San Martin de los Andes

Or San Martin for short, is a beautiful sleepy little town just on the edge of the Andes, and is an ideal place for hiking and enjoying nature. Now, we've doen quite a bit of that the last few days and will probably do more of it in El Calafate, so we've just relaxed a bit here.

But that doesn't mean its not eventful. When we were casually walking around in town, we suddenly stumbled on a London bus. We were trying to get away from that busy bustling city, and this place could probably not feel farther from London, so seeing that bus was highly unexpected.

Then as we kept walking down the street, we stumbled on an Irish pub called Dublin. Ok, I admit, anywhere thats worth visiting eventually ends up having an Irish pub, its just one of those facts of life. But it still felt a bit out of place.

Our third surprise for the day was when we say a sign for a chocolate store called "Smaken by Johan" , yes Swedes get everywhere but still unexpected. It was even more unexpected to find out Johan was Dutch and still spelt his name with only one 'n'.

So San Martin is a nice relaxing place that keeps you on your toes we concluded and went back to our hostel, where the token guitar strummer had found some girls to jam with. Or so we thought. Turns out the two guys in our hostel decided to go travelling with their guitars on their break from univerity. They had been playing by the street the day before, when the two girls passed. They liked what they heard so they invited them to share their gig at the Irish pub (where else?), and they were now busy trying to reherse enough songs to make it through the night, and they were good. So in the evening (Argentinan time) we headed over to the pub and had some beer and enjoyed the show, which was really really good. Not just considering they had only been rehersing for two days and that one of the guys only had played guitar for three months. It was really, really good, and they played for well over two hours as well, quite impressive....

We'll definately go see them when they play the stadiums in Europe in a few years time. :)

Straddie

From one paradise island to Brisbane and then onto the next, where our friend and host exraordinare Kate was picking us up. Stradbroke Island is a the second biggest sand island in the world, narrowly beaten by Fraser Island just to the north, but it shares all the beauty of its bigger relative. But Straddie has people (but only 3000) and paved roads so its beauty is much more accessible.

We arrived on monday night with a few objectives in mind, I wanted to try out surfing, we both wanted to try out the most amazing seafood in the world and maybe most importantly just relax for a couple of days and catch up with Kate who we've not seen in a long time. After we got to their house and were introduced to Stuart, her father, and his oyster farming friends we headed out for some Kangaroo spotting. The urgency of this mission was brought upon by our failure until that point to see any real wildlife (barrier reef fish and dingoes excluded of course). And Straddie came up with the goods immediately.

Kate's fathers house is in the town of Point lookout, which follows the beaches on the northeast side of the island, so you are never far away from the beach and the beatuful green areas on the slopes that separates them from the residential areas. In these areas a lot of wildlife lives and within 5 minutes, we spotted skippy obvilously just awoken from his afternoon nap. The dolphins, however, were a bit shy this particular evening, so instead we headed home to our hosts for Kates traditional welcome-home Taco dinner, a bit of wine and a good rest in preparation for what looked to be a busy Tuesday.

The plan for Tuesday contained: surfing, seafood hunting, koala safari, dolphin watching on the Gorge walk and roast lamb dinner. Sounds mad?? Well, we are nothing if not ambitious so we started out bright and early by heading down to the beach for some surfing lessons. We stopped by Maine beach where there were really good waves, for professionjals that is - for amatures they are scary and deadly, and rejected that for a more calm site. And when I say surfing I really mean 1 hour, 59 minutes of battling waves and about 30 seconds of attempting to stand up on the board. The morning was not ideal for surfing, with waves coming in very frequently and a bit messy, but that was the hand we were dealt and Kate seemed to manage easily enough. After two hours I had nealy managed to stand up three times and was really enjoying it, but it was tough and almost lunchtime so we had to call it a day and instead went seafood hunting.

Seafood hunting on Straddie is quite easy, you get into your car and drive to where the fisherman lives (they all live in Amity, btw) and buy this mornings catch straight out of their fridges. As fresh as it comes. We picked up some huge raw prawns and Moreton Bay Bugs to complement the few dozens of oysters that Kate and Stuart had brought home the day before. But before we could have lunch, we went koala spotting, since they also live in Amity. The nice lady that sold us the bugs advised us that there were usually three koalas living just across the road, but since it was getting a bit busy in the buildup to christmas (there is now at least 3 cars driving past each day) they had moved further into the forest. So we went a little bit into the forest to try to spot them in their gum-trees, and thanks to Kates keen eye we managed to spot one just as we were giving up. And to top that off, we managed to spot another two on the drive home, and we were only slightly worried by the fact that it was Kate, who was driving, that spotted them. But we got home safely and consumed a gorgeous seafood lunch accompanied by some nice wine - of course.

