Jude and Jimmy's adventures

Gastonbury 2009

2009-07-15T17:40:00.002Z

Fun times in fields with friends, music, cider and sunshine..... Good times!!!

So good they named it twice.

2008-01-04T16:32:00.000Z

NEW YORK.

Well, the cherry on the icing! What can we say, other than NYC was all and more than we could have wished for, the perfect end in every way to our travels.

After a smooth flight from Mexico city to Newark airport NY, we caught the train to Penn station before hopping in a taxi to the mighty Bryneths. We had a take away pizza and a good catch up with Bryn before bed.

The next morning, which was a cold one, was spend meandering around shops, namely The Burton store!!! Awww Yeeeee… The afternoon consisted of food, and making arrangements with Bryn and Stuart (of Lara and Stuart fame) for that evening. Stout NYC was the location, with a slight mix up on times..

We arrived at 5, not 6, due to a poor mobile phone connection!!! We wandered around the vast bar in search of a familiar face, and we found one ( well, 4 ) Someone who looked remarkably like Mr Trevor Ellis!! Sitting next to 3 other people who looked identical to Sarah Ellis – Jones, Tim Kopotsha and Zoe Johnson. So identical did they look that it turned out it actually WAS them. WHAT A SHOCK!!!!!…. The most wonderful surprise. It later turned out that we were just a good excuse to shop;) Which boy did they do….

We hooked up with a few travel buddies, Bill who we met At Iguazu falls, who is now working as a lawyer in Manhattan. Also Rob and Emma who we met in Chile and Bolivia, it was really nice to see them..

The next 4 days were spent shopping socialising, eating far too much food at some great places, a bit more shopping mixed with a little bit of sightseeing, followed by a few beers here and there, and a bit more shopping. This was all coupled with perfect New York weather, crystal clear and cold for two days, then SNOW!!! Amazing!!.. We couldn’t have wished for more.

One night of our time there was spent with Lyns and Andy in their new pad in Port Chester, just north of Manhattan, beautiful Town house with a big fire!!J Both are well and ready for parenthood. Good luck guys!!

Great City + Great Friends + Great weather = a truly memorable ending……Thanks!!

……..But not the end of our blog!!!! Carry on watching for more jude and Jimmy frivolitites.

We hope you have enjoyed – and will continue to enjoy – it as much as we have..
VIVIR EL SUENO……

2 weeks of sun in Puerto

2007-11-28T22:29:00.000Z

Tasty sunsets!!
Puerto Escondido
Comp winner in red
Bum!!!!

Well, as our travels draw to a close, we sit here in an internet café in Mexico city, bronzed and contented after 2 week of sun, sea, sand, surfing, good times, great people and a few too many mojitos!! And prepare for a final fling in NYC!

The two weeks of many s´ was in Puerto Escondido! A chilled beach “resort” - in a hostally chilled still Mexican influenced sense of the word. The place was perfect, we wanted somewhere, cheap, sunny, hot with a bit of a vibe and some good food, and after a little scratching beneath the surface all was satisfied. We stayed in a hostel recommended by a Belgian couple who were painting it as their friends ran it, and it was great, basic cheap and chilled. We spent our day’s sun bathing reading and surfing, which we are converts for, it’s such good fun!! Getting a good dumping by a wave is hilarious. Puerto is known as the MEXPIPE as it gets huge swells resulting in some of the best “off beach” surf in the world. Whilst we were there they held the PMX surf comp, which was great! Real good buzz.

We found a beach called La Punta, about 30 mins walk south where they have smaller perfect learner waves. It was also really quiet there. In between surfing we sat and watched Stingrays jumping (I also stepped on one!) pods of dolphins rounding up fish just off the shore, and a few ozzie guys saw humpbacks jumping!! Amazing!! And this combined with some spectacular sunsets equaled all in all a perfect end to our time in Central America, which like south has opened our eyes to so many wonderful cultures.

See you all soooo soon!!

Guatemala and Tikal.......now MEHICO!!!!!

2007-11-12T00:48:00.000Z

Loving the Spider monkeys!

Jude and a temple

Temples of Tikal peeping through the jungle

Sunrise over Tikal

Hola Chicos,

We are in Mehico!!!!

Our journey from San Ignacio in Belize to Flores in Guatemala went without a hitch. Flores is an island on Lake Peten Itza, lovely little town with lots of narrow cobbled streets. Our reasons for going to Flores were to use it as a base to visit Tikal and then as a starting point to hop over to Mexico. Stayed in a huge rambling hostel called Los Amigos, great and definitely the place to be in Flores!!!!

So, we got up at 3am in order to be at the top of Temple IV to watch the sunrise over the temples at Tikal!!!!!! The early rise was worth it, we had to hike through the jungle for over ½ hr in the pitch black listening to the growls of howler monkeys! Tikal is the most important Mayan ruin site, hidden in the rainforest, it consists of towering temples, pyramids and loads of other smaller buildings that made up the royal palace. Many of the ruins have yet to be excavated. Pretty impressive and very mysterious. Saw lots of spider monkeys while looking around the ruins too! They're so cool!

The following day we were up early again, this time to catch a 5am bus that would take us to the Mexican border, from there we got on a tiny boat that took us down the river to Frontera Corozal in Chiapas region of Mexico. Once back on land we caught a minibus (the driver wins points for squashing 20 people into a 12 seater bus!) to Palenque. We stayed in a lodge in the jungle in El Panchan, just outside of Palenque, for one night and then the next day made our way to San Cristobal stopping at 2 waterfalls, Agua Azul and Misoha, and a river, Agua Clara, with a very dodgy wooden bridge, on the way.

San Cristobal is such a pretty city, full of brightly coloured biuldings. It's located in the highlands of Mexico, so in the night-time it was freeeeeeeeezing, first time we have been properly cold for ages! Fortunately during the day it was bright blue skies and sunshine. Spent a couple of days there sightseeing, great city to just amble around, and then it was time to find a beach so we can catch some rays before heading back to Winter.........................................

Honduras to Belize...

2007-11-10T16:46:00.001Z

The elusive water taxi!!
Our Cabaña at Ruthies.
Our own private island.
Snorkling off our porch at Tobacco caye.

Well after a few hectic days of travel through Honduras, spending a night at San Pedro Sula, which has little to report back apart from the football fanatical taxi driver who bought us some nuts and gave us a mini tour, and then a second night at a place called Puerto Cortes, which is the main port in the whole of central america, again not much going on there! Our reason for visiting was to catch an elusive taxiboat to Belize. The boat was rumoured to leave once or twice a week, and basically if we missed it, we would have ended up with an extra few days of chicken buses!! No thanks!! Luckily, after a night in a semi seedy US style motel room, we managed to find the boat which took us to Dangriga in Belize, not our original choice but our only option!!.... Just before reaching Dangriga we were stopped by the Belize coast guard, and behold....THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, yeap, they speak English in Belize!!!!!!

Dangriga is the home town to the indigenous people of Belize, the Garifuna. We stayed with Ruthie and her husband, both pure Garifuna descendants, in one of her cabañas on the beach, and had home cooked breakfast and dinner!! Magic!!

After 2 nights there we took a 5 mile boat ride out to Tobacco caye. A sand island on the barrier reef!! It was so nice here we stayed 5 instead of 2 nights. We went there just at the right time as the holiday season starts in about 2 weeks, so it was like having our own private island!! We spent our days reading, sunbathing, and as the island is on the reef you can snorkle with eagle rays, spanish rays and yellow rays right off the beach plus beautiful coral and masses of reef fish!! The boat ride back was fun.........3 meter swells in a small flat bottom fiberglass boat with an outboard motor!! Wet, wild and never again!!

After the caye we headed towards the Guatemalan border. We spent our last night in Belize in San Ignacio, a little town near the border, staying in a guest house run by the Central American version of Mr Miyagi (remember him, the teacher from Karate kid!). The next morning we visisted Cahal Pech, the oldest known mayan ruins and our first taste, they didn´t disappoint. A little more magical than Inca ruins due to the fact they are hidden in the jungle, but not as complex and majestic. After this we headed for Guatemala...........................

Hope all is well.

xxx

Welcome to Nicaragua......

2007-10-26T23:22:00.000Z

Granada and Lake Nicaragua

James......

Jude........

Janet........

James emerging from the mist!

a baby boa!

We made it to Nicaragua! Quite an eventful journey yesterday which involved queuing at the Costa Rican border control for ages whilst being hastled my money changers, being charged a lot more than the local people on the bus to enter Nicaragua (hmmmmmmm, think we funded the bus drivers next couple of meals!), having our passports put in a plastic carrier bag and taken somewhere, having to pile off the bus and grab our luggage while Nicaraguan customs officers chucked it off the bus, drag our bags to a random table in the baking sunshine and queue up some more while they randomly checked bags (although I don´t think they actually checked any!!), retrieve our passports from a fierce looking border guard, get back on the bus which by this time was an oven, find out our bus didn´t go to where we thought it was going, get dropped off on the outskirts of a random town, hunt for a very elusive bus station which turned out to be through a cavernous market, and finally get on an old yellow American school bus with bullet holes in the windscreen for a bumpy 1 1/2 hr journey to Granada. Phew. Anyway it was worth it, Granada is a lovely colonial city near Lake Nicaragua with a great chilled-out atmosphere. You can see an active volcano from here too! But tomorrow we are off again, hot footing it through Nicaragua into Honduras, San Pedro Sula to be precise. From there we go to Puerto Cortes to catch a boat to Belize on Monday.....hopefully!!!!!!

The rest of our time in Costa Rica was brill. The canopy tour was great fun, swinging through cloud rainforest and very high-up! A total of 3 km of cables, the longest wire was over 1/2 mile and the highest 130 m above the ground. Also in Monteverde, Janet, James and myself got to hold a one-year old boa constrictor at the serpentarium, those of you who know about my phobia will understand what a big deal this was for me!!!!!! And on our last day in Costa Rica James celebrated his 30th birthday in San Jose :)

xJ&Jx

Costa Rica.....Pura Vida.......

2007-10-22T01:24:00.000Z

Humming away

Sinister looking caiman

Cute little bird

White faced monkey

Awesome butterfly!

Hola Chicos and Chicas!

We are having a great time in Costa Rica with Mummy G (that’s James’ mum for those of you who don’t know!), despite it being the rainy season and seeing an awful lot of torrential rain in the afternoons (it is still really warm though and it’s sunny in the mornings and fine in the evenings) !! Stunning country, the people here are so friendly and the variety of wildlife, flora and fauna is amazing……….

