After leaving Santiago we caught a night bus south to the lake district of Chile.We stayed for three nights in a place called pucon from where you can do lots of walking and hill climbing.There are obviously lots of lakes around and also an active volcano called Cerro Villarica which looms over the town smoking away.Unfortunately it rained really heavily for the first three days which limited the amount of walking we could do.We were staying in a nice hostel with a log fire and tv so we managed to entertain ourselves until the rain stopped.We did make it to some hot springs on one of the wet days which were pretty spectacular.They were in a nice wooded glen with a little river running through it and the springs came straight out of the mountain side.Because it was raining the springs were steaming lots which made for some good photographs.We had intended to climb the volcano while there but you can't do it in the rain as it gets too slippy and dangerous.

Luckily on our last day there the sky cleared and it was safe to go up the volcano.Kate opted out of this due to her vow to never walk anywhere again after the Inca Trail.The mountain was almost completely covered in snow and ice so was a five hour struggle to get up but worth it for the view.You could also go right to the edge of the crater, but there was no lava to be seen as there was so much smoke and fumes coming from it.The way back down was much faster as you could sledge all the way to the bottom.That night we took a night bus north again.I was horribly sunburned on my top lip and under my nose, apparently when you are on snow the sun reflects upwards into your face.Never having been skiing I wasn't aware of this and only sun-creamed the usual areas.

We arrived in Santiago in the morning and hopped on another bus which took us to a town called Quintero.The town itself is a bit of a dump but there is a really nice hostel about 2kms outside on a beach called Playa Ritoque.It was a bit more difficult to get to but very peaceful as it is the only place to stay in the area meaning we had the beach pretty much to ourselves.It was also really small, with only room for 10 people.Here we did very little except sit on the beach, read books, have bonfires every night and have barbecues.By now my sunburn had developed into horrible yellow blisters so I didn't spend a lot of time on the beach.

We then caught a bus an hour south to a city called Valparaiso which is built up the side of a steep hill.There are old elevators up the hillside to all the various neighbourhoods to save your legs from all the steps.The elevators are all really old and creaky and a bit scary to ride as they zoom up really fast.Valparaiso is also famous for its graffiti and corrugated iron buildings which are all painted bright colours, it is the Balamory of the southern hemisphere.As we had spent longer than planned on the beach we only spent one night here and couldn't see everything we wanted to.

We took our final bus journey back to Santiago to spend a night in the big city before flying on to Australia.The flight passed uneventfuly and after a brief stopover in New Zealand we arrived in Australia where it was raining.At customs the shoes I had been wearing continually for the last three months were immediately identified as a biohazard and had to be taken away for disinfection.I think people thought I was one of those shoe bombers as I had to sit there in my socks while my shoes were treated.They were so alarmed about my shoes that they didn't even x-ray our bags, as we were arriving from South America you would have thought they would at least have a look.

Since arriving in oz we have been very busy finding a house and jobs and so on.We are staying in Brunswick which is a really nice area with lots of bars and restaurants and isn't too far from the city centre.We haven't made it out of Melbourne yet but so far Australia seems a bit like Britain but warmer and the people speak funny.For example instead of 'How's it going?' some people here will say 'How are you going?In some parts of town people say 'sao lại ra như vậy?', which is also pretty weird. We have yet to establish the correct answer to either.

The homeless world cup was on in Melbourne so we went along to see a couple of games.We watched Scotland play in the semi final and it made us both a bit homesick to watch a ned in a baseball cap shouting abuse at one of his team mates.Unfortunately the tramps from Russian beat our boys so we didn't make it to the final.