After brief rest in the early afternoon heat we went out to walk along the Gorge walk which goes along the east coast at point lookout and ends up at maine beach. This boardwalk has stunning views and today lots of turtles, manta-rays, sea-eagles and other birds were out in full force, as well as the surfers catching the last few waves before sunset. On our way home we stopped by the office where Kates brother Hugh is working, were treated to a chilled beer and let our feet rest for a while before heading back to the Roast lamb dinner that was being prepared by Stuart.

Wednesday morning offered a chance to remedy the unsuccessful attempt at surfing form the previous day, but unfortunately the waves were too small instead. So we had to leave the beach again with nothing more than bruised and scraped knees. Instead we headed to the local shops to try to find some Jamaican spices since we'd had a request for Jamaican jerk chicken for dinner that night, and four guests. On this shoppingtrip the Straddie wildlife came through for us again, this time dolpins were putting on a show in the bay. After just catching the very end of the show we managed to pick up most of the ingredients for dinner and made a marinade that was close enough to the real thing.

We left Vaniah behind to cook dinner and headed out so Stuart could get some pictures taken by an old disused oyster farming platform, and at the same time I got a mini tour of their oyster lease. It's quite an interesting place an oyster farm, full of cages to grow oysters in of course, but also full of other imposters such as sea cucumbers, razorclams (which Kate started hunting for since they have a scallop like centre that apparently is delicious) and fish. All in a stunnig setting out in Moreton bay.

The next day we woke up and reluctant to leave, we turned down going surfing one last time and instead just had to try the locally-made gelato one more time and eat lunch at the infamous Fishes. When we finally caught the ferry off the island, we met a local fire prevention guy and learnt all about controlling the bush-fires on Straddie. An impressive and hugely important job!

It's sad to leave Stradbrook island, we've had a great, relaxing time there and it was good to catch up with old friends. Still, with Brisbane and Sydney ahead, we had lots to look forward to...

Fraser Island

On an overnight bus which stops about once an hour, sleep is not very easy, but that's what we had 12 hours of to get from Airlie beach to Hervey bay, which is the gateway to the famous Fraser Island. Arrival just before 7 am and the pickup to take us to the ferry was at 7.25. Just enough time to get drop off our backpacks and get breakfast.

Fraser Island is a huge sandbank island that houses a large rainforest, vast areas of dense and not-so-dense forests, hundreds of freshwater lakes and tons of beaches and sand-dunes where vegetation has caught hold. As there is quite a lot to see on this fantastic 80 mile long and 15 mile wide island we decided to go for a 2 day tour and spend a night on the island, which also would allow us to go for an optional extra of a flight over the island. So we'd get to see a lot of it up close and personal and then at the end get an areal view to cap it all off. Perfect.

On arriving at the island we piled into an ex-military offroad truck and set off on the track that crossed the island, and that truck we needed. The tracks are made out of soft sand, deep soft sand, very deep and very soft sand that is very good a trapping cars that are not suited for it, as would become evident later.

It took 45 bumpy minutes to cross the island and make it onto 'Highway 1', also known as 75 mile beach (which is actually only 73 miles long). A short trip north on the beach is Lake Wabby, a spring fed fresh lake nestled between rainforest and a huge sand dune. Now its a 45 minute trek through burning hot sand to get there, but the reward matches the effort. Its cool, clear, comes complete with a school of fish that swims right up and around you and there is plenty of shade offered by the trees. The only drawback is the 45 minute trek back once you have spent too short time cooling down, regardless of how long you actually spend there.

After that lunch was served, and we headed out towards maybe the most famous landmark on the island, Lake McKenzie. and after that a walk through the beautiful rainforest. Lake McKenzie is a 45 minute drive away, normally. Lake McKenzie is rainwater lake that is lined by beautiful silica sand which is incredibly fine and amazingly cool, even in the heat of the evening sun. We spent a wonderful hour or so here, frolicking in the water and taking lots of photos of the gorgeous views that were all around, before we had to head back (way too soon, again), but fortunately only a minute or so trek to the truck this time.

