Zoe | The Clark Family's Amazing Adventures

A week in the Falklands Part 1

14 Sep 2013 5 Comments

by Zoe in Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff, Photos, Top Experiences Tags: Falkland Islands, Flat Stanley, Port Stanley

or….Flat Stanley does Stanley:)

On our family gap year travels, one of the most exciting places we’ve been to is the Falklands.

Images of the Falklands – a running-backwards-race at the racetrack fun day which we joined in but didn’t win, king penguins at, Volunteer Point, Port Stanley houses decorated with Union Jacks and Falklands flags, landmine warnings at Surf Bay and fishing at the lake beneath Mount Tumbledown

It’s partly because it’s just so British! More British than being at home. Of course everyone speaks English, which was a real treat after speaking Spanish or Portuguese for our whole trip so far, it was exciting too because we got to stay in a lovely traditional B&B called Kay’s and she was amazing! It was really interesting to find out what a small island in the middle of the south Atlantic was like where there were only a few people but where they’d had a war in 1982 when Argentina invaded and tried to take the islands over. And it was also exciting because its close to Antarctica and we got to see king penguins and rockhopper penguins and that was really unbelievable!

Naked at the end of the world!

27 Jun 2013 4 Comments

by Zoe in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff, Videos Tags: Argentina, Selknam people, The end of the world, Tierra del Fuego, Tierra del Fuego National Park, Yamana people

In Ushauia – we found out all about the Yamana people and the Selknam people. They lived at the bottom of the world in Tierra del Fuego in South America. The Selknam lived inland and hunted guanaco. The Yamana lived along the coast.

The Yanama with their canoes - where they kept a fire burning all the time and didn't wear clothes!

The Yamana with their canoe – where they kept a fire burning all the time and didn’t wear clothes! At the Maritime Museum, Ushuaia. This canoe was made trying to copy the traditional methods before they are forgotten and lost!

The Yamana lived further south than any other people in the world and although it was cold they didn’t wear clothes but always had a fire burning even in their canoes and put animal grease on their skin to help stay warm. More

Flat Stanley at Iguazu Falls

26 May 2013 3 Comments

by Zoe in Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff, Top Experiences Tags: Flat Stanley, iguazu falls, South America

I loved Iguazu Falls. It was one of my favourite places in South America. I thought it was going to be like the waterfall in the film UP because in that film the old man has a dream of going to some waterfalls in South America but Iguazu is much bigger.

Me, Ben, Lara and Flat Stanley

I took Flat Stanley to see Iguazu. More

Flat Stanley Lost in the Desert

21 Apr 2013 7 Comments

by Zoe in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff Tags: Chile, Flat Stanley, San Pedro de Atacama, San Pedro Flooded

10/2/13. We’ve been in San Pedro for a few days! We’re stranded!! It’s a small town with everything built of mud and straw bricks, some buildings are painted white and its very dusty!

San Pedro is not meant for rain!

We were going to go and see some geysers high up in the mountains near the Bolivia border, float and swim in hot pools and salty lagoons, then take a bus into northern Argentina but then, on the first afternoon, it started to rain. There was lightening and the loudest thunder we ever heard! We were in our apartment at the hostel and water started to pour under the door!

Flat Stanley’s Andes Adventure

14 Mar 2013 4 Comments

by Zoe in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff Tags: Andes, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Flat Stanley, lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, Peru, salt flats, South America, Titicaca, Uros islands, Uyuni

Flat Stanley has travelled with me in South America for eight months now…..

We said goodbye to Miss Jane, Mrs M and Miss Place at the end of year 2, last July, spent our summer hopping around in Brazil , journeyed the length of the Amazon to Columbia, Peru and the Napo River to Ecuador!

We took a bus way up into the Andes Mountains to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, where we learned Spanish and then flew out to the Galápagos Islands.

Quito and Waterfall near Otavalo, Ecuador

You might remember these photos in Quito and at a waterfall near Otavalo, Ecuador

Happy New Year from an Old Inca City in Peru!

