We left the Otago Peninsula early so that we could get to the Otago Farmer’s Market taking place at the Dunedin Train Station. We wanted to get ourselves some fresh greens for our Christmas Dinner. We didn’t quite tick all the boxes but we did pick up a few extra treats such as delicious home-baked mince pies, vintage award winning blue cheese and Dave got himself some Vennison mince so he could make some tasty burgers. We had a look around the famous landmark that is Dundein Train Station, although perhaps not as impressive as some we have visited over our travels it was nice enough. We continued to buy the rest of our Christmas food from New World where we stocked up on booze, bought some lovely fresh salmon and a pudding! We were ready!

We couldn’t check in until after 1pm so we spent our time exploring Dunedin’s city centre. It’s a steep ascent from Hogwartz where we were spending our Christmas to the Octagon that is the centre of the city and it was a very hot day with busy shops keeping us slightly hot and bothered. We visited the Dundein Art Gallery which with free admission completely exceeded our expectations with the current exhibitions on show. The star attraction being the ground floor’s ‘The Beloved’ exhibition playing host to classic and contemporary pieces with our favourite artists being Gordon Walters, Ani O’Neill and Heather Straka.

When we left the gallery we took it upon ourselves to buy a few Christmas gifts for each other with the maximum spend being $20 and neither of us would know what the other bought! Exciting!! So off we went for an hour and when we met for a coffee later at Perc we sniggered at our gift buying experiences.

After checking into Hogwartz we were in our new home for the next few days which looked out across the city and St. Joseph’s Cathedral stood straight in front of us. Later on we joined the rest of the travellers staying there in cooking  a dish to go into the barbecue that the hosts were holding that night on Christmas Eve. So armed with a cous-cous salad and some booze we joined everyone else at the barbecue and enjoyed a great feast with some lovely company. Thanks to the owners Gilbert and Maja for putting in so much effort, they had so much meat and beer on offer. We ended the night with a Skype call to Karl, Em and Sukie who were all in good form and Emily had been doing her own skills in the kitchen in preparation for the Roscoe’s coming over for dinner on Christmas Day! Missing them loads!!

So Christmas morning came, and we started the day with the grand unveiling of our presents! Dave enjoyed the entertainment that was opening a whoopy cushion, a packet of poker chips, a selection of choccie goodies and a notebook (this would be useful!). Helen received a cadbury’s creme egg, 2 variations of the New Zealand classic peanut slab (milk and dark chocolate) but the pinnacle of her presents was a Shewee!! At long last Helen will no longer have to squat to have a wee when hiking, or being stuck on the back of a boat with nowhere to go! This was a fantastic present from Dave, it did stretch the budget though, but we think it will come in very handy!

So excitement over we took a few snaps and then a problem occurred! The leica froze, it got stuck on a card reading error and no matter what we tried we couldn’t get it to read any cards inserted into the camera! Hmmm! This was not good news and it definitely dampened our festive spirit for the rest of the day! There was nothing we could do so we picked ourselves up and drove out to St Clair beach where we enjoyed a lovely picnic and some very hot sun. It didn’t last very long though so we got back to the hostel late afternoon and decided to watch our Christmas movie of choice – Little Miss Sunshine. With the Leica at the back of our minds we enjoyed the film immensely and then decided to cook our Christmas dinner and eat with Kris and Kay our new found Xmas buddies.

Dinner was delicious, here’s what we had:

• Salmon fillet – baked (devine!)
• Honey roasted carrots and parsnips
• Roasted potatoes
• Broccoli and a few boiled potatoes
• Pam’s stuffing balls (from a packet)
• Lemon butter sauce

• Dave also enjoyed a pig in a blanket (sausage wrapped in bacon)

And for the pud:

• Pam’s Passion Fruit Cheescake! What a treat!

This was all enjoyed with a bottle of Monkey Bay’s Pinot Gris.

So with our stomachs stuffed we went on to enjoy a few more Skype calls home, one to Barb with Louis joining us live from Perth, and one with Jan, Den and Alice! Merry Christmas all!

Boxing Day was a shopping day which saw us take advantage of the discounts on offer. We bought our trekking rucksacks from Bivouac who had a 40% discount off two Osprey packs perfect for our trip in Nepal, and Helen bought a pretty loaded sleeping bag from Mac Pac. Never more will she moan about feeling the draft at night as this 800+ loft sleeping bag will keep her snug at temperatures as low as -7. Fingers crossed for the Himalayas.

