, endless madness and not a hint of health and safety. Apparently there were a few bands playing too.

Come inside and have a look

Benicassim

2008-07-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

Rather than working at rainy british festivals, we went to play at a sunny spanish one!

Ben's Snaps

Heather's Snaps

Geekfest III

2008-07-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

We had a weekend off camping at festivals so had our own festival "Geekfest" camping in the gower with friends! Meet the gang...

Heathers Snaps

Bens Snaps

Cornbury

2008-07-09T04:58:00.000-07:00

It rained a lot...

... as well as smoothies we were also selling tasty vegetarian curry's in the Curry Shed. The shed looked really impressive but it was quite a mission getting the giant marquees up and decorating the interior. It was made more "fun" by the indian style health and safety rules! You can see more photos here

Glastonbury

2008-07-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

Two days after glastonbury and we are only just starting to mend! It was hard work but we still managed to see a bit of what was going on and have a laugh along the way. On the smoothies stall we had in fancy dress theme for each day, pink and purple, pyjama party and day at the office, which caused a few raised eyebrows!

More photos can be found here.

Whilst we were chilling out by the stone circle on the sunday night we met this character.

Amateur Photographer.

2008-06-24T13:18:00.001-07:00

Another photo printed in Amateur Photographer. Managed to make it to 8th on the leaderboard.

Mountain Bike Mayhem

2008-06-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

No music, no drunk people, no fancy dress, just lots of bikes racing for 24 hours. ... oh and the weather was shit and we all had colds!

See more photos here.

These people were pretty amazing to watch though.

Isle of Wight

2008-06-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

From Rockness we had another epic road trip to the Isle of Wight. The sex pistols and the police were headlining so we were practically youngsters! Of course the best act was on the Tuesday night when we opened the festival with an amazing rendition of Happy Birthday on the main stage (we sneaked on without security spotting us).

I didn't take the main camera out but still got some snaps on my small camera which can be seen here