At the moment we are in a place called Monteverde, arrived here after a very bumpy ride in a jeep followed by a boat trip over a lake and then an even more bumpy ride on another jeep (parts of the roads have been washed away by rain so buses can't negotiate them at the moment). Monteverde is in the north of Costa Rica towards the West. The village was created by some American Quakers, it's very beautiful, surrounded by lush farmland and thick cloud rainforest. Tomorrow morning we are off on a canopy tour through the cloud rainforest which involves swinging from sky lines (kind of like flying foxes and tarzan swings!!!) and walking over bridges that are very high-up, can't wait!!!!

We came here from La Fortuna (also in the North of Costa Rica), famous for its active volcano, Volcan Arenal, one of the ten most active in the world. We were there for 2 nights, stayed in an eco lodge which had hummingbirds in the garden. Not bad! Walked to a fab waterfall yesterday morning and then had a walk through rainforest late yesterday afternoon. Saw a spider monkey and heard the growl of howler monkeys! After that, when it was dark, we went to watch lava erupting from the volcano and flowing down the side of the volcano (all from a very safe distance!). Incredible to see. And we were surrounded by fireflies flickering away. After such a hard day, we needed to go and have a soak in some hot springs, complete with 25 pools of varying temperatures and 3 wet bars!!!

Before La Fortuna, we did a 3 day trip to Tortuguero National Park, which is on the Caribbean Coast. It didn't rain so much there as it is not the rainy season in that part of the country. In fact in was really hot and sunny most of the time, the sea was so warm, like a bath, but it is not safe to swim in because of dangerous currents. However, we stayed in a fabulous lodge with a swimming pool! Tortuguero National Park consists of jungle surrounded by waterways and a beach (with black sand). The beach is where the endangered green sea turtles lay their eggs. Luckily we caught the end of the nesting season and were able to go on a night tour to the beach to see the turtles laying their eggs. The adult turtles weigh 200 pounds, so it really is something to see them haul themselves up the beach, dig a nest and lay eggs, and then haul themselves back to sea. We also got up really early one morning to see baby turtles hatching from these nests (James also saved a freshly hatched baby turtle from burning hot sand during the day and put it safely out to sea!!!) Seeing the turtles is one of the highlights of our trip so far, very moving. Lots of wildlife in the jungle too, we went on two wildlife spotting boat trips along the waterways, one early in the morning and one in the afternoon, and did a trek through the jungle. Saw soooooo much, three types of monkey (spider, howler and white faced monkeys), sloths, caimans, crocodiles, lizards, frogs and tons of different birds. All-in-all, it really was an amazing trip.

Previous to that trip, we spent a couple of days in Alajuela at a B&B on a small farm with lots of orange trees, 3 big dogs and some pigs, which was owned and run by a nice nutter! Took a trip to a great butterfly farm, there are so many beautiful brightly coloured butterflies over here. And then we spent a day in San Jose, the capital city, before our Torteguerro trip.

We leave Monteverde the day after tomorrow. Spend a day in San Jose (when it is James 30th Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), and the day after that, Mummy G flies home and we are getting the bus to Nicaragua.......

loadsa love
J&Jxxxx

Arequipa to Lima. Adios South America!

2007-10-22T00:49:00.000Z

Volcano backdrop to Arequipa

White stone buildings

Chillin' by the pool!

Well, Arequipa was everything we had hoped for. Beautiful architecture, relaxed, lower altitude and warm! We stayed in a great hostel with a pool, awesome buffet breakfast and a great little restaurant.

The city itself is set against 3 Volcanoes, one of which is active. The buildings are made from white volcanic stone, which looks and fells very similar to pumice. We did the usual wander around town and visited a museum containing the mummified body of Juanita, an Inca girl sacrificed to the volcano (volcanos were believed to be Gods) some 500 years ago and perfectly preserved in the permafrost until volcanic ash melted it in the 1990s, really interesting insight in to the ritualistic aspect of the Incas lives.

This was the extent of our culture in Arequipa as we wanted to make the most of the relaxed atmos before heading to Lima, which we knew was going to be quite the opposite!
It was! After a 15hr delayed bus journey thanks to hydraulics, we made it to Lima. Busy, bustling, slightly chaotic slum surrounded city, with contrasting flash hotels and shopping malls in the centre, set on high cliffs above the sea with a permanent fog!! Doesn’t it sound nice!!! Mmmmmm. We stayed in the Mirraflores area, which, to be fair was OK. Our main reason for visiting was our flight left from there to Costa Rica! We had a wander round, ate dinner then prepared for our flight the next day!

I (Jimmyg) was quite please to have avoided any illness in South America, but it got me! On the day of the flight I woke feeling sick, and then proceeded to try and find Huey down the plane toilet for the majority of the flight! Possibly the worst day of my life, made worse by a last minute aborted landing due to bad weather resulting in and extra 40 mins in the air! We did however make it safely, met MummyG and have proceeded to have an amazing time in Cost Rica.

South America is incredible. Our travels were hard work at times, but soooooo rewarding. It was above and beyond our expectations. Out of this world scenery and proud and friendly people. Possibly the highlight personally has been learning the Language, we can converse, understand and even chat a little which has multiplied the experience. Spanish lessons for sure when we return!!!

Well, love to all and time is ticking away!!!

Xxj&jxx

Copa to Cuzco..The mighty Machu!!

2007-10-07T16:31:00.000Z

Machu Picchu
Ollantaytambo. Sacred valley.
Pisaq. Sacred Valley.

Quick fire posts here, but we had to keep them seperate due to the enormity of the places vivited in terms of Travel destinations!!.. Namely Machu Picchu!!!!!!!

Soooo from copa we hopped on another bus! in the direction of Cuzco, Peru, and the worst bus journey so far!!! cramped, packed and 11.5 hours long, 2 hours longer than expexted, but hey ho it was worth it for the resulting city at the end. Cuzco!! Beatifull, clean, relaxed - larger that expected - town with truely amazing Inca inspired architecture, great musems -modern Art, Pre-Colombian and numerous others- combined with great restaurants and the odd Enlish pub selling Speckled Hen!! which is nice!! Of course our main reason for heading here was Machu Picchu!
We didn´t book the Inca trail as this books up 3 months in advance and we didn´t want to tie ourseves to a date. So we shopped around on arrival and found a 3 day bargain tour including the sacred valley, entrance to Machu, two nights accomodation in Aguas Callientes including breakfast and train journeys, for a bargain $130 each!! We were quite plaesed about this and the fact that the trip worked out perfectly! The Sacred alley trip was incredible, the valley is surrounded by towering Andesite mountains, and was sacred to the incas due to the pleasant climate and incredibly fertile soil, which it clearly is. We visited the Ince runs of Pisaq, and Ollantaytambo, the latter being the most accesible and spectacular, we spent hours wandering around here. After that we go the train to Aguas Callienntes ( meaning "Hot Water", due to the thermal spring) which is the base town for Machu.
We got the bus the next morning at 5.30am to catch the sun rise over Machu Picchu, which never really happen due to mist, but it was a great experince non the less. Nothing can prepare you for the sheer spectacle of the site, perched right in the top of a huge mountain with incredible drops off either side!! But if this wasn´t spectacle enough, we decided to walk to wayna Picchu, approx 200meters above Machu, up quite a trecherous climb, but so worth it. It looks down on Machu providing the most incredible views and steep drops, my fear of hights kicked in and I spent most of my time clinging on to rocks and wires. The Inca ruins at the top are thought to have been a possile retreat. The fact they built on such incredible terrain is bewildering. We decided to blame it on the perpetual chewing of the coca leaf, which seem to be linked to many feats of human endurance in the north of this continent!! NUTTERS!!....
In the afternoon we visited the inca bridge, which spans a cliff face which allowed them to traverse a ridge, hopefull we will be up to date on the Photo front today, so check them out, there are quite a few!!!

We are now killing time before our bus to Arequipa this evening (the town my grandad Galloway grew up in!!) It´s the second biggest city in Peru and famed for it´s white building an surrounding Volcans! we arrive there on the 8th, and spend 2 nght before Lima and our flight to Costa Rica to see Mummy G!!!!!!

The count down beigins now, just over 8 weeks untill we return!! Doesn´t time fly!!

Check below for the other post if you haven´t already read it....

love to all.
xxj&jxx

La Paz to Copacabana

2007-10-07T15:59:00.000Z

La Paz houses
Locals at the bus station
Copa centre. The blessing of the cars!!

Hey all... It´s been a while thanks to a busy 10 days.

La Paz turned out to be a lot more intersting than we expected and also not as unsafe as we had heard. We stayed in a great Hostal called the Adventure Brew, which included free all you can eat pancake breakfast! and one free beer - brewed on the premises - every night! which was just as well because thanks to the altitude smog, general filthy air and possibly a little bit of dodgy food Jude was ill for 3 days! So it was a blessing that we were in a nice hostal.
We had 2 days of sight seeng before Jude was struck down, and in that time we managed a few museums (one about the history of the Coca plant), a photo expo and the witches and local markets, so not a complete loss, and got a good feel for the city, which is completely MANIC!!

After 4 night we were ready to move on so we got the bus to Copacabana on the shore of lake Titicaca. The journey there was amazing, at one point we got on a little boat to cross the lake whilst the bus was put on a rickety wooden barge and floated across!! Absolutly hilarious, huge bussess bobbing around all over the place...Once in Copa we had a slpurge for $3 each per night in a great Hostal with an equally great Restaurant next to it with SALAD!!! which is rare, and if you do find it it is normally rinsed in dodgy water! The resaturants was sterile!!! awww yeah!!
Copa is a real hippy town and a bit touristy but nice and chilled and right on the lake, a blessed relief from La Paz.

From Copa we did a day trip to the Isla del Sol, a 2 hours boat ride on titicac. It´s the island the Incas believe the Sun was born from, and was our firs taste of Inca ruins. the boat drops you at the north where you visit a small museum and some ruins before a 3 hour walk to the south where the boat collects you and takes you back, and this was where the fun began!! The outboard motor was being a little tempramental, after a lot of stopping and staring and bobbing about, it finally packed up about 20 mins in to the journey back!! We spent about an hour bobbing around whilst the driver stripped the motor, which thankfully worked and we made it back safely one and a half hours late!! Comedy!!

Bolivia is renowned for it´s tempramental transport and infastructure and it was great to experience some of the problems, the journeys we took all be it by train bus or boat have been the most memorable of our travels so far, and that combined with the truely stunning out-of-this-world scenery has made it our top country so far. It´s been hard work, but ultimately rewarding!

Another post to follow this as we have been busy bees so eyes up!
xxj&jxx

p.s. lake Titicaca is soooo massive it´s like being by the sea!! without waves!

