We got to Bergamo, tried to figure out how to get to the train station, missing the train due to lack of understanding by seconds. And yes, you can buy tickets on the train it seems. Because we missed the train, we didnt get to Verona until dark. The whole direction, navigation thing is quite hard, especially when you rely on Google maps, and you got no visual references. We took a taxi 300 meters…

Next day we started fresh, got ourselves a Verona card, and got stuck into the Tocati Festival. We didnt understand what was going on, but it was fun and lively. Heaps of people in town, lots of activities and shenanigans going on. But get the Verona card, much better value!

One of the main highlights, besides the very nice factual cultural things, is the Romeo & Juliet museum. We went, we smooched, and we left. No lovers lost…

We did see some nice factual cultural things though, one of them beeing the monastery, it had catacombs, and stuff like that (Im not that into it), and a religious feeling I dont experience too often.

Rest of the time in Verona, we spent eating icecream, they have a very good Gelato range and selection, drinking beer, and Louis Vuiton spotting. So many fakes!

Vlad had told us about Prague, so we got a nice little hotel just out of the old town. It was good, without the traffic noise at night, and breakfast in the old potato cellar. Our driver kept calling Sara “madam”, and held nothing back when he raved about the beauty and intelligence of the Czech girls compares to the British. Not so much a stab at Sara, but an attempt to explain why there where so many British men in town!

Next morning we started exploring, first of to the bridge. It wasn’t hard to find, but you where constantly pushing through, trying to get past all the other tourists. There where so many that it was hard to see the bridge through the crowds. And this was out of season! At a certain spot on the bridge, there is a bronze plaque, that is meant to give good luck if you rub it. I got my go just after a greasy and grubby hand, no wonder the thing as smooth! The plaque itself depicts what I believe is the scene where the bishops gets tossed out the window of the castle, or some other noblemen are in trouble. What about that gives good luck, I don’t know.

We also had a look at the pissing statues next to the Kafka museum. Not very inspiring, and the John Lennon wall had been gratified over.

Next up, we met up with some of my colleagues that had stayed back after the conference, and we did a few tours with them. First we headed to the castle, but the queue was to long to get into the Cathedral, so it ended up being a quick stroll through. Then we had some lunch, in what was meant to be an authentic local restaurant. I have to say, the local food is not good, unless you are into fat and arteries. They also enforce a policy where “if you don’t reject it, you pay for it!” If you don’t want bread, send it back, since your bill just keeps growing with all the extra services. However, passive smoking comes for free at every restaurant, and no one is shy of lighting up!

Afterward, we bought a dodgy canal ride, where the tours where oversold, so we spent as much time waiting for the boat, as we did in the boat. Canals where not worth it.

It might be sounding like Czech is not great, but it is pretty. However the hoards of other tourist, and what felt like a profiteering mentality, made Prague itself, and especially the old town less appealing, compared to other places.

On our way back to the hotel, we stumbled upon something that seemed like a scaled down version of the Love Parade. All these people where driving through town with there vans decorated with slogans and with techno blaring from their generator powered music systems. The whole thing was covered by a heavy police presence, whom seemed ready to bash anyone of them who might consider causing trouble. They even had a police helicopter hoovering for about 5 hours covering this! When we headed out again a few hours later, we found that they had congregated at square nearby, still with the police in heavy presence with the ever so annoying helicopter. The police seemed drastically on edge for what looked like a pretty harmless group of free spirits. Later on our way back, the square was clean without a trace of the vans.

Now it’s time for another gripe, and that is the Prague cityguide for the iPhone by LonelyPlanet. Throughout the day, I had attempted to use it, but with poor results. The map wouldn’t tell me where I was, and if it did, it was rearly the correct location. I had to enable dataroaming to get the app to work in the first place, which it wasn’t meant to do either. We went looking for a particular restaurant, that it turned out hadn’t existed for quite a while, and it took a lot of walking due to misaligned maps. In short, don’t buy it, pick up the book instead! The current iPhone implementation is not worthy.

Next morning we where of to the castle again, this time early to make sure we got into the church, but then it turned out it didn’t open for a few hours, so we explored the WWI history instead.

Then, in due time for the church opening, we lined up, and sure enough, yet another sidling couple tried to join the queue. Same shit, different place, but Sara couldn’t contain herself any longer and snapped at them and told them where their spot in the queue was.

The cathedral was nice, but we got through rather quickly. Main highlight was the stained glass windows. By this stage it was time to head towards the airport, and we only just made the shuttle with help from the hotel. We managed to miss the clockwork every time though.

WizzAir took us home, with yet another example of terrible Norwegian queue culture. I have never before seen such sneaking, pushing and elbowing as trying to board that plane, but there are a few other contenders where fellow countrymen has participated.

So in summary, Prague was nice, but I wouldn’t rush back. Other places would be better, or maybe the Czech countryside.

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Evelin got in touch, we got the date settled, and of we went!

We figured we catch the bus into town, and that was our first impression of Tallinn. Loved it! Tallinn, just like Finland, has a language that makes no sense what so ever, so looking for directions is like playing Picture Match. Talking to the busdriver was even worse. We found our hotel, and we felt we stepped up a notch! Nordic Hotel Forum had booked us in on the top floor, right next to the swimming pool. We had a nice view, and a very fancy see-through showerwall.

We had taken the morning flight into town, so Friday, we were ready to hit town! We had a lot of fun doing the Bicycle tour in Berlin, so we looked for similar things in Tallinn, and found EstAdventures. We had planned to do the View with a Brew tour, but in retrospect we interpreted the “departs every day” bit a tad to literally. Figures it makes sense to call first, but I was to stingy, so we got stood up. I was a bit annoyed about this, as I had hoped to get a nice little overview of the town, so we could explore more on Saturday and Sunday.

In any case, we went exploring around the Old Town.

New and Old Tallinn

We walked and walked, and we finally ended up at Olde Hansa in the middle of the Old Town.

.

It was a very interesting dinner…. I got myself the wild boar, but before that, the whole restaurant got to taste pepper spray. Everyone where coughing, and we couldn’t figure out why. Turned out some twat had been playing with pepper spray outside, and the breeze took it inside. It was just bizarre to watch the whole restaurant cough! The boar and the honey beer was good though!

Next day, we headed back to the Soprus building, to try the “Legends of Tallinn” walk this time. One thing we figured out pretty fast, was that Tallinn is also a party town. Both with an upside and a downside. Outside Soprus we first had to step over a sleeping reveler, before joining our guide. Turned out, it was only us who had made the effort to turn up, so we had our guide Maria all to ourselves!

She took us around and explained the sights, where we should come back to, and what was worthwhile and what we should pass up on. We had a great time, and again really enjoyed this more personal approach.

Town wall

All the benefits of development, mobile phone tours and bag snatchers, along with some Norwegian profanity

On our hotel, we had a very nice little pool. Sara loved it! I did too…. It had all these little buttons in the pool, that would start the waterfall, the jetstream or the boubleblower. I liked the jetstream, as well as the spa. I finally got Sara to try the steambath, but that was a failure. She hated it, and went back into the pool instead. At the end of it all, we could just lounge and enjoy the view.

View from the pool

For dinner, Sara had spotted a place earlier on the tour, so we went there. It was the Elevant. We ordered the Vegetarian Thali with Mango Lassi. It was massive! We literally rolled out of the place. Couldn’t eat anything else, not even icecream!

It turned out, that this particular weekend, it was Old Town Days. It was also Pentacost, but in Norway that is on Friday. Since it was Old Town days, it was a ton of stuff happening, with concerts and performances in the square. We ended the day with a quiet beer watching the show. Just to help digest the food of course!

Sunday was going to be our big museum day, but since we had misunderstood this whole Pentacost thing, nothing was open. Instead, we lounged the parks, watched more of the show, and just chilled.

Tiny cake house

Nice parks

We wanted to get some value out of our Tallinn cards, and went on one of those sightseeing buses. I actually fell asleep with the headset. Not too exiting.

We then headed for the airport again, met with the drunk Brits going home from their stag party, and relaxed. Tallinn was great, we had a lot of fun, and loved the hotel! The pool was so nice to dip in both at the end and the start of the day.

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Pete and Kobe, or was it just Kobe, organised the trip, found the hotel and provided a rough itinerary. This was also the first time we tried TripIt, and it was great! No more endless forwards trying to sort things out, but rather Skype and a central repository.

Anyways, we flew in to Trapani, and picked up our Fiat 500c, and headed for San Vito Lo Capo. I had a discussion with Pete earlier regarding directions, and I had said I thought I should get a GPS, but listened to his advice and didn’t get one. Then at Trapani, Hertz had decided to not include any maps anymore, but they where kind enough to give us a 1:4 000 000 map, and instructions to “keep to the left”. After some run arounds, we got on the right track and found the hotel.

Somehow Pete, Kobe, Mark and Debbie, in their 2 bedroom apartment, had exactly the same apartment as us right across the hall! Lucky for us, it turned out that our visit coincided with the 1st International Kite festival, hosted by the council. It was so nice, to sit in the sun, lounge by the pool, gaze at the kites and sip beer.

We headed out to town, for a restaurant that was meant to be very good. Ristorante profumi di couscus. It was very good, and €300 later we were very full! Pete had the squid and all his dessert.

Next morning we headed towards Corleone, Godfather country. The drive was very nice, lots of winding roads, and the first thing that greeted us where some hideous swiss style highrises. Not much like the movie though, but we got the compulsory tourist shot:

Next up was a restaurant that I read about in the SAS inflight magazine on some other trip. There was some disagreement between Tomtom, Google maps and the signage/directions. After doubling over a couple of times, we found the place. In the end, TomTom and the directions where more accurate than Google Maps.

Antica Stazione di Ficuzza had a wedding on, but they gave us some champagne and coffee, and after a short wait, we got the second floor to ourselves. We had no idea what we where doing, but got the set menu. It seemed like we where the only non-italians there, and it was such a nice and relaxed mood. Our waiter kept the food coming and it turned out we had quite a meal ahead of us. We didnt quite know what would happen, but we ate too much of the entree. Lots of food, warm weather, we should have had a nap!

After that meal, we decided to head back to the hotel, and go for a dip with a few beers. We were there out of season, so it was nice and quiet. We ruined it tough by playing Marco Polo.

It took us a while, but we ventured out for a small supper. We ended up at a pizza place, and Mark ordered a Calzone with Pepperoni as extras. It turned out that wasn’t all that straight forward. Pepperoni in Italian means capsicum, and that’s what Mark got. Although when he complained, they just brought it back with more capsicum. We finally figured out that Peperoni in English is Salami Picante in Italian. In the end he got what he wanted:

Next day we split up, as the others where staying longer and wanted to see Cefalu as well. We stayed behind, and headed to Erice first.

It is a beautiful town/fortress/castle on top of a hill, overlooking everything. The drive up is long and winding, and we just beat the touristbusses.

Next on our little loop track was the Segasta temple ruins, it didnt take us long to wrap that one up before we headed to Castellammare del Golfo.

We then headed back for more Gellato, and a peek at the kites.

While we had our gellato , we figured we would have a look at the show. This old fellow squeezed past, and walked down the beach. It turned out he was Ray Bethell, and he did this 3 kite show that was awesome! They where spinning around, chasing each other, whipping about and creating quite a impression!

As the sun set, the kiters packed up and people headed home. We went for a walk up the hill to get a view of the city, and also spotted some very familiar fencing work!

Sicily was great, sunny and nice. We loved it there, and this is a place we would want to see more of!

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This was going to be Bendy River To Not Bendy MKII (B.R.T.N.B)!

So, to make this happen, Dan had booked a houseboat on the Shaolhaven river!

