27 Dec 2007 1 More sleep
We woke this morning and turned on the computer to see the countdown timer down to, not days anymore, but only HOURS 🙂 , about 20 of them before we set off.
Aiko , our dog, hurt her leg on christmas morning, we took her to the vet yesterday and she has damaged the ligaments in her knee. She has a course of injections to have while we are away , and may need an operation on it when we get back, we hope not . Carly and family are looking after her while we are away , so we know she will be in good hands and get lots of love and attention. But still its sad to leave her (Aiko that is 🙂 ) with an injury.
All we have left to do is pack, and that is basically all ready to go into our backpacks already.
We will try to update this page with all our travel news as we can.
29 Dec 2007 Adelaide to Santiago Chile
We woke at a bit before 4am this morning to the sound of 2 alarms, yes thats right TWO ALARMS, we weren´t going to miss the flight
Our taxi arrived a bout 4:30 and we left without any dramas.
At the chec´-in we discovered a little note left for us from Ella and Ethan. It was on red paper all decorated with drawings by both of them. Deb read it aloud to me as we checked-in. It had her and the girl checking us in in tears. It was just so touching.
Our flights all basically left on time and our trip went a bit like this
Adelaide to Sydney, 1 1/2hr flight 2 1/2 hrs wait
Sydney to Auckland NZ , time zones got the better of me, but we arrived on time and had a 2 hr or so lay over.
Auckland Santiago, Chjile. Smooth easy flight , arrived in Chile at 12 noon Chile time
That made our days travel at about 22hrs, I guess we both got asround 4 hours sleep on the plane.
We then went to our hotel, near the airport, showered and freshned up, then got a taxi into town to explore.
We got dropped off at the Hotel Plaza San Francisco and the spent the next few hours walking around central Santiago. We went to the church next to the Hotel Plaza SF, reputably the oldest inSantiago. It was magnificent. We didnt expect to be visiting churches here, they are so different to the ones we saw in Italy, but this one and the Cathederal Santiago were both magnificent and very grand in an old world way. We walked around the Plaza de Armes and looked at the artists and the people. Then we walked up to Mercado Central and had a late lunch / early dinner at a seafood restaurant. I had a paella ( sorry about the spelling ) and Deb has a squid dish, both were delicous. I had amy first Chilean beer, it was very good.
After we finished we had planned to go up to Cerro San Cristobal, but the jet lag got the better of us and we headed back to our hotel.
Tomorrow we fly to Buenos Aires, flight leaves at 9:30 am
30 Dec 2007 Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina
I just want to type out a section of my diary entry from our flight yesterday
“Wow, I am in raptures. We have just flown over the Andes and I just had to write how I feel. Took about 6 mins to fly over the Andes, they are without doubt the most amazing land form I have ever flown over. What a joy and a privelege, these mountains still have snow on the top, you can see where the glaciers have scoured the earth, mind blowing, one of the best things I have ever done…………” Greg said my response was how he felt at Stonehenge. I am now very excited about the bus trip we will take in our South Amercia tour across the Andes, makes me want to spend more time exploring the mountains. What a great world we live in.
We spent yesterday afternoon in the Recoleta area, had tea under the most amazing morton bay fig, was planted in 1800 the branches are sooo long many of them are supported by wooden beams, was great spot for people watching, we had a cheese platter saw a couple dancing the tango, and went to a few markets. The one in San Telmo reminded us of the one in Portobella Rd in London which bought back memories of our day there with Linda and Keiron.
I fell asleep in the bath last night………… we had an early night, so we can dance tonight away, Greg is telling me we are going to tango the night away, that will be funny
In an hour we are off on a tour of the city, tomorrow afternoo we are doing a tour of the Tigre delta, the fourth largest delta in the world, If you had not already guessed I am loving the geography of this wonderful country.
We have just written our postcards to our beautiful grandchildren and lovely parents, will see if we can get them posted today. This is a great city, lots to see you could easily fill in a couple of weeks here. might have to come back but first there is the rest of the world to see!!!!
Greg is going to put a few pics on here for you, love to you all and Happy New Year, hope it is a good one for you all.
hugs from us xo
31 Aug 2007 Happy New Year from Buenos Aires
Hi Everyone,
We both wish everyone a safe and happy new year, and that the year ahead is everything you wish it to be and more.