Salt and High Altitude!

2007-09-24T11:41:00.000Z

Hola!

Well we are now in La Paz, got here at 5.30am this morning (2 hours early!!), after a bumpy overnight bus journey from Potosi.

So last time we posted we were awaiting our train to Uyuni from Villazon. What an AWESOME journey, 9 hours of stunning scenery through tiny villages, farmland, huge red cliffs and canyons and desert. Uyuni is a cold desert town, bit scruffy, but interesting, most travellers are just passing through on their way to or from seeing the salt plains. We took a one day tour of the salt plains, which turned out to be a very surreal day of sightseeing. Our guide spoke no English, but he was great at speaking Spanish veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly so we got the jist of most of what he was saying! First stop was a train cemetery on the outskirts of Uyuni, full of old British built steam trains. We then drove across the salt plain, the Salar de Uyuni, so white and huge, 12,000km square, thats a lot of salt! There is no perspective so you can get some crazy pictues. Saw the locals mining the salt and a hotel made out of salt. We had lunch in the shadows of a dormant volcano, whilst watching flamingos and llamas (our driver cooked us steak over a gas BBQ!). Then we drove across more salt and visited fish island. Crazy island in the middle of the salt plain which has giant cactuses and rabbit like creatures with long tails! And James got some quality sunburn, resulting in very immpresive sunglasses marks on his face!

From Uyuni we caught a bus to Potosi, the highest city in the world, 4070m above sea level. The bus journey there was interesting......no bitumen at all (only 10%of roads in Bolivia have bitumen) and winding through mountains, with some very steep drops off the edge!!!!! Think of the bumpyest road you´ve been on and times it by 10!!!!! The bus also got a puncture at one point on two tyres!!!!! So we all had to get off the bus in the middle of nowhere while they fixed it, the tyres that they replaced the punctured ones with weren´t much better, they had no tred at all and bits of rubber missing! LLamas kept being getting on the road infront of the bus too, so the driver was constantly beeping his horn (something they are very fond of doing in Bolivia). But we made it. However the scenery on the drive was stunning, lots of huge red and green cliffs.

Potosi turned out to be quite a cool city, with a huge mountain called the Cerra Rico overlooking it and some great colonial buildings. The mountain used to be massive silver mine, and now looks as if it belongs on Mars after 100´s of years of mining. It is still a mine today but on a much smaller scale. Its very dangerous too, the life expectancy of people who work in there is 10 years after they have started mining because of the bad ventilation. Over 8 million people died in the mine over 300 years in its heyday,which was from1500-1800´s!!!!! Despite the altitude it wasn´t too cold, very sunny during the day. And we´ve both got used to the altitude now so no sickness :) While we were there we met up with a English couple, Emma and Rob, who we met in Chile, which was great fun. Just stayed there for one night, then lastnight caught the bus to La Paz. That bus journey wasn´t as bad, still quite bumpy though and we did have two comedy old Bolivian ladies in traditional dress sleeping in the aisle. We are staying here for 3 days, and then moving on to Copacabana............

Very behind on the piccies am afraid, hopefully we´ll find a reasonably fast interent place soon so I can upload them...........

Lots of love to everyone
J&J xxxxx

BOLIVIA!!!!!

2007-09-19T15:50:00.000Z

Hi all..

Just a quickie here to let you know we are alive and well, and a little short of breath in a town called Villazon (3440m above sea level) on the Bolivia side of the border from Argentina. We are awaiting a train to take us to Uyuni to see the salt plains.

We are a little behind on photos as interweb connection struggle to download Flickr applications here, Jude is trying as we speak.

Well after Uraguay we headed back to Buenos aires to catch a bus to Puerto Iguazu! Special note at this stage goes to my super-on-the-ball-lady who - whilst we were waiting for the bus at the notorious Retiro station - foiled an attempted theft of my bag !! 10 out of 10 and a lot of hassle saved!

After a 19 hour bus ride we arrived in Puerto Iguazu, to an amazing hostel with a massive pool, they were also the first hostel who actually got our booking correct!! a good start, and things just got better, the food there was amazing! our room was clean and in the quiet area and of course the falls were incredible! photos can't do the scale or the force justice! we did both the Argentinian and Brazilian side which was cool, both completely different. On the Argentinian side we took a speed boat ride which ploughs in to some of the falls which was fun, and damp!!

We then set off Bolivia bound by yes you guessed it BUS!! 27 and a half hours to a town called Salta for 24 hours rest before the big push to Bolivia, and here we are!!

Well signing out, as altitude is making this hard work. apologies for the poor reading will improve once we have acclimatised.

xxj&jxx

Uruguay - winners of the first ever football world cup!!!

2007-09-12T21:05:00.000Z

Wall in San Telmo, Buenos Aires

Doorway in La Boca, Buenos Aires

Hola once again!
After a surprisingly pleasant 19 hour bus journey from Bariloche (English movies, proper meals, armchair seats, wine and a bed-time whiskey!) we arrived in BUENOS AIRES. muy bien! (the spanish is getting slightly better and they speak more slowly in Argentinia so we have been able to understand people, or at least some of what they say!!!)

Buenos Aires rocked, had sooooooo much fun, saw and did loads. A city bus tour (´cos we can´t get enough of buses!!!!) showed us the main sights, including the famous Boca Junior Football stadium and the most polluted river in the World (smelt VERY bad!). We had a traditional Argentinian BBQ (Asado) —lots of charred salty meat and copious amounts of red wine, resulting in muchos headaches. We wandered the cobbled streets of the San Telmo area on Sunday (which was really near where we stayed), loads of markets, street stalls, tango, street dining and tons of people!!!! Great atmosphere. We also went to a Tango show one evening, which was one of the highlights. Professional dancers and singers (and boy could they dance and sing!) With champagne and a three course meal thrown in. One final mention for the Recoleta cemetery – home to the grave of Evita. A truely extravagant graveyard with huge ornate mausoleums crammed next to each other, with coffins on display and loads of cats wandering around!! Nuts!!!

From Buenos Aires we had the crazy idea to hop on a boat to Uruguay for a few days. We’ve visited Colonia del Sacramento – an old town built by the Portuguese as a smuggling route to Buenos Aires - beautiful architecture and generally really cute. And Montevideo, where we are now. It´s rained and thundered most of the afternoon, but we had a good stroll round this morning. Lots of huge old buildings, some of which are a bit run down, but cool atmosphere and friendly people. When we arrived in Montevideo we saw a bus for Fray Bentos, much amusement, we thought about going to get a pie, but unfortunately the factory has closed there now!

Back to Buenos Aires tomorrow, so bus, boat, then 19 hour bus journey again to Puerto Iguazu to see the mighty Iguazu falls (all 270+ of them). Quite excited about this, apparently the ions from the spray make you happy!!

Love to all.

Xxj&jxx

Don´t cry for me Argentina...............

2007-09-07T15:15:00.000Z

Volcano Villarica, Pucon, Chile

A fat sea lion in Valdivia, Chile

Bariloche, Argentina

Hey there everyone!

Well, we are in the Argentinean Lake District in a ski resort town called Bariloche by the side of Lake Nahuel Huapi. Really pretty place, very alpine. Arrived here on Wednesday after a scenic and interesting 8 hour drive over the Andes from Puerto Varas in Chile. Snow was piled higher than the bus by the side of the road, we got stuck for a bit while a wagon pulled other wagons up a hill, and we had to pass through two border crossings. The ski field near Bariloche is the biggest in South America but we decided not to board while here, partly because the conditions aren´t that great at the moment, but more importantly the hire gear is mostly multi-coloured all in ones!!!!!!!!!!!!! NICE.

Our 5-day trip from Santiago down to the Lake District region of Chile was great. We spent the first night in the beach town resort of Pichelimu, has the best surf in the whole of Chile and amazing black sand beaches. Bit cold when we were there though to appreciate the beach. Second stop was Pucon (via an awesome museum in Santa Cruz containing a huge and very eclectic collection of all kinds of stuff belonging to a very rich Chilean arms dealer!). Pucon lies in the shadows of Volcano Villarica, which is active! It puffs smoke by day and glows by night, cooooooooool. We did a 40km bike ride in the countryside around it one afternoon, beautiful, and we saw some baby lambs J Then it was further South to Valdivia, where we saw the fattest and laziest sea lions ever, they just gorge on fish from the fish market! Finally arriving in Peurto Varas after a stop-off to eat salmon and peruse the local markets in Peurto Montt. Made some new friends on the trip too, we had a cool guide called Nicos and a great driver called Sergio, both from Santiago and both spoke really good English, thanks guys! And there were only four other peeps on the trip, including an English couple from Twickenham, all great fun.

So this afternoon we are catching the bus to Buenos Aires, woooooooooohooooooooooooo, bring on the steaks and the tango. A 19 hour journey arriving around midday. Can´t wait!

Lotsa love,
J&J xxxx

San Pedro de Atacama

2007-08-29T20:47:00.000Z

Hi all.

Still safe and sound and now fluent in spanish!.....mmmm.

Quick update after a few awesome days in the far north of chile. San Pedro, in the Atacama desert.

We are a bit pressed for time, so decided to do a 2 day trip there, sandwiched by a 24 hour journey on either side!! But is was well worth it. beautifull chilled little historic farming town in the middle of the desert, 2500m above sea level and boy did we feel it. But despite this we decided to hire bikes and sand boards and head in to Death Valley - as it`s know locally - to hoon down sand dunes!! What a day!! we met a really nice couple from Northampton (Matt and Phil) on the bus and hooked up for food and then the boarding... It was top dollar ...

San Pedro was really good fun, great food and a really chilled party vibe. It was baking hot in the day and really cold at night, so all the bars and restaurants had open fires in them which was really cool. The locals however did their best to extract as much money out of the gringo's ( us ) as they possibly could, which was a bit of a shame. But never-the-less it was well worth the marathon journey!

Back in Santiago now for a night before our 5 day trip down south tomorrow morning. (Thursday)

Hope you are all well.

xxJ&Jxx

Santiago!!! safely!!!!

2007-08-25T16:45:00.000Z

Our hotel above!!!
The general architecture of paris-londres!!!

Hola! Buenos dias a Santiago!!!

Yep, we made it safe and sound after a 2 hour delay leaving Auckland!!

Culture shock? mmmmmm YES!!! nothing like plopping in to a city with a foreign language that you only have only a very basic grasp of to throw you well out of your comfort zone!!!! But we are doing ok, so far we have booked a hostel room over the phone, bus tickets, and ordered pizza! awww yeah! we will be fluent before you know it!?!!

