yesterday's flight from brazil to london was roughest of whole trip (Inc my flying lesson!). Now on train to leeds. It's dull damp & cold (3 deg C). Back to work tomorrow, so will complete blog over the next few days. Update at 9 Feb 19:24

Just to note that I have uploaded 6 new photo albums (´Christmas and New Year at Wairarapa´,´Antarctic expedition on Lyubov Orlova´,´Wellington NZ´,´Auckland NZ´,´Ushuaia Jan2010´ and ´Around Santiago´), and also 2 videos (´Penguins having a slide´, and ´Gentoo penguin colony, Aitcho Island´). BTW, the originals of all the photos are much sharper than they appear here. This website requires photos to be compressed before uploading. I may put the ...

Arrived Porto Alegre, Brazil, Fri 29 Jan. Staying with Paul Timms and his wife Glaci. We all got up at 5am Sat to catch a bus to where we are now - about 3 hrs to the North-East, in a small town on the mountain plateau. Yesterday and today we hired a taxi to visit some spectacular canyons on the edge of the plateau. On today´s visit we could also see the Atlantic in the distance. Taxi ride was exciting, as the road was more suited to a 4x4 vehicle, however the ...

Now back in Ushuaia after a wonderful cruise to the Antarctic peninsula. It seems like a different planet now. More details later when I get the pictures loaded. Yesterday hired a bike in Ushuaia for 40 pesos all day. Boarding plane to buenos aires now. Frank

Arrived Ushuaia, the most Southerly city in the world (pop approx 80,000) at 1600 today, after 4 nights in Santiago and one night in Buenos Aires. Both cities are very flat, but whereas Santiago is surrounded on all sides by mountains (and has a few hills within the city), Buenos Aires is flatter than Holland, and there are no hills within sight. The people in both cities also have a calmness about them which is unexpected given the Spanish heritage. More of th...