Temporary Nomad

We’ve made it to Australia!

Looking forward to our New Year’s Eve party tonight.

Here’s what we find in the backyard now and again:

Kookaburra on the Hills hoist in the backyard.

We’re on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), land of the moai:

Moai (statues) at Rano Raraku quarry.

The lei at the airport made it feel instantly like Polynesia.

Mike at the airport with colourful lei.

There are incredible numbers of moai, especially at the quarry at volcano Rano Raraku where there are nearly 400 which were never even erected on platforms. We got “moai fever” spotting the statues still left in the rock.
The ones on ahu (platforms) are pretty impressive too:

Ahu Akivi. Its seven moai are the only ones facing the sea.

After they got tired of the moai they invented the birdman cult which involved climbing down a cliff-face and swimming to a nearby rocky motu (islet) to find an egg.

The motus seen from Orongo crater with birdman petroglyphs.

We’ve run out of space for nomadical on Flickr so new pictures can be found on Mike’s Flickr page – Delft Red.

UPDATE: You can see some pictures of our trip round the island taken by Javi, one of our travelling companions on his website.

Back in Santiago again,

after a few days on the coast. Only a few days until we leave for Easter Island!

We´ve gone to the beach. Viña del Mar: