Santiago

It was hard to leave New Zealand behind. It had become to feel like home. So much so, that you had the feeling that Glasgow was only a couple of hours down the road... And in one sense it was; at our last stop the wonderful Irvine family in Auckland had fed us, washed our clothes, reminded us of our table manners, been our tour guide and allowed us to sleep soundly in a proper bed. Thank you! And sorry Max for rushing off before you finished your picture. Please send it to us!
Then it was time for Scott Bakula to jump into our skins and quantum leap back in time on our way to Santiago, Chile. It took us a few days to get over the shock but then we discovered that the national dish in Chile is an empanada - a cheese pie. And boy are they tasty. Of course, there are lots of regional varieties, so we felt obliged to try quite a few. Most of the restaurant food here is based around meat and carbohydrate - not much in the way of greens, salad or really any veg at all. This is a bit of a mystery as whenever we go to a market they are stocked high with amazing veg, pulses, fruit and enough advocadoes to drown Scotland in guacamole. So what do they do with it all? They definitely don't feed any of it to tourists. Still, it hasn't detered us from searching out the best, and cheapest, meals we can.

On our first day in Santiago, we met a couple of students who told us some good places to eat, and mentioned a few good dishes to try. Unfortunately, with our Spanish being less than basic at this time, and their English reasonable but not wide in vocabulary, we went away with the impression that Chile was famous for its chocolate mice. Strange, we thought, but we should probably try some. Luckily, before we pestered too many sweetie shops, we discovered that in fact they had been talking about a pastel de choclo, or maize: a corn pie. It is also yummy - a sort of shepherds pie filled with mince, chicken, some veg if you are lucky and then topped with corn mixed with egg and sometimes cheese.

My dad has recently made an attempt to outgrow my beard and moustachio. Well, that wouldn´t be difficult. I´m not quite sure what side of the family I´ve inherited my body hair genes from but there certainly isn´t much to go round. Fortunately, where the hair does grow on my face, it grows in the right places to look okay. The closest I ever came to sideburns was the stage makeup I needed for playing Fagin at school! Kathy has mastered the art of trimming my beard with the scissors from my Swiss army knife. She takes it all very seriously. I, in return, have been allowed to practise my best Nicky Clarke impersonations and have been licenced to tame Kathy´s mullet. Kathy got a magnificent hair cut in Vietnam but the haircut you get tends to reflect the trend in the country where you are. In Vietnam they dig sexy bobs but in Chile they wear the chico mullet. It wasn´t bad, just a little bit out of proportion around the neckline. That´s hairdresser lingo-technical, in case your wondering, for the bit at the back. Swiss army scissors and comb at hand, I wrestled, captured and tamed the mullet with gusto. By the time I had finished, I was already suggesting possible hair products to suit the client´s hair condition and a follow up appointment to have a go round the front of the head. It has to be said that the client was suitably impressed!

P...p...p...pick up a penguin

I was thinking today that Scotland´s Autumn colours will be looking their best at the moment. I bet the Perthshire hills and lochs are just ablaze with gold, bronze, amber and red. Lots of things about New Zealand kept reminding us of home. In the north island of NZ there was lots of heather planted around the hills of the 3 active volcanoes of Mount Ruapehu, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe. The plants were all imported from Scotland years ago and they are apparently very popular for wedding photo backdrops when they are resplendent in their proud purple bloom.
The scenery of the south island is really like Scotland. Everything just seems a bit bigger than normal! But some of the native species of animals are very different. In Scotland, you won´t find any penguins or sea lions outside of Edinburgh zoo. We made it our mission to see a penguin in the wild and in NZ there are lots of opportunities for catching sight of them.
On the east coast of the south island we drove to the town of Oamaru, famous for its Whitestone cheese factory and blue penguins. I hadn´t realised how shy penguins are. They have built a grandstand for enthusiasts to watch the penguins come ashore at dusk but also to keep onlookers at a safe distance. Sadly, it was a bit expensive and we didn´t fancy the idea of watching penguins from a grandstand. That wasn´t how we envisaged our first experience of encountering penguins in the wild. David Attenborough doesn´t build grandstands, now, does he? So, we spent all our money at the cheese factory instead. Undoubtedly the best cheese we tasted in the whole of NZ. They also make a delicously tangy lemon cheesecake.
In Oamaru you can also buy genuine NZ whisky. A warehouse specializes in bottling from casks of the now defunct Wilson´s Distillery of Dunedin. Pretty good it was too with a sea saltiness not unlike Old Pultney. Penguins vs. cheese and whisky was always going to be a tough one. This time the penguins lost..

Journeying south down the east coast, the good weather and beautiful scenery trapped us in the Otago Peninsula. Once again I was reminded of home. The high cliffs, rolling green fields and golden sands transported me back to the north east coastline of Scotland.
At Sandiford Beach we went in search of the shy yellow penguins that can be spotted there. Instead, we found a colony of not-at-all shy sea lions and a fully naked batch of young lads running in and out of the cold waves. And the sea lions were by far the scariest of the two. As we walked along the beach, we got too close to one sea lion, who sneezed at us with contempt, reared up on its hind and then charged towards us with ungainly but frightening speed. I´m sure there is a whole list of sensible things that you should do when this happens but we just panicked and ran as fast as we could. Picture an angry Sumo wrestler plunging across a beach on their belly at what seems a physically impossible velocity and you have a fairly accurate idea. Scary. As hell. Maybe the naked men had some method to their madness? The group of girls situated on the hillside overlooking the beach, who made good use of our binoculaurs, certainly thought so! The penguins stayed well clear. With all that going on, who can blame them?

Our luck finally changed after a wee walk to the islolated Munro Beach on the west of the south island. A boulder marked the point where it was best to stop so as not to disturb the Fjordland penguins who were currently breeding. A few sets of footprints in the sand beyond this point was evidence of some foolish human visitors who obviously felt they knew better. Void of grandstands, the temptations of cheese or whisky, naked men or sea lions; we waited patiently with the binoculaurs. 15 mins past and I spotted a black shape bobbing and weaving in and out of the waves. Was it just a piece of drift wood? It seemed to be letting the tide do all the hard work of bringing it to shore. When the shape reached the sand, stood up on its feet and flapped its wings, I nearly screamed with excitement. No, not another naked man, a real live penguin. Our very own. It stopped to look our way for a few seconds and then waddled off to the safety of the rocks. Eat your heart out David Attenborough!

Abel Tasman: perfect water in NZ

One of the best days we have enjoyed in all whole time away was sea kayaking in the Abel Tasman National Park in the north-east peninsula of the south island.
The charm of New Zealand is that it is full of crazy outdoor adventures. I kept telling myself I was working up to the bungy. Kathy was having none of it. The closest we had come so far was the luge in Queenstown. It was actually my belated birthday present. The cable car takes you to the top of the hill and then you charge down on a 3 wheeled pastic engineless cart. It was tremendous fun, the five times that we each raced down the steep track just wasn´t enough.
But Abel Tasman was a different kind of adrenalin rush. The slow, thoughtful kind. It was beautiful day for starters. The sky was blue, the water still and the 3 kayaks in our group were the only people out there. One of the pleasures about being somewhere off-season is that when the weather is right it feels like you are the only tourists in the world and you don´t need to share your experience with anyone else. In China, that had been almost impossible but on that day it was just perfect.

Our kayak was a tandem version with myself at the front and Kathy steering from behind... as always! After we got in the water and started to paddle, there isn´t much to tell. It just felt amazing to gently work our way round the coastline. We spotted oyster catchers, shags and seals and our guide, Josh, told us tales of the early Maori settlers in the area.
Lunch was had in an idyllic little coved beach. Kathy and myself wasted no time to strip down to oor dookers and charge into the sea. ´JESUS!!!´ It was c c c c frEEZING! I lasted about a whole ten minutes but Kathy, never one to shy from a contest, endured the baltic waters for at least another 10mins. One of the English lads with us, was inspired by our fine example and raced into the chill in his pants. The 2 young Swiss lads didn´t seem impressed. They stayed marooned and bored on their rock. It was obvious that they had still to reach the overgrown kid stage yet!
After lunch we left our party behind and followed a short trek around the rest of the peninsula. Later we were picked up by the sea taxi and taken back to base. I spent the time on the journey back calculating how I could afford to buy a kayak. It is really very similar to a campervan. You store all your provisions in the body of the kayak and are free to roam wherever you like. Weather permitting, Scotland is perfect for it.