We are celebrating tonight at a Tango Club for a dinner and show , followed by a night of dancing..
We will update our daily blog soon, and hopefully add a few more pictures
Enjoy your nights
Comments
Tom and Vonnie Tango
You go girl, we want photos of the TANGO
31 Dec 2007 New Years Eve Buenos Aires
Happy New Year hope it is a good one for you all.
Thankyou to Ben and Vonnie for your lovely messages, it is lovely to open our website up and see them , glad you are enjoying our site, we are enjoying doing it. We are having such a good time, we have lots of lovely photos, it is hard to choose which ones to put on the site, as we can only put 40 a month on. I was pleased to hear Dante and Tessa had looked at the maps of where we are, but you knew that Ben didnt you It is really different here Dante, especially seeing 95% of people if not more speak Spanish, but everyone is very friendly and kind and hand gestures and smiles go a long way in helping us communicate with everyone.
We had a great day yesteday. In the morning we went on a city tour with Mabel our tour guide, she was young, reminded us of Camille. There were only 4 of us out of 12 who spoke English, so she was talking non stop, half the time in English the other in Spanish explaining about everything we were driving past. This was obviously a very rich city once in the early 20th Century the architecture is magnificent. In the poorer regions there is alot of poverty, buildings that are in ruins, house alot of people, you think they are derelict and empty then you notice washing hanging or see someone, it is always a surprise. There is quite a bit of begging in the streets, there are also people who collect cardboard for a living, they get on trains, put on by the government (that have no windows or light) from the outer suburbs at 2am to come into the city and collect whatever cardboard they can for scrap, the train goes back at 6am. they earn about $30 a week doing this, the mind boggles!!!!
We had lunch in Caminito, where Greg had his photo taken with a tango girl, he was humouring me, I was impressed he put the picture on the blog! It was a really bright town, painted in really vivid colours, remeinded us of an Island in Venice we went to. Afterwards we went to Maradonas home stadium, it really was like something out of the Roman Ages, very basic, it was easy to compare it to the Coluseum, would be good watching a game here. A big tourist industry has built up around the stadium which is in a poor part of town.
Dante, near this area is the Riachuelo River, it is a very dirty river, the most polluted in the world and Mabel told us that if you drink the water you will die in 2 hours, we took a photo and will show you when we get back, not nice huh!!
In the afternoon we went to the Recoleta Cemetry it was amazing all of these Mausoleums it is like a city for dead people, we went to see Eva Peron´s Grave she is in with her husband, people still go and leave flowers there for her. We are not aware if there is anything like it in Australia.
We were picked up around 8pm to go to the Tango show, there was a 2 hour show first which was very entertaining, then we had dinner, it was 3 courses in about 30 mins, we have never been dished up dinner so quickly then there was champagne for midnight to celebrate new year. We sat by some nice people from the Canary Islands (near west coast of north Africa) who could fortunately for us speak a little English, they told us about a Spanish tradition at midnight where they have to put one muscatel grape per dong of the clock for midnight in their mouth, if they dont get one in on tiime it is bad luck for that corresponding month, sounds like it gets very messy. On the other side of us were some Irish women, who were to be going on the ship to Antartica that sank, they were lucky enough to get on another ship and are going down a few days after us.
After midnight we went outside to catch the bus home, we waited for well over an hour, while we were waiting there were loud bangs going off all over the city, we went to investigate, people were throwing fire crackers off buildings down to the road, causing loud explosions, on another street, they were making them go off on the road, not pretty crackers, just ones that made really loud banging noises, this went on for over an hour. There were some pretty fire works in the sky but we couldnt see most of them, We had an interesting ride home on the bus we seemed to go through every back street of Buenos Aires, certainly different to back home, lots of young kids on the streets and the remains of their crackers all over the road. We sat next to a couple of girls in their late 20´s from Strathalbyn, (near home) who are also going to Antartica on the same boat as us, small world!
