Half of the world in numbers

• Millions of mosquitoes, bugs and dive-bombing maggots
• Thousands of pictures taken
  
• 788 hours spent on planes, buses, trains and boats (just under 33 days)
• At least 500 instances of Rick brushing his teeth
• Over 100 days in the sun
• 60-odd great friends made
  
• 49 cities, towns, villages, islands visited from Bangkok to Perth
• 40 blog posts
  
• 32 jumps from a high place into a wet place
  
• 15 temples and monasteries
• 8 countries let us through their border crossings (more fool them)
• 5 and a half months wandering from country to country
  
• 3 near death experiences (including near-death by hammer and near-death by moped)
• 2 drops out of or from stuff over 100m in the air
  
• 1 amazing journey

I landed back in the UK yesterday. It's grey, rainy, and after spending 2 days in the 40deg heat of Dubai, it's a tad chilly. But, it's home. In Dubai it was great to see mates I hadn't seen in 6 months, Chris and Kerry thanks very much for your hospitality, and Matt A and Camilla, you two behave! While I was interested to be back and see the place again, I can honestly say that apart from the friends I have there, Dubai doesn't hold the attraction it once did. Maybe I did some 'growing' these past 5 months after all...

The final few days staying in Perth were a bit of a whirlwind of interviews and booze, the outcome of which was a job offer and a hangover. I've accepted the job and gotten rid of the hangover, leaving England once more on the 9th October. Matt has taken some more time to go and visit India, and with a bit of luck he'll be landing there in a few days. Hope you have a blast mate, sorry I can't be there to share it with you.

I hope you, the reader, have enjoyed reading this blog as much as I've enjoyed writing it. I can't urge you enough to get to these places if you haven't already been, especially places like Laos and Cambodia. The life, the people, it's all so different but in an extremely good way, and, given the money and time, I'd go back there in a heartbeat. Without a doubt I shall visit them again.

And so, with a tear in my eye (don't worry, I'm only crying on the inside) I bid you farewell.
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I love a bit of drama I do.

This is the end, of our elaborate plans, the end

Well not quite. Yet. Though that's a great Doors song. Go look it up if you don't know it.

We arrived in Perth to find Sam waiting at the airport for us. Apart from the first words out of his mouth being 'What the hell is that?!' while pointing at my unshaven chin, it was good to see him again. Sam was one of my friends from Dubai who I'd worked with, and was given the Spanish Archer (El bow) by Hill McGlynn on the same day as me. Unfortunately, he had responsibilities which prohibited him from becoming an itinerant world-wide vagrant (such as a wife) and he'd come to Australia and got a job pretty sharpish.

It was great to see him and Bev again. They've settled pretty much in the centre of town, literally a stone's throw from the CBD. Somewhat strange when compared to other cities, it seems that people live in the centre of Perth but all work in the suburbs, and up until a year or so ago there were no bars in central past 6pm.

Unfortunately he and Bev have had to work the whole week so far, but their housemate Elle (a lazy student type, is there any other?) has been around to keep me and Matt company. Our first couple of days were spent not doing too much at all other than buying food for dinner each evening. As a bit of a thank you to Sam for allowing us to kip on the couch, we've been cooking most days - rather domesticated I know. The weather hasn't been great, so we've only really gone out and about a few times. The first was down to Fremantle, a rather hippy-chic, boho-esque kind of suburb (these buzzwords doing anything for you?). Not that many people about on a weekday, it's filled with second-hand book shops, cafes, aboriginal art galleries and gelato shops. Great to pass an afternoon and have a walk around. For those of you who are scared by my geeky nature, probably best to pass on to the next paragraph now, however I did find an arcade with a Guitar Hero game. Had to go in and play. Sorry.

The day after was gloriously sunny, and Matt and I took a walk up the hill to Kings Park. It's huge, and provides a great view of Perth CBD and the Swan River. Beautifully cultivated, there are Botanical Gardens and many cafes and restaurants to while away an afternoon. Matt went on yet another of his 3 hours walks, so I went and walked around some shops before going home. Bought some new trainers too. Result.

The weekend has been a bit of a blur of beer, vodka and food. The Wallabies won their first rugby game in a while against the Springboks so pretty much everyone around us was happy and chatty which made for a good few nights. At one point we did duck into a strip club to play some pool (I couldn't hold Sam back) but for the most part we've been good. Scouts honour. Today was rather relaxed as some of us had a hangover, taking in a trip to Hillary's Boat Harbour taking in some pool, crazy golf (called Whacky Putt) and some rather good fish and chips.