You´re probably wondering why I´ve not yet mentioned anything to do with food yet. Well don´t worry, here it comes. After another heavy day of exercise we were more than ready to eat. A take away was on the cards. In town there was all the usual suspects: fish n´chips, curry, Chinese. No, not tonight. Our take away tea was from somewhere that specialised in roast lamb and all the trimmings. It was New Zealand after all and it tasted just like mum´s home cooking. Roast lamb, roast tatties, carrots, peas, pumpkin, kumara (sweet potato), cauliflower cheese and a massive ladleful of gravy on top. We forced it down with a bottle of L&P, which is NZ´s answer to Irn Bru. We´re thinking of opening a chain when we return home.

A gentle paddle followed by a roast tea; now that´s my kind of day. The bungy doesn´t even get a look in...

"Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies,": living the fishing dream in NZ

The Tongariro river is world famous for its trout fly fishing. The closest I remember ever coming to holding a fishing rod was scooping for minnows with a green net and cane in the rock pools at the edge of the North Sea. But as you know ´proper´fishing is unbelievably expensive at home. In New Zealand you can buy an annual licence for just over a $100 that allows you to fish in any river anywhere in NZ for no extra cost. Not bad, eh!?
Unfortunately, we seemed to be starting the sport at the deep end. Fly fishing is apparently the highly skilled end of the sport. Like sword fighters, the skill of fly fishing is considered to be more of an art form. By the end of our afternoon we clearly understood why!
Our guide was a lovely old fishing veteran called John Sommervell. He had big rough hands full of cuts and large patches of callous skin from standing waist deep in running water holding on to his tackle for years on end. (Sorry, mum!) His jacket had tens of pockets, all full of essential fishing gear and ´stuff´. He had recently returned from a trip to the rivers in Mongolia fly fishing for taimen, a long distant cousin of trout. He was one of only 3 to catch one. We knew he was good.

He was adamant that we learnt the basics of fly fishing properly. Other guides apparently showed people how to cast off and then took over form the client and caught the fish for them. Waders on, we were READY TO FISH! It was a lot to take in. We learnt all about loading the rod and casting off, then about the ´presentation´of the fly on the water. After about 1 and a half hours of practise we were ready to give the real thing a go. The problem now was trying to coordinate all the things he had been telling us. My mind was a blur. No wonder it takes years to learn and become good at it. He teased us with tails off people who had caught a fish on their first cast. We weren´t to be so lucky. The real difficulty is that you don´t actually feel when you have got a fish on the fly. You have to watch the floating guide like a hawk. If it moves, dips or does something strange, chances are you have a strike. Then, you yank the rod with your right arm and pull the line with your left to hook the fish on the fly. What followed was about 2-3 hours of us both concentrating really hard and then desperately yanking the rod to see if we had a strike. John stood behind us and watched over us, occassionaly screaming ´STRIKE´as an indication that we needed to react. Unfortunately, the reaction time between a strike and reacting with the rod is less than a second. After 5 hours standing in the middle of a fast moving river, neither of us had caught anything. We hadn´t even come close. But John was very complimentary about our casting style and presentation. We both really enjoyed it (I would love to have another go) but today wan´t to be our day.

Fast forward a couple weeks to a boat drifting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the Bay of Island in the North of NZ. This time we were fishing for red snapper. No fancy technique this time, just a rod, a very long line and a bucket of sardines and mullet. More of a waiting game than an artform, we started hooking up some smaller snappers after about an hour. Unfortunately, they were too short at under 30cm to keep and we had to throw them back. Goldfish, the skipper called them!