Houseboat at night

We got there just too late to take the boat out, so spent the first night at the mooring, drinking and fishing. Next day, Mark came down and showed us the ropes, before we headed up stream. The drive down took us by the Berry donut van, and some backcountry driving behind Nowra. It was a bit suspect…

Captain Allison and the trusty gossip navigator Amy

Fishing gone wrong

More goss

The ride up took us to some nice spots, with lots of waterskiiers zooming past. The houseboat didnt go all that fast, as it is not really designed for speed. It had some big Mercury engines, that revved well!

When we got to the whitepointers, it was time for a bit of a ropeswing!

Elegant jump

Painfull jump

High jump

We spent quite a few hours here, also trying out the kayak surfing and the donut drowning.

Dad and his boys

Kayak stalkers

There where a number of designated parkingspots for us up the river, and we sailed on to the top one, where we had a great BBQ! The girls cooked up an excellent meal, while Moosh delivered the meat.

It was just such a pleasant ride up the river with a swim there, and a splash here. Then a little bit of Kayak or talking the tinnie out. You had all your friends around you, and we just sat around talking shit all day. Steve and Allycia had been the last to arrive, and got the loungeroom fold out. This meant they where last to bed, and unfortunately fell pray to some deviant story sharing between Dan and myself. I think it gave them nightmares!

Next day, we repeated the routine, and travelled downstream for more swimming and kayaking. Weather had been great on Saturday, but was a bit more shady on Sunday. In any case, it was a great weekend!

After sneaking back into port, cleaning and packing up, we said our goodbyes, and took of down the coast again towards Bombala. It was a bit sad, as it felt like we had just dumped back into our slots, then had to move on and forwards with the return to Norway in mind.

The whole houseboat thing cost $1700AUD between the 11 of us.

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I was exempt from having a visa being Norwegian, a privilege only shared with Swedes, but still I have never felt so scrutinized by any customs official! Almost like being back in the army standing infront of your commanding officer getting a correction.

Through the paperwork, we went into the first trap we could find. How much should a taxi ride to the hostel be? Hmm?? $20USD? In Vietnam? Yeah? It was embarrassing, but we did just that…. To make it worse, we didn’t have enough dollars, or dongs, and had to renegotiate with an annoyed boss, who had pawned us of onto a driver that didnt understand a word we where saying.

In any case, the ride to the hostel was bad, although not as bad as the ride back. I had to close my eyes several times as I was certain we would hit that scooter, or that scooter, or that scooter. We didnt, and I dont know how.

We went to the Luan Vu Guesthouse, right in the backpackers district. It was clean and quite ok! One of the reasons I picked this place was because it had free WiFi. It is incredibly handy to use the iPhone and be able to browse your stuff, and reply to emails, although why should you on holiday?

We spent that day walking around the neighborhood, trying to get used to the spatial and spacial laws so frequently ignored by the million or so scooters that seemed all to be constantly roaming our neighborhood. Crossing the road was like playing frogger!

We found a spot by an intersection, where we could eat, drink beer and watch crazy traffic. It was also fun watching our food cross the road from the kitchen on the other side.

Anyways, next day we where on our first tour to the Meekong delta. It had all the token souvenir stops, and smooth guides.

Rice paper rolls factory

Ricecandy factory

Aerials, parkinglots and frontyards

Bikeride, whats better than 15 slug tourists riding around the countryside?

River escorts

River scruff

The day was great, the food was good, and the company cheerful! We met a 2 guys who where working in South Korea, one of them had studied and worked in Wollongong and knew the same people I used to work with at the Faculty of Education! South Korea sounded like an acquired taste though. The tours where dime a dozen, and easily obtainable. All where different but same same.

Next day we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These where Viet Cong hideouts during the Vietnam war. It was very interesting, and the guide offered a healthy jibe on the Americans expense! On the gunrange I gave the AK47 a go. I was expecting proper hearing protection though, but was only offered a set of walkman headsets, with no earmuffs… Yeah, it was loud. The gun was ok though, but the targets were busted, so no idea how I went.

I can fit in the tunnel!

I could feel this 200m tunnel in my thighs for 3 days!

This was a bigger group, with airhead aussies (the father tried to give some historic foundation to his kids, but they just reasoned that the imperial power was bad), big butted Americans (who got picked on the whole tour, both by the guide and the other tourists) and the Japanese. The heat and the lack of air condition on the bus sort of strained the mood a bit too. However, the guide was quite a character, and talked for the whole trip. His stories where great though, and he was very good at generating sympathy for the Vietnamese!

Our last day, we went to the War Museum and the Presidential Palace. The War Museum was displaying a lot of hardship and atrocities, putting most of the blame on the French and the Americans. The place was crawling with kids on school excursion though, and they had a lot questions and loved interacting with tourists!

Precidental Palace was Ok, but seemingly hadnt been in use for a long time.

First lady and her Bell

Then, we where due to head to Oz, only pending the ride to the airport…

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We got on the superfast train to Kowloon station, where Christine had told us to get of. Then onto the bus to Harbour Plaza. We were staying with Christoffer and Christine, who had very kindly taken us in on our stopover.

We arrived on a Sunday morning, and since it was a good day, Christine and Christoffer took us out for a hike on the islands.

We cought the ferry out to Kam Lo Hom, and walked from there past the power station to Picnic Bay. It was a very nice walk, that ended in a seafood & beer feast in Picnic Bay, before catching the ferry back. All the restaurants had all kinds of different seafood still swimming in their aquariums. Eat what you pick!

Since Sara didn’t have any clothes, other than the 1 or 2 garments she had packed “just in case”, but hadn’t really bothered to put any effort into, we now had to go shopping. We had heard all about how great shopping in Hong Kong was, but it wasn’t that easy! Ended up buying not very much interesting for our FinnAir lost luggage allowance. Very disappointing, and very smelly for Sara!

Next day was CBD day, we went to town with Christine, and walked all over the place. But not before Saras luggage turned up. We caught the escalator, checked out the herbs, looked at the fish, ate the dumplings and attempted some more shopping. It wasn’t that busy, but fascinating how the whole town operated on 2 levels, low level for cars, and upper level for pedestrians.

That night, Christine had organised some sushi grade Tuna. It was delicious! Our stay was great, and just long enough for the highlights I think.

It was our last night, before heading to Ho Chi Minh early the next morning. We sneaked out in the morning, and finally got to see the skyline! It had been foggy the whole time we had been there, so we didnt get to see it until we were standing there waiting for the bus.

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So we picked Helsinki for a weekender. I had to work in Stockholm that day, so Sara traveled first, then I caught up and found her grocery shopping…

Now, we did no research for this trip, except print out the top 10 from TripAdvisor. As it turned out, we had chosen to travel on the weekend of the Finnish National Day… This is an extract from Wikipedia that sort of sums up the experience:

During the early decades of independence, Independence Day was a very solemn occasion marked by patriotic speeches and special Church services.

This is making it sound very depressing, but it wasn’t that bad!!!

Kobe had booked us into the Hotel Helsinki Strand. They had an excellent sauna section up the top! Got some steam happening up there with Pete, but the girls wouldn’t be convinced.

Saturday we started doing the tours, and it took a while before we realised why everything where shut, yeah, national day! Being used to the Norwegian variety, and even the Australian, I had expected more.

First up on our itinerary was the Cathedral. It looked nice, we took some shots, and moved on.

The Cathedral is on the Senate square. Have a look at this page, and its just like being there….

Then, we where down by the water.

From there, we headed up to one of the other main activities, the rock church. It is a Church in a rock.

We were getting pretty cold by this stage, just like this pooch.

On the way back we stopped at the Kiasma. This was actually one of the highlights! The museum was good and entertaining! And warm! It got Pete excited!

During the evening, we chilled in the hotellounge, checking out all the celebrities and officials staying at our hotel as they departed for the presidents reception in their ballgowns and tuxes. Some very pretty people! But it wasnt quite the party for the common man.

Sunday we headed out to Soumenlinna.

Its and old sea fortress, and the ride was cold! Because it was so cold, we were practically running around the island in order to make sure we got on the next ferry. Somehow we managed to loose Pete, at least so we assumed. As it turned out, he was actually ahead of us. Kobe nearly freezed her fingers of trying to operate the iPhone with no gloves, so she could call him to see where he was. Those touchscreens cant handle the cold, and neither can your hands!

Coming back, all the shops were open, and we finally got to check out the Finnish design in the shops. They had some good stuff, and I ended up buying 2 reflectors.

And with that, the trip had come to an end, and we headed back to Norway and the snow.

And yeah, I filled in a survey, that turned out to be a great thing a few months later!

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Anyways, we had not done our fair share of planning, but Pete & Kobe had. Natasha & Mark came too, so we where all set for some touring! Our first stop on our way into town was an old church, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche. Its a church bombed during WWII, and left like that as a reminder.

Pete had his new camera, and was firing like there was no tomorrow!

Next stop was the Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. We walked around the concrete tombs for a while, a very sobering place!

We also went inside the museum, and studied the exhibitions.

After that, we strolled over to the Brandenburger Tor. It was funny, because its a place I have always heard about, but never seen. Amazing though how long its been around for! Then it was on to the Reichtag building. The queue was very long, so we figured we would come back later. You only get let in in limited groups, and go through a securitycheck like you do at the airport. Takes a while!

Next up was Checkpoint Charlie. We walked there and found a nice restaurant on the way. We also stumbled over the Segway tours. I’m a bit skeptical to those, haven’t tried one, but it seems like the tour is more for the sake of the Segway, rather than the tour. We also stumbled upon the Ampelmannshop, much to Natashas delight. The Ampelmann is some kind of cult symbol, and apparently visible all around the old East Germany on the pedestrian crossings.

Anyways, there is a replica Checkpoint Charlie there now, Its actually Checkpoint C, with the Charlie coming from the phonetic Charlie for C. They also got some portraits of a Russian and American soldier, didn’t quite get the significance of them, but they where seemingly serving border guards. Next up was the Mauer Museum. It is a kind museum of creative citizens, and what they did to cross the Berlin wall. Most made it, but some didn’t. In any case they had some pretty wacky ideas some of them. From there, we headed to the Topography of terror. Its a open air exhibition of what the SS did during the WWII, with some pretty harrowing stories too

This first day was really all about the WWII and the Cold War. I think its pretty incomprehensible the atrocities performed of the governments at the time, and the scale of it. I think its easy to reflect on it now though, and condemn it since we have dealt with it through history. It was something that had a direct impact on all my grandparents, so I have always heard about it, and seen the pictures. Currently there are still conflicts going on in the world, but now the scale is smaller, and they are internal conflicts, so its easier to ignore it. We shouldn’t.

Ok, Ill get back onto the trip. Then, at the end of the day, it was back to the Reichtag for the nightscape view before dinner and beer.

Sunday Kobe had organized a Fat Bike Tour. The tour took us around to different sights, some we had seen the day before. Some were new.

2-man east German guard towers. 2 in case 1 decided they bolt.

Phat chicks on Fat bikes

Halfway stop on the tour was a forest cafe in one of the parks, where we had lots of nice beer. On the way back, Petes bladder was starting to feel the pressure. Every stop along the way just became more and more agonizing for him after we left the forest.

Museum Island, the second last agonizing stop for Pete

He made it back though, but only just….

East Germany TV tower

We had intended to go up in the tower, but it was expensive, and the queue was long.

At the very end here, I want to include some links regarding the fall of the Berlin wall. First, read this article about Günter Schabowski, then watch this video where he stuffs up, and this one with all the happy people!

Ok, I think that’s it! Berlin was great, very interesting place! I think the history overshadows the city a bit when you come there as a tourist. I wouldn’t mind going back, and seeing the more contemporary side of it one day.

Apologies for the somewhat distracted storytelling, but since its been a while now since we where there, some of the thoughts have matured a bit, and some are a bit vaguer, hence why I’m trying to get up to speed with all these stories now before its too late.

