Tuesday 31 December 2013

Travel Blog: THE END.

I can't believe this is it.....
the end of my travel blog, which has lasted over a year! :(

I thought I better finish it before the end of 2013, so here is a quick summary of our adventures....


It all started at Manchester Airport....




From there we had a lot of travelling to do.  All in all we endured:
13 flights
19 boat rides
1 campervan rental
Too many buses and trains to count.

We had many different sleeping arrangements over our trip.  Mine included:
5 beachside huts
1 jail
3 nice hotels
1 friend's floor
1 tent
1 yacht
1 grumpy relative's spare room
2 swags
1 sleeper train
1 rural lodge
1 night boat
1 gorgeous flat to call my own
Too may hostels to begin to count.

Once in Australia, I went through 5 jobs to keep me alive.  Throughout our journey, we experienced extreme weather including tornadoes in New Zealand and floods in Australia.  The bar where I worked at the time was situated on the riverbank, and I spent a week of the Summer clearing sandbags instead of sunbathing. We also chose one of the coldest places in Aus to spend the Winter - good choice.  Of course, looking back there are many things like that I could change, but we still had the most amazing time even if our planning wasn't exactly thorough.

Our journey, expanding over 5 countries, crossed paths with an abundance of wildlife, from monkeys and elephants in Thailand, to seals and dolphins in New Zealand - not forgetting my favourite marsupial, the koalas in Australia and touching a shark in the waters of Fiji.

Aside from all the facts, I returned a different person; with a tattoo, eating new cuisines, and with an array of new friends for life. I now have friends all over the world, including Irish friends, Americans, Taiwanese, Australians, Canadians - and even Germans. (Yes that one's a shocker!)

The most difficult part for me is choosing a favourite place I visited, or even a few favourite places.  All anybody asks me about travelling, is "Where was your favourite place?" But it's just an impossible question to answer, when I loved every single city, island or town for totally different reasons.

Rik and I had the pleasure of taking a video camera on our adventure, and I'm so happy for it now! I tend to have a terrible memory, the sights and sounds of my first destination are already hard to recall.  So thankfully, we have memories forever in our videos and photographs.  Here is our little montage:





Thank you so much to those of you who have been following our journey from the beginning.  Hopefully the adventures are not over! As you know, we got engaged while we were travelling, and instead of planning the wedding I'm too caught up planning the extra long honeymoon travel experience.  I'm already feeling travelsick and long to get back on the road again! Feel free to ask me any questions you may have or contact me if you'd like advice for your own trip of a lifetime.

Jade x


Time to wrap this up with a few inspiring travel quotes :)

This may have to be tattoo number 2.....



Ignore the '22' part.....age should never hold you back from going anywhere or doing what you want.




Saturday 28 December 2013

Travel Blog: Leaving Melbourne

10/10/13 - THE END

The end of our big trip crept up on me stealthily.
After flying back to Melbourne from Fiji, we returned to a completely empty, uninviting flat.  Saying goodbye to our new family of friends was hard, but it was equally as heartbreaking to turn our backs on that beautiful city.  It felt like home from day one; welcoming us into its grid of cultural variety, greeting us with seasons and a fresh, cold wind.  Although the weather was terrible most of the time as we lived in Melbourne throughout Winter, I still fell in love with the little-Europe-in-Oz.

There are interesting things everywhere, I've never known a city to be so vibrant in every single suburb.  One thing Melbourne is infamous for is its array of street art, so this post is an homage to this city's creativity - noticed by every tourist.  Here is a selection of my favourite graffiti spots and other artwork I stumbled across: 










Melbourne, we will miss you terribly but will definitely grace you with our presence once again. x