LET THE JOURNEY BEGIN

We can go on and on about the things we loved about Auz, so without boring you to tears, here is our TOP 10 highlights package.

So let the countdown begin....

10. The love affair with Tim Tams
Oh start the diet tomorrow... At tenth place it has to be said that one of the finer things to come from Australia is the Tim Tams. Beautiful choco coated biscuits with different fillings. And now for all those who love a bit of choc indulgence, the breast cancer association has teamed up with the chocolate guys and there are pink tim tams, pink kit kats, pink everything.. and it definately satisfies that "time of the month" chocolate craving.

9. Playground Etiquette .. Aunties dont have to play by the rules.
While taking my 2 year old nephew on an outing to one of Sydneys millions of playparks, we were educated on playground etiquette and how mums should and shouldnt negotiate "toy scuffles". It appears that the mums have to be very pc about letting the toys be shared around equally in the playpark. So if little Johnny with his toothless scowl, wants what your kid is playing with, you have to tell him he can have it in a moment, then let your kid have a go for another 30 seconds before handing it over. Oh no not I.. when little Johnny wanted to take the wheelie truck away from my nephew, I got down to his level, looked him in the eye, and told him to swiftly press on and find something else to play with.

8. The Castle
Anyone who hasnt seen The Castle really ought to. Its an absolute Auzzie classic that will have you in stitches with some of the chirps that get thrown out. Its about this family that live near an airport, the house they live in is really nothing special, but when the authorities try to take it away from them they kick up a stink showing up all their typically Auzzie character traits which makes for seriously humerous viewing.

7. The Irish Club
None of us quite remember how our folks used to party as by the time the party kicked off, we were all in sleeping bags in the spare room or in the back seat of the car. Going to the Irish Club with my Aunt & Uncle in Brisbane was a real window into how our folks must have partied "in their day". Drew and I were the only ones under the age of 50. Everyone was sitting around the parque tiled dance floor eating guiness pie n' chups. When the band struck up, the ballies got their groove on. Beer bellies were shaken around, party frocks where shimmied in time to the beat, sweet nothings were whispered, and serious dance moves were going down. "Blame it on the Bassenova/Bassenoba" was a huge party anthem.. and there we were thinking it was a lullaby

6. The Hawkesbury Classic
Surely deserves a mention. Its a 100km canoe race that starts at 5pm in the afternoon and goes throughout the night along the Hawkesbury River. All seconders along with the kit for the paddlers, pack red bull and coffee to keep their eyes open the whole night. Some of the stops eg. "Wisemans" are named after ex cons which were early settlers in Auz. It makes the race a little more quirky. My brother and his partner finished in style, although looked remarkably corpse like at the end of the race.

5. Whale watching in Jervis Bay from a Kayak.
Usually you have to pay a mint for these types of 'close to nature' experiences. Luckily for us, while going for a quick early morning kayak in Jervis Bay, we spotted a hump back whale mum and her calf. It was really peaceful following them around - at a safe distance - while they graced the water. Truly special.

4. Rollerblading / Rock climbing along the river in Brisbane
The one thing that my husband lets me be better at.. is roller blading. He saw his backside about 4 times before he reached the door, then traded his blades in for a scooter (a scooter with a basket in front, but dont tell him I told you)
But he did manage to pull a bit of rank and scaled some of the cliffs that line Brisbanes river. Rock climbing is not something that I see us doing "as a couple"

3. Learning to Surf in Byron Bay
Without much success, I tried my luck with surfing. The only thing that seemed to pop to the surface was the board and without a whole lot of grace I was pounded by the waves until I raised the flag and called it a day. Respect to those who can do it. Its hard!

2. Winning the World Cup
The reason that this features as #2 and not #1 is that you dont get the hype that comes with featuring in a final, and all the pomp and ceremony that comes with winning. At 4am all we got to see was the game and a quick commentary afterwards. When that was all over, the next programme was on as the bitter Auzzies didnt really want to dwell too much on it. But I must say we wore smug looks and springbok jerseys all day. Hopefully the hype hasnt died down by the time we get back.. we can savour the tail end of it!!

1. The Great Barrier Reef
This was absolutely an unforgettable experience. We went out to the reef from Airley Beach. Passing the Whitsundays on either side of us we arrived at our home for the night, a pontoon in the middle of the ocean and turquoise heaven it was. We snorkelled and dived to our hearts content taking in sights of manta rays, turtles, reef sharks, groupers and loads of travelli. We went in a submarine and checked out he reef close up, and at night we watched the bigger fish feeding from an underwater viewing chamber.. and when that was all over we watched the sun go down as the calm waters lapped against edges of the pontoon. A little piece of heaven.