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This is a bit of a concept, and it goes both ways. Germans and Norwegians, both take advantage of this ferry to go for daytrips to either Oslo or Kiel. The idea is that the boat is kind of a floating partyship, you can dine, drink and party. And shop taxfree…. It tends to get a bit boganish, but I have to say, its more upmarket now than what it used to be.

We had only just taken over our new flat, and we weren’t completely organised, but managed to get down to the dock, with some clothes, were we all hooked up and took off!

We went down on the Friday, had an easy afternoon with all the cousins playing in the pool. Total we where 28 people. I think we where the whole family less about 6 people who couldn’t make it. Anyways, most of the family was there, and we got to have a great time together!

Kiel itself was nice, it had a conveniently located shopping mall within walking distance from the ferry, and suitable trolley ramps. It had kind of an older part of the city, and the modern city center. We went and got ourselves Bratwurst and Pretzels, and were pretty happy with that!

We got to celebrate Farfar proper on Saturday night, with an excellent dinner! The crew where compensating bit since they stuffed up the booking the night before though, but so they should. Later, we all went up into the loungebar after the dinner and the show. It was fun to watch the youngest cousins, 2 and 4 I think, where the 4 year old was trying to look after the 2 year old. It was not a love-love relationship!

Kristoffer had brought his DSLR, with empty memory cards. Some of our younger cousins loved it, and where very happy when they got to borrow it, albeit a bit haphazardly. I think they managed to shoot some 300 shots in less than a few minutes.

Another young cousin was so impressed with the pianoplayer, that he went and donated all the money his dad just gave him to by drinks with. Biggest tip of the night! We ended the night in the arcade, taking turns to trash the uncles in racing. They just cant drive… I think the best driver of the night was another young cousin, only about halfway to being old enough to get his license.

Good thing then, was that the beds weren’t too far away!

I forgot to pay attention to it going down, but coming up we sailed past Drøbak and Oscarsborg.

All in all, an excellent trip! And very relaxing weekender. Sort of feels you never leave Oslo, but then at some stage wake up, step off into Germany, before suddenly being back in Oslo again.

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Anyways, we got back, after 2 months worth of traveling Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil. We where keen to start up again, and get back into a routine.

I started looking for work, and having forgotten about “fellesferien”, it was a bit unnerving. I had completely forgotten about how July shuts down everything, and you cant get anything done since everyone is on holiday! Because of this, we where kind of landlocked, and couldn’t go to far, in case an interview came up. The longest trip we made was to Luleå, but we also made a few short trips!

Our first trip out, was to the woods east of Oslo, creatively named Østmarka. We figured we walk out, find a nice spot to camp, a chill by a lake, which is what we did.

Little tent, nice lake

I had promised Sara that there would be no mozzies, as we where a bit to early still. I was right about that but I had completely forgotten about the Knott. After a while we started feeling some bites, but there was no mozzies around. Then it finally clicked, and I remembered about the Knott. The vicious little things got through the mesh, and bugged us all night!

Campfire

It was nice though, and good to be out in the bush!

A bit later, Kate & John arrived from the UK, and hung out with us for a while. We where staying with my Mom & Dad until I had a job, and we could afford somewhere to live. So we all crammed in, and went to town.

Fat Aass

Pete & Kobe came over too, as we where having our “second wedding”. Since so many couldn’t come to Oz for it, we arranged a second one in Norway. I have only just now realized that I don’t have any pictures from it! Must have been to busy hosting…. Anyways, it was great to have the whole family there, and to get to catch up with everyone!

While overseas, Mom & Dad had bought a cabin, where we also spent some nice summer days!

Cabin view

Lush grass

Midst all this, I landed a job. It was exactly the kind of job I was after, so very happy with that! It was interesting also, as dads work had just completed a study in Norwegians with overseas education, getting work in Norway. Turns out I matched all the findings…

As soon as I had a job, we where on the property market. We ended up buying a flat within the 2 week looking, and we won the third we place a bid on. About the time we bought the place, Sara started Norwegian classes, and I started work. Ill finish the initial entry here, and rather do another reflective one later for our current situation. We have had a few challenges, and some positive experiences as well 1 year down the track. Well, that’s it for now!

New flat inauguration

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I started looking for work, while we also started the process of getting Sara going in the Norwegian society. First thing we found was that Norway was shut in July, I hadn’t taken that into account…. So we had a restless summer, chasing job interviews and preparing all the legalese for Sara to get sorted.

Hence, first trip we did was to Luleå, not to far, and on a budget! Malin had traveled back with Matilda, and we flew up to see them. We left on a Sunday, and came back on a Saturday. Malin picked us up from the airport, and we headed to Ersnäs (the western part).

We got to stay in the little guestroom above the shed, just the two of us. It was very nice! Malin took us on all kinds of excursions, we went to Gammelstaden in Luleå, cought the ferry out to Junkön, and Storforsen. We also went swimming at Luleå beach, which could only showcase freezing water!

Junkön

Storforsen

Towards the end, Albin, Åsa and Claes came up from Stockholm. The 2 cousins, Albin and Matilda spelt trouble with a capital T!

Sweden was out first overseas destination after arriving in Norway, it was excellent, long summer nights, a bit cheaper and nice weather. Bit like Norway actually, except for the cost!

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Right, we arrived in Sao Paulo on the bus, worked our way through the tube system to the HiHostel. We had been in the city for ages it felt like. As I write this, I had to pull up our Lonely Planet South America on a shoestring. It was full of annotations, fun to pick up!

Anyways, a Hostel in a highrise, more like a hotel than anything else. First thing we did was to go to the shop, get some food, as we started running short on are Reals. This hosel was not the most happening in town, and we bearly saw anyone else there, but we had a nice dinner in the kitchen, only us!

Next day we where of to the Tourist Office to find the attractions. We really had no idea. In any case, we got a suggested walking tour, and made our way out. First thing was some art museum, Museo de Arte de Sao Paulo. It was shut, so instead we went to some bookstore looking for a Brazilian cookbook, and any kind of english literature really. No luck, but some very expensive coffee! Next on the list, was the Sao Paulo Bank tower. Free entry, short background check, group entry and great view!

Nothing but highrises

I like the garden on the roof!

In the afternoon I went for a haircut. I have to cut my hair at least every 2 months, and last time I did it was in La Paz, so I figured I get a last cheap one in before Norway! Such a weird feeling trying to communicate on spanish, with a guy who only speaks portugese. Lots of gestures, many concerned looks and a few laughs later, I had an haircut to be proud of!

Next morning, we where of to Norway! I appreciate that this entry is a bit short, vague and unsatisfactory, but that was kind of what Sao Paulo was like to us. Wouldn’t go back unless I was with someone who knew there way around.
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Paraty has a nice beach feel to it, and that is also their distinction. 300 beaches in the vicinity they claim! We only went to Sono beach, a 1 hours walk through the rain forest, before arriving at a very idyllic little beach with only a few fishing families living there.

On our way to the bus station, we where befriended by 2 of the many stray dogs, that roam South America- and they would not leave! The first was a wierd cross between a german shepherd, and a daschund. It thought it was very though. His friend was a tad paranoid, and would bark viscoulsy at random people, and every pushbike and moped. When we finally thought we had gotten rid of them, we found them again sitting waiting in the only shade that could be procured at the bus stop.

Last night we tried something new to us, palm hearts. We think it has something to do with the trunk of the palm, and they strip it and make nice dishes out of it. We had palm heart lasagna and it tasted delicious! Got to try and grow some palm now!

Well, with that, Ill conclude this short update here in São Paulo, as I dont really have that much more to say about Paraty.

View Paraty – RJ in a larger map

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Ilha Grande is an old prison and lepper island, and thus not too popoular with the Brazilian tourist crowd, and this was low season, so at times, it felt like we had the place to our selves! The whole island does not have any cars, or paved roads. everything in Abraão, which is the biggest city, is within strolling distance along the beach. We had a hostel up the eastern end of the beach, overlooking town and the bay. Very nice and cruizy!

Our first day, we felt like some excersie, so we walked to a beach called Lopes Mendes. It is said to be one of Brazils most beatuiful beaches. It was ok, but Oz has better….

It was a nice walk through virgin rain forest, 2 hours each way, so by the end of it, we where pretty knackered. We contemplated catching a boat back, but persevered and walked back instead. We could feel the hills in our legs the next day!

And because of that, we spent the next day relaxing in town, strolling along the beach, dipping in the ocean every now and then, and eating ice cream. They got this brilliant concept here, where you have self serve ice cream parlours. So, you pay per the gram, and the price is not cheap, and you tell yourself that you will only have small scoops. Then you try and decide what you want to eat, and forget everything about the price, until you stand in front of the register with a 300g cone with only 2 scoops! And then you cant take it back of course. Twice we fell in this trap, although its hard to argue that we fell in it. I think we let ourselves be tricked… Of course, the street cake stalls have been very sweet to us too.

Anyways, I had wanted to go scuba diving, and I had heard about the helicopter being an interesting thing from the Lonely Planet. Turns out the helicopter is pretty boring, and the diving agencies where kind enough to tell me that visibility was not all that good. Max 4 meteres currently. So I passed. For future reference, 2 dives with all gear included was quoted as 150R. There is a wreck though, that looked quite interesting, and not too deep!

Instead, we signed up for a speed boat trip for snorkling, that included the helicopter. Hence Im not too upset, as I could see it wouldnt be all that. I think Sara was pleased as well, as she wasnt too keen on reading any more trashy novels while I was diving.

The snorkel trip included our very own celebrity travel reporter, who gave us some very helpful tips on São Paulo! She of course got the trip for free, while us normal humans had to pay….

Video of Sea Monster

Crazy puffer fish

The day was nice, although with had some overcast so it wasnt all that warm at times. However, the Island is great, and we could easily have spent another day there! Today, we have travelled to Parati, still getting closer to our deaprture for Norway.

View Ilha Grande in a larger map

We arrived in Rio with blood shot eyes after a longer than usual bus ride, and went through the now almost too familiar ritual of finding a taxi and negotiating our fare, before signing into the hostel, and dumping our load.

For our first 4 days, we had pretty shonky weather. The city was gloomy, the beaches where deserted, it felt like it was only us trudging along in our poncho’s and thongs. A charming sight, but not quite what I had in mind when we headed for Rio.

We spent the days wandering, mingling with the rich and the very beautiful in their shopping malls, exploring food (juice bars on every corner, with juices made from all kinds of weird fruits, cocktails that just kept on coming, and buffets where you paid per the kilo), and we even went to watch another movie (I think Sara was expecting the Sex and the City movie to be showing, but it hadn’t opened yet and after watching the only thing on offer, I’m not sure if I’m glad or not).

Yesterday afternoon, we went on the city tour, only just got to squeeze in Christ the Redeemer one of the hills overlooking Rio, before the clouds closed in around him. It was a gamble, as we didn’t know if the weather would improve, but we made it the whole way through without any rain! The Cathedral was a definite highlight, so was the Sugar loaf.

The Cathedral is the most modern I have ever seen, and it was a colossus building with a very nice feel to it! The natural light was streaming in from thousands of little windows all around. We also passed by the massive soccer stadium “Maracana” (that was apparently built at massive expense in the 50s for the World Cup -to the publics disdain- in which unfortunately Brazil lost..), the main street of Carnival and Santa Theresa (a suburb of massive old mansions which was where the rich used to live… until the favelas decided they also wanted in on the area. As they built their massive, ramshackled communities up, the rich trickled out of town)!! Finally we made it to the Sugar Loaf, which looked a lot more daunting from the bottom, however, the ride up was a breeze, and the view was spectacular! It was excellent seeing Rio in the sunset and by night!