Another hour passed and still we had caught nothing. The skipper decided to move the boat and change the bait from sardines to the more expensive mullet. Within 5 mins I could feel a much bigger wait on the end of the line. This is the feeling I had been wondering about and waiting all this time for. My mind rushed away with images of the catch and pictures of me arms fully stretched holding the prize. As the hook got near the top of the water, the skipper wondered if it could be a John Dory. When it flipped and splashed itself out from the waves it showed itself to be a a a.. a... SHARK! If only a smallish school shark. Still, I had caught a shark. Cool!. "I think we´re gonna need a bigger boat!" (and more quotes from Jaws sailed around my foolish head). Sadly, the spritely youngster caught itself in Kathy´s line and twisted and jerked itself into such a mess that it took the skipper ten minutes of cursing, swearing and bopping the poor shark on the nose to release it.

Not long after we started getting lucky with some gurnard (they have colourful fins and look more like butterflies). Thankfully we were allowed to keep them. Our dinner tonight was banking 100% on this trip! The skipper dismissed them as carrots. Although it was unusual to catch them, he still wasn´t impressed. His trip in the morning had proved very fruitful for nice large snappers, he felt he was letting us down. The truth was that Kathy and I were overjoyed to catch anything at all after our last trip. We didn´t care. We felt like true seadogs at last!
By the end our total catch between us was 3 goldfish (snappers), 5 carrots (gurnards) and 1 great white (school shark)! The skipper sent us packing with our freshly filleted gurnard and the wings off the snapper he had caught in the morning.
Dinner that night in the camper van was sensational. Mashed tatties, mushrooms and spinach tossed in garlic and pan fried fish (tossed in seasoned flour).
Breakfast was almost even better! The leftover tatties and fish were transformed into fishcakes. With a big dollop of Watties (made by Heinz but spicier) tomato ketchup we scoffed them overlooking the waters where we had done our hunting the day before. I felt amazing, Kathy looked amazing, the fish tasted amazing. Sometimes life does not get any better.

Breakfasting like a tramp: NZ

New Zealand feels like one massive outdoor playground for big kids. It is the home of the bungy jump and the home of the zorb; a giant plastic ball filled with water, that you climb inside and then roll down a big hill. The dramatic, achingly beautiful landscape is plastered all over Peter Jackson´s Lord of the Rings. Opportunities are endless for trekking (or tramping as Kiwis call it), camping, fishing, sailing, kayaking, rafting, skiing, snowboarding, swimming with dolphins, whale watching, penguin spotting or, as I already mentioned, flinging yourself off a bridge with a thick elastic band tied to your ankles. It was time for Team Kathole to wise up, get active and say "NO TO CHEESE!" But New Zealand also makes really good cheese and wine!! Well, after all that exercise you do need to unwind of an evening...

Our home for the next 3 weeks was to be a bright orange vehicle called a Spaceship. Half people carrier, half campervan, it had been cleverly fitted out with a DVD player, gas stove, double bed, fridge and plenty of storage space. We loaded up the van with a trip to Pak n´Save. It is the supermarket equivalent to Ikea. All the goods are stacked high for cheapness. The branding brought back distant memories of Fine Fare - I loved their smelly cheese n´onion crisps in the canary yellow bag... Kathy loaded up on oats for brekkie...

Cooking for ourselves for 3 weeks was a real luxury, even if it was in a camper van with only 2 burners and 3 pots. In between all the eating we did a fair amount of walking and hiking, (and swimming - it's a very cheap way to get clean as well as a bit of exercise) so we didn't quite turn into the flumps you'd expect after that ingredient list. Camping burns lots of calories, that's what I always say.
Of course, it´s always worst at breakfast time, which is the meal I have struggled with the most while we´ve been away. It´s not so bad for Athole - he can go till 1230 quite happily without much more than a cup of tea and a biscuit. But if I haven´t been fed by about 10 o´clock, I can become grumpy, unwilling and very, very stroppy. Poor Athole!