From there my husband left for SA for 4 days on his own and the trouper came back with a job.. So tired, but happy, we boarded our flight for Singapore.

We've had an amazing few weeks on the East coast of Aus so far - have done all kinds of things, seen all kinds of things, tasted all kinds of things and most importantly just won the rugby world cup! Its been another great adventure and here are a few photos to prove it... more to follow later...

The sunscorched Bondi beach

View from Sydney harbour national park

The famous Sydney opera house

AND THATS JUST SYDNEY.... much more to come... I would never deprive you all of Dee's rollerblading pics in Brisbane!!!

Some call New Zealand "the land of the long grey cloud" and my personal favourite adaption of that, from a South African point of view anyway, "The land of the wrong white crowd!"- It's the birthplace of Dan Carter and a country full of moarning rugby fanatics wondering how the hell they managed to cock up another world cup.

You see, rugby is not just a sport in New Zealand its a religion and passionate does not even begin to describe the kiwis feelings towards the great game of rugby. We were lucky enough to be in Auckland in the lead up to the big occasion - the rugby world cup 2007 and be a part of the excitement and expectation. Auckland's main street had massive clocks counting down the seconds to the start of the tournament - the people all so friendly and chatty and excited for what was surely theirs for the taking - I hope that didn't change too drastically after the quarter final playoffs -we were outta there by then!

Anyway, back onto the weather... In any other country our excitement would've been well and truly drowned. Even when it seemed destined to be a great sunny day, the clouds were looming and would without forewarning suddenly engulf us and and we would find ourselves fighting the on-off drizzle again - we could've just been in a bad 3 week spell possibly???

Nevertheless you have to hand it to the kiwis for their outdoor positive friendly attitudes. People are out and about making the most of it all, running, cycling, tramping, paddling, rafting, jumping out of planes - you name it they will be doing it - forget about complaining about the weather - there's no time. It seems the kiwis motto is "There's no such thing as wrong weather - just wrong clothes".

I guess some of their "crazy" zest for life attitude rubbed off on Dee and I and we felt almost compelled to get involved and be part of the infectuous vibe - Without knowing it we were swimming with dolphins, jumping out of aeroplanes, rafting down waterfalls, hiking, tramping, dune boarding and just exploring some of the most beautiful countryside on offer.

They say a Picture tells a story of a thousand words - and with views like this who can blame the kiwis for not paying much attention to the clouds above them...

A beautiful sunset near lake Wanaka with NZ's most popular inhabitants.
(apparently sheep outnumber humans 10 to 1 in NZ)

Sunset over Lake Wanaka, just be-a-utiful

Dee getting up close and personal with the iced walls of Frans Josepph Glacier

The view up along one of the glacial walls at Franz Joseph - something out of this world!

The serene beauty of Abel Tasman National Park

A murky green sulphur pool in Rotorua - looks like my old digs pool!

Hot Sulphur pools - Rotorua

Shew!! 1 times successful jump out of aeroplane at 12000ft! Tick!

The beauty of Ha Hei beach on the picturesque corromandel peninsula

Cathedral cove - Corromandel peninsula

The beauty of Cathedrals cove - corromandel peninsula

The endless 90 mile beach

Dune riding on the dunes of the 90 mile beach

Tasman sea meets Pacific ocean

Cape Reinga

Mucking around on another beautiful beach up in the northland

Hole in the rock - Bay of islands

Our dolphin friends - bay of islands

Whangarei Heads coastline

Auckland skyline

Rafting down waterfalls!

Caving in Waipu caves

One generally is fulled with nothing but romantic ideas when thinking of horse riding along the beach - 2 newly weds, alone, galloping along a beautiful stretch of untouched pristine coastline...

This is clearly not the case when one signs up to go horseriding with Bryan - the village psycho, who comes across from the outset as being a few chocolates short of a chocolate box and disturbingly a bit too attached to his horses!

Bryan lives in a caravan in a paddock with his 4 horses looking out at the beautiful entrance to the abel tasman national park and its coastline - but he intends to move very soon due to the fact that he wants to settle high up on a hill somewhere due to the imminent threat of a flood. Also he is highly pissed off with how society screws every last cent out of everyone and charges people for electricity and water usage - he wants to build himself a well.

I tell him I am an engineer - which goes down like a wet fart. He then proceeds to tell us how his beautiful horses will only play up when they can sense if someone doesnt know what they are doing. Enter novice riders Dee and Drew... I can see my horse hates me already and I haven't even gotten on him yet. Dee is looking like she wants to run for the hills.