The Cathedral

Cathedral Roof

View from the SugarLoaf at night towards Copacabana

Today was our first break, we have had sun all day, cruised the Ipanema and the Copacobana beaches. I have been keeping my eye out for the famous g-strings, but unfortunately, the hot bodied must also be employed, because all I saw was sour wedgies and cellulite… Sara didn’t do too much better, and only got the previous generation of stud muffins (50+ bracket, which is also where I was looking).

You can see Christ on top of the mountain in the background

Ipanema – The most sexy beach in the world!

Copacabana

Water is freezing!

With a cruizy day like that, we decided that tomorrow we head to Ilha Grande so we can hang by the pool, and hopefully get some dives in.

Before I sign off, I just wanted to comment on Rio in general. It is by far the most expensive place we have been too in SA! But it is beautiful! And the food is awesome! We are eating so much nice fruit and food, the likes which we haven’t seen for quite a while! And with that, we only have 9 more days left here in South America. With any luck, we will post again before we leave here, but we are not promising!

View Rio De Janeiro in a larger map

We arrived on the bus early in the morning, walked to the hostel, dumped our bags, and got changed into walking clothes, back to the bus terminal, and we went to the water falls. Everything went so smoothly!

Anyways, Iguazu falls are spectacular, we went out to the Diablo spot, which is right on the edge of where the water runs over the edge in a massive fall! There where some derelict ruins of the old walkway next to it, which illustrated the power of the water here, and there is a lot of it! Next we walked down to the bottom, to get the other angle. Spectacular! Im trying to remember what Niagra falls where like, and I think these where bigger.

Diablo with the couple

Diablos edge

From a distance

Butterflies in the noggin

Rainbow in the noggin

Chilling with beer

We spent the day there, before heading back into town to chill, and organize our trip to Rio. We had planned to spend the next day still strolling, as it was so nice, sunny and warm. However, the next day it started raining, and didn’t really stop, so we relaxed, a lot.

Thursday, we got back onto the bus, headed for Rio.

Ill end this here, with an anti recommendation. The movie Shoot em up is not recommended. Its crap, and should not be shown on a bus! Don’t attempt it unless feeling a bit deranged!

Centro

On a friends recommendation, we had booked into Hotel Brisas Del Mar, in the San Telmo district. Not sure what has happened to the place since, but we only stayed there 1 night. A run down place with plastic mattresses and the most unfriendly hostess we have yet to encounter. This pretty much set the agenda for the rest of the day, explore San Telmo, and find somewhere nicer to live! We did, and stayed another 6 nights at Puerto Limon Hostel.

San Telmo has a very nice feel to it, with lots of old buildings, nice shops, and lots of places to eat and drink. We also found that Buenos Aires has the best tourist information available as of yet! If we had known in advance, we could have downloaded audio guides, walking tours, and all sorts of other stuff! The information kiosks were also conveniently located, and helped us several times. Although with conflicting advice at times…

Anyways, Sara devised a thorough plan for how we could best absorb the sights of the city. We had arrived on a heat wave, which was indeed very nice! It was receding though, so we went from nice and hot gradually towards cooler and rain, but the weather lasted pretty much the whole time we where there!

First step of the plan, was to look around the city centre, and San Telmo. We found some nice walking streets and parks, and generally just cruised, hung out at the bakeries, and drank coffee. After the first day, and realising that Argentina was about to celebrate their national day, we decided to extend our stay, and fit that in as well. Hence the extra nights.

Our local pizza parlour – San Telmo

Puerto Madero – Walk along the harbour

Wednesday, we decided to walk to Recoleta. That was a walk which turned out to be a lot longer than we had pictured, but eventually we got there, and we again enjoyed some nice food, before venturing into the renowned cemetery. We found Evita Peron’s grave, but much more interesting was the other graves. The whole place was in varying conditions, with some very elaborate sites, and some very anonymous. Some derelict, and some well maintained. But it had a nice feel to it, and we enjoyed it. Then we walked back, shopped around for a bus fare to Iguazu, went shopping at a Supermercado. Now, on that note, Sara has been vigorously seeking them them out. The Chileans we didn’t explore in too much detail, the Argentinians have all been disappointing. The Bolivians don’t seem to have them, all business is conducted on the street. The Peruvians have the best so far! The bigger and grander supermarket next to the bus station was not what it promised, so we could safely resume shopping at our local place. Much to my relief!

Recoleta – Highway of crypts

Recoleta – Someones eyes always watch

Then we had a look at Abasto, and the heart of Tango. Another neighbourhood, that was nice, but some of the charm had left it. We figured we try Kosher McDonald’s, they didn’t have fries, but we tried anyways, and it was crap. Nothing like the burgers you can buy anywhere else here! Then, the highlight of the day, was Indiana Jones 4, with Spanish subtitles. We figured the dubbed one wouldn’t do us much good…

Abasto – The heart of tango

Friday we headed for the money, Palermo. We didn’t really see it, but they had a lot of restaurants and designer shops up there, although I think I like them better in San Telmo. Looking at all the things they are creating, designing and doing here, are giving us a lot of ideas for projects to come!

Saturday we checked out La Boca, an old workers neighbour hood. It felt a bit like heading into Port Kembla, with only one nice spot in it, which was very developed. We had plenty of Tango shows under our sleeve after La Boca, and lots of friendly chickos wanted to dance with us, or have their photo taken with us in varying poses… At night we went into town, where they had blocked one of the main streets, to organise Gran Milonga de Mayo, which is a “come and dance” event. This was in preparation for the national day the next day of course.

La Boca – Tango Square

It turned out nothing much happens in Argentina on their national day, the president, CFK, was away in Salta, so all the action was up there. There was some parade in Palermo, but that was too far away. Instead we found that the typical San Telmo market had extended itself some 13 blocks, with lots of impromptu street shows and stalls and whatever else. It was indeed a nice and relaxing day for us!

Next day, Monday, we caught the early bus to Iguazu and settled in for the next 18 hours.

Unfortunately Jo and I managed to travel in the melancholic fog… but none-the-less, Lima was a nice, easy city. It has all the perks of any western city. We stayed in a suburb called Miraflores which was apparently the tourist friendly part which may have helped! We also managed to time our trip so as we were there at the end of APEC (a major meeting between South American governments and the European Union, not the Apec we had in Oz last year) and for the Potato Festival (there are more than 2000 kinds in Peru!)! So we managed to sneak in another street fiesta! Unfortunately, we didn’t have a programme for the event and were at the mercy of the crowds… we weren’t sure where the main events were and had to follow the main crowds to the different events… the bigger the crowd we figured the more interesting the event! Wasn’t quite as interesting as the fiesta in Copacobana and a lot less alcohol around also! Though someone must have been on the booze when they made the giant potato that was wheeled through the streets!

The owner of our hostel was apparently a “prominent businessman” and involved in the APEC meeting, He was also friends with the Estonian President (a fact that he managed to slip into every conversation). We almost got to rub shoulders with him as we were offered (though an empty offer) a lift on the bus they were taking into Lima Central… lets just say we were stood up…

Lima Central is a seedier part of town and where most of the museums are. There is a lot of old architecture and plazas. We went to the Monasterio de Santa Francisco and the Museo del Tribunal de la Santa Inquisiciön. The Monastery contained underground catacombs which we went down to see. They contained the bones (the top layers of which were nicely arranged into patterns to make it more attractive…) of an estimated 70 000 people. Interesting if not a little claustrophobic. The Inquisition Museum was built on the foundations of the buildings used in the Spanish Inquisition and we got to see some of the chambers where people were tortured… spelt out in life-size wax figures!! Yes, it was a ghoulish trip to the city!

To lighten things up a bit, we also went for a walk along the beach suburbs, though you couldn’t be sure there was beach out there as the fog was so thick. We went to a swanky mall where the rich play (and watched/window shopped in our worn out clothes oh how i miss my other clothes…). Actually we did make one purchase.. Jo had to purchase a new pair of jeans as his old ones literally disintegrated. Poor thing tried to stitch them up but this let to further fraying. It was also getting pretty inappropriate as one of the holes was in the crutch…. That was how we spent 17 may, Norway’s Constitution day, as no other Norwegians could be sourced… Well, we had icecream and drinks as well…

We were also to witness another accident (luckily not part of one this time). We were wandering the streets when one car hit another at an intersection. This caused one of them to continue on to plough into a side walk cafe (they are crazy drivers over here). Just honking doesn’t make up for not stopping at the stop signs! Anyways, luckily it didn’t appear that anyone was injured. The cars were pretty smashed up though.

Apart from wandering around the city, we also had a health scare…we developed a growing number of itchy red bites that seemed to flare up/multiply at night. It became obvious that these weren’t mozzie bites and investigated on the internet… this left us with two options.. scabies or body lice (Dr Jo was able to rule out bed bugs and fleas, though the latter I felt was more likely given the number of animals living at the hostel in Cuzco that i blame for the whole thing). The treatment being to clean everything and for scabies, apply a cream to every inch of your body (a tip given: you may need to buy a spatula to apply the cream to you butt crack) and leave it on for 24 hours… The unappealing nature of the treatments meant that instead we chose to shower twice daily and change our clothes every day (yes, shameful as it is to admit, we have been double dipping). We also buried our head in the sand and all these measures seem to have worked and we now are proud to say that there are no more of these mysterious bites developing…. to our knowledge. We still don’t know what they were. I have noticed a few other backpackers with lot of bites but its not really something you can broach with a stranger…
Well, after 3 nights in Lima, we left at the crack of dawn for Buenos Aires….

to be continued….

Anyways, Cuzco. We have stayed at some nice hostels, and some not so nice hostels. Our last was in the latter category, but we couldnt be stuffed changing, so we are just putting up with the dirt (you dont throw toilet paper in the toilet here, you put it in the bin next to the toilet and ours aint been cleared out for a while).

While here, we have submersed ourselves in the local ruins, cuisine and parks. Its a nice city, but I think that you get the feeling you dont want to stay for too long or your money will be gone too. Coming here from further south really highlights how mainstream Cuzco has become as a staging point for Machu Picchu. We havent seen such a concentration of other tourists yet in Peru.

Corn in the market

The Labyrinth

Cuzco prides itself as the cultural capital of Peru, and is also the old Inka capital. Many of the spanish churches here have been built on the bases of Inka palaces and temples. We have been to the Sacred Vally with Ollaytantambo and Sacsayhuaman (pronounced sexy-woman) just outside Cuzco. However, this all pales when compared to Machu Picchu. Therefore, Ill keep this post short, and rather put the rest in the Machu Picchu post, which we will put together ishortly.

City Gate

Sacsayhuaman

Building blocks for the Inkas

Church engraving in Cathedral

On the way to Aguas Calientes, we travelled to the Sacred Vally with Ollaytantambo, as it was on the way. This is a site that was never completed due to the Spanish invasion.

Ollaytantambo – Painstaking precision stone masonary

Pisaq

Pisaq

We got to Aguas Calientes the night before, only to be put up in mini sized beds (literally, maybe they want you to air your feet out?!) that was part of our package. Next morning, we arose at 4:30, with at 5am breakfast and 5:30 meeting. This preliminary headcount dragged on for 30 minutes, until another member of our group (which had grown to almost 50 people) cracked the shits and demanded that we get moving. She actually did that twice, but only the second time had enough fire in it! Our expected english speaking guide, had not yet turned up, so we tried to follow the crowd, and hoped that included us too. This saw us onto the bus, up to the top.

Machu Pichu – Looking towards Waynapicchu

Apparently the rest area of town

The main gate

There seems to be no roads leading into this village, only the train. So only the tour buses get to use the 1 street, and they ride it hard!