04 Jan 2013 13 Comments

by Zoe in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Top Experiences Tags: Inca, Machu Picchu, New Years Day, Ollantaytambo, Peru, Sacred Valley

Greetings to friends and family everywhere from me and my family in Peru!

Arriving in the clouds at dawn to Machu Picchu – New Year’s Eve 2012

I am posting this e-card to all of you (sorry its a bit late!)…… More

Why not to run in Flip Flops!

14 Nov 2012 13 Comments

by Zoe in Family Gap Year, Health & Fitness, Safety Tags: Doh, Hospital, Mummy

As dictated by Zoe…

We were sitting in a restaurant going to have dinner, supper, whatever you call it. Because it was so cold Mummy was going to run back to the house to get our jackets but when she had gone about 5 meters from the restaurant she fell over and got a giant cut in her knee.

Mum in hospital

My World School – four months in, at school in the Galapagos!

13 Nov 2012 8 Comments

by Zoe in Adventure, Education & Schooling, Family Gap Year, Kids Stuff Tags: Andes, Ecuador, Galapagos, Home school, Inti Nan, Mitad Del Mundo, Quito, San Cristobal, Spanish, World school

My Mum’s cousin Val is the head teacher at a school back home. She’s read some of our blogs and showed some of our photos to all the children in assembly.

They sent us some questions and these were mine :

Zoe – What do you do when you get bored? What games do you play? We are all jealous that you don’t have to go to school. How is World School school going? Have you been on any more adventures like your jungle journey to the beach?

We decided to use the questions to do our next blogs!

When I get bored, I have a Kindle so sometimes I read. I really like to draw or make stuff and now I have just got some new paints. We have pencils and paper. In Quito we got some scissors, sellotape and glue and more drawing paper!

Reading on a long bus trip – once I thought I lost mine on a bus which was awful but we found it safely put away in Dad’s bag!

I have beads and elastic too and we make necklaces and bracelets – sometimes for ourselves but often as presents. we got more beads in Otavalo,where we visited a massive craft market. Its a place where lots of people wear traditional clothes.The men even have long black plaits! I have got quite good at plaiting! We play on iPhone apps too, or play travel games like Rumicub, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo and sometimes cards.

This traditional lady in Otavalo was as interested in us as we were in her and she wanted to touch our hair!

Me and Flat Stanley in Brazil!

04 Sep 2012 3 Comments

by Zoe in Family Gap Year

We’ve been in Brazil for the whole of the summer holidays and now we’re travelling along the Amazon. We have slept in the boat for 5 nights with one more to go. We will have gone over 1500km when we get to Manaus.

On our last day in Morro do Sao Paulo we had to pack carefully for 3 flights and a 6 day river trip and we sorted out the school books as we are going to start World School when everyone else starts school back home. I wish I was there to see everyone but I’m having a great time!

Did you know we’ve been to three islands? Ilha Grande, Boipeba and Morro do Sao Paulo. I really liked all of them. In Morro we stayed in a lighthouse hotel – with a lovely swimming pool with a funicular that goes up to it! The lighthouse is there behind me on the balcony. The real lighthouse to warn boats is up on the hill!

This year, I’m going to read some of the same books that everyone is reading in Year 3 back at school. I have got ‘Flat Stanley’ with me – an actual ‘Flat Stanley’ not the book, which is on my Kindle! That’s because Miss Place gave him to me so he could travel with me in my backpack and visit some of the places we’re going to!

For those who don’t know, Stanley is a boy in a book who gets squashed flat by a pin board and posted to California to visit his friend! Miss Jane read that story to us in Year 2.

I took Flat Stanley out to see Rio de Janiero! Here are some of the photos of him with us in front of the statue of Christ the Redeemer and Flat Stanley balancing on top of Sugarloaf Mountain!

Can you spot him hiding in the bushes? And can you see him lounging in the hammock when I’m getting the books sorted out for home school in Morro?