Day 9 - Heading to the end of the world with no idea ....

Punta del Este (Uruguay) to Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Basically a day of travel today, taking an 8.30am bus to Montevideo, then changing to another bus for Colonía, followed by the ferry back to Buenos Aires. 

Typical Punta del Este tourists ... just lying around.

All very uninteresting, one amusing bit was waiting in the line for the ferry at Colonía. We were talking to a guy from Canada and then an older man behind us said "Did I hear you say you were going to Ushuaia tomorrow?", so we started chatting with both of them. They were both surprised that we were travelling to "The End of the World" without a concrete plan and just a hope that we would be able to get a deal on an Antarctica cruise. The Canadian called us "adventurers", while the other guy from the US appeared horrified by our lack of planing - it turns out he was catching a charter flight to Ushuaia the next day to go on a cruise through Antarctica to Cape Town for three weeks. As soon as it was time to board his lordship from the US bolted to the other side of the ferry, away from us peasants!

Day 8 - Things go better with cola

Punta del Este

In the morning we took a taxi to the the next small town, called La Barra, which is essentially a quieter and more laid back beach town. There wasn't much to be seen there and as we had arrived a little early on a Sunday morning, after checking out the beach we hopped on a local bus back to PdE. 

She had no idea she was going to be the butt of this joke

K decided to sit on the beach and read a book while eating corn on the cob and getting a little sunburnt, Some of the beach outfits were revealing in strange (and not necessarily good) ways - it appears there is a fashion called "cola-less", and as cola means bum, it means g-string bikinis regardless of size or age. M explored a bit more of town, including the lighthouse which we missed on our walk yesterday, and some sea lions by the port, sleeping and completely oblivious of the people watching and taking photos. 

It was another beautiful evening, so we sat at a restaurant near the port and shared a jug of claricot (white wine sangria), while watching another sun set somewhere in the direction of home.

Day 7 - 3 million people .... 10 million cows

Montevideo to Punta del Este

Today we took the bus to the "Sunshine Coast" of Uruguay, around two hours away. We were told on the walking tour yesterday that Uruguay was mainly empty, we witnessed that today, we mainly saw just countryside and cows!

Punta del Este (PdE) is like another world compared with Montevideo, gone are the rough footpaths with holes and broken tiles and streets full of old buildings, and hello to modern high rise apartment blocks, clean streets, manicured lawns and gardens, and immaculate footpaths. It's a popular holiday destination for Argentinians and Brazilians, so we encountered very few English speakers in town.

Swim between the fingers?

The hotel was in a great location near the centre of the main town, and the friendly staff gave us some good info on what to see and do. The weather was perfect, so we ended up walking all the way around the point via the promenade, passing some decent beaches, some interesting sculptures, and getting splashed along the way. The location of PdE is interesting - even though it looks it's surrounded by ocean, the western side is still considered as being on the Rio de la Plata, and the eastern side on the Atlantic.

The original fishnet stockings

We watched the sun set from the promenade along with a whole heap of other couples and families, and the mate drinking culture was evident, with lots of people watching as they clutched their thermos and sipped on mate.

Day 6 - It doesn't mate to me

Montevideo

The next morning we did our usual trick after arriving in a new city and took a "free" walking tour. As I'm sure we've said before, they're a great way to get some local knowledge and history while gathering an understanding of the lay of the city and finding places we might want to visit later.

I wonder what General Artigas would think
of that ugly apartment apartment building behind him?

Our guide was was good fun and imparted lots of local knowledge in a relaxed easy manner. The old town of Montevideo is quite compact and easy to walk around, and although Uruguay is a bit different to the cities we visited in Spain where there was always plenty of life and a place to stop for a drink, it still had some great places, like the Mercado near the port which consisted almost exclusively of barbeque restaurants,

Montevideo is the first place we have seen where the police ride segways, quite hard to take them seriously when they are getting around on toys. We also saw lots of people carrying around thermoses - that's so they can drink their mate (like a bitter green tea) any time they choose. Of an evening there were also lots of people walking their dogs - nearly all small to medium sized poodles, and the occasional sausage dog.

Day 5 - Into the unknown (at last)

Buenos Aires (Argentina) to Montevideo (Uruguay)

An early start to catch the ferry across the Rio Plata to the historic city of Colonía del Sacramento in Uruguay. At this point we are now travelling to places we haven't been before. The water was full of some sort of weed that appeared to be clogging all the water ways, and at one stage the ferry stopped and an announcement was made about some problem with the river, but that was all K could grasp from the rapid fire Spanish, we got going again after about 10 minutes but only slowly.

