OUR OVERLAND ODYSSEY, OVER & OUT

Well this is it, the final blog entry of our twenty six month trip around the world. When we left back in April 08, we were both looking forward to our two years away and the thought that it would actually come to an end seemed light years away. But all good things must come to an end and in reality for us the time has just flown by, now we are back here on the sunshine coast in England, otherwise known as Felixstowe. As I published last month’s blog in Halifax we had only a few days left before flying home, but so as to keep our return a surprise, we made out that we would not be returning for a few more weeks this worked very well and we were able to surprise many members of our family upon our return, even getting my parents out of bed as we arrived on their doorstep from Gatwick airport at seven o’clock in the morning. We left Halifax in the sunshine on the 3rd of June after selling the car at auction the week previously, unfortunately we didn’t get quite the deal as we did when we sold our camper in Oz, but at a cost of £1,200 pounds for six months motoring across Canada, we felt we had done pretty well. If you take into consideration the profit we on the camper, then we are still £600 up after buying & selling both vehicles, now that’s my kind of motoring! 

We arrive at the airport complete with backpacks and skis quite an unusual sight in June & it didn’t take long before we got into a big discussion on the baggage surcharge that we would have to pay. We had been prepared for a surcharge, as we now had all our ski gear with us, but $500 was certainly not the figure that we had been expecting, but good news after the check in staff checked the web site, and had several discussions amongst themselves because it still wasn’t clear & nobody knew for sure, they came up with a total baggage allowance of 82 kilograms, which meant not only did we not have any surcharges, we still had enough allowance left to take another bag if we had wanted, good job Jan didn’t know this or we would have been shopping in Halifax all the previous day! We arrive back in the UK at Gatwick airport on June the 4th at 0445 in the morning, the sky is blue, the sun is out, is this really the same England we left over two years earlier in the snow from Dover. For us the experience has been everything & more than we were ever expecting, a time that we will look back on with fond memories. Right from the very beginning with the overland trip which took us halfway around the world, on a truck with no suspension to speak of, heating or air conditioning, we have enjoyed it all.

Even the difficult moments like travellers sickness in Pakistan & visiting the hospital in Peshawar, we now look back on these times as fond memories, rather than the unpleasant experiences they were at the time! During our travels we’ve seen some sights, like the people bathing in the Ganges right next to where bodies are being cremated into the river, sun rises in the Himalayas, below is one of the few early morning sunrises we actually made.

and the magic of the Taj Mahal in Agra & Angkor Wot in Cambodia.

We’ve both learnt some new skills, for me scuba diving and digging the neatest deepest hole for the toilet tent during our camps around the world. Our Ensuite facilities!!

Jan has learnt to swim without having to hold her nose while doing so, thanks to Jo in Koa Tao, and also became quite a dab hand at pancakes and French toast for breakfast over the open fire in the mornings.

That trip in itself was the trip of a lifetime, but we were fortunate enough to be able to continue further and spent the next ten months in our campervan driving around Australia. Another great time but different to the overland group trip, where we had only ourselves to consider as we travelled around this huge continent. We look back on this part as our most relaxing part of the round the world trip, deserted beaches, night skies filled with stars. Getting up close and personal with Tawny Nurse Sharks and Tiger snakes,

probably a little too close with the snakes if the truth be known!! We were so enjoying the laid back style of ozzy life that we could go to bed and sleep for a solid 10 hours a night while camping out in the boonies something we have never been able to do before. There she goes wandering off into the outback!!

It was time to start heading home from Australia and this part of our trip was still to take a further nine months, enjoying the even further laid back lifestyle of Fiji, even if the weather wasn’t the kindest to us there, it’s still one of our favourite spots, and a potential relocation destination for us in the future.

Our last stop in the southern hemisphere was New Zealand, here we encountered our only bad experience in the whole trip with the campervan that we hired having so many faults, and the company “Apollo campers” having such a poor customer service help line, it was a constant battle for the first week to get things sorted out. This coupled with the fact that my parents could not join us as planned due to my father’s motorbike accident, certainly took the shine off, what should have been a very enjoyable seven weeks touring both islands. From there we headed off to the northern hemisphere and Canada in winter, wow what an eye opener this was. Not realising at the time, but we certainly do now, just how long the Canadian winter goes on for. We spent an enjoyable Xmas with family in Vancouver and six weeks skiing at Big White with family & friends flying out from England. Driving back across North America through a mixture of sun and winter storms,

we come across our biggest surprise of the trip so far, America. Before we left home neither of us had any desire to visit the states but after talking to a few people about the best route across Canada, the consensus of opinion was to drop down below Lake Superior & into the states where there would be more to see. Michigan right under Lake Superior was a complete revelation for us, with friendly people, clean spacious towns and lots of forested areas surrounding the lakes. Below Lake Superior shoreline.

This coupled with a cheap cost of living and very affordable housing also gives us food for thought as a potential future relocation destination. So there we have it twenty six months of travel, during which time we have visited twenty six different countries, taking in everything from the modern cities of Europe and North America to the sleepy backwaters of Nepal and Cambodia. We have met up with family members dotted around the world, some we never even realised we had before setting out on this trip. The friendly people that we have met during our travels have outnumbered by far the few bad experiences that we encountered. We have made lots of new friends and met up with old friends who left England years ago for a new life abroad, all of whom seem to have found their ideal place somewhere. We now look forward to spending the next couple of months touring the UK, catching up with some of these new friends during this time. To all the friends & family who have helped and hosted us during our trip, we would like to say a big thank you, we really did appreciate it, and would love to be able to return your hospitality one day when we are finally settled somewhere? Now it’s time for further reflection, & research on just where and what we are going to do in the future. There is no immediate rush, for there is a lot to weigh up but I’m sure that whatever decision we arrive at, it will be the right one for both us and our family. For us this has been the trip of a lifetime, a dream that we had, and were fortunate enough to be able to achieve. Our advice to anyone would be to take the opportunities when they arise and while you have your health because you never know what might be waiting just around the corner, life’s too short to hesitate.