I think the least inspired breakfast we encountered anywhere was in Russia - pink, wet, limp hot-dog sausages with no skin; boiled to oblivion and then served semi-tepid with a choice of spaghetti or something unidentifiable that may or may not have been semolina or grits. On the side: tasteless cheese and raw onion with bad coffee and tea (8 spoonfuls of sugar obligatory). China wasn´t too bad so long as we were in hotels, although rice porridge with egg is singularly unappealing at 8am. Here in South America it is an unvarying diet of white bread, sticky, incredibly sweet jam, tea, coffee and relentlessly over- or under-cooked eggs. Yoghurt is an option, but it usually consists of sugar, powdered milk (milk dust as Athole calls it) and flavourings and e-numbers. What wouldn´t we give for a Markies fresh fruit greek yoghurt!

The worst was definitely Laos though - on our 3 day trek in the jungle we were treated to hand-caught frogs, boiled with land crabs and eels and served in a spicy soup. It is, of course, immensely rude not to try the food in that sort of situation, especially as our guide was the one who had been out at 3am in the fields catching the frogs. Athole and I cautiously nibbled at the legs of the frogs, peeling off the skin (they were boiled whole) and nodding enthusiastically. Meanwhile, our guide casually picked one up and bit its head off, chewing even more enthusiastically. Watching him chomp through the rest of the amphibian whole, we realised we were going to have to eat frog guts for breakfast. Eating the insides of something that lives entirely on flies is never appealing - at 0730 less so, but we both managed a bite or two before putting down our frogs. At which point our guide asked: "Are you finished?" and proceeded to eat our leftovers.

Luckily in New Zealand, we were self-catering, although trying to live as cheaply as possible. That meant one thing only for brekkie - porridge. I could eat it every day and not get sick of it, but Athole was ready for some cocoa pops after about 2 weeks. You should have seen his eyes light up when I figured out a way to make toast. Boiled eggs and soldiers was never such a treat!

Of course porridge gets you properly fuelled up for a big walk, of which we had plenty in NZ, so I think really we were very glad of the oats. Especially on the colder mornings where we had to turn the car around and wait for the sun to melt the frost on the windscreen while we had our porridge in the mornings! One of those mornings came before one of the best walks we had; in the ski-ing area on the north island. We set off around 9 and took about 3 or 4 hours, including a scramble up a steep, steep slope of shingle, to get to the most spectacular lookout across two extinct volcano craters, now formed into perfectly round and crescent shaped greeny-blue lakes. In the distance, we could see bigger and bigger volcanoes, all capped with shining, sparkling snow glinting in the sunlight. The sky was blue, we had great sarnies and biscuits at the top and we really felt like we had conquered the world. ( The only thing that could possibly remind us of our inferiority was the 60-ish man who jogged casually past us as we were huffing and puffing our way to the top. Bloody Kiwis.)

I think our other hardest walk was the Pinnacles, also in the north island, which was really tough - mostly because we had to climb stairs rather than walk alot of the way. The Pinnacles themselves are incredibly high, grey towers of rock, not far from Auckland. We set off to go half way up one of them, and found that the track we were following was originally made for timber-workers who invented a system of pulleys to harvest the enormous Kauri trees that were found in the area. They cut stairs into the rock in order to make the many trips up and down easier going in the rain and mud. We were getting puggled going up with just our daypacks holding water and a few mars bars - these guys must have been made of iron dragging all sorts of heavy equipment and tools up there! (Actually, it turned out they had horses and mules, but still.) Once we had reached the top, we could still see the Pinnacles above us, but it felt as though we were walking through the tops of the forest below, we were so high up.

There were many others - the scenery and landscape of NZ makes it impossible to go anywhere without discovering another lovely walk around the corner, and those two were the longest ones we completed. But I think Athole´s favourite was the Rob Roy valley, where we stomped our way up above the tree line in a really narrow valley to reach a mountainside that was just perfect - trees, snow, blue skies again and waterfalls cascading all over the sheer, rising cliff opposite ours. The only thing that was missing was a slug of rusty nail at the top!