Once up, we got ushered through, after the second half of our group had arrived. We were still following the spanish speaking guide for some reason, and it was not until we got inside that we got placed with the english guide. He took us around the site, and showed us the main spots. This went on from about 6:15 until 7:45 or so, when Sara and I split, and decided that we should climb Waynapicchu, the mountain you see in the background of most postcards. It is a lot steeper than we gave it credit for and pretty slippery too. Sooo many steps, but we made it to the summit and it was a fantastic view.

from the summit of Waynapicchu

Waynapicchu – en route down

Machu Picchu from Waynapicchu

A shaky descent on Waynapicchu

Waynapicchu

We also went to the Inka Drawbridge (luckily for Sara, we couldnt cross it). The drawbridge is a path carved into the face of a massively steep mountain cliff face (no photos we took seemed to be able to convey just how steep and tall this area is). It was also very impressive. Unfortunately, we nearly had a disagreement with an alpaca on the way back from the drawbridge. The path there was quite narrow and the alpaca didnt want to budge to let us past. Luckily neither party was injured and an amicable overtaking agreement was reached.

The Inka Bridge

Llama roadblock

After having to purchase some very expensive water to sustain us, we decided to head back down to Aguas Calientes for some slightly cheaper lunch.

After burning some time, we caught our train home at 7pm. We were lucky enough to be treated to a fashion show en route… after serving our snack, the waiter and waitress went out back and got changed into various alpaca outfits which of course we could purchase if we wanted.

On the Machu Picchu train… our waiter, waitress (& models) and other entertainer

It of course turned out to be nothing like it! The above is more for dramatic effect… We only carried DEET to protect ourselves.

We had decided to go to the Amazon when we first bought our tickets, without knowing what we would do there. Monday was spent pestering various tour agencies organising a spot for us, and choosing activities. We figured the Mystic Adventure offered by Explorers Inn sounded like a good thing. I was at the same time in the early stages of travellers diarrhoea, something which I kept with me for a good few days. This might have had an impact on my ability ot make rational decissions under pressure….

Anyways, we left on Tuesday with Sara clutching my knee again as we took of and landed only 40 minutes later. The usual pickup process and getting to know thy fellow guest rituals followed, and a 1hr bus ride and a 1.5hr boat ride later, we were at the lodge.

Exploreres Inn on Google Maps

Explorers Inn was very nice, and we settled in to some nice warm days, 30 degrees and sunny every day (something we have been missing)! We even got a bit of rain in the rain forrest!

Halfway through the second day, was when the first alarm bells appeared. We were walking back along a trail, and we were casualy told, that “this is what you will be drinking with the Shaman”. Ok, we will be drinking? What do you mean? “For the Ayahuasca session, stupid!”. Ok, but what do you mean???

At this stage, we were starting to wonder, and inquired a bit further and after the penny dropped, we explained to our guide what we were expecting… something like sitting around a camp fire and observing a magic ritual. What it turned out to be, what we had signed up for, was a hallucinating inner spiritual cleansing process… Not quite what we had on mind… We bailed out! It would start at 9pm on the last night (not quite sure why it had to be the last night…) and last between 3-5hrs in room 7D… It would be co-ordinated by a spanish speaking (and no, unfortunately, we still arent too good on the old spanish) Shaman and our 21 year old guide translating. Not our cup of tea at that stage! Note also the vomitting and diarhoea that might come from this!

Anyway, aside from the drama of the defunct mystic tour, we managed to do a lot of rainforest walks and relaxing. The rainforest was really nice and most days started at 5am with the howler monkeys and all of the birds in the forest. Our footwear was strictly gumboots (surprisingly comfortable despite the odd 10km walk we did) and as it was coming out of the rainy season, there were stretches of slippery mud. We saw a lot of cool plants, many of which had medicinal properties for the locals. We tried a few of these, like one stem that we were told to chew on and after a while we realised that it had anaesthetic properties!. There were lots of cool relationships in the rainforest too, like the tree that was living with soldier ants; the soldier ants kept the area around the tree clear of any other growth (about almost a meter radius) so the tree would not have to fight for nutrients and the ants survived on food from the middle of the tree. Another one that sticks in my mind is the tree whose bark looks like a particular snake and within its root is the antidote to the bite from the snake for the locals!

We also went to a fruit farm across the river and got to eat the flesh of the chocolate bean. Very nice, but no, it didnt taste like chocolate…

We decided to stick to the nature stuff, of which I have a few pictures below:

I also included another video, of a crazy ant trail, they was very impressive! The Amazon is definately something we would do again!

All accounts turned out to be correct, and Puno is the most frigid city so far (or maybe just the coldest hostel ever)! We got in, shopped around for a tour and transport to Cuzco, we got both in not to long, and with that, there wasnt much more to do in Puno city. The tour we got with a discount thanks to some Aussie “amigos” we stumbled upon, but we reckon she made up for it by punishing us with the bus ticket instead.

While waiting for nightfall, so that we could eat (again), we used the internet for a good couple of hours, then I had my first Llama meal. The meat was very nice! Definatly something to try again!

The next day, we headed out towards the Floating Islands. It turned out to be a long day…. We got the slowest boat, we had an 8 year old “captain”, literally, and a toilet that was full and did not flush (despite some heavy advertising re baño being on board). We got to the Floating Islands in only 20 minutes, then listened to our guides presentation, before I got tricked into an old mans cottage to buy handicarafts made by he and his wife. Sara followed suit, and in not very long at all, we had bought what seemed like a reasonable rug, or wall hanging. Then we got pestered to buy other stuff once outside again, and then the cold shoulder for declining to go on a very expensive paddle across to another floating island. We caught our own boat instead, and to our great delight, found an almost identical rug on the other island as well.

Enough about that, the islands themselves are interesting, 2m deep, floating ontop of 20m of water. They are anchored (so as not to float to Bolivian waters), and continously renewed or extended. Each Island is home to about 7 families, and there are about 2000 people living out there. It was very commercialiced, and geared for the tourist. After no one seemed to care to shop anymore, we where ushered back onto the boat, to go to Isla Taquile. This turned out to be a slow ride (2.5hrs). With the 8 other tourist boats along side ours, it was not hard to tell who was going to get there last, us. It didnt help that we at most times had an 8 year old (man-child) and very distracted skipper.

Isla Taquile was very picteruesque (a self-sustaining farmimg communities), although a lot of hard work for some who could not handle the altitude and walking up the hill. Again, we enjoyed the tourist show, but not the tourist toilets. Who decided that it was a good idea to install european toilets in a place with no sewerage and no running water, instead turning it into a very expensive potty? I dont know, but it seems like a poor idea to me.

We bought some more handicraft, before getting back onto our boat. We also got an Inca Kola. It may surprise you, but Inka Kola and Julebrus, seems to be the same drink, exept for different colours (Inka Kola being fluorescent yellow). The boat ride back took another while, again beeing the last boat to port, and again with an underage captain.

Puno invited us back in with her freezing arms, we ate some more, then went to bed, again. I apologise for the negative tones throughout this, but Puno didnt show us her best side, and if she did, it wasnt much to brag about.

Next morning, we got onto our FirstClass bus. It was quite a confusing rigmaroll getting there (we werent clear on where the bus left from… wasnt from the bus station..), and this also repeated itself when we got to Cuzco. Anyways, this is the cultural express to Cuzco, it stops at a few good, and a few not so good sites (we can only presume that they were actually just tourist focused market places..) along the way. The lunch buffet put something in my stomach, that I were to carry with me the next 5 days… Gastrolyte and Immodium to the rescue. Sara on the other hand, is so far fine.

What turned out to be a dragged out version of the previous day, eventually saw us to Cuzco!

So, Copacobana (thats the Bolivian one), beautiful Copa. It was a fantastic sight after the smog of La Paz!
We left La Paz early in the morning. There was a bit of confusion, as it turns out that the 1st of May is a public holiday (workers day) in Bolivia. Originally, we had been told that we would be picked up from our hostel, which is on the main street. After going down early for breakfast, we noticed that the street was blocked off and there was a marathon taking place..an annual marathon.. Luckily a representative from the bus company came down to collect us and take us the the bus. Everything is uphill in La Paz, so poor old Jo had to lug his enournmous backpack the whole way there (for some reason, he packed an excessive amount of womens clothing and toiletries that havent all been needed… he’ll never learn..). Anyways, it was like a wild goose chase to get to the bus and we collected more and more equally confused backpackers on the way. Very few of us understanding the instructions.. Luckily we got there fine and started our journey fine.. only to stop about 20 minutes later after getting caught in a noisy traffic jam in El Alto just out of La Paz. The street here was also being used for a parade and only 1 lane was being used (which developed into a 5 lane jam of honking busses, trucks, mini vans, taxis and the odd car if it could fit also).. Luckily it only took 2 hours before we were able to move again and 3 hours until we got to Copacobana!

Anyway, enough about the bus trip, as exciting as it was!

Copacobana is a small rural township that sits on the edge of the immense Lake Titicaca. It has a holiday beachy feel to it (well, as long as the suns up… after dark, you realise you’ve been tricked as it cools down to 4 or 5 degrees). As well as the locals and Bolivia’s (landlocked) navy (!), its home to a quite few foreign hippies. Luckily for us, our second day there, was the start of a festival (Fiesta de la Cruz). Many people came from surrounding towns and cities and all paraded the streets dancing and dressed in costume.

Most sections of the parade had their own brass band (that somehow managed to play while marching up hills and around town at 3800m)!. It was a great atmosphere and there was lots of alcohol to keep the party going!! We were going to go on a kayak but got absorbed by the festival. We did manage to climb the mountain near the town however and also (surprise surprise) eat at quite a few restaurants!!

Capacobana was cheaper than La Paz, so we splashed out on a hotel vs hostel. The second hotel even had a shower that worked! They have dubious looking electric shower heads with wires coming out to the powerpoint. Doesnt make you feel that comfortable while wet, but Lonley Planet indicates you should only expect a small shock if you come into contact with the shower head, which was a welcome relief from the full electrocution i was expecting!!

Anyway, that was Copacobana. Laid back and sunny!

Copacobana from the hill

All in all, we have had a fantastic time and really enjoyed Bolivia!

We arrived in La Paz early Monday morning of the tourist bus. We where tired, cold, and over it. We knew that our hostel wouldn’t be ready for us, but we went there anyways to dump our stuff. Then we headed out…

The town itself is very weird, it is located in a big valley/ravine/gully, and everywhere you look you see houses in the hillsides. We walked all around, saw lots, and was rather unimpressed with how inconvenient it was to have to walk up and down so much. It was almost like you where continuously traversing a hillside, which you where. This added with the ridiculous amount of fumes from old Dodge buses, and the crazy micros, made it a bit of a test. We chilled most of the first day, and had a nice cold shower when we finally got our room!

Tuesday was our big shopping day, and fighting day, but we both endured, did our shopping, looked around a bit more, and enjoyed the beers on tap here at the Hostel. We have also found a local restaurant that has some wicked fruits! Its so nice to be able to have healthy food, just not meat, meat millanesa or pollo… We also went to the Coca museum, learning about the difference between the Coca leaves and cocaine. Bit flavored, but interesting.

This morning, we organised our trip to Copacobana (yet another tourist bus), ate some more fruit, and dealt with the Bolivian postal system (Mom/dad, another parcel on the way, did you get the first one/s from Australia?). We also walked a bit further, to enjoy the views, but there seems to be a big beautification campaign going on, so we didn’t get to enjoy it, we where stopped by construction. We had the pleasure of meeting a very nice Swedish speaking shoe shiner, Ricardo, that sweet talked me into getting my sneaker cleaned. Turned out he and his mate where working for Svalorna, a Swedish charity. Very nice encounter! All the shoe shiners wear black ski masks due to social stigma, so its a bit odd to talk Swedish to a guy who you can only see the eyes to, cleaning your shoes in Bolivia!