Now, I said normally - but this was not a normal day and this was where the sand came back to haunt us. About 15 minutes into the drive to the lake, we hit a traffic jam of the worst kind. The one you can not get around in a huge ex-military truck because there is a dense world heritage protected forest lining the single lane one way track. At the front of this jam there was a similar truck with a flat tire that had come off the rim with two mechanics under it using two jacks to try to get the truck stable enough so that they could dig out a trench deep enough to replace it. Since this is a not a simple procedure, we were stuck for about 40 minutes before we could set off again. Only to 5 minutes later hear a call from the bus in front. We only managed to hear 'The wheels of the bus go round and round...' being chanted. That being the code for the truck in front is stuck in the sand, and it was the same bus. Fortunately this time it could simply be towed out of its hole and make another attempt at it, which was successful. However, this put us way behind schedule when we came to lake Mckenzie so the rainforest had to wait until next morning and instead we headed for our accommodation and dinner.

The next morning we set out bright and early (8am) and went for a stroll through the rainforest with our guide pointing out all the interesting vegetation and explained a bit about the history of the island, before we once again set out onto the 75 mile beach, this time to the far north of it to 'Indian head' a volcanic rock that rises about 65 meters and sports an unrivalled view of the beach and the waters where you can spot all sorts of marine life in the breaks just of the shoreline. Today, the dolphins and turtles were out in full force, accompanied by a few sting/manta/eagle(?) rays and a school of rather large but unidentifiable fish. No sharks though, sadly.

Once safely down on the shore we headed for lunch and recreation at Eli creek, a spring water fed creek that apparently is a constant 18 degrees and feeds millions of litres of clear fresh drinkable water into the pacific ocean. Per hour. The current is strong enough to carry a human being (or a pair of flip-flops) at a fair pace down it, or if you choose to will keep you about stationary (relative to the ground that is) if you try to swim up it. Other people that were better prepared than us came with inflatable mattresses, rubber rings and other floatation devices that made the journey even more pleasurable, as well as intriguing for the rest of us to watch. The best-in-creek award goes to the German couple (I think) that had adopted the Aussie culture completely and were gently floating down the creek on inflatable mattresses with beer in stubby holders in hand. As the ad would have said - priceless...

Once everyone was happily cooled off and back on the truck we headed back towards the resort we stayed at but unfortunately we seemed to have missed the opportunity to catch that flight over the island, probably due to the traffic debacle the day before. We had both been looking forward to it so much and we're quite disappointed that we missed it, but at the same time we do not know what we would have not done to buy us the time. Instead, we had to hustle to get onto the ferry to take us back to Hervey Bay and our hostel which we settled into for the night after a nice Thai dinner at the restaurant conveniently located just a few steps away. Monday morning we head off, bright and early to Brisbane and then on to Straddie to meet up with Kate and her lovely family on another little paradise island.

Really looking forward to it.

Barossa valley Wine tasting

Just north of Adelaide is the Barossa Valley, mainly famous for its fantastic red wines and also the fact that this is where Jacob's Creek and Wolf Blass wine come from. Now, we're not saying that these wines are bad, they make some fantastic wines there too, but they rarely gets shipped, and the ones that are are priced fairly comfortably inside the high-to-extortionate region. We chose to do an organised one day tour, based on our limited time in this huge country, but given more time it would have been fantastic to stay at bed and breakfasts in the valley and hop between them at a leisurely pace. But that does not mean we had a bad experience, quite the opposite, the organised tour features a very well informed driver who during the drive first gave a brief history of the settlement of Adelaide by the British. He then went on to the world wars and the influx of people from mainly Germany and Italy and how the Germans settled the Barossa valley and started to grow wine. This history lesson was great and not something you'd have easily picked up on your own by chatting to the locals.

The tour was scheduled to stop at four vineyards, the first one, "Kiels", the driver oddly labeled as a cafe where you could also try their wine in their cellar door. We prioritised the wine and while the others piled into the cafe for morning tea and a piece of cake we started chatting with the owner and judging by the newspaper clippings on display she was an award winning wine maker. We tried their reds on display and were very impressed by their three Sihraz wines but were blown away by their Ports (or fortified Wines they now have to label it). Obviously the locals are too, since when we were standing there sipping our samples a man and a woman came in to restock their port supply. They returned four two-litre empties and bought four new ones, at roughly $6.50 a litre. That is roughly 40 SEK or £3.50. And remember this was no cheap tasting plonk but some of the best port wine we have ever tasted. As we were standing there saying, 'now that is the way to buy wine, just go to the local award winning vineyard and get it straight from the casks' the owner and the customers were happily chatting away about how early summer has come and other little bits of local news. As they were about to leave she stuffed a bottle of their mid-range white into the bags and said something along the lines of 'stick this in the fridge as well, it will cool you down nicely'.
We need more vineyards and less strict alcohol regulations in Sweden I think...

