September 1st, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 1 Comment
Tags: chile, climb, pucon, south america, Travel, volcano, volcano villarrica
*Warning this post contains lots of images*
It’s early May 2010 say around the 10th May 2010 actually. We’re in Pucon, Chile, which is 10 hours or so south of Santiago and pushed against the Andes.
We are arriving from a lovely little ski town San Martin De Los Andes by a 4 hour bus ride. Why do bus rides seem to have the same affect on time as doctors surgery’s etc. Anyway, Pucon is a lovely little town on a lake, which is great because it’s part of the lake district…be a bit rubbish if it wasnt, and nestled amongst the hills of the Andes. There’s heaps to do in Pucon, trekking, whitewater rafting, mountain biking, climbing the volcano, hot springs etc. Lots of tasty food and places to have a few quiet ales but your here for the great outdoors.
After arriving in Pucon we drop our bags off at the Hostel Edigio and grab something to eat. We are stoked, scrambled eggs!!
5 hours later.
I don’t feel so good. It’s 6:30pm and we’re trying on the equipment for our trip up the Volcano. The trip is all organised by Borris, the bullet dodger, as in Borris the sneaky f@#$ing Russian, who is the hostel concierge if you will. All set, packed, geared up and ready. Dinner time, we find out it is the owners birthday and her husband as packed on a massive BBQ for us. We sit and eat giant cuts of steak and drink a delightful merlot. During dinner, i start to feel worse…
Pucon Ya Face:
Beautiful:
The top tip of the tip top Volcano we want to climb:
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August 31st, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Photography, Portfolio | No Comments
Tags: climbing, el calafate, glacier, ice, puerto moreno, Travel
The Puerto Moreno Glacier, El Calafate, Argentina in April, 2010. In the foreground you can see the terminal moraines and beech forrest, in the mid-ground the mightily beautiful Puerto Moreno Glacier and the endless snow capped peaks in the background. If you look close enough in the foreground you can see the station where the climbers stop to put on their crampons, to the lower right a picnic table on the glacier and in the middle of the picture you can make out a group of climbers advancing their way up the icy jagged peaks.
August 17th, 2010 | Posted in News, Travel, Travel Stories | 3 Comments
Tags: 2010, canada, summer, Travel, vancouver
Howdy Folks,
That’s right we’ve been in Vancouver a whole 3 weeks now! Yes, the blog posts of the rest of Chile and Peru are still in writing i’m sure over the next few months we’ll get around to them.
What have we been doing? Exploring and of course, applying for jobs, jobs and more jobs. The job hunting is going ok, last week was particularly busy with interviews and phone interviews. I think in total we had about 8 between us and are now waiting to hear back or get an update. Keep your fingers crossed for us. If anyone has any contacts up here in Canada we’d greatly appreciate if you passed our details on, even if it was just to meet them and take them out for a beer or coffee. 
Vancouver is a very beautiful city, the tall glass skyscrapers refelect the greens and blues of the forrests, mountains and water. We’ve been checking out the different areas such as coal harbour, yaletown, north vancouver, gastown etc. There always seems to be some festival or something on. For instance, we woke up one Saturday to music and drums getting louder and louder…turns out there was a Phillipeno parade meandering its way down our street.
To Jess’ great surprise and delight, we found out her favourite band Karnivool were going to be playing at The Venue in Vancouver for $15. Karnivool are a Perth band with a solid following down under but as we found out the rest of the world hasnt found out how great they are. Or they just agree with my summation being that they sound like a cat drowing amongst several garbage trucks. Fortunatley their live show was fantastic for Jesse and the Venue had a bar so i was happy. I even attempted to sing along which was easy when every word is a high pitched meow of varying lengths.
Street concert on the way to watch Karnivool
The Venue – Vancouver Downtown
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August 7th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | No Comments
Tags: bc, Travel, vancouver
G’day our finely feathered friends,
Or as the Canadian’s like to say “Hey”! Crazy i know. Cultures, so different and tasty!
Anyhoo this is a take on our first week in Vancouver, Canada. It’s been a busy one! Exciting as well getting to know and look around a new city especially one so beautiful as Vancouver. Exploring a new city is like unwrapping presents every corner you turn or place you visit a new surprise awaits.
We arrived at 12am on Sunday morning and as some of you know the accommodation we booked didnt bother to answer his phone. Plus there was a big fireworks event on that night so all the hotels were fully booked. We finally found somewhere, a cheap motel just outside of the airport that checked us into a comfy enough bed for 7 hours. Previous to that our immigration process was smooth and easy. No hiccups, no real questions. Just Another Aussie – they call us JAFAS over here, you can choose what the “F” stands for – i say Firkingoodlooking!
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August 5th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Technology | No Comments
Tags: Blog, female, female surfing, girls, photo, surfing, womens surfing
A gallery I collated on photo sharing site Flickr to look at the style, beauty, power and grace of women’s surfing.