Santiago is MENTAL, really busy, with lots of music coming from every direction, including the room next to ours in the hotel. The drive in from the airport was a real eye opener! A litter filled river with lots of shack style housing on the banks.... We are staying in the Paris-Londres area right in the centre, really funky with a great little cafe nearby that we have frequnted for many a Cervessa and vino tinto in the evenings.....

We are heading off on a 22 hour bus journey north this afternnon to San Pedro, a high altitude desert town in the north, which is apparently stunning. We are there for a few days before heading back south to Satiago, then south to the lake district area where we will cross in to Argentina!!

The bus journey up and back is designated "language Learning" time.... We need it!!!!!

p.s. As a nation the chilian people are quite small, and thus I (james) am source of much fascination to many of them!! GRANDE they all laugh.... V-amusing

well over and out...

xxj&j..

A month in Wanaka.....

2007-08-19T00:01:00.000Z

And what a month it was!!! We have had such a great time! Great to spend QT with Morag and Chris, and get some serious boarding in. We all came on loads!! Check the photos, mostly thanks to Mr Waring with his multitude of recording equiptment......

The Apartment we stayed in was great! perfect location near town and the cinema (Link...possibly the coolest cinema in the world) great facilities and run by a really cool couple!!!

The resort we boarded at was great too! (Cardrona) Thankfully seeing as we bought a season pass for it! it had enought to keep us occupied, and has amazing facilities for children and disabled, which was really cool to see!!!

We also visited Treble cone for a day which was a little disappointing and has a hairy road running up to it!!!

But the true gem of the trip was a club ski field called Ohau. (Linky) A true NZ ski field, one lift, hardly any people there and great back country, off piste and ridge drop runs!!! We spent an afternoon and a day there, and the night between in the Ohau Lodge, which was worth the trip in itself, 3 course breakfast and dinner included!! num num num!!!

You will be pleased to hear that we are all in one piece, with the odd strain and bruise though, but nothing major, and now ready for our next leg to Santiago on wednesday!! wooo hooooo!

Stunning South Island..........

2007-07-20T00:11:00.000Z

Hey everyone!

Well, we drop our Ezy Cruisa off tomorrow, pick-up an El Cheapo, collect Morag and Chris from Queenstown airport, drive to our swanky pad in Wanaka and then spend a month snowboarding, wooooooooooohooooooooooooooooooo J

So last time we wrote we were in Wellington, waiting for our ferry over to Picton. That was quite an experience; we sailed in “less than favourable conditions”, quoting the captain. These conditions consisted of 5 metre waves and gale force winds, hmmm, wasn’t sure we were going to make it to the South Island. But we did, and we’ve had a fantastic 2 weeks here, can’t really describe how beautiful it is. STUNNING. We are now both suffering from “view fatigue”!!!!!!

After Picton our first stop was Nelson, from where we could admire the mountains of the Abel Tasman National Park. From here we drove to Hamner Springs over the Lewis Pass. Bright blue skies when we left Nelson, but once on the pass we experienced our first snowfall, had to get out of the car and jump around in it! Hamner Springs is a crazy little mountain town; basically the whole town is centred around a huge outdoor thermal spa place with loads of different pools. Of course we had to have a soak in a few. Two ski fields nearby too. Snowed loads over night.

The next day we headed to Christchurch, freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing there! Seemed like a cool city, very British looking. Checked out a local micro brewery run by two English guys, good beer!

From Christchurch we headed over Arthurs Pass to the West Coast and Franz Josef, that drive was probably one of the most amazing we have done in NZ. Bright blue skies, snow-capped mountains, frozen lakes, misty valleys, turquoise rivers, ugly mountain parrots, frosty sheep….etc etc!! GORGEOUS. Anyway, the next day we walked to the terminal faces of both the Franz Joesef and Fox Glaciers (couldn’t work out if this glacier has any connection to Fox Glacier mints—James even did a taste test!). The glaciers are awe inspiring, massive, and once close up, they look really unreal. We also checked out the beautiful Lake Matheson, with its great reflections of Mount Tasman and Mount Cook.

From here we headed to Haast Beach and Jacksons Bay, a tiny tiny and very remote fishing village, in search of penguins. Nope, we didn’t see any, they were hiding or having a party or something.

And then it was over the Haast Pass to Wanaka. Incredible drive round the edge of lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. But cloudy and cold on arrival. From Wanaka we headed off to Te Anau as a base before our trip to Milford Sound, which we did the next day, truly stunning, like being in another world, towering cliffs into still turquoise waters and we saw fur seals, very cute!!

After this we headed as far south as we could go to Invercargill. Not a very inspiring town, but an absolute gem of a campsite which we had to ourselves! After Invercargill we headed to Dunedin (celtic for Edinburgh and you can see why), a beautiful historic city, really funky, helped by a large student community. And that was it, all major NZ cities covered!!!

And after a mamouth post we are up to date!!… Our lodge has internet connection, and Chris is bringing lots of recording gadgetry with him, so watch this space for much snow frivolities!! And who knows maybe a few comedy video diaries!!!

Hope all is well and not too wet!!

lol j&j

ps, my Oz mobile phone number no longer works.

Stage 2 - Middle Earth!!!!

2007-07-09T02:02:00.000Z

Hello all.

A bit of a delay since our last post, but we have been busy tying up odds and ends and saying farewell to our Oz chums before departing for New Zealand.

So here we are safe and sound in a decidedly chilly Wellington after a week traveling around the North Island. We spent 2 nights at a rather plush hotel in Auckland on our arrival, giving us time to settle in and see the city before picking our Van up on Wednesday. (a rather beautiful automatic! 3liter Toyota high ace with a ginger girl on the side!!) Nice but not quite a VW!!

Our first port of call was the bay of islands, Paiha and Waitangi for the exact location, north of Auckland. Famed for the signing of the Maori treaty of independence in 1840. Stunning bays, and good weather which really helps!

From here we headed down to Rotarua AKA fartopolis, thanks to the thermal activity and constant smell of Sulphur! Our reason for traveling there was to spend a little time soaking in the many mineral pools there. Which we did - quite a lot . Highlight though was Skyline adventure, where you go up a mountain in a Gondola then hoon it down in plastic go-karts!! Too much fun!!! Put a smile on our face for the rest of the day. Also Jude got chance to have her finger suckled by a BABY LAMB at an agricultural show that just happened to be on!! VIVIR EL SUENO!!!

After two days of self wrinkling we headed down to the town of Taupo, and lake Taupo. Again thermal pool-tastic and stunning views across the lake to Tongariro national park and the 3 towering snow capped volcanic peaks, Mt Tongariro, Mt Nguaruhoe, and Mt Ruapehu (one of which is Mount Doom) check the pictures, quite impressive!

The next morning we headed to one of the ski fields in the Tongariro national park, Whakapapa on Mt Ruapehu, and got a tasta of the NZ piste vibe, before heading down to Wanganui , which was last night. And there we are, up to date.

We sail for the South Island tomorrow morning.

Hope you are all in fine fettle.

Miss you.

Xxj&jxx

Back to Sydney...

2007-06-15T01:20:00.000Z

We’ve arrived back in Sydney, via dodging a few storms, lots of flooding and a ship!

After hastily leaving Surfers Paradise and the rest of the Gold Coast we retreated to the Springbook National Park. Not far inland but a world away from the high rises, theme parks and fast food joints of the coast (with a great walk through an ancient misty Antarctic beech forest to a volcano rim look-out point, see pics)

Next port of call was Nimbin! Famed for its hippy community and a strange grass substance called Marry-Juanna. Had a great burger, then headed off along windy roads through Macadamia nut farms, and through Dunoon ( Australia’s Macadamia nut capital apparently), back towards the coast. We stayed near Lennox heads where it started to rain and rain…..

The rain theme continued - as some of you may have heard - for sometime, and quite heavily…Our trip to Byron bay was wet, but we had a good wander round. Bit of a shame as we would have liked to stay here for longer, but hey ho. We then moved on to Coffs Harbor (home of the big banana!), where it rained some more, we did however have a window the next morning where we managed to do some humpback whale and dolphin spotting at Woolgoolga.

In a sunny spell we moved onto Nambucca Heads and then South West Rocks, where it started to rain again! We spent a fine night in Forster and then 2 nights sheltering in Shoal bay, just along from Nelsons bay north of Newcastle, as the worst of the weather settled in. Nice little bay, with a great Italian restaurant and a good pub (that carried on serving through a power cut, top marks!).

On Monday, the sun returned and we set off to Newcastle to see the beached boat, which was very big and very stuck on Nobbys beach!!! Saw loads of abandoned cars, flooding and storm damage on the way in and out and all the way back to Sydney.

So here we are back staying with Sophie, Richard and Joel in Collaroy in the Northern beaches of Sydney. And its cold!!!!! (well 15 degrees, which is cold for us!!!) But having a great time (thanks guys J) and looking forward to Joel’s 1st birthday on Sunday and having some of the awesome looking teddy bear cake that soph has made.

Not much more time left in Oz, we leave for a week in Melbourne on Tuesday and then back to Sydney for a few days (thanks in advance to Nic and Tali, and Helen and Al!!!) before flying to New Zealand on July 2nd…………..

Mucho Gusto!!!

J&J

Ausralia Zoo - Brisbane.

2007-06-04T01:59:00.000Z

CRIKEY!!!! Yip we came, we saw, and we enjoyed the amazing AUSTRALIA ZOO (After a visit to the glasshouse mountains! Amazing remnant volcanic plug mountains just in land from the east coast).. Not big zoo fans but we loved this one. Massive enclosures for ALL the animals, really educational, and hands on staff who spend loads of time interacting with the critters.

Highlights were Jude finally getting to stroke a Koala! its butt to be exact, but Koala never the less, and the Croccosium display- Birds Snakes and CROCS!! really cool.

We spent the whole day there, for $49 each we had to get our moneys worth, but we did and would recommend it to anyone. Missed the mighty Steve though.

We then headed down to Brissy and had a poo weekend. Brisbane is cold wet and frankly not worth a visit!!!! Only kidding. It's great, we hooked up with Rich, Jill and Mike and Sara of Melbourne Christmas fame, and had a lovely afternoon strolling around the various museums and galleries on the south bank. before Rich headed off to watch wales get a whupping in the rugby!! we went to a Belgian beer cafe and ended up having our latest night for 8 weeks!! 11.18pm before we hit the sack!!! ROCK AND ROLL!!!

