The Grand Canyon, Private Raft Trip, December 2013

In December 2013, after a year of planning, 9 of us took a raft trip of a lifetime down the Colorado River.
At the time it was the coldest December for 20 years with night time temps dropping to -15 degrees centigrade and day time temps reaching 10 degrees in the sunshine.

We guided and rowed the trip ourselves and took 16 days to descend the 225 miles!

Watch the video to see what it was like!

http://vimeo.com/user17728943/review/112443639/4d99168ea0

Old video that i found of the Dalaman river in turkey (a part of a previous world tour!!)

All Good Things.....

The decision to end our world trip "early" was not taken lightly! We were on the North Island of New Zealand just over 4 months into our trip when we first thought about heading back to the UK earlier than planned. We had numerous walks along various beaches mulling the idea over.

"Why did we want to come back sooner?" "Were we not enjoying the experience?" "Were we running out of cash?" "How were our cats?" were all questions that we asked ourselves. There was no doubt that we were loving the experience of travelling, that we had become closer as a couple as a result of the trip and were looking forward to travelling around French Polynesia and then the USA but there was just a gut feeling that we were about done. I am sure many people that go travelling have the same feeling at some point on their travels. I had the same feeling around the millennium and came home from mexico.

We both agreed that we would hold off on deciding anything until after tahiti.

Tahiti came and went and we couldn't shake the feeling that it was time to wrap the trip up and rejoin "normal life. We decided to cut the US leg of the trip short and head back on our 6 month anniversary of being away.

A lot of people have written about ending long trips and how it can be psychologically difficult rejoin society, it did feel strange coming back to the uk, but we had good friends and family to welcome us back so the change has not been to jarring (at the moment!).

Its time to reflect on our adventure, go through the 3000 photo's that we have taken, remember to thank all the people that put us up on our travels and think about how we have changed.

We both feel much more relaxed (not working does that) and have both come back healthier than when we left. we are not 100% sure about what we are going to do next and thats an adventure in itself!

The easiest way to sum the trip up is with stats so here goes:


Total distance flown: 42497km (26406 miles)
Total distance driven: 11342km (7048 miles)
Total distance on buses: 1700km (1052 miles)

Total nights stayed in hostels/hotels/motels: 106
Total nights camped: 32
Total nights stayed in friends houses: 44

Arguments : 3
Arguments Dave won: 0
Complete cock ups: 2 (1 Daves fault, 1 Gemmas fault)
Total amount of money spent: ?
Photos taken 2847
Mosquito Bites: Gemma: 254, Dave 10 (they couldn't get through the hair!)
Number of amazing memories: unknown but quite a lot!

Great Barrier reef!

Windy in NZ

SYDNEY!!!!!

SYDNEY!!!!

Norris the Seal

Pretty Waterfall in NZ

Bora Bora by Boat

BUNGY!!!

Petrified!!!

Tahiti!

Hope you enjoyed the Blogs, let us know in the comments.

Thanks for reading

Dave and Gem

see you next time in the Canyon!!!!!!!

Team America!

The USA was always going to be the final leg of the trip. We had originally planned to spend a few months travelling around both the USA and Canada before finally heading over to the Grand Canyon in December for our rafting adventure. The realities of living out of rucksacks day to day, changing accommodation every couple of days and the nagging feeling that we both had achieved much of what we set out to do, caused us to radically alter our plans and we decided to return home after 6 months had elapsed. 

This left us with 20 days to see the USA! We decided upon the following itinerary: LA and Disneyland followed by 4th July in San Francisco then onto Washington DC and finally to New York where our flight home is waiting.

LA and Disney

We stayed not far from Disneyland, and bought a 2 day pass to the parks (Magic Kingdom and California Adventure). As you can imagine the place was packed but a good time was had. In the end we both decided that although the California adventure park had bigger more exciting rides, the Magic Kingdom was actually a better place to be. The thing that Disney theme parks do better than anywhere else is create cool interesting environments, highlights being the Cars ride at California adventure (they created a huge looking desert canyon), The Pirates of the Caribbean ride (a huge underground ride set in caves), River Rafting (the best re-creation of Yosemite outside of actually being there)and the Indiana Jones experience (a massive roller-coaster type ride set in a huge temple). The details matter, the rafting ride had awesome cedar canoes (easily a grands worth of canoe) just decorating the waiting areas!

After a couple of days in LA and a visit to our favourite restaurant chain in the world: Red Lobster we were ready to leave and took a 6 hour bus ride up to San Francisco.

San Francisco

We arrived fresh off the bus and right into the San Fran Gay Pride weekend! A bit of a culture shock to be sure with thousands of scantily clad lads and ladies taking to the streets and partying. Our hotel was near Union Square and literally next to a really dodgy area of the city with loads of drug dealers and homeless people loitering around.