Overlooking Colonia from the old lighthouse

We arrived in Colonía and spent a few hours wandering around the old buildings and the waterfront, it all looked very Spanish with cute plazas and open air cafes and restaurants, something that we noticed was missing in Buenos Aires. We then caught the bus for the two and a half hour trip to Montevideo.

We booked into our Airbnb apartment in a fabulous location right on the main street of the old city, then went exploring, following the waterfront which pretty much surrounded the city in three out of four sides.

Day 4 - Don't roll your eyes at me, just do your job!

Buenos Aires

This morning we decided to walk to Recoleta, which is an upmarket suburb and also the area where Eva Peron is buried. We didn't go into the cemetery to see her tomb as we had visited it on our last trip, but we did walk to the giant lotus flower which we had missed last time. It is quite amazing how this massive metal structure resembling a lotus opens with the sun each day and closes as the sun goes down each evening.

Sure, it looks like a giant metal lotus flower,
 but what if it's really some sort of transmitter?

The weather was very warm and humid but much improved in the evening when we decided to walk back to the neighbourhood we had stayed at last time to revisit one of the great steak restaurants there. After reviewing the options though we decided to head back closer to home. It started pouring rain on the way so we ended up sheltering in a nice looking steak place for dinner. It was a good decision, although K was a little put out by the way the waiter rolled his eyes when we asked for pepper and chimmichurri.

By the time dinner was over the rain had stopped, so back to our apartment for an early night, as we had an early ferry to catch the next day.

Day 3 - The longest day

Auckland to Buenos Aires

Our flight from Auckland to Buenos Aires didn't leave until 7pm, so we left our bags at the hotel and walked to the Auckland Museum. Auckland is pretty hilly, and the museum is on top of one of those hills (probably another one of those extinct volcanoes), surrounded by parkland and a nice view.

Gives the term "gardening" a whole new meaning!

The museum was interesting, with some Maori history and a war memorial. We also had a chance to try out virtual reality in an AIr New Zealand display, which was pretty cool ... I think I want an Oculus Rift now!

We picked up our cases and caught the airport bus, and once on board we settled in for the 12 hour flight to Buenos Aires. As we crossed the international date line we arrived four hours or so before we left ... so we ended up landing around 4pm.

We had a bit of trouble with getting a taxi, the airport taxi drivers get to pick and choose which fares they want to take, and for some reason they didn't seem to want to take us. Eventually though we made it to our airbnb apartment well located in town. We walked around for a whlle, then had dinner. 

By the time we had finished it was around 10pm, and since we had woken up around 8am NZ time, caught a plane at 7pm NZ time, arrived 12 hours later at 4pm Argentine time, then stayed up until 10pm, it had been a very long day ... but hopefully we'd managed to avoid jet lag as a result. 

Day 2 - Ferry to Devonport (no, not the Spirit of Tasmania)

Day 2 - Auckland

The next (late) morning we had no trouble finding a nice coffee just up the road from our hotel. We walked down to Auckland harbour and decided to get on the ferry to Devonport only 20 minutes away. We bought a ticket that combined the ferry trip with a mini bus tour to a few points of interest on the other side, including trips up the two extinct volcanoes making up the Devonport area.

Nice enough view from the edge of an extinct volcano

We stopped for a drink in Devonport's main street before heading back on the ferry. After a walk around town we had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant by the harbour, which seemed pretty busy for a Monday night, must be all those tourists in town ......

Day 1 - And so it begins again ......

Melbourne to Auckland

Here we are again, five years to the day after our last extended trip to Africa and Europe. We always intended to resume our trip, but didn't think it would take us this long.

Our plans for this trip at this stage are a bit vague ..... head to South America (via New Zealand), make our way to the southernmost part, see if we can get a good price on a trip to Antarctica, and after that .... keep heading north!

I wonder if these plants will be alive when we get back .....

Today we had an afternoon flight, so we spent the day just like the previous five ..... cleaning the house and moving our stuff so we can get it to hotel standard for airbnb guests. We had done such a great job, the house looked so beautiful when we left that it seemed a shame to be leaving it for someone else to stay in, knowing that we won't be staying anywhere as nice as home for the next eight months or so.

Gini came and collected Poppy, who cried at the car window to every passing car that she had been kidnapped, only settling down after an hour or so.

Our flight to Auckland was fine, a nice easy flight, and we arrived at the hotel in the early hours of the following morning.