We then met a "Pete the Pom" on Sunday Morning (Family friend), who cooked us a fried breakfast and chatted for 3 hours supplying us with dvd' books and a drive of his rather nice 1974 Jag!!! 4.2. I pretty much had the perfect Sunday morning, and that combined with him being a top bloke to boot made for a very pleasant start to the day. we then hooked up with rich and Jill and the crew for a late lunch before hitting the road again.

In Surfers paradise now, can't imagine anything other than the surf being paradise anymore thanks to 50 years of continual highrise building!!! Pretty......

Hope all is well with all..

xxj&jxx

The Sunshine Coast

2007-05-28T02:14:00.000Z

Hey everyone!

Well, here we are on the Sunshine Coast (although it hasn't been massively sunny!) On the way here we stopped for a chat with Hugh Jackman on the set of Baz Luhrmans new film "Australia" in Bowen (he did actually speak to us, unfortunately Nicole wasn't around that day!). And had a couple of days in tiny but lovely Town of 1770.

We started off on the Sunshine Coast at a place called Inskip Point, as close as you can get to Fraser Island without actually going on it! Great bush camping by the sea, along with lots of fishermen catching not many fish. Stayed there for a couple of days and then wandered down to Rainbow Beach to see the very impressive Carlo Sandblow and Rainbow Sand Cliffs. From here we moved onto Noosa Shire, spent a night bush camping again by the sea on Noosa North Shore (it rained ALOT). We've just spent a couple of days in Noosa Heads mixing with the very rich and admiring the flashy houses (Pat Rafter lives there apparently)!!!!! But we've decided its much too posh for us there and now are moving inland for a couple of days (and also to escape the touristyness of the Sunshine/Gold Coast for a bit!)..........before we take a trip to Australia Zoo to admire Steve Irwin's handy work (has to be done!) and head down to Brisbane next weekend.......

North to Whitsundays coast!!

2007-05-19T23:43:00.000Z

Firstly the Dub is running sweeeeet!!! Just in case you were all worried.

Well we have been bumbling down the top east coast at a very leisurly pace compared to the middle. We are now in Mackay for those of you in the know..

We've had a full on reef ecperience in the last week. We stayed a few days at a place called Mission Beach where they have a catemeran that boasts the fastest trip to the Outer reef (beaver Cay marine park) 1hr, so we went on it. full day with about 3 hours snorkeling all in all in crystal clear seas about 22 nauticle miles off the coast. Just amazing, millions of fish of all shapes sizes and colours! hopefully some pics of this too!!!

We then - for contrast - moved to a place called Airlie beach ( Bit of a party town) at the North area of the coast in the Whitsunday island region. From here (possibly the highlight so far) we had a day sailing on MAXI Ragamuffin, a world class, 3 times Sydney to Hobart winning yacht! It took us to Blue pearl bay, a fringe reef around Haymen Island for a spot more snorkling, then lunch, a few XXXX beers, and a leisurely sale back. Absolutely wicked day with top crew! and we got to hoist the main sale!!!!

Livivn' the dream!!!

xxj&jxx

Kakadu to Cairns....VW problems!!!

2007-05-13T23:55:00.000Z

Yes, we made it to the East coast without too major a problem!! More to follow on that.....

After Darwin, we headed to Kakadu National Park, a world heritage area south-east of Darwin, famed for it's Indiginous artwork, wetland, spectacular scenery and Salties! (Easturine Crocs) We didn't see any( Crocs), and to be fair we didn't stay that long as it was still the tail end of the wet season, and most tourist options were closed. Instead - on the advice of Budgie our friendly camp hand at the Mary River Park campsite where we stayed before going to Kakadu - we headed to Litchfield National Park. a lot more accessible than Kakadu, with the same highlights and on an escarpment so no Salties. Some great rock holes to swim in and cool off (Still a bit to humid for us.) Namely the Buley rock hole and the florence falls, where we camped for 2 nights. Check out the Photos.

We then headed down to Katerhine Gourge, amazing Scenery but again not much to do due to high water levels and croc threat., so we did a walk and left. Sounds crazy but the humidity made it hard to do anything after 9am, we really struggled to motivate ourselves to do anything other than swim where we could, so this is what we spent most of our time doing!

After a week around the Darwin area we decided to head for the East coast... To escape the Humididty. Our best decision of the trip was to strictly stay on Bitumen roads, no unsealed, for our own and Van safety, and boy was it a good'un!! Thanks to some dirty/dusty petrol our pump broke!! resluting in lots of sucking on petrol filters (2 to be exact!!) both of which died and killed the valves in the pump!! This happened at the holiday weekend so no mechanics,,so we ended up staying 2 night at a really nice site in a little town called Richmond right next to a lake, so againa bit of swimming interspersed with spark plug/oil/fuel filter changing, just to eradicate a few possibilites. We then made it to Hughenden on minimal pumpp before it broke completely, resulting in more sucking on fuel filters and some pushing to add to the entertainment!! Then We found Bill our hero who said "Yes" when all the others said "no" and the next afternoon after a free night in the Yard of Bob's agricultural supplies we had a shiny new ELECTRIC FUEL PUMP!!!!! Woooooo Hoooooooo....

So here we are now in Cairns after a few days in the Daintree National Park (pics to follow as we are getting ahead of ourselves now!!) Cape Tribulation to be exact, the wet tropics, and boy is it wet. Nice to see a bit of water after the middle though, and not as humid as darwin..

Well thats all for now.

Hope you are all well you Facebook crazy kids!!!!!

xxj&jxx

Going Tropo!!!

2007-04-30T02:38:00.000Z

Right!! A great broadband internet connection found in Darwin, so time for a full update!!

Yes 5000k's and we are in Darwin, after quite frankly an awesome 2 weeks on the road. Sooo much to tell, so to keep it punctual i'm going to use lots of bullit points and headings!!

After a brief stop in Port Augusta for supplies, Petty and VW check, we set off on the Stuart highway, first stop Lake heart rest area, pretty spectacular dester lake, but most memorable as our first encounter with THE FLIES!!!! nothing can prepare you for them.....
The next day we set off For Coober Pedy, (opal Mining capital of the world) Check out the pics, crazy place where 70% of the peolpe live underground and everyone knows how to make bombs!! A combo which makes for some interesting history!!! (We were there sat night so experienced the nightlife! real party vibe in the worlds only underground pub!)

We then set off on a 650k stomp in the direction of Uluru!! We stayed at a roadhouse called Curtain springs, had a beer then slept!! ROCK!!!! The next morn we set off for Uluru, we spent the day there and stayed at the Uluru campsite so we could see sunset and sun rise the next day before heading off to the Kata Tjuta (Many Heads) range, which are more visually spectacular then Uluru, just not spiritually...
We then drove to Kings canyon 300k's from Uluru and did a 4 hr warlk around the rim, absolutely amazing...(check out pick) that eve we stayed at the resort campsite, really nice with a pool! Water!! to swim in!!! ahhhhhhhh.....
After we stayed at Mount Ebeneezer, mmmmm, interestng, some late night arguing and people being kicked off the site....
The next morn, we left early and drove 700k's to Alice! Spent the night there and had a great meal at Bojangles, a semi themed bar in the centre of town. We really liked Alice after hearing so much negative stuff about the place we were really supprised! If you are in Oz you have to go, it's well worth a visit.. Next stop after Alice was The Devils Marbles (granit rock formations!!) We spent the night there, I did some work on the van and had 3 Bloke stood round watching and chatting!! Livin' the dream, Livin' the dream!!!!
The next morn we set off to Darwin via the devils waters pub Check out the link, really cool place.....Before Darwin we spent the night at Mataranka where they have thermal pools!! just what we needed after a day on the road!!
And here we are going tropo in the heat and humidity!!! It's soooooo humid! but Darwin is really cool, chilled out, and cosmopolitan as it is a stopover for S/W/E trips!!!
Highlights of trip so far.....
*Sunrise/sunset over Uluru and the Devils Marbles.
*Si In Port August for sorting the tappets out.
*The crazy Scenery change from desert to Tropics
*Coober Pedy. Such a wicked place ($40 dollars for 3 month mining licencse!! might try it!!)
*The rim walk at kings canyon and the garden of eden
*swimming in thermal pools in the morning at Mataranka
*seeing a 2 meter long Well fed Olive Python..
*Wedge tailed eagles.

Right off to Kakadu Nat park today, then Katherine, before we head over to Cairns.

Luv Y'all!!!!

xxJ&Jxxx

Camels, Dingos and Thorny devils!!!

2007-04-26T05:49:00.000Z

Hey Yall....

Well, we are in Alice Springs after our trek throught the mighty Red centre, calling at Uluru (ok) Kata Tjuta - aka the Olgas (not bad) and Kings Canyon (worth a visit)... No honestly! quite mind bogglingly amazing. The whole spiritual connection for the indiginous people which is the most amazing part, quite incomprehensible a 22,000 year connection.

A few more photos to view on the Flickr site so check them out, but we are struggling to upload them all due to restrictions on internet cafe's computers. Broadband and windows ain't that commonly used yet in the centre!!

The VW is - touch wood - doing us proud, thanks to Si at the garage in Port August who replaced our front left wheeel bearings and adjusted Tappets for a very reasonable price.... Tappets!! the VW achillies heel......

Well a brief update again, off on the road again tomorrow in the directon of Katherine, great gourge there. Then onwards to Darwin.

Luv You all.

xxj&jxx

Hit the road.......

2007-04-17T05:12:00.000Z

Hola!!

Brief post just to update.... We have just set off on the open road after an awesome week in Melbourne!! We spent Easter with Nic and Tali in a place called Warbourton in the Yarra valley. Top Polish food in a restaurant there. then the rest of the week with them in Melbourne. thanks guys for a great time and a pretty high score on the host-ometer!!!! We really do love the Mighty Melb.....

We have just finished the Great Ocean Road, which runs from near melbourne in the direction of Adelaide(see map)! A few facts for you!! The worlds largest war memorial! (built by 3000 returned soldies from the first world war in memory of fallen soldiers) and rated as one of the top 10 road trips in the world by a reputable driving publication whose name escapes me.....So as you can imagine it was pretty awesome...

The rest of the trip is as follows;- from Adelaide we drive straight up throught the middle to Darwin, visiting Uluru, kings canyon and various other place along the way. Then from Darwin to Cairns, and from there back to Sydney for mid June to sell the Dub!!!(booo hooo) Sorry this post is really abrupt but library clock is ticking!!!!! we have so much more to tell that will have to wait. sorry.....

We will post more details soon and photo's....

love to all..

xxj&jxx

GO GO GO!!!

2007-03-31T01:03:00.000Z

The Ultimate F1 Car!!!
Wurtz out! (below)

Greetings all!