After popping into the cafe to get our coffee and cake we got on the bus and headed to Langmeil vineyard, where we were met by a cousin of the family run vineyard with a history of over 120 years. Not the same family as when it started though. This visit started out with a little history about the vineyard itself and a 15 minute talk on what makes a great wine, which all boiled down to : its all in the vines. He was talking very enthusiastically about how the best quality wines come from grapes from old vines, and how the industrial sized production of the larger vineyards destroys the vines early, after only 30 years. In smaller scale vineyards on the other hand, where the vines are pruned manually they can last for hundreds of years, though they will yield less and less grapes as time passes. After a quick visit into the fields to see these old vines in the blazing sun, we headed inside to sample the goods, and it was truly amazing. They had a huge selection and we dove straight into the heavy reds section of the list, that is after all the reason we came to this particular area. They had a great Grenache wine and a couple of Grenache/Shiraz blends that were really really nice (all for around or under $15 a bottle). The masterpieces though were the Shiraz wines they make of their really old vines, we liked them so much we had to buy a bottle from the top shelf to consume in a few years time.

After our splurge we went on to a vineyard, who's name escapes us both, for a lunch of very tasty Kangaroo steak and Sticky Date (toffee) pudding, and some more wine of course. This one was nestled in a stunning setting with fields dropping off a hill and with the valley peaks far in the distance. Absolutely gorgeous, but you'll see that in the photo... The wines however, though very nice and incredibly drinkable, did not reach the heights of the previous two. They did had a sparkling red that was quite good though which some of the ladies on the tour were raving about, but that was as far as it went.



After that it was time to go to a big one the biggest actually - Wolf blass, who can bottle a staggering 26'000 bottles an hour apparently. This tasting was more organised and held at their large visitors centre, which obviously cater for a lot of visitors. There was a menu and the guy behind the counter was explaining each wine and each one was more 'delicious', 'beautiful', 'rich' and 'full-bodied' than the last. We were treated to a few of their upper ranges of wines though, the ones above the yellow and red labels, that doesn't make it across to Europe. Though these were quite good, we still preferred the small scale wines we tasted before lunch, though some of the people on the tour did pay a little extra to try a sample from the top ($150 a bottle) range and they claimed that it was the best of the bunch, all day. I do believe them, we seemed to have very similar taste throughout the day, but $150 a bottle is quite a steep price, no matter how nice it is, so I think on our budget we are better off without that temptation. Besides, we already had our splurge bottle safely tucked away in our bag.


The next day we spent roaming around the town in the morning and happened upon the finish of the Global Green challenge, where university students make and drive Solar-powered vehicles from Darwin to Adelaide, through the red Centre (on the very road we are driving on as I am typing this). We lounged around the area for a while and listened to their stories and as they explained to others in the know about how they had built their cars, which solar cells they are using, voltage etc, etc. It is really extraordinary what these guys are doing, they travelled from Darwin to Adelaide in three days, roughly the same time we'll make in our car and reached speeds of over 100 Km/hr and its all built by hand by undergrads. Though there were stories like 'are you using those batteries? Oh, we were going to but one exploded and nearly took our car with it, so we decided not to...', so while we might not go out and buy one tomorrow, it is certainly a thing of the near future. Once our inquisitive minds were at ease we hopped on a bus and went to Tennyson beach, which is a little bit out of the way and less populated. This was a Saturday after all, so we expected a minor invasion of the more accessible beaches. An added benefit of this beach is that it has a lot of sand dunes lining the back of it which makes it not only extremely beautiful but you can also find shelter from the wind, unless it is blowing straight in of course. The water was still cold but in the 30+ heat it was just perfect and it gave us a stunning sunset. We count this as another day well spent in Oz.

While on the beach we decided to hire a car and drive up to Uluru, since we have until next Sunday (a full week!!) until we fly out to Cairns. So at this moment, are driving to Pt Augusta through vast farmland which definitely reminds us that space is not something that Australia is lacking (the farms are huge, roughly the size of countries like, say Singapore!!). This will be a quick stopover and maybe a visit to the Wodlata outback centre in the morning, which apparently is a great Aboriginal culture experience.

Adelaide has treated us very well, but we are quite excited about our road-trip so we are leaving with a smile on our faces.