New Zealand - North Island Part 1AucklandAfter a 13hour flight (and a whole day missed out!) we arrived in Auckland very early wednesday (30th Sept) morning. We hadn't been able to book our accommodation in advance so we spent the next few hours hanging around in the airport, ringing hostels to try and find a cheap room at 6am! Eventually we got through to one and caught the bus into the city centre. We checked into the hostel, then decided we should organise ...

Once we arrived in Santiago we had to get a tube and then a taxi to our hostel, but we eventually made it and after chilling in the lounge to watch a film, headed off to bed. The next day the weather was pretty gloomy, but as we only had two days in Santiago we wanted to try and make the most of it. So we decided to do a walking tour of the city to see as much as we could and headed off late morning. We didn't make it very far before deciding we should really ...

After leaving Bariloche we headed to Chile via Osorno and then on to Valparaiso, where we stayed for 2 nights. Valparaiso is a small city north of Santiago that is set in hillsides overlooking the harbour below. The city looks very old and run down, but in a quirky, charming sort of way. There is an adundance of graffiti - every corner we turned we would see bright, colourful, imaginative paintings on the sides of buildings. From a distance, the city very muc...

After our overnight bus we arrived Monday morning in the Lake District, in a town called Bariloche. The views as we arrived were amazing ... the views once we had checked into our hostel were incredible!! We stayed at a hostel on the tenth floor of an apartment block, which had huge windows and a balcony all the way along one side of the kitchen and lounge, overlooking the beautiful lake and mountains that provided the backdrop for Bariloche. It really felt li...

Having finally reached Puerto Madryn, we checked into a lovely hostel, had a quick shower and went out for some lunch with an American girl, Jo, who was in our dorm. We had decided to visit Puerto Madryn as it was the perfect time of year for whale watching, so that afternoon we headed to the seafront to walk along the beach and the pier. Within a few minutes we were seeing whales (southern right whales) breaching so close to both the pier and the beach, it was...