Walking home, parched and tired after too many beers the night before, I suggested to Sara that we ought to cross the road to get into the shade. Sara dutifully did so, and stepped into the path of a mini van. It was a bit of a shock watching her getting thrown around, but she stood up, no scratches, just a bruised ass. The minivan was luckily driving slowly at the time, was very concerned, but she was ok, only a bruised pride…

We are going to enjoy the homecooking here at the hostel again tonight, before going to Copacobana tomorrow, then onto Peru and Cuzco.

We were lucky enough to get a ticket on the bus to Tupiza (despite some confusion, language barriers etc) and left that morning for Tupiza, where we were to start our salt flats tour. The bus ride itself was a bone rattler! Never been shaken that bad before, bitumen is yet to get to southern Bolivia.

Tupiza was a nice little town and pretty much revolved around the tour. There are a few companies running the tour from Tupiza (though we suspect its the same company under different names)!! We had our tour booked by Viache Tours, it was so nice just to have everything organised! We stayed in our first hotel of the trip and it even had a pool!! It did have shared bathrooms though, so don’t think we are too soft!! The tour company also owned this hotel and a few shops around town!! We figure they must employ the whole town almost.. 110 families they claim.

We took a small walk around Tupiza in the evening and started to feel the effects of the altitude (3000m). We probably walked 500m up a small hill and were pretty puffed! Headaches were also the norm!

The next day we set off on our tour. We had a Toyota LandCruiser 60 series, a driver, a cook and 3 other tour-ists (Allesandro, Nadia and Laura. We had met Laura at Salta). Fortunately, Allesandro was able to speak Spanish and we were able to communicate with the driver and cook!! We were really lucky with our group and have had an awesome time.

Firstly we did a lot driving up very steep mountain roads that fall off VERY steeply to one side and were physically a one way road but practically worked as a 2 lane… we learnt this as the driver would occasionally honk as he came to a blind turn and also when we scraped (which could have turned out MUCH worse) past another 4wd!!

The first night, Jo played soccer against some local kids (8 year olds), but got dumped from the team after he couldn’t handle running around at 4200moh. It was very embarrassing.

The landscape changed so much over the 4 days of the tour. We got as high as 5000m when we visited a geyser- was awesome to see!! The altitude leaves a terrible headache, a little nausea and breathlessness whenever you try to do something aside from sitting!! The breathlessness was made worse at night by the extremely thick blankets that we needed to stop freezing at the very basic accommodation on the way and the blocked nose and cold we have developed!! The nights reached minus 10 and there was no heating. Wouldn’t advise wine as a means of helping warm up at an altitude, only makes things worse!!

We have too many pictures from this trip, so a small selection is below… We are also catching up a bit, so this is sent to you from La Paz. At least we can handle the altitude now!

From Bolivia

We are writing this from La Paz, Bolivia, so some time has passed since the following events took place!

In town, we went to our pre arranged hostel, and got dumped. We reckon it was because we were too hip for them, but really it was probably because we were a couple. We got relocated to another one with extra perks, no dramas, but still annoying to be age/couple discriminated!

We spent the day chasing ATMs (Its a pain here, we can only withdraw tiny amounts ago, then having to do 7 repeat transactions to get enough to pay our way forward! That is if you get a ATM that works, we average about 4-5 before we hit jackpot) and chilling. Also booked a tour for the next day, so we could see the local wineries and surrounding country.

Next day, Tuesday, we got picked up in the morning, and it turned out there was only 4 of us doing this winery tour. The whole winery thing in Argentina is a bit disappointing. We where expecting wholesome samples, lots of variety, but instead only got to sample their staple wines, not their pride, and then only in tiny amounts. The gripe is that we pay the guide to take us there, then he gets paid by the wineries in wine, wine which we could have drunk, instead of just looking after us. Such a poor deal! Hunter Valley any time! Although the wine we did have was nice, it wasn’t as expected. Cafayete is the region in Salta, and again, very dry, all irrigated.

The organic winery

Enjoying the view

Sara and Atilla

El Diablo

Once back, we hung around for a while, before catching our bus to Bolivia at 0040 that night.

Argentina has been kind to us so far, we got in late on Sunday, stumbled around town trying to find a hostel, before being accepted at a nice one where again, they spoke no English. We were really bloody keen to find out what was going on around us by this stage, so we caught some fliers and went looking for a phone booth. There is a whole heap of “Cabinas Telefonicas” around, which are like private public pay phones. Anyways, we got onto one, not realising we had changed timezone by this stage, and talked to our professors father. He knew some English and explained that it shouldn’t be any worries, and that I was to call back a bit later, which I did. This turned out to be late Sunday, but it all worked out! When I called back I got to talk to Maro, what a relief that was. We were accepted into her Spanish School starting the very next day.

So, since Monday morning, we have had our brains fried for 4 hours every day. We are making progress, but we have been told that we quite literally had no base in Spanish, which was unusual. We where planning on doing a group thing, but we would have brought the group down too far, so we ended up with the individual lessons. Its well worth the investments though, as we can now communicate with more than just sign language and gestures!

Outside school (funny being back at school) we have being trawling the city. We changed hostel too, and now have the whole place to ourselves, for reasons unbeknownst to us…. Our walking shoes have got a real good workout, we have seen all the streets, checked out the English bookshops again in search for a good phrase book, but given up on that quest. Instead, we have decided that our wits will have to do, which might be a big ask. However, so far we have done allright, and we seem to get better. Touch wood!

We started off cooking in, but by now, we have discovered the vegetarian buffets, and the various promotions you can pick up, so we just stick to those, its just as cheap, and we know enough now to order and make sure they take the meat off for Sara. We just had dinner, and I had a hamburger with a beer, and that only cost 12 peso, wich is $4AUD. Morning coffee with croisant and fresh juice averages around 8 peso, which is $2.7AUD. Not too bad!

The people here in Argentina are great, and I know I’m making sweeping statements when I suggest that they are quite nice! We are definitely having a better time here than in Santiago, less harassment and more friendly. There was a crisis here in 2001 that would have caused a fair bit of unsettelment (the economy devalued to 3 peso per $1USD, from being a fixed 1 to 1, so things skyrocketed in price) and which might have changed the economy a bit. Thriftynes seems to prevail! The petrol prices are identical to Australia, but a lot less affordable, due to lower income, so some wits are required!

The cars are what makes it most evident. There is whole heap of beat up Ladas, Fiats and Peugeot’s here, some sort of time lapse happening. The nick of some of them is surprising, considering how they are driven. You literally force yourself onto the intersections, time it with who is driving in which direction, and all the time hope that right of way and brute force will get you through. There always seems to be an ambulance cruising through the streets with sirens as well, which doesnt seem to mean anything unless they are honking too. There are continous car alarms going of, but not from theft, but as bumper indicators. So, the prevailing method of parking seems to be too keep reversing until the alarm on the car behind you goes of, then you start going forward. There doesnt seem to be any undamaged bumpers, and all the alarms sound the same, so we wonder what the point of it all is?! We are sick of the alarms though!

Does anyone what kind of a car this is? There is a few around.

We are starting to prepare for our next leg, to Salta in Northern Argentina. We figured out the bus system, and now went the whole hog. Cama so we can sleep. Should be interesting, its an 18 hour busride.

Saturday when we have finished school, we are going on the local winery tour.

Flight itself was pretty uneventful, and we got to the hostel just fine as per the Lonely Planet directions. Only major snag was the exchange rate offered at Sydney Airport, we thought it was good, but ended up being ripped off about $80. Very unimpressed!

After landing and as we where interacting with more and more people, it was becoming more and more obvious to us that the locals knew very little English, as in next to none, and we knew no Spanish. We have been lugging around both the Lonely Planet South America on a shoe string, and the Spanish phrase book, both which we have to continuously reference to get our point across in some meaningful fashion. On our next stop, Mendoza, we are gonna have to get some Spanish lessons!

Anyways, we spent the days being jet lagged, looking at people, and soaking in the sights of Santiago. Its a noisy city, always something going on, and never asleep. Although early risers should just stay in bed we have realised, nothing happens until after 10 at the earliest!

We got a hostel not far from the Metro, something we booked online. That was our second mistake. Considering we didn’t know how deep the pool was, and that we where finding ourselves sinking on the deep end, we would have been better of sticking to the beaten track, and gone with the run of the mill hostel, where it would have been easier to socialise and pick up some Spanish, as opposed to the best deal.

Anyways, the hostel itself was ok, except for the beds, every time either of us turn, we wake ourselves up from the shrieks of the bed. It is horrid! So we are still jetlagged, tired and grumpy. Having to always reference the phrase book when communicating doesnt make things easier!

We have been around though, Cerro Saint Lucia, our neighbour hood, Cerro San Christobal, the local Virgin Mary statue, Barrio Bellavista, the local Bohemian neighbour hood, and today, Barrio Brasil.

Something we think is a local peculiarity, is the coffee bars with the miniskirts. You walk in, purchase a ticket for whatever coffee you want, then go to another bar, where a female (not necessarily young and attractive) will take your ticket and serve you. The attraction is that they are wearing very short dresses that are see through. Interesting concept…

We also went to the Chile Historical museum today. I was surprised how little info there was on the early history, and how there was no comment on Pinnochets regime.

From Cerro San Christobal

Barrio Bellavista

Cerro San Christobal with open air auditorium for mass.

Tomorrow we are catching a mini bus to Mendoza, Argentina, but before that, we are gonna hit the town tonight, as long as we can be in bed before 9 to hopefully sleep the night through.

Us buggered on the only seats available, outside

We had also booked a stay with Sepilok Jungle Resort for 3 nights. It was great! We arrived in the afternoon, and enjoyed a great dinner outside.

Next morning we went to the Orangutan Reserve. It was quite educational, and very nice!

Commanding silence!

Cruising down the jungle freeway!

Gridlock….

Macaque playing

Orang Utan eating

After lunch, we went on an overnight tour to Bilit, along the Kinabatangan River.

We did an afternoon river cruise, where we saw lots!

Promiscuous Proboscis monkeys

We saw more longtailed Macaque, Proboscis monkeys and lots of different birds! We skipped the night walk, as it would just be to many leeches we figured. Next morning we had an early river cruise, before we headed back to Sepilok.

Once back, we went for a city tour of Sandakan. We saw the war memorial from the Sandakan death marches, the city market and the floating village.

This was our last night in Sepilok, so we went on a guided tour of the Orang Utan centre with a ranger. I was really struggling with the humidity, but it was so interesting! We saw vipers, stick bugs and birds. We both loved it! Even though Sara was very apprehensive in regards to the leeches.

We cought the bus to Ranou and Poring Hot Springs Tuesday morning. We missed out one the morning bus, but got there just before sunset anyways. The springs where not too inviting for us, but the Canopy walkway and the Butterfly farm where nice!

We left the springs aiming to catch the express bus to KK, however, it was full, and we where rather rudely rejected. We figured we walk in to city center, but got picked up after less than 100m by a very friendly driver who was going to Kota Kinabalu, so we went with him the whole way. Very good service! KK was ok, we got a room at the Daya hotel and chilled for the night, before leaving for Penang very early the next morning (Thursday).

Us on our Balcony at the Golden Sands resort in Batu Ferengi in Penang.

Since we where all checked in to our resort before 1100 in the morning, we spent the day familiarizing ourselves with the area. The comfort we where presented with was almost uncomfortable, but oh so nice!

From the spice gardens

Flying Squirrel

What fruit is this on the fruit farm?

Going up Penang Hill

Had to try the snake… Its a Burmese Python, so not very dangerous

Sara kept accumulating mozzie bites….

Its hard too see, but a Burqa seems to be no problem when parasailing!

After 3 nights in Penang, we left for Cameron Highlands on a very quiet Sunday morning. The bus drive felt like it took forever! Once in Tana Ratah, we where picked up and talken to our Hostel. We spent the afternoon exploring and making arrangements for a tour the next morning, before our bus to Kuala Lumpur. That night we had a awesome Banana Leaf dinner at a local Indian restaurant, it was huge!