After enough of the shops we went back to Hogwartz and made a few plans for travel connections and had a plan of action for our camera repair. We decided to stay another night at Hogwartz to take advantage of having a room and some space to spread out. We also designed and printed a poster to advertise our van for sale. It’s easy to get used to having a little bit of luxury but we’d be back in the van as of the 27th. Christmas in Dunedin was nice, the weather was fantastic which is a change for us Brits, but we did miss our home offerings! Looking forward to being back with the family next year!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We met the boys at the car collection point and picked up our 7 seater Dodge Caravan, oh yeah! It was pretty spacious inside but that soon started to disappear when we loaded our bags into the trunk! We said our goodbyes to Heather and Jamie and off we went on road trip number two. We took the route north through the city, over the Golden Gate Bridge (4th time lucky!) and made our way across the bay area to Berkeley. Having already popped there a few days earlier we thought it would be good to visit the campus on a nice sunny day!

There was an occupy Berkeley demonstration taking place along with a farmers market and an open day at the uni! We walked around the campus and then decided to make tracks via a Trader Joe’s to stock up for the journey. Our route was to take us through to Mariposa which is where we would base ourselves for the night before heading off to Yosemite early the next morning. So we drove along Interstates 580 and 205 and then highways 99 and the 140 to Mariposa.

In total the joinery took over 5 hours and we arrived in Mariposa at around 6pm to check into the very affordable and friendly Mariposa Lodge. We ate locally that night at a good grill restaurant called The Charles Street Diner, it was full which is always a good sign but had ran out of many of their specials. The burger as Dave put it was excellent.

So with an early night we set our alarms for 5.30am and got up the next morning in the dark, it was a quiet start until around 8am. It took us 2 hours to reach Glacier Point where we’d read about some of the best views in the valley, plus we wanted to beat some of the tourist traffic that would be piling in for the day. To put it simply Yosemite National Park is one of the most beautiful around, we managed to explore as much as we could in one day! If it had just been Dave and Helen touring around we would have arranged to camp and spend at least 2-3 days there but as we had an agenda we had to be pretty quick with our day. We drove down into the valley and had a little walk to the Yosemite falls area before making our way through the park and out the other side.

We enjoyed a few band-inspired group photographs throughout the day as well as fantastic views all round! The brakes also had a little bit of a battering on the journey! Must remember to downshift manually in future! After a half hour stop at Mono lake on our way to Bishop we eventually got to our motel at around 7.30pm and set out to grab some Mexican food before once again getting an early night. The next day we had Death Valley to look forward to!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

After our first night at Jill and Joe’s house in Cambria we had breakfast and headed out for a morning stroll. This took us over an old ranch that has become a preservation area and is a great route through grasslands, forest and coast. We even spotted our first scarecrow in someones front garden taking part in the local competition. San Luis Obispo was our destination for today which took around 60 minutes drive from Cambria.

We stopped along the way at Morro Bay with the plan to kayak around the bay exploring the islands that divide the mainland and the ocean. We hired a two person kayak from kayak horizons for $18 1st hour / $10 per hour afterwards. We spotted some sea otters in the bay as well as seals sunning themselves on the wooden decks. Rain arrived and we called it time on the kayak adventure and met Barbara in a coffee shop.

The Mission in San Luis Obispo is one of the main attractions here and the church was very nice with some interesting painted wall art. The Mission itself wasn’t really that great, more of a local museum which needed some TLC. A walk around the town and a beer/wine got us in the mood for the farmers market which started at 6pm. The street market was more of a food market than anything but they had a decent selection of food on offer, mainly meat based as this is America. Chewing gum alley might not go that great with your Tri-tip sandwich or vegan Thai curry, but its a sight worth seeing.

The following day we decided to stay local and explore Cambria. We first visited the Cambria farmers market which takes place Fridays 2:30pm – 5pm, which had some nice produce on sale. The scarecrow competition was in full swing and had some great entries. A few weeks back we booked our tickets online to visit Hearst Castle (Helen had previously visited but was more than happy to go back) and decided to book the sunset tour which included themed characters wandering the grounds and interacting with each other and the visitors. The castle is pretty amazing and is well worth a visit if you are on the west coast near this area. The tour lasted a couple of hours and ended at the gold leaf roman swimming pool. All three of us loved the tour and the history of the castle.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We got up early and had the usual breakfast. Every Wednesday in Santa Monica they close off a small section of streets and have a Farmers Market take place. On our way along the beach walk Helen “Hung Tough” and easily beat Dave by going the distance! “Contender READY!” The Farmers Market is great for getting a variety of fresh foods from fish, vegetables, fruits, flowers and breads. It can be a little pricey for the budget traveller but even if you don’t buy anything is a nice little morning stroll. Here is a list for the events…

• Wednesday Downtown. Arizona Avenue (between 4th & Ocean). 8:30am – 1:30pm

• Saturday Downtown. Arizona Avenue (between 4th and 2nd Streets). 8:30am – 1:00pm

• Saturday Pico. 2200 Virginia Avenue (Pico Blvd. @ Cloverfield Blvd). 8:00am – 1:00pm

• Sunday Main St. 2640 Main Street (in Heritage Square). 9:30am-1:00pm.

