If we were ever to have reached a gastronomical pinnacle, then our time in Mendoza was surely that. It could be summarised as the tale of the three greats: food, wine and company. Despite hearing mixed reviews about the city beforehand - great on the culinary front, but perhaps lacking elsewhere - we were leaping in with our typical open mind and were suitably rewarded. After arriving at Hostel Empedrado in late afternoon - our digs for the duration of our time ...

Our first experience in time travel - or more accurately, our very first long-haul flight across the International Date Line - took its toll on us. Whilst we were excited to finally be in South America, we were also pretty exhausted after very little sleep on the plane from Auckland to Santiago: As is customary in these situations, we were subjected to a constant whinging child and very little leg room. There was also insufficient free wine to knock us out for a ...

After a somewhat leisurely past week, it was now time to stop all this trekking and sightseeing nonsense and just get some miles under our belt. We had come stuck when putting our travel plan into action, as we'd definitely underestimated the actual size of New Zealand. As such, we had only given ourselves one and a half days to reach the port at Picton from our current destination of Queenstown; a distance of 550 miles (just under 900kms for you metric fans), w...

We were met with clear skies the next morning and as such, we were advised to take a side trip up Conical Hill, a tough little peak rising from Harris Saddle, the plateau which can expose walkers to the most extreme weather conditions. The extra climb can add a couple of hours onto what was already a five hour trek, but as we were promised even more spectacular views at the summit, we thought it to be a worthwhile addition. We filled our bellies with porridge an...

The eve of our Routeburn trek was spent undertaking the usual administration duties, as we like to call them. Even more so for Shaun now, as he's set up a business with a friend of his back in the UK. As he worked, I 'faffed', as Shaun calls it - although it's this obligatory planning and sorting that made these type of things happen for us in the first place! I guess we have a silent understanding of how we work separately and together, which has been finely tun...