Got home about 2am and managed to sleep till around 10am, this afternoon we are off on the boat trip to the Tigre Delta. Then hopefully an early night before our 3.30am start tomorrow, Of to Ushaia tomorrow, the southern most city in the world, get on the boat around 4.30pm tomorrow, pray for a smooth crossing for us please
Drakes passage is the roughest passage of ocean in the world.
We are off to pack now. Not sure when we will be next able to update our blog, we will as soon as we are able.
Lots of love and hugs to you all, let the fun continue and big adventures begin ……………..
2 Jan 2008 Ushuaia Argentina
Hi, we just had a magnificent lunch at the end of the world, of king crab in roquefort sauce, never had so much crab before, yum and a bottle of savignon blanc, now I need to keel over and go to sleep, we have another hour and a half before we meet the boat, shouldnt have had that wine, but it was all so delicious……….
We were up at 3.30am neither of us slept very well, we did not want to miss our plane. We had a good flight down here, hired a taxi for an hour and took in the view of Ushuaia from on high, then over looking the bay, my favourite view. It is alot like Queenstown in New Zealand here, but the buildings and houses are really colourful and there are quite a few ships and boats here. We have already taken about 300 photos, we bought some discs this morning and Greg is just trying to download them, hopefully he can put a pic on our site of Ushuaia, it is very beautiful, surrounded by mountains that still have a bit of snow on them.
It is not too cold here, around 12 degrees I would have thought, but the wind is cold when it picks up. We came into town with a young couple who are also on our ship, they were booked to leave on the one that sank. We are looking forward to meeting the people on the ship and are interested to know what countries they come from.
Our Tigre Delta tour yesterday was interesting, we were the only English speaking people out of about 50, our guide Maria Laura was good reminded us of Donna, so many people here speak quite a few languages.
That is about all I am up for, it is warm in here and I can sit down………………. It was such a delicious lunch, shame about the consequences, I wonder if anyone will notice if I fall asleep on the keyboard, it is only $4,000 pesos per hour about $1.25, shame I am not sitting in a corner, but wouldnt want to miss the boat.
Three and a half hours we set sail, we have no idea what to expect, that is half the fun.
Catch you later
Comments
Ann Happy New Year!!!
Dear Deb & Greg
Happy New Year to you both. Wow!!! what a journey you are both having. I love the photos and blogs you have posted on your site. I feel like I am on holiday with you. I know you will be landing back at South America today and I have been praying that Deb didn’t get sea sick on the boat. Can’t wait to see the photos. Ralph & I went sailing on our Xmas break. Up the Coorong!!!! Not quite the same as your sailing but we had a wonderful day. Thank you all for the experience. We also spent a few days in the Clare Valley which was very relaxing. Visited Martindale Hall at Mintaro. Never knew it existed and couldn’t believe such a magnificent place was out in the middle of nowhere! Amazing!! Of course we drank and ate too much but that is all part of it. Now back at work and planning a holiday in Broome. Yes Deb don’t fall over!! Have made the dates and put them in the diary. That should make you happy. I have a dentist appointment this morning. I haven’t been for about 13 years. Terror is the best word to describe how I am feeling right now. I hate the dentist. Hmm!! what a baby. Everyone is my family is well and I’m enjoying helping Andrew and Belinda with their wedding plans. Looks like 31st January 2009 will be the date. Enjoy the rest of your holiday and I look forward to your hugs when I see you next. I love you both. Xoxo
12 Jan 2008 Photos
Deb is currently doing a Blog update for Antarctica, unfortunately this internet cafe doesnt have DVD capability so I cant upload any pics here.
We are going to another cafe after here and see if we can upload some there, so come back soon.
Its been such a great trip so far, one adventure after another.
I just read the Australian Government traveller advisory site for Chile, they say a volcano errupted down south on the 1st of Jan, we head down that way in a few days, it will be interesting to see whats going on.
We will let you know in our blog update from down there.
Let the adventures keep rolling on 🙂
12 Jan 2008 Antarctica – Deb’s view
hey hey
it is nice to be able to communicate with you all again, we were just in another internet cafe, i had just finished my blog to you and i pressed the wrong key and lost everything i had typed, so here goes again, without any capitals!!!!
Happy happy birthday to Karlien for the 5th and Ella for the 6th we were thinking of you both as we always do.
