Japan - Part 2

We spent four days in Kyoto, an old imperial capital of Japan, visiting plenty of temples with day trips to Osaka and Nara. For the last week Japan trip we're traveling around Kyushu, the southern most island, it's a lot warmer here than further north which suits us just fine now that our bodies have come accustomed to warmer climates!

The super fast 'shinkansen' bullet train. The Japanese are really polite to the extent that conductors, cleaners and attendants on the trains bow to the carriage when they enter and leave.


Feeding the deer in Nara, just outside Kyoto.
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Katsura Imperial villa garden, Kyoto.


Himeji castle between Kyoto and Hiroshima.


View from Miyajima island, just outside Hiroshima. We took the easy option and took the cable car up then walked down, a wise choice as everyone walking up the thousands of steps looked like they were about to keel over!


Osaka aquarium. Clarkie is impersonating the huge spider crab which looks like it would attack him if the glass wasn't there!


The aquarium is home to two huge whale sharks, this is their smaller hammerhead relative.

Sumo time

We've had an amazing few days in Toyko at the start of three weeks in Japan. Our phrase book has come in useful and we don't know what were eating most of the time but the city is amazing. The next stop is Kyoto.

Our first Japanese temple visit, there are a lot more to come!

Crazy crossings


We managed to get tickets to a sumo tournament in Tokyo. It lasts all day starting with the lower ranks and working up, it lasts for 15 days and all the wrestlers fight everyday.

Flags at the sumo stadium


The largest sumo wrestler at the tournament on the left, and probably the fattest person I've ever seen. Unbelievably the smaller guy on the right won the bout.

Slurping 'Sumo soup' at the tournament. They must eat a lot more than this stuff to get to the size they are!

A lovely Japanese man with some strangely dressed dogs, one's wearing a tutu and the other is sporting a lovely all in one denim outfit! They love their dogs here, mainly the rat looking type, and carry them around in bags, dress them up and put sunglasses on them. Apparently some people do the same with rabbits here but we're still on the lookout for that!

Last few weeks in Oz

Here are a few highlights from the last few weeks. We've done a lot of driving, starting in Sydney along the south coast through Melbourne and Adalaide, then back to Sydney via Broken Hill in the middle of nowhere. Finally over the last couple of weeks we've driven along the Gold and Sunshine coasts up to Bundaberg to sample some rum and back down to Brisbane for our flight to Japan.

The plan for the next couple of months is 3 weeks in Japan, a ferry to South Korea, a flight to Vietnam and then to work our way overland through Laos, Cambodia and Thailand to Kuala Lumpur.


The lovely Dorrigo National park on the Waterfall Way, inland from Coffs Harbour on the east coast.


The boat trip to Lady Mugrove Island on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef. The snorkeling etc was amazing the really rough trip to get there with lots of people being sick on the boat was not! This must have been early on as Clarkie's looking fairly happy, 9 chuppa chup lollies later (an attempt to quell the 'motion of the ocean') we arrived at an island paradise! We spent the day on an island walk, snorkeling with turtles and brilliantly coloured tropical fish, and on a submarine tour to see more of the coral.



Who ate all the pies? We did! Although I think we prefer Margaret Nightingale's meat and potato pies!



'Stonking waves at Noosa', apparently!

Roos!!

After a near miss with the van and a huge kangeroo the other day I thought we should upload some photos of the local wildlife! So far we've seen kangeroos, lizards, spiders, koalas, wombats, emus, wild turkeys, loads of amazingly coloured parrots, dingos, a tasmanian devil, lots of fish,jelly fish and one living snake (plus plenty of squashed ones on the road).

Feeding the roos at Australian Reptile park just north of Sydney.Clarkie was keener than me to have a kangeroo licking his hand as you can see from the photos!



A huge jelly fish I found on the beach a few metres down from where Clarkie was surfing. There was no way that i was getting in the water for a swim after seeing this bad boy.


A koala at the NSW koala hospital, which is housed with with lots of blind, three legged, crippled and geriatric friends.

The current state of play and our plans

We're currently stuck in Riverton, SA with a broken alternator. Hopefully we'll get the part tomorrow morning and take it to a garage to get it fixed. Then we'll be back on our way to the Gold Coast. I can finally get rid of my holey, stinky wetsuit. I've sold my board to the guy who rented us the van so I can keep it until the end. And I got the same amount I paid for it which is pretty cool.

We fly to Tokyo on 7th May and from there we're not really sure. Maybe a ferry to South Korea or a 2 day ferry to China. We'll work it out.

Sorry for the lack of posts in March, we were busy.

We'll hopefully have some more photos from Oz soon.

Clarkie + Claire x

Photo Catch Up: Oz - Sydney, Victoria + South Australia

Guess where?

My mate Mick.

One of the heats at Winkipop.

Me and Richo, before he bit my toe.

They have some pretty long empty roads here. It's a big excitement when you have to turn a corner sometimes.

Our van for Oz. Currently with a knackered alternator.

Photo Catch Up: NZ - North Island

Breakfast time in our new van, Culli.

One of our better parking spots for the night.

The Golden Shears competetion. That's right, a sheep shearing competition. The winner is the person to shear 8 sheep the quickest with time added on for cuts or bad shearing.

I can't remember the name of this bunny but this is a very big angoran rabbit. They shear them in NZ; I think they got bored of shearing sheep.

Me at the thermal pool things in Rotorua

Mud, glorious mud.

Just before the jump in Taupo. (The blue thing is a life jacket not the parachute)

Me with the biggest kiwi we saw!

Us with Mount Taranaki in the background just before we hit the Surf Highway. (the camera is perched on a rock hence the funny angle)