The Hellowell Family’s getting bigger…..

Yup… one more on the way. This one is not of the canine variety though – ABI IS PREGNANT!! YAHOO! It is something we’d been hoping for and we’re both stoked at the prospect of having a baby.

Abi’s is doing well with no major signs of sickness. We just had the first 12 week scan and were awe-struck to see a 7cm Hellowell bouncing around inside her.

So it will be a pretty big 30th birthday party for Abi as ‘Chickpea’ (the babies in-utero name) is due on the 22nd of April – 1 day after Ab’s birthday

STELLA!!!

We got a dawg. Thanks to the RSPCA we are now the proud owners of a pure breed Bitsa named Stella. She’s a bit of Alsatian, bit of Staffi, bit of Cattle Dog… ahhh just look at the picture and make up your own mind……

Back to the Land of Oz

Landing back in Australia was a little weird. Your perception of a place morphs somewhat when you’re removed from it for a few years. Some things are better than you remembered some things worse.

We’d kind of set our sights low to avoid much disappointment and it generally worked. We’re now stoked to be back and to see friends and family that we’ve not seen in so long. The best thing is we can be warm again! I’d almost forgotten what it was like!

We had a week in Sydney, then Port Macquarie to see my family before heading up the coast to Brisbane.

Work and house stuff all sorted themselves out in the end and it does feel pretty good to have a bit of space to call our own.

The sun does shine in Vancouver

I won’t go into the details but out trip from Peru to Sydney was via Vancouver and we had a great stopover for a few days. Our friends Dan and Jen graciously put us up in there apartment and showed us a wonderful time.

Amongst some last minute organising and packing we had a great time hanging out and I even got to meet up with Kevin who took Dan and for an assault up the Chief.

South America - The End (for now)

Arriving in Lima was a major culture shock. Glitzy houses and expensive supermarkets – yuck! Who-ever said the simple things in life are often the best knew what they were talking about.

South America was great fun! If your thinking about going then just do it! The things we saw and people we met along the way made it an amazing way to finish our few years away from Australia.

The list of things that we would like to go back and do is pretty extensive so I dare say we’ll be back one day. if you’re interested in hiking the Cordillera Blanca, climbing in Bolivia or checking out Ecuador then let us know.

Coastal Peru

After Nazca we headed on to a small Oasis settlement called Huacachina. It was a pretty impressive little resort town built around a desert oasis. Southern coastal Peru is an arid sweep of desert falling into the Pacific Ocean. Imagine a cross between Laurence of Arabia’s backyard and the Star Wars planet Tatoonie and you’ll have an idea of what it’s like. There is some pretty cheesy stuff to do like sand-boarding and dune-buggying but by far the best thing was climbing to the top of the dunes to watch the sunset – the shadows and colours are amazing.


We left the oasis and headed for Pisco/Paracas. Pisco is the town which claims to have borne the famous Latin American drink Pisco. The Chileans also lay claim to this so it’s a topic for hot debate. There was not a load to see, it’s a dry desert like place but we took a boat cruise out to the island of Paracas to see some wildlife. The island’s been exploited rich guanaco (bird-poo) deposits for years, wars were fought over it – Imagine having a war over poo – Well in 300 years time they’ll look at us and say “Imagine having a war over oil” I guess? Judging by the smell and the number of sea birds there is no shortage of supply.

Nazca

We left Cuzco and with little regret this ride marked our last long distance South American bus journey. It was in the dark so while the upside to this is that we couldn’t see the corners that the driver was hurtling us around; the downside was my stomach felt every single one of them without warning. It was a pretty rough going and come day break the next morning I was struggling. I’m pleased to say that I made it though and feeling that crappy actually helps when it comes time to tell a tout where to rack off.

So we arrived in Nazca red-eyed and a little nauseous – so why not go for a fly in a light aircraft! Well it was the reason we came here….. Nazca was a backwater until people started flying over it about 60 years ago and realised that a past civilisation had crated a humongous series of shapes and figures in the desert. So large that it is virtually unnoticeable from the ground.

As you’d expect theories abound as to how and why it was done but be they alien landing pads or offerings to the gods they are very impressive.