Tessa you are 4 tomorrow we will be thinking of you from Santiago, we love you this much …………. you know how much
steve happy 50th
keiran wishing you all the best for the 17th hope your new job is everything you hope for.
thankyou so much to you all for your messages, they make us smile and it is good to know everyone is ok
ella, thankyou for giving aiko treats, bet her tail was wagging, can you give her a cuddle for us, we miss her, we miss you too, we found ourselves saying shooes yesterday, made us smile and think of you.
dante we saw some seal poo on an iceberg, it was big and pink, took a pic for you, thought it would make you smile, we think of you lots, you would love it here.
this is what i wrote in our diary yesterday about our time in Antarctica
it has been a dream of mine for at least 20 years to visit antarctica. i feel lucky to have been able to realise it. it is without doubt the most amzing place i have visited. it is a very diverse place. i think that has struck me the most. every place we visited was wonderful and different, it is constantly evolving down here. it is not possible for us to do it justice in words or photos or video. it is mind blowing, always interesting and spell binding.
We have seen 4 types of penguins, seals and whales, my favourite is definately watching the penguins swimming and jumping in the water. I have loved watching the birds flying in the sky and there have been lots of fluffy chicks to watch nestled into their parents.
The icebergs are huge and colourful everyone different, the landscpae beautiful, the sky which we were lucky enough to see alot of the most beautiful blue. The weather has been kind to us, the best the staff have known it, in one voyage.
the staff were all young, enthusiastic and dedicated and so full of life, a pleasure to be with. hayley our expedition leader would be in her early 30s was very knowledgable a great leader we have been lucky. Ray (coach) is 73, he has spent alot of time down here over 50 years, it was great to see antarctica through his eyes. it was fun being in the zodiacs with him, he kept up with the other staff who were 45 years younger. he always managed to get you closer to the action.
The one thing i wanted to do was camp on the ice, we did that on our last full night in antarctica. it exceeded my expectations, there was the most wonderful sunset that lasted more than 3 hours covered at least one third of the sky the most magnificent oranges, the colour reflecting on the water and the icebergs, i was mesmerised, couldnt sleep had to take it all in, it was the most exquisite experience. i got to sleep around 5.30am after watching the sunrise just to the left of where it has set an hour before (it was always light in antarctica) we were woken at 6am.
it has been the adventure of a lifetime.
live your dreams……………………
in a few hours we are off to the airport on our way to santiago to start our next adventure, we are having trouble finding a computer to download our photos, if we cant do it here we will do it in buenos aires in about 7 hours time, we have a while there before continuing on to santiago
ok, off to buy ourselves a tee shirt,
lots of love and hugs to you all, we are having the best time, so much fun.
from us
12 Jan 2008 Getting to Santiago from Ushuaia, the hard way
Our day started really well as you can all see from Debs first entry.
We met the bus at our pickup point at 12 noon as arranged and went out to the airport only to find that all flights were delayed.
After numerous attempts at finding out what was going on, now that in itself is fun when you don´t speak spanish, we were eventually told our flight would be 2 to 3 hrs late. That was possibly going to cause up problems with our connection to Buenos Aires. So I rang the Flight Centre Overseas help line, after an obscene amount of time on hold I eventually got through and they didnt know anything about the flight problems, but managed to book us on a later flight as well, i case we missed the earlier one. We eventually left Ushuaia at 6pm, 4 1/2 hrs late. Just as we were going to land at the Beunos Aires International Airport we were told it was closed to all flights and we would have to land at the domestic terminal, about 80km from where we were meant to be!!
After trying to resolve things on the ground we gave up and got in a taxi to the International terminal. I tried the Flight Centre Help line again but couldnt get anyone to answer!!
We got to the airport at 10:25pm to find massive queues of people everywhere.
By getting pushy and queue jumping we got on a flight that was possibly leaving around 12:30am.
We then jumped the exit tax queue to pay and then got near the front of a 1000+ people queue at immigration, and stood in line going nowhere for about 1/2 hr and then we finally got into the terminal.
To cut all the babbling our flight eventually left BA at about 4am, we got into Santiago all OK and were at our hotel by 5am. There was actually someone waiting for us at the airport, we were stunned!! BUT SOOOO HAPPY!!!!