Hope you are all well.

Sadly not the interactive F1 post that I had hoped due to Library P.C. not allowing me to download my videos from my phoneL! Hey ho! But in a nutshell we had an awesome day. I, as you can imagine was in my element!! The Tractioan area we were in was wicked! Right on turns 3 and 4 (where Coulthard crashed into Wurtz!!!) as much food and drink as you could manage from 10am – 5.30pm (so we were a little worse for ware by the end of the dayJ) The atmosphere was awesome, F3 race, aussie V8 races, celebrity cup race and loads more, so full on petrol head entertainment all day, combined with dj’s, the Sneaky Sound System, and then a funk/dance group fronted by Mr Jigga to end the day… Great to experience a bit of the glamour of Formula 1!!!

After the GP we returned to Sheparton for more fruit picking, only to be rained, yes rained off! So back to Melb for a Victorian microbrewery beer festival in Fed square which was really cool! We tried a warm beer! Much to the amusement of many Oz blokes around us!

On Monday of this week we finally began -after nearly a month- fruit picking again, the mighty Granny Smith apples! Mmmm, to be completely honest the appeal of getting up a silly o’clock and spending hours filling monstrous bins of easily bruised fruit has begun to loose it’s appeal now! But only 4 more days left before we have enough petrol money for our round Oz trip! We are both itching to get on the road now as fruit picking has dragged on a bit longer than anticipated, but despite this we have had a great experience and made some good friends along the way.

Easter weekend looming and a bit of a Polish Jamboree planned with Nick and Tali in the Mighty Melb, and no doubt a few stubbies in celebration of the end of the Fruit Picking!!! Before we head off on the Great Ocean Road………. Post to follow.

So have a top easter all.

A few special birthday wishes!

Firstly to the Mighty Fin (My godson) Happy 2^nd birthday, miss ya dogs!! :0

And the Mighty Mummy G for the 18^th April, just in case we can’t post again before then.

Xxj&jxx

You Little Devils!

2007-03-13T00:06:00.000Z

Tasmanian dawn!!.....
Wineglass Bay....
Weindorfs forest in the Crdle Mountain National park (How Lord of The Rings!!!)

Hello!

I hope everyone is doing well and all is ok.

Soooooooo, we finished picking pears on Wednesday 28^th Feb, a bit earlier than expected due to a poor crop caused by frost, wind and severe drought (our knowledge of pear farming is astounding now, but to stop people from logging off, I’ll save that info for another time!). Despite it being really hard work, very VERY hot at times (a temperature of 43C was recorded in the orchards on one day), and also not quite as lucrative as we thought (you have to pick A LOT of pears to fill one bin!), we thoroughly enjoyed it and met some great people. So much so in fact, that we are going back there to pick apples on the 20^th March for a couple of weeks (interesting apple facts to follow…….).

In-between picking different varieties of fruit we have been doing some more exploring and visiting…..

We popped off to Tasmania for a week on Thursday 1^st March on the overnight ferry, “The Spirit of Tasmania I”, leaving Melbourne at 8pm and arriving in Devonport in Tassie at 7am. It’s a massive P&O style ferry that takes 11 hours to sail about 350km across the Bass Straits, but its great fun. Once there we saw and did loads, and it’s an amazing and beautiful place, very alpine-like in places.

Starting off in Devonport we drove down the middle passing through Launceston (where they brew James Boag beer, don’t know if they get it in the U.K, if they do try it, it’s nice!). We spent Saturday in Hobart and experienced the Salamanca Market, supposedly the best market in Australia! It is quite awesome, with tons of stuff ranging from fruit and veg to Tasmanian soaps to Merino wool hats. But it was also reeeeeally busy. From there we headed east to Port Arthur (where they used to put all the prisoners!) with a stop over in the Tasman National Park. We camped at a place called Fortescue Bay, gorgeous, and the camp manager gave us a massive bit of yellow-fin tuna that he had caught and his wife cooked that day, yum!

From Port Arthur we drove to Coles Bay, and that was when we experienced our first proper rain for weeks!!!! We camped at a place called Friendly Beach, which wasn’t very friendly at all then! But the next day it was bright sunshine again and we walked over to Wineglass Bay, which is rated as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and it didn’t disappoint, stunning beach, with white sand and rolling waves, and you can only get there via a steep rocky path, so it’s really quiet! And on that walk is when we saw our first live snakes (that weren’t in a zoo!). Two big black Tiger snakes, which are dangerously venomous……………………hmmmm, as you can imagine I wasn’t scared at all…..especially when James stood underneath one dangling from a tree and started to take pictures………..hopefully we won’t see anymore!

We then set of across the middle of Tasmania crossing the central plains, then up into the central plateau region, and into the Great Lakes. The variety of landscape we drove through in a relatively short space of time was incredible, green fields and lush forest, to dry, brown, flat fields, then hilly rocky land with loads of lakes and hydroelectric power stations. We camped by Lake Arthur, and it was FREEZING. When we woke up in the morning there was a thick layer of frost on the van, it was so cold, 1974 VW campervans definitely weren’t made for camping in cold weather!!!! Trying to warm-up we drove to Lake St Clair, and then carried onto to Queenstown and Strahan.

The journey from Lake St Clair to Strahan took us through some pretty amazing landscapes, the wilderness area to the baroness of the mining area around Queenstown. Films set on the moon have been filmed there, because there are just rocks left after years of over mining.

After camping by the sea in Strahan, at a place called “Hells gate” (where the convicts were sailed to Sarah island through), we went to Cradle Mountain, where apparently, on 7 out of every 10 days its raining, and on only 1 out of 10 days its sunny!!! We were lucky, it wasn’t sunny, but it wasn’t raining either! Fantastic Mountain though, check out the pics! After Cradle Mountain we stayed at a wicked campsite near a tiny (2 house) place called Moina. Again, rain, and the van sprung a little leak! 32 year old rubber seals find any more than a fine drizzle a little challenging!!

The next day we did a swift dash along the North West coast through Burnie, famed for its deep water port!! Penguin, famed for it’s….yes you guessed it Penguins! Who were absent on the day of our visit!! And then to Devonport, to buy James a shirt for Sophie and Richards Oz Wedding! ($7 Red Cross with sleeves too short! Apparently Oz blokes have shorter arms than Europeans ;) and then to catch the ferry…

Which bring us nicely to the end of this post…. Sophie and Richards Oz wedding! On Sunday the 11^th March. We drove up the now very familiar Hume highway on Friday, stopping over at our favourite rest stop in Jugiong, and arriving on Saturday afternoon, slightly later than planned due to Jimmy G knee problems (which are recovering nicely now). The venue was lovely, right on the sea, Sophie looked Stunning in her dress and all in all we had a top day, it was really nice to be a part of it after missing the U.K. one. Again as stated in our gorgeous card, we wish you lots of happiness, and thanks for the use of the shower! Should tide us over for another few weeks ;)

OK! Monster post over now! Off to the mighty Melb this aft to hook up with Tali, Nic, Rich and Jill for a few days before the Melb GP (GRAND PRIX!!!) on Sunday. As you can imagine James is just a little bit excited about this. There will be a full interactive blog post to follow with Videos and general highlights!!!.... After this frivolity, back to Shepparton to bag some Apples!! Wooo hoooo

Hope all are well.

Keep us posted on U.K shenanigans.

Love J&J

Nice Pear!!!

2007-02-17T00:11:00.000Z

Hello!

Not so off the radar after all! It turns out our Orchard is a short drive from the Maroopna Library, so free tinterweb and blogging!!

Well, the first week of fruit picking is done. We survived with a few scratched (actually quite a lot) and bruised shins – mainly from walking into well camouflaged sprinkler spouts, which REALLY HURTS!!!. The picking is actually good fun once you make it past the 3 day pain barrier. We managed 17 bins (one bin holds half a ton of pears) between us this week at 36 dollars each, and bonus, we found out we only get taxed 13% instead of 40% due to a government incentive to get people picking, as fruit farms are struggling to get staff!! (Why guys, these blog entries are getting more and more riveting by the week I hear you say!;) Yeah sorry at least we aren’t boring you with Pear varieties (willaims and Packhams for those who are interested), where they go and how they are stored!! Although Coca Cola use Pear skin as an ingredient! Interesting huh!

We owe most of our pear knowledge to our quality controller, Mick. Who can be seen in one of the photos next to a bin. He is a bit of a leg-end, and I’m sure sick of our continual pear related questions! Turns out there is more to pears than meets the eye!!

We have fallen on our feet really, not many orchards have campsites on them like ours (which is really nice) and when we arrived we saw loads of pickers from other farms having to hitch hike back to their campsite! The crew are all really nice and not cracking whips, we pick at our own pace and basically do as much – or as little when it’s 38 degrees - as we like! There are some really cool people here from all over the globe, so we have befriended a couple (Craig and Sarah) from Leeds! (always doing our bit for international relations!!) who have emigrated, and have an awesome 7yr old British bull dog, we will try and get some photo’s. he picks pears off the tree, eats them and then farts all night!! Hilarious!!

Anyway, free tinterweb time is running out, so bye for now, hope you are all well and check out all the new photo's, some of Canberra - which we passed through on the way down - there too.

J&J

Off the radar....

2007-02-06T01:51:00.000Z

Van at wollemi
Strike a pose!
Where next?!

mmmm attractive!!

Hi All.

This may very well be our last post for a month or so, as we will be picking pears for the next four weeks, and weekly photo’s of soft fruit may not be very exciting!!!

The Photos above of us are to remind you of us, and also a little “tan comparison” before shot, as four weeks in the sun is going to improve our current factor 30 aided tan considerably!!!

Right! Update! Last wed – fri was spent in the Wollemi National Park at a place called Newnes, which was an old Oil shale mining town from 1904 to 1939(see the photo’s) We were quite shocked to find a bit of intact history! The campsite was the most remote we have been to yet, 40km gravel road to get there, bless the van it got a bit of a shaking, but, again, well worth the drive. We were right under huge cliff faces.

We walked a total of 30km in 2 days. One walk around the old ruins of the buildings and one along the old train route in to the valley, with the highlight being the glow-worm tunnel. Awesome!!! (see photo’s)

We have now left the Northern Beaches, and are now currently retracing our post Christmas steps that we took with Tali and Nick. We departed the Croan household (Thanks again you guys) on Saturday and set off on the Princes Highway south in the direction of Melbourne.

On the Saturday evening –after visiting Kiama with it’s famous blow hole, that decided not to blow that day- we stayed at Green Patch campground (V-Busy) at Jervis Bay. Beautiful, white (possibly the whitest yet) beach and inland lagoon.