Nothing new in North Island? Not likely!

From Franz Joseph we spent a few nights more in South Island, namely in Greymouth (nothing there) Nelson (a great Saturday market, filled with buskers, hippies, food and merino sheep's clothing) and Picton (extremely picturesque, but very quiet, their 4000 strong population swells to 14,000 in Summer).

We took the Inter Islander Ferry across to Wellington, and as there were so few decent camp sites for us to stay we decided to spend a few nights at the Base Backpackers right in the center of town.

Wellington is a very cool city, and extremely windy! We were just around the corner from Courtenay Place, a road lined with bars, cafes and shops, and found ourselves eating out there for two nights, taking advantage of some great food deals. Our first evening was spent in the enjoyable confines of the bar in the basement of the hostel, having a few drinks and playing some pool - relatively relaxed and chilled. The day after, we met up with one of Matt's long lost relatives David (2nd cousin's dog's mother's owner or something) and had a nice lunch in the Mac's Brewery. He was a wealth of knowledge on where to go and what to do, and helped us plan the last week of our NZ tour. He also bought us lunch, which went down even better, so David, have one for us!

After he left to go back to the office, Matt and I took a stroll through the free Te Papa Museum, which, I must say, was great. You've probably noticed through the blog that I'm not one for lingering over a discovered bit of chamber pot from the 18th Century, but the exhibits here are superb. You can take a look at the Colossal Squid, preserved in formaldehyde sporting eyeballs the size of footballs (that's English football you phillistines) and learn a bunch of Maori things, promptly forgetting them again after (while I was there I found out what all the bits of a marae were called but can't remember now. The marae itself is a meeting house for the village). A highlite was the 10 minute film, which starred various New Zealanders, both Maori and other, explaining their life for the likes of us ignorant British tourists.

We left Wellington and had a long day driving to Taupo (pronounced, for no discernible reason, tao-paw) stopping off on the way at one of David's suggestions, a wildlife centre which had a Kiwi house. Unfortunately, said Kiwi House had only one male kiwi who was rather upset because his kiwi konkubines had been taken away for some reason or other. I felt sorry for him. Matt went and did one of his walks in Taupo, I ended up playing a bit of one on none basketball in the campsite's court. I still managed to lose.

Through the very friendly staff there however, we organised a Maori cultural experience thingummy at Rotorua, called Tamaki Maori Village. It was for the next evening, and he also sorted out our site for the night. Enroute we stopped off at a Thermal Plateau kind of thing, interesting and colourful but smelly smelly smelly.

And on to Rotorua: what a cool place. While waiting for our bus to come collect us for our Maori dooberry, who should rock up but K and Jit who we met in Franz Joseph. We were on our way out, but organised to meet up the day after for fun and games. We were taken away for the evening by a great Maori woman called Aroha, and spent the evening learning Maori games, Maori weapons (those things are deadly I tell you, very scary) and watching a concert. Well I say concert. The only instruments were an accoustic guitar and some percussion, and the songs, while lyrically were in Maori, sounded like early 90s boy band covers. However the extremely impressive poi and sticks they were throwing about, WHILE singing, distracted me enough from the singing to enjoy it a lot. Add on the haka and an amazing hangi meal (where everything is cooked on heated volcanic rocks in the ground for 8-10 hours) and it was a superb evening.

We spent most of the next day with K and Jit. We watched them zorb down a hill (basically a big bouncy ball filled with water, you climb in and get pushed down. Fun to do, but even more hilarious to watch) followed by a ride on the sky gondola and 3 rides on the luge. That was great fun, and each of us managed to get the little sleds up onto two wheels rather than four, and clear air on one of the sharper drops. K and Jit went off to do their Maori concert and meal that night, and Matt and I met up with a couple we'd met while travelling through Vietnam, Luke and Beckie (Mum you'll remember them cos you helped sort out their tickets!). They'd been staying with Luke's cousin who lives in NZ, and the 5 of us went out for a meal and some drinks, a really enjoyable evening and great to catch up with them again. It finished as it started, with me losing at pool and Luke and Matt winning. Nice and symmetrical, but hopefully we'll see them on the other side of the world at some point.