We have had a good day today (13th) and will put in a log update fo it soonish.
I have been trying to upload more pics but it just isnt happening!!
I will keep trying so please dont give up.
Tessa, we hope you had a great birthday, From where we are it went on for about a day and a half, How good is that 🙂
Bye to all, update soon we hope
12 Jan 2008 Tillie’s Question
It wasnt as cold as it could have been down in Antarctica, we had an amazingly mild trip, with clear sky almost everyday and very little if any wind, our Expedition team couldnt believe the great weather we had. I guess it got down to about -5 C and generally hung around zero most of the time.
13 Jan 2008 Santiago to Puerto Varas Chile
After a short, mmmm very short, 3hrs sleep we were up and getting ready for breakfast and the start of our Intrepid Tour. Tour Leader is Laura (Argentinian) fellow tourists are Paul (England), John (Sydney), Liz (Scottland) Whats the first thing to do when you visit a new country and you come from Adelaide????? Go wine tasting of course !!! So off we wnet to Conchay Toro Winery, we were told they are the 4th largest wine company in the world. The winery is set in the middle of an extensive estate with beautiful garden, and very well manicured vines. We did a quick tour of the old manor house and had a look at a few vines, then it was up to taste a few local brews. We were given the largest tasting glass we have ever seen and they filled them half full and you were welcome to have seconds if you wanted. The wines ranged from and acidic Sav. blanc to a very respectable Cab Sav. They have a very old wine cellar that legend has that is haunted. After that we drove around in the foothills of the Andes for a while taking in the country side beofre it was time for lunch. For lunch we had a ¨typical: Chilean BBQ menu. Boy these people love their meat. And its very delicious On the way back to our hotel we drove to the top of Cerro San Christobel ( a statue of the virgin mary is at the top of this small mount on the fringe of the city. It gave us spectacular views over Santiago and surrounds. For tea, we went to a Peruvian Restaurant, the food was great, best we have had yet. The meals here are HUGE!!!! We got home around 11 and crashed into bed. (A couple of very tired chooks) 14 Jan 2008 We left our hotel for the airport at 8:30. for our flight to Puerto Montt, and then onto Puerto Varas. Well as things go for flying in Sth America, we only had a delay of 4 hrs, so not toooo bad, but very frustrating. Arrived in Puerto Montt at 2;30pm. We went straight to the bus station so our tour guide could get us bus tickets over the Andes to for Wed. After trying 3 bus companies she eventually got tickets!! When then went to Puerto Varas and checked into our hotel. After that we were taken out for a walk, apparently to see the sights of towwn, but if felt more like a wander around killing time before dinner. During the walk we stopped off and had coffee and cake at a german stlye cafe. (This part of Chile was settle by predominately Germans about 150 yrs ago.) The town is predominately a fishing and hunting town , skiing is also available in winter in the near by mountains. Most of the local homes and buildings are a bit ramshackle, but most are very brightly painted which lifts the appearance. Dinner was nice (We shared seafood and steak, way too much food agin!!!!! Well thats it for now, we will try to do more updates as we can. Keep those messages coming, we love the feedback and news. Love and hugs to all
15 Jan 2008 Antarctica Pics
howdy
it has been hard trying to find a computer to download some pics for you, we dont have much time here so we have chosen some of the top 100 taken on the voyage by other people, hope you like them, when we get home we will download 40 of our own for you to check out, in the mean time hope you like these.
we are in puerto varas at the moment saw a volcano where they ski in the winter and a waterfall and rapids was a good day, we are off to dinner soon.
tomorrow we catch a bus for an 8 hour ride over the andes, we are very much looking forward to that, then we have two nights in bariloche, before heading to buenos aires for 2 nights then 2 nights in iguazu falls.
thanks for your messages, hope you are all well.