In the morning we set off to Pebbly beach (Kangaroo colony on beach you may remember) where we have now decided to stay until Friday morning, firstly because it has the perfect body surfing sized waves and 20 degree sea, and secondly it will allow us to visit Canberra on the way to the fruit farm without backtracking and adding extra journey time blah blah blah… riveting post huh guys!!!!.....

For anyone interested we will be picking pears at 36 dollars per bin at the McNab fruit farm somewhere in the region of Sheperton about 140km northeast of Melbourne from Monday 12^th Feb until Fri 9^th march!!! Wooo Hoooo. I detect pear consumption may be quite high!!

Right, Love to all, hope you haven’t all frozen to death!

Xx J&J

Busy busy busy....

2007-01-27T05:17:00.000Z

Lake StClaire
Bondi to Cogee (Bondi)
Palm beach
Submarine beach. Myall lakes
Hi All.

Had a busy few weeks, as our time in Sydney draws to an end. We have basically being trying to do all the things we hadn’t yet got round to, and been quite successful!

Firstly, the Bondi to Coogee walk - a 5km walk taking in some great beaches. See the Photo’s, some really good beaches and coastline.

Secondly, barren Joey lighthouse walk at Palm beach (where Home and Away is based for all you Oz soap fans!) Again a great walk, we took the old smugglers path up, quite steep and narrow but well worth it for the views. Again see photos.

Thirdly, the Myall Lakes, which are a collection of coastal lake about 200 clicks north of Sydney. (Forster and Tuncurry area for more specific location) Which - once we arrived - were stunning. We were diverted when we set off on Monday due to a large bush fire in the Kur-ing-gai chase national park which borders North Sydney, and ended up in the McQuarie arms in Windsor again! Not a place we planned on visiting quite so soon again, but a welcome break. In the end we didn’t make it to the lakes that evening, instead we ended up at - what turned out to be - a wicked little site on the shores of Lake StClaire, just north of Singleton (A coal mining town (?) inland near the Hunter Valley).. What a gem, really quiet, huge! And Sea eagles circling around! Awesome.. On Tuesday we made it to the lakes, and it was well worth the extra hassle! Huge coastal sand bank locked lakes and white beaches. We visited a viewing plateau 250m above sea level called Whoota Whoota. A little hazy but still fantastic panoramic views. In the eve we stayed at a remote little site called Yagon. A coastal site right behind the beach sand dunes, really nice and again quiet! The next day the rain set in so we decided to sun chase back to Sydney and as there wasn’t any all the way we ended up back in the northern beaches!

Finally Australia day yesterday was fun, walked for miles around central Sydney and soaked up the atmos. Lots of fun and some tasty beer at the Lord Nelson brewery in the Rocks to end the day.

As we said earlier our last week in Sydney is upon us before heading off to do some Fruit picking before Melbourne, and what can we say other than a MASSIVE THANKS to Soph Rich and baby Joel for the use of their rather awesome place in Collaroy. It’s been really nice staying here before heading off on the road. We can’t thank you enough . And also again to Helen and Al. THANKS….

Peace out all

XxJ&J

The mighty D!!!

2007-01-17T03:03:00.000Z

Tenacious D. Live at the Hordern Pavillion 16th Jan 2006!!! ROCK!!!!

The second clip contains some vile language. Do no play if you are easily offended....

The Blue Mountains.

2007-01-14T08:06:00.000Z

The Cathedral
The Three Sisters

Hi All !

Last week saw us finally make it to the Blue Mountains ! And what a trip it was too.

We set off on Monday afternoon, destination Blackheath, the national park centre to be exact. Our plan was to make it to the Janolan caves area by evening, but as we only arrived in Blackheath at 4.30pm and there would have been another one and a half hour drive, we decided to stay nearby. In the Megalong valley to be exact. We stayed at a free campsite which was more like a rest area. A few benches and a beautifull pit toilet! Mmmm…. In the morning we visited an historic burial ground briefly nearby then set off to the Janolan caves. ( we visited a view point, some of the photos from here show the extent of the recent bush fire!)

The Janolan caves were amazing. The drive to them was fantastic, a windey mountain road which dropped in to the valley with some truly spectacular views! On arrival the janolan coach house building greets you – a real alpine resort look to it.

We did a tour of the supposed extreme caves, (which weren’t very extreme) known as the lucas caves, and my word were they spectacular (see photos) the high point being the cathedral, where they actually host concerts, the acoustics were amazing, and the cave was enhanced by ingeious lighting. The ticket for this tour also included a self guided tour around the nettle cave and the Devils Coach House.

In the evening we headed to a campsite in the Kanangra Boyd national park nearby. This was the true gem of all the sites. A 20km dirt track led to it, and when we arrived we had the whole site to ourselves, with the exception of a couple of nutters from the Netherland, who were cycling around Australia! Mad! But very cool, and gave us two books they had finished to lighten their loads a little.. We lit a fire in a hut and cooked dinner. Our evening was cut short by a monster spider! Turns out it was a Huntsman, not deadly and quite timid, but we didn’t know that at the time and didn’t want to risk it so returned to the van.

In the morning we drove 7km further down the dirt track to do a short walk, firstly to see the Kanangra walls – incredible sandstone cliffs 140m high drop in to forest covered valleys! Then to the Kananga falls. A short steep walk to a 40ft fall and pool than a scramble down to the point it falls 140m in to the valley! Awesome, really remote and so stunning!!!

We then went to see the three sisters, and the Wentworth falls, both spectacular but tourist-tastic, so we snapped them left and spent our final night at a busy little site called Ingra way, the plus to this place was a really nice waterfall fed lake, so our first wash for a few days!!!!! The next morning we set off back to Sydney via Windsor!! To visit the oldest pub in australia – The Macquarie Arms!!! Built in 1815…. And that was the Blue Mountain… (Little fact:- Called the blue mountains due to the blue hue created by the evaporated menthol from the gum trees!)

Xxj&j

32 degrees + VW + Harbour bridge + Mylo = :)

2007-01-11T08:43:00.000Z

A little mobile phone test here!!! Done on our return from the blue mountains. Pics and a post to follow. We had an amazing time!!

x

The Vee Dub after shots!!!

2007-01-06T01:50:00.000Z

BEFORE!

AFTER!!!!!!

Ladies and Gents! The moment you have all been waiting for has finally arrived!! The All new Vee Dub has had it's photo shoot and is here for all to see!!! Exciting huh.....

I am going to be a nerd and list all the work done purely for future reference, you dont have to read it just skip to the "Our Photos" link and check out the "after shots" May I suggest a quick glance at the before shots just to refresh your memories.

Engine......
*Oil and filter change.
*Gearbox oil change.
*new spark plugs.
*New engine bay seal.
*Carbs adjusted.
*Dual battery conversion.
*Isolator (dual charge) fitted.

Interior......
*Internal tray cleaned and rust treated.
*Fully re-upholstered seat/bed.
*Curtains fitted.
*rear window blind fitted.
*Vanetian side window blinds fitted.
*new staring wheel/gear nob fitted.
*fully co-ordinated panels.
*new door handles.
*new driver side window mechanism fitted!!
*new floor mats fitted throughout.
*surfaces painted.
*fuse box mounted.
*Professional window tints.

Exterior.....
*all rust treated properly and filled.
*upper body re-spray white.
*lower body re-spray VW flipper blue.
*New tyres all round.
*bumpers re-sprayed.
*bull bar re-sprayed.
*pop top sealed.
*cabin roop treated and sealed.

Videos!?!

2007-01-03T09:07:00.000Z

Happy New Year!

2007-01-02T04:07:00.000Z

Hello everyone, hope you all had a lovely Christmas and fab New Year celebrations.

Again, bit of a delay since the last blog so lots of news to catch-up on……………

In the last week we have covered over 2100 km………..the van is doing us proud, James has done loads of work on it so it looks and runs about 100 times better than when we bought it!!! We set off from Sydney on Friday 22^nd December at 12.30 am driving through the night to Melbourne, in total it was about 12 hours driving time, but we had quite a few rest stops, so we arrived in Melbourne about 5pm on the Saturday. We took the Hume Highway, not a particularly exciting drive, but it’s quicker than the coastal route. We spent Christmas in Melbourne at Richard and Jill’s, along with Mike, Sarah and Wozza, had a totally great time, thanks guys. In true Aussie style we had a super deluxe BBQ on Christmas day, but there wasn’t much sunshine to go with it, in fact it rained!!!!! Didn’t matter though, we were too full to care! On Christmas Eve we had taken a trip to the South Melbourne Market and bought A LOT of food, so Christmas day scran involved oysters, king prawns, red snapper, blue-eyed cod, kangaroo, numerous salads, a rather impressive cheese plate and tiramisu (we also had our fair share of beer and wine too!). YUM.

Boxing day took us to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) (along with 100,000 other people!) to see the first day of the fourth Ashes test match, again the weather wasn’t great, but it was worth it to sample the atmosphere and see Shane Warne score his 700^th wicket, Flintoff and Pieterson bat, and the barmy army, who are truly barmy indeed.

Then on the 27^th we set off to meet Nicole and Tali, who also have a camper van (Toyota Hiace for those of you in the know) so we could travel in convoy up the south coast back to Sydney stopping at a few campsites on the way. Had an awesome time and it is a gorgeous route, really picturesque with some cute little seaside towns. Definitely going to do that route again as there are so many things to see! Our first stop was in Womboyn, to get to the campsite we had to drive down a track avoiding kangaroos! Then we spent two nights at a beautiful campsite on Pebbly Beach, which is not far from a popular holiday town called Bateman’s Bay (Its good enough for Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban anyway, we shopped alongside them in the supermarket there!!!). Pebbly beach has kangaroos, various parrots and possums galore, amazing. Again the weather wasn’t great, but it saved the rain for nighttime and we still managed to go for walks and swim in the sea.

So it was back to Sydney for New Year’s Eve fireworks. They were brilliant, incredible to watch, and the main show lasted for nearly 20 mins, there was also an earlier family show at 9pm, which last for about 10 mins. I read somewhere that 3000 kg of explosives were launched into the sky!!!! We watched them from a park on Cremorne Point which overlooks the Sydney harbour. People start pitching their picnic places from early in the morning in order to get a good spot to view the show, crazy, but there were some very organized people with tents, gazebos, BBQs….etc!! We got there late afternoon, but managed to find a place to sit and picnic, even though it was already packed. Despite it being very busy, there was a really great atmosphere, everyone was having fun, some aided by quite a lot of alcoholic beverages!!!!!