Flycatcher in the mossy forest

The area has lots of tea plantations! Home of the BOH tea.

How the tea is collected, you also got the scissor method and the machine method

Had to hold the Scorpion too!

Monday afternoon we caught the express bus to Kuala Lumpur, it had 3 seats in a row, so very roomy! We stayed at the Federal in Batu Bintang. The shopping and business district of town!

KL was hot and humid, we spent the first half of Tuesday doing our tourist stops, going to KL tower. Had a great lunch at Blue Boys vegetarian!

Wednesday morning we went to Batu caves, north of KL. A big Hindu temple north of town. The monkeys here where very cheeky!

We watched as a kid got robbed of his drink can by this monkey. Kid wasn’t too impressed.

The rest of the day and Thursday was spend shopping, before another disappointing red eye flight back to Sydney.

Great holiday!

Went out on Saturday night, and the town was booming, saw lots of familiar faces, a bit like going out in Bombala I suppose.

Sunday we where just hung over, but still managed to go to a BBQ at Gøril’s, where we ate some Moose and other good stuff.

Monday we went shopping…

We also walked into town, eating a whole heap of berries.

Monday night we caught the bus to Denmark: what was originally devised as an ingenious time and money saver, saw us signed, sealed and delivered to Denmark in the form of a human pretzel. With no sleep and no food (and definitely not a good mood), we walked the streets of Copenhagen until the first bakeries opened…
Unfortunately we chanced upon the only bakery in town with an apprentice sandwich hand and after a harrowing wait, we left with food (a possible communication breakdown meant that Jo enjoyed a cheese and jam roll as opposed to the 1 cheese and 1 jam roll that he ordered).

After this we set our sites on Copenhagen, and in particular one of good friends- Mary..

Well, after that, we went along the harbour, all the way to the little mermaid (who’s head is famous for being stolen), to the palace, to Christiania (a kind of hippie commune). We then booked into our hotel (supposedly 4 star, but we noticed it to be the smallest room on the fire escape plan…not happy Jan). Later, we went for a drink and dinner on the wharf. There were heaps of bands and street performers around, so it was nice just to sit and watch. There were also a few drunks (Jo said that in Denmark, anyone of any age can buy beer, which can, incidentally be purchased at the supermarket! But apparently not everyone can drink it!). Some poor tourist fell into the water from the wharf!

The next day (our last) we went down to the old part of town (well kind of… only made it to the museum- which was free on Wednesdays- and parliament house). We then headed to Tivoli for a long time, drinking beer and eating ice cream.

We then went and had a look at another palace and then went into town again. We had a lot of ice cream, baked goods and some pretty nice vego meals (which is a bloody wonder over here!).

We headed back to Oslo and found ourselves in another black mood from the bus and no food.

Wednesday and Thursday was spent recovering, and relaxing. Had a BBQ on Thursday with the brand spanking new gas BBQ! Was very nice! Friday was much of the same, didn’t leave the house at all, only yo buy chocolate.

Today we are going back up again to Hamar, for more beer and another BBQ, and Sunday will see us of to Sweden to catch up with Malin and Dave.

Tokyo was ok, we managed to get ourselves something to eat, and looked around for a bit. A few hours later we left for Copenhagen, the trip was uneventful; we both squeezed in 3 movies each, and ate a lot.

After a brief stopover in Copenhagen, grabbing the essential tax-free, we went on to Norway. We landed at 19, and it was still very bright! Dad, Svein and Gøril greeted us at the airport, and we went back to the house, where we had supper. We were reasonably tired, but managed to stay up until 22, going to bed before the sun.

The next day we had Farmors 80th birthday. The whole family was there, except for 1, so we were 32 people. And that’s just dad’s side.

Saturday followed with more walks, while adjusting to the daylight and trying to get rid of the jetlag. We went on a tour of the royal castle, Sara was very impressed by my castle, so that was all good! Sunday we went into town, for a look around, Gøril came out, and we ate a lot of cherrys! We all got very full!

Monday we drove up to Hemsedal, after visiting Mormor on the way. The cabin is about 4 hours drive away, and there is mosquitos there in summer. Sara got to experience those. The next day we went on a tour of the west coast fjords. This included a trip with the world’s steepest railway and a 3 hour cruise from Gudvangen to Lœrdal, in Norways narrowest fjord. Sara also got to meet Huldra, a fairytale creature that steals the men away, but Sara fought her off.

Wednesday Mom and Dad came out too, and we went to the world’s oldest stave church. It’s from the 1100th century. We also went to a Glacier museum, and had a peek at one of those. After that we finished up with a tour of an old costal town that we had just raced through the day before, Lœrdal. Dinner was up at a mountain lodge. The only thing vegetarian they served was sour cream porridge (a dish that looks like white sauce served with butter, cinnamon and sugar), the rest of the dishes contained some sort of salted meat.

Thursday we went up to a mountain farm, where they had baking day. Sara and I baked a flatbread each, mine was (not) the better…. The day was warm, and we finished it of by walking up to the top of one of the mountains next to the cabin.

Friday we came back to Oslo, it was 30 degrees and sunshine! Excellent weather! Unfortunately, it also means that we have less than 3 weeks to go.

We met up at Uni 1900 friday night, after locating our trailer that wasn’t made ready for us, we could take of at 20. We entertained ourselves on the drive to Newnes by looking at the temperature gauge, seeing how low it could go. That night it went to 7. Some sleeping bags had ratings around the 4 mark…

Saturday morning we started walking at 8, the road up the valley had been extended since the 70s, which was the most recent release of our map, so we could keep a good pace for the 1st third of the way up the valley. The walk up to the top, was through the scrub, the only way is the one we made for ourself. We all have the cuts to prove it.

It was fairly dense and not many places to sit down for a good rest. Camelbaks seemed to be a good investment, considering you didnt have to take of your pack all the time to get some water.

After a long walk to the top, 5 hours or so, we had lunch. Some where hungrier than others.

The view from where we sat, was spetacular!

After lunch we made our way over to Point Nicholson, it was a bit of a scramble getting there.

After looking for the campsite for a while, we looked at the map one more time, and figured we hadn’t looked where it probably was. So we looked there, and we found it. Excellent spot, sheltered and nice!

That night we entertained ourselves with games and Shamrock Cream in front of the campfire. Not bad! It got down to 4 degrees during the night, and other peoples bodyheat attracted the cold ones. The ones with good sleeping bags where fine by themselves though.

We where up and walking by 8 the next morning, traversing the ridge above Little Capertree creek. There where lots of ups and downs getting from one point to the other, with rock scrambling and pack hauling.

But the group was mighty happy nevertheless.

From left: Jo, Justine, Lynn, Peter, Alex, Mark and Dave.

We found our canyon too, and it was truly a hidden gem! We had to packhaul and crawl through tight spaces twice, really getting to know our rocks and how hard they could be on our heads.

The end of the canyon saw us coming into a second sort of canyon, very nice!

We where back by the car by 16, but didn’t make it back to the Gong before 21, taking the scenic route through Sydney.

All in all a very good trip, well hidden with some spectacular scenery.

Album link
http://www.eurofoto.co.uk/fotoalbum.php?aid=427853&portal_language=en_GB

Its tuesday, Im bored, I want to do something. The Overland Track comes to mind. I have an exam 12 days, the walk takes 5, travel takes 2, preperation takes 2. I know it will be right!

I spend the rest of tuesday and wednesday preparing for the walk. I dont know much about it, Im unable to obtain a map so I cant plan much for it. But nevertheless I buy the planetickets, waterproof my boots and pack the backpack.

The flight down to Launceston is eventless, likewise is the night after the last food and gear is purchased. I learn that Tasmania has experienced imense rain the last few days, but Im still determined. Im walking!

I catch the bus friday morning after a crap night in a hostel, its drizzeling and there are a few others there. Todays target is Waterfall Valley Hut (S 41 42.881 E 145 56.811), and to climb Cradle Mountain (S 41 41.096 E 145 57.086).

I arrive at Cradle Mountain Visitors Centre, and the walkers are given the spiel on how to behave, what gear to have and so on. Poncho is apperantly a big no-no, but thats what I have, and thats what I will use. I never worked out why it was a big no-no, because I stayed dry. Nevertheless, the shuttlebus takes us out to Ronny Creek (S 41 38.273 E 145 56.875), and for the first time I see what I have set out on. Mountains!!! After a real heart starter up the hills to Marions Lookout, I can see the beauty of it!

Cradle Mountain from Marions Lookout

I finally make my way to the top of Cradle Mountain. Noone else around. The serenity is awsome! And from here, I can see tomorrows target, Barn Bluff.

Barns Bluff from Cradle Mountain

I scramble down, and walk on to Waterfall Valley Hut. The hut is spacsious, and I get a spot in the bunks. After a wash in the stream, its dinner and yarn time. Then bed at sunset.

I get up early in the morning, first to take of up towards Barn Bluff. After an hour, at the foot of the mountain, Im overtaken by Bob & Terry, two retired professional holliday makers. They speed past me, and I keep on scrambling my way to the top. Im hoping that it will clear up by the time I reach the top, but it doesnt.

Top of Barns Bluff in clouds

Down again, I have my lunch. When lunch is over, a girl that I passed on my way down is back as well, and we walk together to the next hut, Windemehr (S 41 46.269 E 145 57.510). On the way there, we check out the waterfalls in Waterfall Valley, and by Lake Will.

Lake Will waterfall

The walk to the Waterfalls are a wet and boggy 2h return walk, but the falls where fine nevertheless. Thunder is on the horizon so we skip lunch and hope for a dry walk to Windemehr instead. And only 5 minutes before the hut, does it start to rain. Very good timing! Windemehr is another nice hut, quite new and spacsious. After a nice freeze dried dinner, there is time for some solitare, talk and then finally sleep at sunset.

The cobwebs in the morning sun

We are the first to take of that morning, but are soon overtaken by Bob & Terry. We are on our way to New Pelion Hut (S 41 49.828 E 146 2.812), another muddy walk. The worst sections are boardwalked, a lot of it is boardwalked actually, which is good I sepouse. The trend indicates that more of the track will be boardwalk in the near future due to unsustainable impact. We lunch at Frog Flats (S 41 50.352 E 146 0.277) before we start our ascent up to New Pelion. Its still fine when we get there, so we go for a swim in the waterhole by the old hut. The water is very refreshing. It escpesially feels good when the blood comes back into your veins afterwards.

The New Pelion hut is a big hut, with 6 bedrooms and 60 beds. Plenty of room for everybody, but still a contradiction to the talk about unsustainable numbers of bushwalkers.

The next morning we are the first of again. Im still walking with Eleanor, she does most of the talking, and doesnt seem to anoyed with my lack thereof. On the way up the gap by Mt Ossa, we are overtaken by some fit country NSW girls. But sadly, they dont realise their own limitations. We catch up with them just by the top as one of them is hurling. She excuses herself by claiming she had too much water, when it is obvious she pushed her body to far. Bob & Terry joins the party as well, and overtake us on our way to the top of Mt Ossa. Halfway up it starts raining, and luckily, I brought my backpack this time with fleeces and waterproofts, thanks to Eleanor point out the obvious to me. “You got a small backpack, why dont you use that to the top?”. It keeps on raining as we scramble up, then down. My poncho keeps the backpack, and most of me dry, so its all good. Finally down, it has as good as stopped, but it is still in the air, so we postpone lunch before we go to the Kia Ora hut.

Kia Ora holds 23 people that night, and the natives visits just after sunset with cake. Very nice of them, but sort of a surreal experience.