love and hugs from us
15 Jan 2008 Peurto Varas
We had a good day out, we were driven to Peuro Montt, a fishing village, we enjoyed walking around the fish market, great fresh produce, Greg took some good photos (cant upload any here sorry!) Then it was off to Volcan Osorno, a volcano with a ski resort at the top of it, (not much snow though at this time off year, only at the top), view were great overlooking mountains and a lake. Then it was off to Saltos Rio Petrohue a section of river with rapids and waterfalls, very pretty. Later we had apple struedel in a lovely cafe, the food is delicious here and half to one third cheaper than at home. For dinner we met up with another tour group who were doing our tour in reverse, so it was good to swap notes. Wed 16th Jan We caught a bus from Peurto Varas to Bariloche, travelling over the Andes, was a wonderful trip, we were a tad disappointed though cos we were thinking we would go on a really old bus with no windows, bench seats lots of locals and chickens, instead we had a very comfortable coach, which was no doubt a good thing seeing it was a 7 or so hour journey, it took us an hour at the Chilean border in emigration and 40 mins at the Argentinian border. Around that point the scenery was spectacular all the way into Bariloche. It is a place where the South Americans come for their summer holidays, it is on a lake and very picturesque. It is warm but not humid. We are still having blue skies. For dinner we ate at an Italian restaurant and the food was magnificent, it was $55.00 and would have been around $120.00 at home. Today 17th of Jan We were pleased to hear Kieran enjoyed his first day at work and that Ethan is crawling after Aiko now. This morning we had a gondala ride to view the area, the views were nice. After that we came back to town to buy some stamps for the grandchildrens postcards, they have a nice Antarctica theme. Then we noticed a guy cooking and selling sausages and steak sandwiches in a park, so we had a steak sandwich each, it was beautiful. Had a look through a few craft stalls, and saw a nice looking cathedral, unfortunately it was not open. Then Greg indulged me and we took a taxi, 25km away to Llau Llau resort and spa hotel for high tea. We got their at 2pm, to be told it started at 4pm, but before that at the gate we had to tell a guard what room we were in, I did not think he was going to let us in, after we had travelled half an hour, but all was well. We found where the high tea was and sat in a nearby bar/lounge and had a drink each which we sat on for 2 hours. The high tea was worth the wait, I was thinking of you Carly, where we sat overlooked the lake and mountains and reminded me of places in Europe. I could not think of a nicer place to be sitting it was magnificent, it is up their with one of my favourite things this holiday, but it does come under Antarctica. The hotel called us a taxi, again they wanted to know our room number, I thought we might be stranded……. but a private car came, to our surprise the fair was a little cheaper than the taxi. We are both full so we are going to skip dinner and have an early night. Tomorrow we fly to Buenos Aires, we are hoping the flight delays are over.
24 Jan 2008 WOW it has been a week since we last did a blog
We are now in Rio de Janeiro I cant believe it has been so long since we wrote in here, we had fun in Buenos Aires visited a couple of areas we had not seen before.
Then it was off to Iguaza Falls, they are amazing, we saw them from the Argentinian side and the Brazilian side and also did a moon walk to the throat of the devil, Diablo falls, it was a full moon, and yes we howled. Hope the grandchildren heard us.
Sorry about the last lot of photos we uploaded, not sure what happened, we will fix them up when we get home and get another entitlement of photos.
Yesterday we went from Iguazu to Paraty via plane to Sao Paulo, then a 5 hour mini bus ride to Paraty, a lovely little colonial village, with a harbour.
We have not been enjoying our tour leader, so today we revolted and left the tour and found our own way to Rio by bus, so we are here a day early. We are much happier. We have booked a tour for tomorrow, which we are looking forward to.
We are both well, have seen some great sites, it is a good place to visit.
We are going to check our flight times now, looking forward to seeing you all soon.
Love you lots from us
25 Jan 2008 Rio de Janeiro
we had a great day, took a tour and went up to see Christ the Redeemer statue, it was an oh wow moment, most impressive and the views over Rio were good too. then it was off to Sugarloaf, that was ok, good views and could see cococabana from there too. afterwards we drove past the beaches cococabana and ipanema, nice sandy beaches with lots of people enjoying them, looked like the gold coast on steriods. afterwards we went to a steak house, it is definately death by steak in south america, would be hard being a vegetarian here!! food was very good. we had a lazy few hours in our room, which is very nice, Sheraton in Barra which is just along from ipanema beach. before dinner we went down to the beach and dipped our toes in the ocean, well greg did, i dipped my fingers in!! that is the south atlantic done now! we have just finished our last supper 17 hours and we fly out on our long journey home, leave 2.30pm Saturday 26th arrive around 12ish, on Monday 28th, but we gain 12 or so hours on our travels so it is not quite as bad as it sounds.
