Lady Luck had her first bit of bad luck last night. Driving down Highway One, on a road having a new surface, a vehicle coming the other way caused a stone to flick into our window and caused quite a large chip.
If chips are left alone they can cause a crack next time you go over a bad bump and we didn't want that so this is a man called Nick giving Lady Luck a bit of TLC and repairing the crack by pouring resin into it. She is now almost as good as new.
Only an hour or so into our first journey on the South Island and we came across these guys down on the rocks by the roadside; wild New Zealand fur seals. There were at least 100 seals swimming in the sea or relaxing on the rocks and in the photo you can spy a bunch of younger ones crammed into a larger rock pool splashing about!
Did You Know?: Before hunting started in the 1700's there were more than one million fur seals in this area but although hunting has been banned for over 50 years now there are only around 100,000 left.
I have just seen the most peculiar combination of animals as I travel on the ferry to New Zealand's South Island...I just spotted three wild dolphins jumping in and out of the sea only a couple of hundred metres from the side of the ferry and then, off all the creatures to spot thousands of miles from home, I saw some Hereford cattle mooing away in a transportation truck on board the ship.
There can't be many places in the world where you can spot Hereford cattle and dolphins within seconds of one another!
Check out these pools I visited today near the city of Taupo. The green colour of the water is made by the natural minerals that occur in the unfiltered water but the colour is not the most interesting bit; This pool was naturally 39°c today, that's warmer than a lot of people have their baths! In fact the only machines used to make water this warm were to COOL it down from it's natural temperature which is even hotter.
This is still in the area of New Zealand with a lot of geothermal activity and the temperature under the surface heats the water up on it's journey before it comes out from springs much hotter than we are used to in the UK. It was weird to swim in it but it was very relaxing and I much prefer this type of geothermal activity to having egg-smelling steam blown in my face!
We have just travelled down New Zealand's 'Thermal Explorer Highway', a road through an area of New Zealand famous for all it's underground activity, and look what I stumbled upon...this alien-looking bit of land is a natural thermal vent in the earth's crust.
You can spot the steam coming right out of the ground as water below is naturally heated up to hundreds of degrees. The green colour is caused by sulphur forming on the surface and it makes one almighty pong. I was unlucky enough to have my mouth slightly open as the wind changed and blew towards me...think of an egg sandwich left in a hot car all day and you'll be close to imaging the smell! Not nice!
Just down the road from here was a bubbling mud pool the size of a football pitch too. It looked just like a giant chocolate milkshake that someone was blowing bubbles into through a straw with the occasional eruption of mud spewing a few feet into the air.
Discovered by a Maori chief and an Englishman over one hundred years ago, Waitomo Caves are a very special place. Inside, glow worms dangle from the ceiling up above making a perfect copy of a clear night sky. There are thousands of the worms in each cave and each one makes a tiny, bright blue light to attract prey that gets caught in their sticky, dangling threads.
Nobody was allowed to take photos inside the caves so this photo was taken as our boat emerged back into the sunlight of the outside world. If you want to see a picture of the glow worms yourself I would recommend searching online for some.
Did You Know?: Glow worms will spend up to nine months dangling from the ceiling before turning into a bug that has no mouth or stomach and only lives for a few days before starving to death!
In the photo you can see me pretending to be a hobbit! Don't worry, I haven't gone mad, I was simply at Hobbiton, the location of filming for all 'The Shire' scenes in the 'Lord of The Rings' and 'The Hobbit' trilogies (All the films were filmed/will be filmed in New Zealand).
I was very excited to look around the set because I have seen all of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy and am currently reading 'The Hobbit' on my Kindle. It was so realistic that I wouldn't have been surprised if a hobbit had popped out of a circular door and headed off to pick some vegetables from the patch.
Did You Know?: Weta Digital is the effects company behind the films. They are named after an insect that lives in New Zealand and is also the largest insect in the world. Search for a picture of them and see what you think.
Last night I got to see an actual kiwi bird in the wild! Kiwis are the national bird of New Zealand, they can't fly and can live for around 40 years. It was very exciting as we had to wait until dark before venturing out into the forest next to our campsite (One of the few campsites in New Zealand found next to where wild kiwi roam) to start our search.