Female Surfing Gallery
July 8th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 2 Comments
Tags: 2010, argentina, san martin, san martin de los andes, Travel
G’day Everybody,
Most people doing the clockwise trip of South America travel to Pucon, Chile from Bariloche. Most people take a leisurely overnight bus for the 10 or 12 odd hour trip through the Andes. Most people. Not us. Nope, 10+ hours on a bus at this point in our trip was fairly frightening for me at least. 10 hours couped up in a small seat without food and with the person in front reclining their seat all the way no matter how much i press my knees into the back of the seat. Terrifying!
Instead i consult a snowboarding mate i met on the Internet. Yup you’ve got to love the world wide web. He tells us of a quaint little town much better than Bariloche, only 6 hours from Bariloche and has a short route to Pucon. Brilliant! The places name, San Martin De Los Andes.
San Martin De Who?
Yup San Martin for short.
Pretty Trees
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June 13th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 1 Comment
Tags: iquitos, peru, strange, Travel, weird
We just flew into Iquitos Thailand/Peru, hot humid scooter.motorbikes and tuk tuks fill the roads. Now this town is isolated, coming from Perth i get it but this town cannot be accessed by road and it’s got 500,000 people in it. So it’s all river and air transport. We got to our hotel and was greeted by Hugh Hefner in his robe who told us that there was food but now it’s late. We were amused since it was 7:30pm. We then walked around and there found a tree house that would put robinson crusoe to shame. We really needed food so we climbed into a Tuk Tuk and motored off to a chinese restaurant called Long Dong Fong. Bumped into another political rally and came home.
At home we discovered the place was used to shoot and house the stars/crew of Fitzcarraldo. You know the Beatles right? Ok, so a bit later one there was a band named The Clash, you know The Clash? Ok, no. So you know Rock The Casbah? Ok that year. 1982 was when the film was released but the writers/producers etc stayed in Iquitos for 5 years prior. Mind boggling. Hugh Hefner is really Walter Saxer the executive producer. He co-owns the place and runs it from what i can gather, nice bloke who occasionally gets pulled out of the jungle to produce films.
We wake up the next morning to the sounds of a rooster barking and a dog crowing.
Must dash, i’ve got to have breakfast by the palm covered pool and next to the naked mermaids.
Later
El Hutcho
June 10th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 5 Comments
Tags: argentina, bariloche, bike, glacier, ride, Travel, waterfall
Yes, you read it right Hutchae was in Bariloche(pron. Baril-o-ch-ay)
He was travelling with the beautiful Jessae
Sometime in Autumn, probably mid-May
When it was time, Hutch did say
To do some exercise, a cycle around the bay
They hopped off the bus round mid-day
And to their great dismay
They got off early about 5 k
Walk walk and walk the rest of the way.
Arrived tired and sweaty at the bus bay
Grabbed some bikes and set off for 30k
They met some freaky deaky dutch along the way
Firkin knackered Hutch did say
The dutch replied Oh Touche’
3 hours later back at the bus bay
They arrive knackered and willing to convey
That this was the hardest bike ride on a highway
But it was stunning on such a beautiful day
Later that night they sat down at a buffet
With the freaky deaky dutch and a waiter Jose’
They had earned dessert, a great sorbet
Retired to bed listening to Ricky Gervais.
The Tour De Bariloche was a 30km ride on bitumen up and down some big hills around some of the most spectacular lake’s and forrest we’ve ever seen. Here are some photo’s of our great little Tour De Bariloche:
A lake on route to the first hill:
A cute little cafe:
Please read on below.
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May 29th, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 4 Comments
Tags: 2010, argenina, el calafate, Travel
We were excited to arrive to El Calafate in Southern Patagonia and be greeted with a very picturesque village with amazing autumn colours, and the mountains reflecting in a flamingo laden lake. Since all the hostels in the town were so expensive we decided to “posh pack” and upgrade to the most popular spot on trip advisor. After a bumpy ride out of town on a dirt road we arrived to a lovely little hotel right on the lake. We had wine and canapés overlooking the stunning views on arrival which worried us….. Had we miss read the price tag or something? The room was fantastic and I was very excited at the prospect of a bath and a hair dryer (it doesn’t take much). It allowed us time to get organised for what everyone comes to El Calafate to do and that’s the glacier.
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May 21st, 2010 | Posted in Blog, News, Travel, Travel Stories | 2 Comments
Tags: Colonia, south america, uruguay
After BA Tigre and Iguazu we were feeling a little tired and wondered what would be the best way to spend Bickies (Ben and Vicky’s) last three days of Vacation before they headed back to the states. After some deliberation we decided to go to the UNESCO World Heritage town of Colonia Uruguay. It is a town where the Portuguese used to smuggle goods over to BA when the areas were still disputed between the colonial powers of Spain and Portugal.
We took the ferry from BA and checked into our lovely B&B/hostel with a balcony and a view to the sea. Unfortunately Bickie didn’t have such luck getting a room where the windows shook violently every time someone turned on hot water (which was frequently). Needless to say they moved to another B&B the next day.
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