We drove to Auckland today, ready to say goodbye to NZ. We've had a great time with our campervan (strangely enough more comfy than the bed at Base in Wellington) and can honestly say there's nowhere I've been that manages to combine addrenaline with beautiful scenery in such a seamless way.

The open road, sheep and empty towns

What is it about the open road that calls people? I'm not completely sure myself, but it's sort of got me under its immense (if unfathomable) spell. New Zealand's roads are, to put it bluntly, carnage. Not the normal carnage you may find in Italy, Dubai, Egypt etc, where there are way too many cars to fill the road so, in a Darwinian way they all crash into each other and only the fit survive, thereby making the roads less congested (hah!) but in the sense that there's so few cars on the road, all you have left is speed and breathtaking landscapes.

The roads through the New Zealand Alps

The national speed limit is 100km/h, about 55-60mph. This is, on first impressions, a tad slow. Fair enough, I'm driving a van which is longer than the Nile river, and a diesel to boot, but it can go faster. I've tried. But then you realise what sort of road you're driving down. They're one lane each way, and breaking up this 100km/h limit are a series of small and not so small towns, which these roads go straight through the middle of. That's fine when said road is the only road in the town, lending other options to the classic 'one horse town' motto (or in the case of one such ville, 'enjoy our three horse town'). But then the speed limit drops down to 50km/h (just under 30mph) and normally without much warning, i.e. blind turn at 100 and BANG 50km/h now now now, brake brake brake!

It's also very easy to find your speed creeping up to 120. I've mentioned that the roads are one lane. When they're straight, they're also very, very empty. Going at 100, you wouldn't see a car behind or infront of you the whole time, unless someone turns out of a side street. I see plenty in front, then behind as I overtake. But coming the other way, you'd be forgiven thinking it's heavy traffic if you see more than 3 cars at a time, or more than three over the space of say 30 minutes.

Practicing safe driving

It also makes it very easy to tell when a car has had a mishap. We stopped by the side of the road having seen a Jeep in a ditch. An unfortunate girl has pulled over to answer her mobile phone, but found that the grass was much more boggy than she'd anticipated. When we stopped to help her, she was in tears, having failed to flag down a passing motorist for over half an hour. Having stopped, a good number of cars passed us, until eventually another guy stopped and said he had a tow-rope. We connected her to the back of our van, and pulled her out. Smug with our good deed for the day, I powered off, and nearly ran over a herd of sheep in the middle of the road, the farmer (in his 4x4 and dog running along side) screaming at me to slow down. Lesson learned.

Carrying on from the second last post:

On the way to Milford Sound - awesome ground mist

we were in Te Anau, and we did the trip to Milford Sound. We saw where an avalanche had closed the road for 10 days (the snow was still there, now ice really) took a boat trip, saw some piddly water falls, saw an interesting if not enthralling underwater observatory, and that was that. We then drove to Dunedin, a town known for it's lively music scene, and the chance to see yellow eyed penguins. I drove 30 minutes along the narrowest of cliff roads for this, only to be told that it wasn't the right season. We didn't see any music either.

Cutting back across NZ, we stopped at a place called Campbell for the night (again nothing there and the town had shut by 6pm) and made our way to Franz Joseph, where I was astounded at how truly tiny the world had become. A few weeks ago, Rachie (great mate from Uni) told me that a friend of hers was also travelling through NZ, and we should get in touch. Through the wonders of Facebook we did, and ascertained we'd probably cross paths on their southern journey as we passed north. Arriving in Franz Joseph, I find a message from her, telling me she'd just arrived in...Franz Joseph. I'd noticed a large group of people staying where we were, and nonchalantly asked if there was a girl called Vicky with them. Yes there was. The guy I'd asked then said he recognised me, and it was someone we'd met in Vietnam and Cambodia. I had a chat with him, and on doing so, a girl walked past us. I told him I'd seen her before in Airlie Beach on the same boat trip as us. He said it was Vicky. Rachie's friend, who she'd told me to meet, I'd already met nearly a month before in a different country. Fun times.

As you can see from below, the sky dive we did while in Franz Joseph was out of this world, and great fun. The other reason to go there is to trek through the glaciers. I've seen other people's pictures of this, and it looks great, but the prices being asked meant we'd had to decide - sky dive or glacier walk. You can see the results below.