It is not good for kiwis to see bright lights so we wandered in to the forest with our dimmed torch. Our campsite was only small but other people came from further away to try and spot the birds and as we walked through we passed a number of people waiting quietly. Eventually, Nadia and I got to a deserted area and stood patiently and silently in the darkness with our torch off. After a few minutes we heard some rustling on the ground, a few minutes later and it had gotten closer. We decided it was time to turn on our dimmed torch and as we shone it around we spotted it! In amongst the undergrowth was the rare, brown bird foraging for food. It was much bigger than I thought, about the size of a small chicken and it stayed hunting for insects for a few minutes before disappearing off into the night.
It is probably the most exciting animal I have ever seen because; a) It was in the wild b) We found it ourselves and c) They are famously hard to spot.
Obviously, without being able to use a flash I couldn't get a photo but I have attached a photo I took the this morning. The forest we were in was a rare Kauri Forest and this is a photo of a large and rare kauri tree.
Did You Know?: The kauri tree in this photo is about 14 metres tall and over 1200 years old! It now has other plants living on it's branches but when it was younger it was so small that a kiwi bird could have crushed it if it stood on it!
Here's our home for the next couple of weeks! Her name is Lady Luck and I'm hoping that it doesn't turn out to be ironic.
We head off north today to get to the top of the country before starting to travel south through both islands and we plan to stay in campsites on our way and visit a few friends too. Regular access to the internet is going to be rare but I'll try my best to post as often as I can. I can't wait to visit some of the sites New Zealand has to offer.
Today was my first day in New Zealand so it was time to go exploring in a new country. I ended up heading to the top of the Auckland Sky Tower, the tallest structure in the entire Southern Hemisphere. I was told on the lift that it was safe to lean on the glass of the observation deck so I decided to test it, I was only just over 220m up after all! Thankfully, despite the slight scariness of it all the person in the lift wasn't lying and it held firm. Phew.
Tomorrow our New Zealand adventure begins properly as we pick up our camper-van and start off heading north, I can't wait.
(I hope you all had a lovely February 17th by the way, I hope I didn't miss anything!)
Look who I found on the money in New Zealand! The Queen appears on the money here because New Zealand is part of the Commonwealth. That's a group of over 50 countries (Most of whom were in The British Empire) that share lots of things like good trade and our queen, Elizabeth II, is the current head of The Commonwealth.
It also makes me feel more at home!
Just arrived safely in Santiago, Chile and it seems really nice but it might take me the two days we are here to try and understand the money: There are about 730 Chilean peso to £1!
This means everything looks mega expensive as they use the dollar symbol too...I just brought a regular sized drink and the price was $1029!
It also means that I need to divide every price I see by 730 to work out it's cost in pounds. I can't say I did much dividing by that at school.
An entertaining, maths filled couple of days lie ahead for my brain!
I'm just waiting for my taxi to the airport before I fly to Chile so I thought now is a good time to do my review of Brazil;
Watch a Brazilian football match, see some of Brazil's wildlife, go to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, attend the Rio Carnival and visit Christ The Redeemer. Those are the five things I wanted to do before I arrived here and I was lucky enough to do all of them.
It has been great to do all of those things and The Pantanal was fantastic but Rio has not been quite what I expected. The Carnival has meant that the streets have been absolutely covered with litter and there has been the constant smell of hot rubbish and wee because the really hot weather heats it all up in the day. Urgh (It has been a while since some disgusting news!). I have also been the victim of crime as someone in Brazil has cloned my credit card and it's now blocked!
Despite all those things not being very nice, the other travellers we have met and the people we have stayed with have been so kind and lovely. We are both looking forward to Chile now though as it is a little bit cooler and less humid (Rio has been just under 40 degrees every day and not much cooler at night).
The Photo: These are some steps near where we stayed in Rio. They were decorated by an artist called Jorge Selarón who used many coloured tiles in his work. Tourists even used to bring him tiles to use and you can find different tiles from many different countries, even England!
The big man is the last of the five '7 New Wonders of the World' I will see until I get to China in May. It is one of the most famous statues in the entire world, it looks over nearly all of the city of Rio De Janeiro and it is very tall!
To see this huge version of Jesus meant getting a train that went up the side of a very steep mountain and it took about 20 minutes to get to top. Once at the summit the views were incredibly impressive and I could see Sugarloaf Mountain, the Maracanã Football Stadium, The Sambadrome and lots of beaches.