Nevertheless we get a brief 1 minute speel about how to ride these precious horses interspersed with plenty of rantings about government and corruption and the end of the world stuff. Charming! I think he mentioned somewhere in there George Bush but I am not concentrating on him now as I am merely trying to send happy thoughts to my horse who looks ready to bolt at any second.

We manage to get on our horses without falling and off we trot - luckily Dee's and my horse are quite used to just following Bryans horse so we dont have to do anything - except hold on and act like we know what the hell we are doing. The kicker to our romantic ride is that Dee's horse hates my horse even more than my horse hates me - so we are separated by at least 20m at all times - very romantic! Any infringement on this causes both horses to rear up and buck madly - which is great news for us as we have no clue how to control or hold on to our horses.

My horse luckily for me fancies Bryans horse and sticks to him like glue, so I get to have a 1hr lecture on how screwed up the world is and how armageddon is coming (Nostradamos predicted it after all) - all the while my horse is continually thrashing his head up and down covering me in spit! Bryan seems unphased by this and by the fact that Dee is doing her own thing 20 odd metres behind us.

I tell you romance doesnt get any better. The hour lesson seems to drag on for days and at the end of it all we scuffle off our horses , thank crazy Bryan for his lovely horses and scintilating commentary and bolt off as quickly as possible to our campervan, aches and pains all over from trying to sit correctly on the horse without having a clue how to do so.

"Hurry up love - we r leaving NOW!" as we speed off as quickly as possible in our clapped out combi - all too keen to get the hell outta there - which is a pity as it was a really beautiful neck of the woods - as shown in the photo below.

Hint to fellow travellers - GO HIKING IN ABEL TASMAN! Far more enjoyable - unless you know how to ride skittish horses that is...

As we came through the border between Bolivia and Chile we sighed a massive sigh of relief as the dirt roads turned to tar.

At last a country where, in comparison to Bolivia, there seems to be a sense of law and order.

Our first few nights were spent in San Pedro de Atacama. Right up north, it was a right little treat for travellers coming in from Bolivia having done the Salar de Uyuni.

Lots of cute little restaurants, some with open roofs where they would light a fire at night, and you can sit around it on cushions drinking red wine until your head starts nodding and you mooch your way home.

Its amazing how you crave creature comforts when you have been travelling for a long time. Tea, toast, toilets that flush and hot water seem like 5 star luxury after spending time without them.

We were lucky to stay with some mates when we arrived in Santiago. They were amazing to us and so generous with letting us use their home as a base while we gallavanted north and south of Chile.

We lurked around Santiago for a few days, went to Pablo Nerudo´s house who is a famous Chilean poet who won a Nobel Prize for literature. His house is one of the funkiest you will ever see. Lots of trinkets which he collected from his journeys around the world, its a great place to just spend an hour checking out all the junk in his trunk!

We also tried our hand at a bit of wine tasting at one of the more well known wine estates in Chile called Concho y Torro. After a separate wine tasting session with Liz and Felipe we reckon we are quite pro and can come up with all kinds of wino talk that makes us sound like experts. Not quite!

After a short break in the US for my sisters wedding we arrived back in Santiago, and went to a gorgeous little fishing villiage called Horcón. The guidebooks dont rate this place very much, but all the better as it was completely off the gringo trail and sold the best seafood empanadas in South America.

La Serena was another gem. We were lucky with the weather, and hired bikes and took off into the sunset. One beach picnic and a bottle of wine later we tried to fumble our way back to the main village only to have Drews pedal fall off his bike. An interesting style of cycling when you only have one pedal.

Star gazing in Vicuña was another highlight. We got to look through these kick ass telescopes in a observatory which was very high tec!, I have never seen the milky way so clearly pointed out and also got to see Jupitor, different types of star clusters, and Scorpio which was pretty mean!

Bike rides through the vineyards of Pisco Elqui, checking out the quirky coloured houses of Valparaiso, hiking through the Andes, getting panoramic view of Santiago from the top of San Cristobel, watching the local fishermen sell fresh fish at a fishmarket in Valdivia and throw the scraps to the sea lions that come up out of the lake, Red wine, great steak, great seafood!! Have you booked your flight yet?

This has been one of the most surreal countries, and the best part has been that our trip has been a little different to the average gringo. Because we stayed with Liz and her Felipe, we got to hang out with Felipe´s Chilean family. Very funny Spanish misprounciations which end up being massively insulting but we have had some serious belly clutching laughs which is always good.

So we wrap up this quirky little continent with one week left to go skiing in Barriloche Argentina will be the cherry on the top of what has been the most kick ass trip through South America.