Looking rather scared, dangling out of the plane

Since then, we've spent a night in Nelson, quite a charming town with a great Saturday market, selling everything from Merino Woollen Socks to homemade knives, and we're now in Blenheim, hoping to meet up with friends made in Laos, and subsequently met again in Kuala Lumpur. Told you it's a small world.

Jumping out of a plane over a Glacier...sweeet

So today I took a small plane and jumped out of it. There were mountains and glaciers to my right, and a beautiful open Tasman Sea to my left. Awesome. View the vid. Cheesy music aside (and it really is cheesy) you'll notice that regardless of what the hell I was thinking, just before we jump I still look like I'm gonne pee my pants. Or worse...Enjoy!

Queenstown - adrenaline on ice, air and water

Queenstown. You know how in London and other cities there are bronze statues of notable people or icons, say Nelson in Trafalgar Square, or the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen? Queenstown instead has a guy cuddling a ram. Maybe it used to be a farm. It's about the size of a very large one. Or maybe two. But it's packed and teeming with every kind of adrenaline rush you can find, be it heli-skiing/boarding (taking a helicopter to otherwise unreachable peaks and hurtling down on one or two bits of wood) shooting down the river on a 180km speedboat, bungy jumping or sky diving. A far cry from sheep based activities.

After skiing at Cardrona, I decided to take a few snowboarding lessons in Remarkables while Matt went tramping (what the locals call hiking) around the town. Unlike anywhere else I've skied, Remarks has amazing views right from the base camp, and the weather up there was superb, great powder and great sunshine.

Remarkables from base camp - the white below the cloud is more cloud covering Queenstown

My first two lessons, both on the same day, went rather well, to the point where the cute blonde New Yorker who was taking the lesson took me up to the first chairlift and helped me out coming down my first green run. Boarding actually does feel more free than skiing, but it's completely different (surprisingly) and my third lesson (where I was told to jump 2 levels) took me down some blue runs. Mostly on my arse, head, shoulder or wrist. I did stack it impressively at least twice, both times cartwheeling on my head. Quite a skill, but it wasn't intended. I'm now black and blue in a number of places, but great fun nonetheless.

As you can see from the last post, we also did the Nevis Sky Arc and Bungy, but they speak for themselves.

If you're not into the whole 10 second adrenaline rush, you can either take a 15 minute tandem paraglide from the Ledge, or chill at one of a zillion bars, pool halls, cafes or restaurants. Each evening we headed down for a few beers, taking in a pub crawl or two, and meeting some random people. This included one guy who we found smoking a spark plug. When asked what was in it, he said it was weed, that he'd grown himself. Turns out he works on films, supplying the vehicles, and the last one he worked on was Wolverine. Apparently he shared a spliff with Hugh Jackman. I also entered a free poker tournament which was pretty damn popular. By 1am we were down to the last 8, and I came 3rd. Pitty you only won bar tabs for 1st and 2nd place...!

We're now in Te Anau, about to take a trip to Milford Sound tomorrow. It's boring here, to put it bluntly, everything was closed at 6pm, and there were literally five people on the high street. With some luck tomorrow will be awesome, and then we're off to Dunedin. Cue Lord of the Rings Soundtrack....

The world's highest sky swing...

Something you may want to see...

Or not. People have already said they screamed slightly when they saw me drop on the vid...

In any case, I thought I'd do a bit of a story on this, though there isn't much to say. You get driven about 45 mins outside of Queenstown, the last 10 minutes of which up a hairy one lane track, cliff on one side and sheer drop on the other. You get your first glimpse of the bungy and Arc platform from there, and you immediately start wishing you'd chosen to do something safer that day, swimming with sharks for instance.

Must say though it's bloody well done. Everything's explained to you, you get strapped in nice and tight, and the guys who work the thing are a laugh. Also if anyone from Dorking knows a girl working at the Nevis Bungy let me know, she has friends in Dubai, but Jenna it's not you. Sorry.

Re the sky arc, as you can see from the video it's all very chilled. At least till they release you. You rush to about 150km on the way down, and it really does look as if you're going to go splat on the opposite canyon wall, but no, the boffs have done their measurements well and you come up short. And then you just swing. Which in all fairness is rather boring. It takes longer for them to bring you up than it does to get down there. Will def have to do it again though...