Did You Know?: The hands on the statue are modelled on the hands of a woman. The artist who made that specific part of the statue used her own hands to make sure she got the shapes right.
While the boys may have not done much in Peru the same cannot be said about Brazil...
Songs on the radio: Check
Books/Magazines in shops: Check
Posters In Cities: Check
That's three of the big four and the only one missing is 'Music Videos On TV' and I haven't watched any TV here so that's pretty much a clean sweep! Top stuff boys.
Last night, I got to see probably the most famous parade in the whole world and it was absolutely amazing! It made me think back to Mr. Groves samba drum lessons at Weobley but multiplied thousands of times over!
The parades take place over three nights with six competitors each night and each competitor is a different samba school. Samba schools aren't educational schools but huge groups of people that work really hard on each year's parade. They must compose their own music, make their own floats, design their own costumes and choreograph their own dance moves. It is a huge job as each performance contains six floats and lasts over an hour. The schools that have taken part in 2013 will now already be working on what they will do in 2014.
I will challenge anyone to go to the parade and not be able to dance even the littlest bit, it is impossible not to! There are so many amazing memories I couldn't list them all but my favourite float was a huge waterslide with dancers sliding down it and my favourite costumes had to belong to the traditonal dancers with their huge feathers whipping around as they samba danced down the long road.
Did You Know?: The parade is not just one big party, each school gets marks from a group of judges who watch each performance carefully before deciding a winner.
Do you eat pizza with your hands?
I turns out that Nadia and I accidentally ended up looking pretty rude when we ate our pizza last night. We have just read that Brazilians are relaxed about many things but table manners are not one of them and it says that no one eats pizza with their hands (Like we did) and many Brazilians will even eat a sandwich with a knife and fork if they can! Oops!
I always find it interesting to learn what different things are considered rude in one country but normal in another so I will make sure to read more of this book before going out again and try not to be rude next time, even if it is something that's not rude at home.
'The Greatest Show On Earth' officially started today! The world famous Rio Carnival (Spelt Carnaval in Portuguese) kicks off on a Saturday and goes through until Monday, and that's just the official parades. Rio will continue to party until the following weekend as the whole event is a big celebration before Lent and nearly everyone in the city is taking part.
I have been lucky enough to get tickets to The Sambadrome (Where the official parades take place) for Sunday night, one of the best nights of the bunch, and I can't wait. I will need to save my energy in the day though because the parade will start at 8pm and can run until to 6:00 in the morning!
This photo is the view from where I am staying and you can spot a stage to the left. This is where a 'Bloco Party' (Block Party) started yesterday. Across Rio the different blocks will each have their own street parties during Carnaval with loud music, samba drums and lots of people that start in the day and go on for many hours.
Can you see the beautiful caymen on the banks of the Pantanal? One is lurking in the water by the boat and another is in the background basking in the sunshine with its jaws open.
Give yourself one team/house/effort point if spot them both (You can even show this blog to your teacher to prove I said it was ok!).
Check out this happy group! This was the scene that greeted us as we arrived at our lodge on Brazil's Pantanal. They are a family of capybaras, the world's largest rodents.
Did You Know?: Being rodents, capybaras are related to the guinea pigs, hamsters, mice and rats that you might have as pets in your home!
I have spent the last few days in the Pantanal and I saw so much wildlife while horseback trekking and boating around the wetlands. Some of the most memorable creatures were; cuddly capybaras, rare tree-climbing anteaters, scaly caymen, colourful blue and yellow macaws and howler monkeys swinging through the trees. When I stop and think about the fact that I saw all of these animals in the wild, not in a zoo, it makes me realise how lucky I have been and certainly made the early mornings worth it!
I was also quite adventurous with my food choices while I was there and even tried piranha soup! Piranha are very common in the Pantanal and it was served on my last night. I am not a fan of soup in the slightest and I am not a big lover of a lot of fish either so the combination did not exactly whet my appetite, however, as it was a local delicacy and it had been prepared for me I did not want to be rude and not even try it at all. I had a small spoonful...it did not taste as 'fishy' as I thought it might but it was not to my taste and I had no more than the first spoonful, I felt glad that I had at least tried it though. Battered catfish, another local fish, on the other hand, tasted great!
Did You Know?: The Pantanal is the largest flooded, freshwater wetland on earth and although most of it is in Brazil it also stretches into Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina too!
