Friends and Foes at the Lagoon
A Walk around the Lagoon We made a new friend on our walk around Laguna Nimez just outside of El Calafate, Argentina. She was a pretty black lab with a red collar, and obviously belonged to someone, but she was out for a walk on her own. She accompanied us around the lagoon fetching a […]
Thar she blows!
Kaikoura had some of the most beautiful scenery yet! The snowy mountain-peaked background and an almost impossibly aquamarine sea sparkling in the foreground was truly magnificent. We had some lovely walks around town and down to a sea colony to watch them play before heading uphill to the lookout from which you can see both […]
The Road to Milford
Te Anau is a lovely destination on its own, and we took advantage of the lakeside setting for a morning walk. After checking out road conditions (there has been snow and sleet), we rented snow chains from the service station and head north 119k to Milford Sound. It was still quite cold, so we bundled […]
Curio Bay
Before leaving town for Curio Bay, we decided to check out an “est,” (bigg-est, tall-est, deep-est, etc.) In a suburb of Dunedin is the Guinness record holder for world’s steepest street, Baldwin Street. We left the van at the bottom and walked up. It was a good workout and challenging coming back down as well. […]
Open Water
Diving the Great Barrier Reef was near the top of our not-to-be-missed list. The amount of information available to tourists in Cairns is absolutely overwhelming, and we did quite a bit of research on possible ways to get there. Carmen, from Experience Cairns wasn’t the first agent we chatted with, but she was the only […]
Departing the Daintree
On the way out in the morning we did the last boarwalk: Dubuji, which looked different than the others had on previous days, due to the heavy rain the night before. There was lots more water in the creeks and everything seemed sort of steamy. This was a longer walk with lots of lowland rainforest, […]
Kangaroos, Koalas and Emu, Oh My!
A drive up to the Mt. Lofty summit provided a panoramic view of Adelaide all the way to the sea. We tried unsuccessfully to find two geocaches on the nature trail below the lookout, and then head down to Cleland Wildlife Park. Here, we were able to hand feed kangaroos, wallaby, emu and waterfowl, and we got […]
Hermanus
We set off in the morning with the Kiwi girls, Leanne and sisters Nicola and Lee-Anne. After a single wrong turn getting out of Cape Town, and a few minutes for Donny to get used to left-hand-drive and the other side of the road, it was smooth sailing to Hermanus. We stopped for rooibos tea […]
Outjo and Onward
We stocked up on provisions at Outjo(settled in 1880). There was a yummy German bakery there, and lunch was sausage rolls and meat pies. Mmmm. By late afternoon we reached the Cheetah Park. This conservation project is run by a farming family. The boys of the family grew up there, and have taken over most […]
Lion by the Pool
Our morning game drive highlight was a close encounter with a lion. We had seen a few from a distance, including a male clearly annoyed his female companion had strayed so far. Around the corner, the same male crossed the road just in front of and then just in back of the truck. We got […]