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John (& Sarah's) journeys.

Enjoying the Shenandoah Valley with an old friend and some new ones!

USA | Monday, 7 May 2012 | Views [435]

Having experienced the dubious pleasures of the Greyhound bus, we were relieved to arrive in Charlottesville. With no idea of where to stay we headed to the cupcake shop opposite the Greyhound station where a very friendly cupcake girl with excellent ... Read more >


Sweet home (defiant) Alabama

USA | Thursday, 26 Apr 2012 | Views [2235]

We arrived in New Orleans after driving through some tree-lined avenues with beautiful old colonial houses. This was a pleasant surprise as in most of the American cities we've been through you can come across some pretty dodgy neighbourhoods! We were ... Read more >


Getting up close and personal with gators in The Deep South.

USA | Tuesday, 24 Apr 2012 | Views [967]

Before leaving Helena we noticed a raised earthen mound alongside the river... a levee! So we drove our Chevy to the levee but who would have guessed it....the levee was dry (for those confused by this previous statement... think Don Mclean and American ... Read more >


From The Smokey Mountains to the home of the Delta Blues (via Uncle Jack's).

USA | Tuesday, 24 Apr 2012 | Views [520]

After the craziness of Las Vegas we decided that what we really needed was to sit in a tent somewhere quiet for a while......so we picked up a hire car in Knoxville and headed for the Great Smoky Mountains on the Tennessee/North Carolina border. John ... Read more >


Desert and Decadence

USA | Sunday, 22 Apr 2012 | Views [947]

After hiking through the pine forests of Yosemite we set off towards Las Vegas. The high roads crossing the Sierra Nevada were still closed due to snow so we skirted round the bottom and up the eastern sides. As soon as we rounded the mountains the ... Read more >


The Rock and a mountain escape

USA | Tuesday, 10 Apr 2012 | Views [862]

Let's not say it's easy crossing the International Dateline...in fact after the delays to our connecting San Francisco flight at LA airport, it's fair to say we were lagging well behind the jet! Hungry and tired we made it from San Fran airport by ... Read more >


Thermal inactivity

NEW ZEALAND | Wednesday, 28 Mar 2012 | Views [1059]

Rotorua is a major centre for Maori culture so whilst we were there we decided to visit the Te Puia Moari Arts and Crafts Institute. Here they teach traditional Maori arts such as wood carving and weaving, and have a replica Maori village. The centre ... Read more >


Thermal activity!

NEW ZEALAND | Monday, 19 Mar 2012 | Views [811]

We got up at the unholy hour of 6.15am to catch the 7.30am shuttle to the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. The crossing is a 19.4km hike across volcanic terrain along the slopes of Mt. Ngauruhoe (the volcano used as Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings) ... Read more >


Hello North Island!

NEW ZEALAND | Wednesday, 14 Mar 2012 | Views [807]

We arrived into Wellington at 9.30pm on Saturday and jumped onto the shuttle bus to take us to the centre. The driver was most perplexed that we had not booked anywhere to stay but we assured him that it had worked for us for the last 5 months and ... Read more >


Milford Sound and leaving the South Island

NEW ZEALAND | Tuesday, 13 Mar 2012 | Views [851]

After leaving Queenstown we headed to Te Anau, picking up yet more hitch-hikers on the way (stockpiling our good karma!) Te Anau is the start of the scenic drive to Milford Sound, and is considered one of the best drives in the world. After a brief stop ... Read more >


Mouse madness in the mountains!

NEW ZEALAND | Sunday, 11 Mar 2012 | Views [830]

After leaving the glaciers we headed south enroute to Queenstown. There is only one road along the west coast of New Zealand and it passes through Haast and then crosses the Southern Alps via Haast Pass in Mount Aspiring National Park. Although it was ... Read more >


Heading south to the glaciers

NEW ZEALAND | Thursday, 8 Mar 2012 | Views [675]

After our return to Motueka, we sorted out a hire car so we could explore the rest of the south island. Unlike our Hyundai Getz in Australia, this was more of a "rent-a-dent" and we ended up with a 14 year-old Toyota Camry (nope, we'd never ... Read more >


The hiking sommeliers!

NEW ZEALAND | Monday, 27 Feb 2012 | Views [584]

We managed to hitch a lift from Picton to Blenheim, where we had booked a wine-tour through the famous Marlborough wine county, with an English guy who had emmigrated to NZ 15 years ago. He was very friendly and when he spotted us an hour later waiting ... Read more >


The Queen Charlotte Track

NEW ZEALAND | Tuesday, 14 Feb 2012 | Views [1564]

We travelled to the start of the Queen Charlotte Track on the mail boat, which delivers mail to the remote houses on the Marlborough Sounds as often there are no road connections. It was a beautifully sunny day and the skipper/postman gave us a great ... Read more >


Christchurch and the Marlborough Sounds

NEW ZEALAND | Thursday, 9 Feb 2012 | Views [1237]

We arrived in New Zealand to a rather chilly Christchurch night...13 degrees. John revelled in finally feeling cool for the first time in a while whilst Sarah immediately started putting on a variety of fleeces from her pack. We arrived at our hotel, ... Read more >


Photos: RTWT 2011-2012

UNITED KINGDOM | Thursday, 9 Feb 2012 | Photo Gallery


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It's raining, it's pouring.........

AUSTRALIA | Wednesday, 1 Feb 2012 | Views [743]

We've been really unlucky with the weather here in Australia. It's been extremely wet, resulting in quite a lot of flooding in Queensland and this has meant we haven't been able to do everything we wanted to. We arrived at the Mon Repos turtle hatchery ... Read more >


Heading South to Brisbane

AUSTRALIA | Friday, 27 Jan 2012 | Views [644]

We left Airlie Beach after the cruise to begin our long journey southwards to Brisbane, from where we are due to fly to New Zealand in a week. After an overnight stop just off the Bruce highway, we headed inland to see some of Queensland away from ... Read more >


Wonderful Whitsundays and spectacular Great Barrier Reef!

AUSTRALIA | Wednesday, 25 Jan 2012 | Views [611]

We made it to Airlie Beach, the main stopping-off point for the Whitsunday Islands, and popped into the National Park office for advice on which of the 74 islands to visit. The islands are within the Great Barrier Reef marine park so we wanted somewhere ... Read more >


Australian adventures!

AUSTRALIA | Thursday, 19 Jan 2012 | Views [698]

There are 2 main things we have noticed about Australia......it is EXPENSIVE and not many places have free internet so we are now going to try to remember all that we have done over the last 2 weeks in the next couple of journal entries! We landed in ... Read more >


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