Helen headed off with Sarah for another dose of yoga teacher training and Dave got on his bike and headed south along the beach. The path does run out shortly after Muscle Beach, but you can head east along the main road for about 0.8 miles and follow the bike path signs (Google map route). These will take you past the Marina and eventually back onto the beach path.

It’s a lovely ride on a concrete path through the sand and along the sea front. Manhattan Beach (10 miles away) has a nice pier with a mini aquarium at the bottom as well as quieter beaches than Venice and Santa Monica. Watch out for the hang gliding crossing and beginner lessons a few miles north from the pier. This looks like a great spot for learning the art of hang gliding, if only we had the time here and the additional funds!

Tonight is our last night with Matt so we took a few photos of our home for the last week and cooked ourselves a great dinner. Packing will commence tomorrow for the move closer to the beach!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Olympus PEN EP-1, 17mm f/2.8 & 100mm f/2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Up at 6am today as we were both feeling jet-lagged, making ourselves stay in bed as long as we could having woken up on the hour since about 3am. The early wake up was good though as it meant we could get to the Venice beach Farmers Market for opening at 7.30am. It’s a small market, much smaller than its neighbouring Santa Monica one but it’s got enough to offer in terms of fresh produce, which for us is ideal as we’re self catering.

So we tentatively spent our first dollars and bought a very delicious assortment of cherry tomatoes, some leafy greens and homemade dill bagels with a lovely whipped cream cheese! That’s lunch sorted for the next few days!

When we got in we enjoyed our first breakfast here which was helped by Matt’s generous offering of endless supplies of mangoes, strawberries and blueberries! This fueled us enough for a walk to the Santa Monica Pier along the beach front. It’s about 2 miles to the pier from Venice beach and there are paths for cyclists and pedestrians all the way along the stretch of the beach and beyond. It’s really set up for the fitness fanatics. Getting closer to the pier we watched surfers, and people setting up their spots on the beach for the day. We explored the pier and then made our way back to Venice.

Later on we explored the Venice Canals, a place we think we will frequent with our cameras, it’s really beautiful and very close to where we’re staying. It’s just good to stroll around and take in the contrast of houses from quaint, old beach style homes to modern grand designs. We ended our afternoon on the beach – we had arrived!

Helen started her course in the evening with Erich Schiffman so no doubt will be very yoga focused in the next 10 days, but Venice does have this boho vibe going on so we don’t think she’ll be too out of place!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Olympus PEN EP-1, 17mm f/2.8 & 100mm f/2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We went out for a bike ride with one of the Chinese girls’ Sylvia who was staying in the dorm with us, she was friends with another of the girls working at the hostel. It was good to have her with us as she could help us to find our way by asking the locals which way to such and such a place. She wanted to go to a specific village called Xixhou which is about 20km away from Dali old town. We wanted to cycle through some of the villages closer to the lake so we could explore the farmland, the most direct way would be to cycle along the high way for the entire ride but that’s no fun, so we compromised and spent some time cycling to the villages and some time catching up and taking the highway to the furthest place.

The farmland in Dali is very lush and extremely beautiful to photography. During our stay in Dali the sky was a perfect blue and it was a very comfortable temperature indeed, only being cold in the shade. By night it dropped significantly but we had electric blankets to cope with this!

So we took in the scenery around us, some farmland, some lake and some road. It was stunning. We got to Xixhou at around 3pm and ambled through the village market before stopping for some very good value soup rice noodles. For 3 of us to eat it cost around £2.80, and the food tasted really good. The only bad thing was a local guy pestering us for left over food and drink, he wouldn’t leave us alone and eventually got what he wanted. Still the setting took us away from this. We continued out of the village and took the road to some older parts of the area. Once more fantastic views, terraces and buildings surrounded us.

We decided to make our way back at around 4pm and set off for Dali. We were going quicker than Sylvia on her lady-like bike so we waited for her every so often, plus the drivers on the road aren’t the most reliable often overtaking two cars in one go so we wanted to make sure we were all with us. When we got back Sylvia joked about how fit we were compared to her and she said she’d only ever ridden a bike once before in her life. Considering this fact she did very well indeed.

When we got back we ate at an Indian restaurant down the road from our hostel and enjoyed more chai. Back at the hostel there were a few more travelers, Helen got chatting to Jane who she’d seen at various other places around China. It’s very easy to bump into people when you use Hostelworld for recommendations on where to stay. Many people also choose to travel through South China from Vietnam as it’s a good route and the weather is pretty good in Yunnan.

So it was our last night in Dali and we really loved the town and the hostel had a nice vibe too. We decided to nip back to Bakery 88 the next morning to get some take-away sandwiches with very good cheese and meat! Yum!! We also sneaked in a few more granola slices.

The bus back took the scenic route as part of the highway was closed but this wasn’t a bad thing as it meant we got to drive through some more beautiful countryside and villages. It was quite a luxury bus with only a few of us on board, and we got back to Cloudland at around 7pm. We had some food, chatted away and got ready for our flight to Guangzhou the following day.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)