we will hopefully send another blog on our travels. hope you are all enjoying your long weekend. see you soon.
love and hugs from us
25 January 2008 Greg’s Antarctica
We have made it to the airport at Rio, in a lounge, very nice, flight leaves in 2 hours. Yesterday Greg wrote this in the Diary about Antarctica, never knew a scientist could be so poetic
It’s nearly 2 weeks since we arrived in Ushuaia after our cruise. Reflecting on our time in Antarctica brings a sense of peace and awe to me. Yes the two extremes can co-exist. My lasting impression I get when I think of Antarctica is that of calm serenity set in an architecture of awesome beauty and magnitude. It is wilderness in the extreme. So untouched by man that the animals have no fear of us, man mad items are an oddity in the landscape and take on a new dimension when viewed set in this pristine environment. They look so out of place, yet at the same time, as in the old water boats, represent a “frozen” moment in time being very slowly swallowed by nature. The colours are so vivid and often stark opposites occuring together. My Antarctica is coloured white, black, red, pink, green and BLUE, blues you could never describe.
It is a continent that has something for all your senses. The smell of your first penguin colony 🙂 or first whale “blow”, sights of nature all around you, ever changing. The sounds, of penguins, birds, seals, whales, the ice craking and crashing, the sparkle of bubbles of air who knows how old effervessing in the water out of the ice and the sound of Antarctic silence 🙂 The feel of the air, richly crisp and fresh, the feel of the snow, of drifting ice and the rocks, mmmm and then there is the taste of Antarctica. The taste of a piece of iceberg, sheet ice, or snow and who know what age, fresh and sparkling, the taste of the wind of the first penguin colony, rich and somewhat fishy agricultural tangs 🙂
In my minds eye Antarctica will remain a mix of the mirror reflection of steep snow and ice covered black mountains reflecting on a smooth unruffled waterway, scattered with only icebergs and sheet ice breaking, the continuity between real and reflection. With an horizon being etched with every hue of orange and red glowing in the layers of clouds hanging beneath a sky of distant blue.
Antarctica, is beyond words, pictures and feelings. It truely is an experience, sensual and spiritual.
26 Jan 2008 Rio de Janeiro to Adelaide and Home
From the time we left our hotel it was 34 hours before we landed in Adelaide.
This was actually 2 hrs quicker than we had scheduled, but a kind man at Sydney airport asked us if we wanted an earlier flight and we took it!!!
The overall trip home went by without any significant hold-ups or incidents, which was wonderful.
The highlight of the trip home was when we arrived at Adelaide Airport. We walked in off the air-bridge to a big welcome home sign being held by our wonderful grand children, (in order of age ) Dante, Tessa, Ella and Ethan,.
they were accompanied by Ben, Sarah, Kieran and Carly. I was so good to see all everyone, it made us both feel very special and very much loved.
We then got driven home, Deb went with Dante & Tessa (Ben and Sarah) and I went with Ella and Ethan (Carly and Kieran).
Carly had organised lunch, pizza and cake, for us all and she had also stock our fridge with some fresh goodies to get us through the day and breakfast the next morning.(That was so thoughtful and very much appreciated)
When we got home we got the best welcome anyone could wish for from Aiko (our puppy). She was beside herself and so happy to see us, that did us both good, we were afraid she might give us up in favour of Carly and her family. (Thank you so much for looking after her Carly and Kieran, and kids)
We enjoyed spending the afternoon with everyone, sharing some of our experiences, and giving the little ones a few little gifts we picked up for them during our travels.
Thanks to everyone who has kept us up-to-date with the goings on around the place while we have been away, and the comments left on our (this) site.
We enjoy sharing our adventures with you all, and its good to know you appreciate it to.
Our next task is to try and work out where to go next, thats going to be so much fun.
Keep checking back here for more photos ( I have already added more today – in the Santiago to Bariloche, and Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro albums), we can put on about another 10 this month and then another 40 on the 29th Feb
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