The two weeks previous to Christmas were spent in Sydney. We have now moved back to Collaroy for some beach side living and are house sitting for Soph, Richard and Joel until the end of January while they are in the UK for 7 weeks attending to the small matter of getting married. Hope all the preparations are going well guys. GOOD LUCK. Massive thanks again to Helen and Al for letting us stay in Cremorne with them for 4 weeks, very much appreciated, you stars.

Also, I have been working since mid-December. I have a couple of part-time jobs, one working in a coffee shop in Cremorne in the mornings (6.30 am start, yikes, but getting up early seems to be easier here!), and the other working in a cool restaurant on the shores of Lake Narrabeen, about 10 mins walk from here. So I was quite busy before Christmas earning some spends. James had an interview at a car place called SupaCheap Auto ( a result of going in there lots to buy stuff for the van!), so he’ll hopefully be working there part-time throughout January.

So that’s the update for now, more soon…………..check out the new photos under the “our photos” link.

Hope everyone is well, and all the best for 2007, hope it’s a great year.

Take care,

Jude and James

xxxx

Royal National Park.

2006-12-12T09:15:00.000Z

G'day!!

Update time on our trip to the RNP! Which happened 10 days ago. Slight delay!!...

The park is about 1hr 15 mins drive south of Sydney, it's quite rural with only a few service roads and one campsite accessible by road, so we stayed there, Bonnie Vale, on the fringe of a small town called Bundeena on the north east coast of the park.
We arrived on the saturday in the pouring rain, so instead of whipping out our new stove we decided to head out for dinner! We started off at Club Bundee, a local bar for local people, really nice locals though, and quite relaxing so we watched a spot of the simpsons! We then moved on to Bundeena RSL (RSL's are social clubs found all around NSW if not the whole of Oz) for some dinner, which was equally as amusing as Club Bundee.
On the Sunday we went for two walks, firstly on short walk to a town called Mainabar 5km north of the campsite. Really nice stroll through mangrove swamps over a lagoon then though some quite impressive forest.
In the afternoon we went East to a place called Jibbon point to see Aboriginal carvings which again was a really nice stroll along a beautiful beach then in to a wooded area towards the headland where there had been an Aboriginal settlement for about 5000 years up until 200 years ago... In the evening we cooked skippy fillets on the stove. Mmmm Really nice slightly gamey red meat! Far far nicer than croc!!! (see pics)
On the monday we left the campsite and drove to Watamolla (again see pics) Stunning beach with a sandbank locked lagoon at low tides. Stunning!! see pics again, you can pick jude out having a dip! Slightly deceptive pic as we had to wait for three bus loads of screaming schoolkids to leave before you could appreciate how stunning it was. We then stopped by Garie beach (we decided to name it Gary beach;) v-popular with surfers but not when we were there due to the jellyfish (Blue bottles- not deadly but painful! Apparently) before heading out on a rainforest walk which was probably the highlight of the weekend, quite magical. They had bad fires in 1999 which was evident but never the less it really was beautifull. Then back to the mighty Sydney on monday eve and that was the RNP done! Hoping to head back though as there is so much more to do there... Didn't see any snakes though, just lots of water dragons!!

Anyway a few swifter posts coming soon!

Love to one and all xx

Jude's Birthday

2006-12-07T03:37:00.000Z

Hi All...

Been a while since our last post as we have been really busy. More post to follow to let you know what we have been up to..

Two reasons to celebrate, firstly was jude's Birthday, which was fun! We went to Taronga zoo (check out the photos in the link) and then for posh cocktails and the Blue Horizon bar at the top of the Shangri-La hotel, awesome views over the city! And secondly the elusive Judith nelson actually appearing in some photo's. She had been on a par with the Yeti's elusiveness up until this post, so please marvel at the wonderous Judith in her natural habitat;)
It is also Soph's birthday on Monday 11th, so Jude and Soph had joint birthday celebrations last Friday at the Italian Village, on the harbour with views of the Opera house, stunning. There was also an impromptu laser and firework display over the harbour, but we don't think that was especially for Jude and Soph!

Only one week left with Helen and Al before we move back to Collaroy to house sit for Soph Rich and Joel. (A Massive thanks to Helen and Al for being great hosts. Thanks!)
Finally watch this space for VAN "after shots" It's been a while coming but a lot of work has been done and we are going to take him to an exotic location for his first photo shoot very soon. His name is Flipper by the way after the colour of blue that he is - a whole story there in trying to find a paint supplier that could create the colour!!! Anyway, hope you are all well and dont forget to post comments and let us know how/what you are up to.

Lots of love

J&J xx

Wine tasting and walking.....

2006-11-28T21:57:00.000Z

Hey there,

The van is nearly finished and we took our first road trip in it last week, on Thursday to the Hunter Valley, famous for its wine (and coal!) Lovely place, amazing scenery, quite like the Lake District, but with no sheep and lots of vineyards!!!!! Lara and Stu came too 'cos they were over in Sydney for hols (although they didnt stay in the van aswell!!!). We managed four wineries (guided by lara and stu's guide book, we chose 5 star recommendations, otherwise it would be difficult to pick which ones to visit 'cos there are tons!), two in the morning (brokenwood and McWilliams Mount Pleasant) and two in the afternoon (First Creek Chatto and Pooles Rock), broken up by a trip to the hunter cheese company for ALOT of cheese, yum! If you guys ever see any Brokenwood wines, get one, would recommend the Cricket Pitch (white or red) and the unwooded chardonnay.

Stayed overnight in the poshest campsite; the van had problems competing with the quite impressive Winnebagos on show!!!!! Drove back to Sydney on Friday via the sceneic route, the Great Northern Road, route 33, also popular with bikers 'cos of its steep and bendy roads, gave the van a bit of a workout! Stopped off for lunch at a really cute village called Woolombi, with the most amazing tavern which had a very impressive beer garden, check the pictures.

Saturday involved a leisurely afternoon in the Opera bar. And on Sunday we did the Spit to Manly walk, along lots of beaches, cool views and plants, and lots of lizards!!!!

And finally, a big congratulations to Helen and Al, who we are staying with. Helen became a new Aunty thanks to her sister who had a baby girl on Saturday. And Al finished two modules of his MBA this week.

hope everyones ok, lots of love..............

Sydney aint that big

2006-11-20T22:05:00.000Z

Hey all,

The weathers picking up again after a freak cold day last thursday, 8 degrees with hail!!!! coldest November day in Sydney for over 100 years, brought a bit of the British weather with us, apparently.

Well, the van is nearly finished, took it to a VW specialist in Balmain on Saturday, he said we had got a great deal and it was in good working order, we were pleased with that!!! Hopefully our first trip away in it will be to the Blue Mountains fairly soon............

Saturday afternoon we took a trip to Watson's Bay, amazing views of the city and harbour bridge and also the ocean! check out the pictures...... And for those of you who have been there, no we didnt have fish and chips from Doyles, opted for the ice cream option instead!

On Sunday Soph and Richard took us out on their sea kayak on Pittwater off Clareville beach (near Palm Beach). Great fun, and no-one capsized, but arms ached the next day! Finished off the day out with a pint (or a schooner) in the Newport arms, in Newport, already becoming a favourite........

We are going kayaking again this Sunday, on the sea, proper waves................

jxjx

ps, saw Borat on Saturday night, hilarious..................

First day at the beach

2006-11-15T00:38:00.000Z

Hey All,

Hope everyone is well. Hows the weather over there?! We went to the beach at Narabeen in the Northern beaches last Saturday--lovely and sunny, and HOT.

Since the last post, we have moved from Soph, Richard, and Joels (thanks soooooo much you three) and are now staying at Helen and Als in Cremorne, thank you to you two as well :) Check out the photos of Helen showjumping in Terry Hills.

We've been busy pimping up the van so its habitable (its getting there and we are hoping to take a trip to the Blue Mountains in the next week), and exploring Sydney some more. We are loving it here!!!!

Also been meeting up with friends who were over on hols from the UK (It's very funny meeting up with people over here who were at our leaving party in London!!!). And also catching up with a few familiar expats (for those of you who know him, Richie popped up from Melbourne last friday, he was bigging up Melbourne so we are looking forward to taking a trip down there).

Thats all for now, will keep you posted on more news.........
xx

Volkswagen Camper Van

2006-11-05T05:26:00.000Z

A van has been purchased!!!!!! YAY. a 1974 pop-top VW camper van..........Mechanically sound but needs a bit (actually quite a lot) of cosmetic work! However it was a complete bargain, so we are well chuffed. Check out the pictures under "our photos". These are "before pictures"..............we picked it up this morning and have done nothing to it yet. Will be posting "after pictures" soon!!!!!! hopefully there will be a big difference!

We are in Sydney!

2006-11-03T07:38:00.000Z

Hey there Everyone!

We arrived in Sydney safely on Wednesday morning (what a mission of a journey from NYC--24 hours--but worth it!!) and it was hot and sunny (sorry you guys in England!)

We are staying at the above little fella's parents flat in Collaroy Beach, who are scoring quite highly on the hosts point system--thanks Richard, Soph, and baby Joel! (They also have a points scoring system for guests, so we have our work cut-out here!!!!!) And also we are a minutes walk away from the most amazing beach.......................(although it rained today, whats that about?!)

Took a trip into the city yesterday, how cool, cant wait to explore some more soon.

Take a look at our new photos of sydney (click on the "Our Photos" link on the right)

Hope everyone is well, keep checking the blog for more updates......................

Love to all

Take care xx

JUDES NEW NUMBER!!!

2006-11-03T02:17:00.000Z

Oz moblie number!!!

+61420393728

You can contact us on this, I -James - will be getting my own soon, once my phone is unlocked...

2nd leg....NYC!!

2006-10-30T16:16:00.000Z

Well. New york is nearly over:( We fly to Sydney in about 6 hours time!! :)

A massive Thanks to these two...

Lyns and Andy for your hospitality, thoughtfullness and quite frankly the best darn view to wake up to...

Hope all is well in the uk, and don't forget to keep posting those comments...

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PHOTO LINK IN THE "LINK" SECTION!!!!!

1st leg... SLOUGH!!!!

2006-10-25T22:41:00.000Z

Yes, the first leg of our travels starts in the beautifull Slough!! You can see us here - looking particularly attractive - at the house of Dr Johnson, pasta creator, and dictionary writer.. SAUSAGE?!!!!... Damn blast your eyes... The first of many amusing photos...

xxj&jxx

2006-09-07T12:43:00.000Z

Hi all...

Check out our blog. The way to keep in touch and up to date with what we are up to for the next year or so...

Cool huh!!

xx j and j