I have decided that I will give Windy Ridge a pass, and rather make for Narcissus and the ferry on tuesday. Im getting a bit concerned about my exam by this stage.

Eleanor doing track clearing

Eleanor joins me, and toghether we walk for Narcissus. Nobody overtakes us this day. The old guys are getting tired. I catch my ferry, and Eleanor stays behind, determind to walk out the next day the whole way! No ferry for her.

While we wait for the ferry, a guy that seemed to love the sound of his own voice, joins us for a chat. He is disappointed by the lack of people bringing alcohol on the walk, and how they had brought bottles of all kinds, and he is also so bored because he is injured and waiting for his mates doing a side trip. Its funny, because the ranger at Waterfall Valley told us about some people that had left behind a heap of rubbish there, and how someone had to come back and get it. That was Mr. LoveMyVoices group.

I just catch the bus with a delyed ferry, and head for Hobart. After finally getting reception on my Optus phone, I reschedule my flight, and my accomodation. The hostel is horrible, but it will do for a night.

And Wednesday the 4th of Feb I head back to Wollongong, 2 days earlier than planned.

A nice walk, some very nice mountains. All in all very good! Highly recommended!

We travelled in a Toyota HJ47 troop carrier, with a 2H engine. 2 in the front, and 3 in the back. Capacity of 200l of diesel, 90l of water. Carried EPIRB, 1w handheld UHF, 8kg gas, recovery gear, firstaid kit, 2 spares and food for 11 days. Used a IceKool esky for food storage. Car on 33″ Kumho MT. Timber roof racks.

I dont know what kind of oil the mechanic put in, but I was burning about 1l a day of oil for the first 5 days. I kept topping up with Penrite HPR Diesel, and it stopped burning oil. Topped up 5l over the whole trip, all in the first 5 days.

Thursday:
We left town around 1900, and made it to Jugiong, on the freeway. We camped at the local pool, as recommended by “Camps Australia Wide 2″, but it wasnt good, way to much light, and too close to the exhaust brakes on the freeway. The guys started to get some idea of what they where up for, when I told them there was no tent, but that we sleep on the tarp.

Friday:
Got up early, breakfast in Wagga Wagga, nice place called Sugars, then further west towards Mildura. We got cryovac meat in Balranald, then headed to Bottle Bend Forest Reserve 58km NW of Euston.

The 2 day travel seemed a tad too optimistic now. We had stong headwind, and only averaged 80km/h most of the day. My estimated 15l/100km didnt seem to hold up either.

Saturday:
We headed over the SA border, had to discard an onion we had forgotten about. Then lunch in Pt. Pirie, we walked for 1km out the pier and we had waist deep water. Then a crab bit me, so we headed northwards. In Port Augusta, I talked to the gas station guy, if it was ok to travel at night northwards, he just laughed and told me Id better have a bullbar. So we drove just past Woomera, to Lake Hart rest area, it sucked so we found a dune not far away by the railroad tracks we camped by.

Sunday:
We had a 0330 start, aiming for breakfast in Coober Pedy, we made it, but by beeing Sunday, none of the tourist things where open, so we hit the road again towards Uluru.

Now, I dont know what I was expecting from Uluru, but it wasnt what I saw. The rock was very nice and all, but the whole thing was very commercialised. Chookers of tourists.

I wanted to feel it all, but there wasnt much room for it.

We paid $16.50 a head to get into the national park, then another $12.50 per head for bush camping.

Monday:
We spent the day walking around Uluru, then looking at the Olgas. Very warm day, in the arvo we headed of to Kernot camping ground on the road back to Stuarts highway. There where some very cheeky dingoes here, and despite my warnings, a torch and a sandal was stolen during the night.

Tuesday:
We took of towards Dalhousie Springs, after a succefull search for the sandal and torch. On our way to Finke, we came across “Bare Tracks”, a nudist 4wd club. A bif different. In Finke, we just made the shop, that closed at 12. We picked up some more supplies, including a Kangaroo tail. Something we hadnt tried before. Arriving at Dalhousie Springs, we jumped straight into the water. It held 38 degrees!

At dusk, for 1 hour, the mosquitos rule Dalhousie Springs, lots and lots of them.

Wednesday:
Today was my birthday, it was celebrated with a relaxing day at the springs, a copy of FHM, tinned fruit and kangaroo tail.

We had to improvise a bit on the tail cooking, as we had to use a concrete circle for out fire. We couldnt dig a trench. After talking to the ranger, we decided to head through the desert, he was very reassuring, telling us we should be right, and that there was a lot of people going through at the moment, with more to come for the school hollidays.

Thursday:
We refilled water at 3 o`clock creek, as the water at Dalhousie was undrinkable. I was concerned though, that I was only carrying 90l, I should have had more in case of emergencies.

Then we headed into the unknowen. We followed the route suggested by ExplorOz, the combined route. We headed into Purnie Bore, then down Rig Road, up Colson track, along the frenchline to Erabena track. We camped 3 km away from the intersection.

We spotted this snake on the Colson track, we think its a fierce snake. The most venomous in the world!

Friday:
The Frenchline was making the guys in the back a bit sick, so I opted to not follow the AAK line from lone gum, but to stick to the Rig Road to Knolls track. There was a 2 km camping exclusion zone around the Approdinna Attora Knolls, so we set up camp at some shade we found outside the zone.

We had an early day this day, made camp around noon, and did some maintenance, walked up the Knolls and just relaxed. It was warm. We decided to hit the road early the next day, as the heat and the humps where getting to the guys in the back. The maintenance revealled that the rear bumper stoppers where rooted, and the humps had made the roof come loose on the left side. Since the roofracks flexed, every hump would have them hit the roof.

Saturday:
We stopped by Poeppel Corner, then east on the QAA line, where we spotted this camel.

We got a flat about 50km out of Birdsville, but by raising the pressure, the leak closed temporarily, we opted not to fix it there. We made a go for the middle road up big red, but it didnt work, so we drove the side track, then up the other side, so we did make it to the top!

We made camp at Birdsville caravan park, had a nice shower, then headed straight for the pub and croc raviolli. 7 schooners later (for me), we headed back to camp. With the beer glasses on, I couldnt find the truck, so I asked the people that where camping where I thought the truck would be, if they had seen it. They told me that there was a sick one around the next bush. Not happy!! I had put some beams under the springs, so it wouldnt rest on the rim with the air leaking out, but it wasnt sick! It could still bit the crap out of theire fancy new Pajero!

Sunday:
I took of to the Mobil station to get the tire fixed, Birdsville Auto would do it to, but for a 200% sunday surcharge, so I didnt go there. With the tire fixed, we headed of towards Innamincka by Walkers crossing. I plotted in the coordinates for the turnoff in the GPS, just in case. After a hours driving I realised I was 3 km past the turnoff. Backtracking, looking at the GPS, we spotted the turnoff signposted 20m away from the road, at the end of a bend. We hit the track, following the most used road where not signposted. About 5 hours later we came into Minkie waterhole where we went for a swim. Later we went into the Sunday roast at the pub, but it was $18 bucks, and out of our leauge. So we went back to camp and had some more tinned fruit with dinner.

Monday:
We took of, headed towards Broken Hill. After refulling and getting some helpfull directions, we decided to skip Camerons Corner, and go straight to BH. We went by Santos and Epsilon Station, and got into Tibooburra 4 hours later. This was the dustiest section by far. The guys where wearing bandanas over the theire face in the back, but it still got in.

Upon entering Broken Hill, the car was going a bit warmer than usual. Pulling up to the Information centre, it was leaking coolant, but I didnt open the bonnet, assuming it was just overflowing. Arriving at Lake View Caravan Park, it leaked even more. We got a makeshift site next to the pool, but it did the trick with the showers that cam with it! And pulling up to the site, the rest of the coolant came out.

Tuesday:
We started pulling the radiator out in the morning, and found that the radiator housing had cracked, rubbing a hole in the radiator, one of the rods where also broken. Then, with the radiator out, we poured as much water as possible into the tubes, ducttaped them together. By repeating this process 6 times, we travelled the 6km to the radiator repair guy. With that fixed, we headed to Silverton. Now, which car is cooler?

In the arvo, we headed down south to Bootle Bend Forest Reserve again. Beeing the last night, the guys shared some goon. It made for a interesting drive, considering we where lucky enough to be hitching a ride with a truck we could keep up with, and that we didnt stop for pee breakes before Wentworth.

Wednesday:
It started raining sometime during the night, since I was sleeping in the car, I didnt feel it, neither the the guys due to the goon. However, when they woke up 0430 cold and wet, they decided that we should leave NOW.

It rained the whole day, water leaking in the roof, everything wet, but by 2100 everything was unpacked and I was in the shower.

All in all, great trip! A bit rushed, only sampling everything, not getting to spend too much time anywhere. We drove 6532km, used 1256l of diesel (126l through Simpson), averaging 19.2l/100km. Cost of fuel was $1242, with Mt Dare beeing the most expensive at 135c/1l

Maps used was “Camps Australia Wide 2″, to find good rest areas and free bushcamps, Hema Great Desert Tracks pack and UBD Concise motoring atlas of Australia. Lonely Planet Outback Australia is also recommended. And Jack Absoloms “Safe Outback Travel” is a must!

We came down on the Cann River Highway, and camped in Shipwreck Bay on our way to Melbourne. We had some very delightful camphosts here, Jess and Sheree. Down in Melbourne, we picked up Chris, Irine and bernice, so now we where 7 in the car, which put great demands in our tidyness, as we where carrying far to much luggage.

The first night we drove to Warranambol, where we camped. It turned out that Chris had no sleepingbag, and the girls where freezing by themselves. Chris tried to get by the first night by borrowing all the jackets, but still he looked like a wreck the next morning, so he picked up a proper bag from Kmart.

Second night brought us to Johanna Beach, a lovely little place. 2 days after we left it, it was the be the arena for the Rip Curl surf comp.

Now we went into the Oway Ranges from Apollo bay, upto Stevenson Falls. Very Nice. Our camphost here was Nigel, which we suspected of having arranged a rave a few nights before.

Chris trying for a shower in the falls. Kind of cold.

Leaving the campsite, we got ourselves a group picture. F.l. Bernice, Irine, Alex, Peter, Jo, Chris and Jason.

Hume Dam was the last place we camped, before going back through Canberra to watch the ROC.

As you might have noticed, there are no pictures of the sights along the road, not because I dont have them, but because you can see them everywhere else. We ended up driving more than 2700km. I did most of the driving, and spent all day saturday and sunday recovering from the holliday. All in all, it was a good trip, recommended for everyone. Only thing we didnt do, and that I regret, is the Gibson Steps and Cape Otway. For next time. For anyone else concidering doing something similar, be firm when it comes to the luggage brought along, just because you have the space, doesnt meen you have the room.

The result?

I ended up in the oposite lane, facing the way I came from. Now, me and Sara could climb out unhurt, which was lucky I`d say. We flagged down the first semi, he took our details and radioed for help. Second semi to come past couldnt help us either, but said that the 3d probably could, and he was right. The 3d semi had some chain, that he could attach to my siderails to pull me up again. Now, I was blocking the right lane, he was blocking the left lane, so the road was blocked, and it was just after a hilltop, so he sent out a message on the CB that the road was blocked and anyone coming that way should back off. The 4th semi heard this, but didnt take any notice of it. Sara was on the top of the hill just in case to flag them down. This guy saw the torch, and still didnt slow down, coming around the bend, he saw what he was up against, stepped on the brakes, managed to get through in the ditch on the right hand side, ripping my roofracks of with his bullbar.

In the end, I was very lucky, no one got hurt, there wasnt much damage, and I could keep on driving. The siderails got bent in on the left side from taking the fall, the siderails on the right side got pulled out from the truck pulling me back up again. And the left side got pulled in after the fall.

The wombat? I dont know, couldnt find it….