We had both visited San Fran before but were looking forward to spending a week in the Bay Area. Highlights were the Gay Pride Parade, drinking at a bona fide prohibition era SpeakEasy bar (a secret bar that you get in with a password and only serves cocktails and hard liquor), walking along the waterfront and visiting Chinatown.

Maybe it was the area we were staying in, but we both felt uneasy whilst staying here. We have both witnessed poverty and ramshackle living conditions as we have travelled round the world but it was really evident here. This is the result of the US approach to social care and it was quite depressing, there were literally hundreds of people living rough on the streets, most seemed to have medical issues that obviously weren't being treated as there is no NHS equivalent and therefore no safety net. We understand that this problem is rife in all major cities but it just stood out here.

Washington DC

Washington is a really nice city. All the landmarks are easy to visit, all the Smithsonian museums and galleries are free to visit. A good couple of days spent here, saw the White House, and the Washington Monument and also the Air and Space museum. We actually stayed near the Pentagon in Arlington but its a bit like saying we stayed near GCHQ, not much to see!!!

Final leg will be to NY then back home by the end of the week!!!

"E noho ra" New Zealand, "La ora na" French Polynesia

Finishing off the New Zealand leg of our journey, we stayed for 3 days in Auckland (confusingly its not the capital city of NZ, that's Wellington). We loved Auckland, it had a great harbour front, cool little restaurants, a fantastic museum  and a very chilled vibe. 

The French were in town, playing the All Blacks. The French lost but they were staying in the hotel next to ours much to Gemma's delight!

We spent nice days just wandering the streets, taking in the views and generally people watching. It was good to stay in one place for more than one night, our hotel room (The Quadrant) even had a washing machine in it! This is a big deal if you only have 4 pairs of pants!!!!!

Our long suffering super cheap hire car abley did its job getting us round the north island and depositing us back at Auckland Airport ready for the next leg of the journey.

French Polynesia

We arrived in Papeete (capital city of Tahiti) at around 4pm, we were heading off to Bora Bora the next day and had arranged a nights accommodation in a small Pension (Relais Fenuia) 10km to the south of the airport. 

Island life in the capital city of Tahiti is surprisingly busy, there are traffic jams on the one road around the island, lots of pollution and noise. Once you leave the city however Tahiti becomes more relaxed and you start to see more and more scenic views. The first sunset we witnessed was magical, the colours of the sky were stunning and we really felt privileged to witness it.

Bora Bora

The flight to the island is only 45mins and you fly past the island before landing at the "airport" (top top: sit on the left side of the plane), a strip of Tarmac built on an outer lying Motu (small island) by the US army during the War of the Pacific, world war 2! In fact all the island infrastructure, water, roads, phone lines and electricity were put in place by the US Army!

Gemma had always wanted to visit Bora Bora, as a small child she had a book called the Readers Digest Natural Wonders of the World with an aerial picture of Bora Bora. The island doesn't disappoint! It's breathtaking, the main volcanic peaks thrust upwards through tropical rainforest and are nearly always surrounded by cloud. The main island is surrounded on all sides by small Motu's that form a coral wall surrounding the vast sea water lagoon with crystal clear water, coral gardens, sandy beaches and the famous turquoise pools. 

Our hotel was the cheapest we could find (£100 a night, Hotel Matai Polynesia), but was very luxurious. It was no hardship to stay there for the 5 days we had allotted! 

French Polynesia can sometimes trick you into thinking you are in France. The people speak French (and islander), the coffee is very French (espresso), you go to the bakery to get your baguette every morning and they do French Alp/Ardeche style pizza! Dave ate one every night always "avec un oeuf"!!!!

We were sad to say goodbye to Bora Bora but our budget dictated a change of accommodation so we flew to the island of Moorea 20km off the coast of Tahiti.

Moorea

Moorea is a small island (37km round) with a really sleepy vibe. The prices are smaller and appeal to the budget traveller a little more (there are still super resorts, The Hilton, Sofitel and Intercontinental charging £300+ a night). We chose 5 nights at the Hotel Kaveka (£50 a night) and were not disappointed. We had an ocean view cabin, a nice snorkelling reef with turtles feeding off the plants and a cool over water restaurant. The hotel was situated in Cooks Bay one of 2 spectacular deep bays (the other one Opunohu Bay, was where they filmed South Pacific) on the north side of the island. There was a cool pizza place, supermarche and seafood restaurant all within walking distance and we dined on baguettes, pizza and Brie most days whilst snorkelling off the end of the hotels pier.

We did hire a car for a day and along with our new friends Frank and Ann (a cool American couple in the next bungalow over) toured the island, stopping off to snorkel with Sharks and Stingrays in 4ft of water (search for "snorkel sharks stingrays Moorea" in YouTube and you will understand).

We had now completed 10 days on Paradise, and left Moorea on the shortest plane journey ever (7 mins of flight time) to spend our last 5 days at Peua Village on the peninsular of Tahiti Iti. This was  a family run Pension with 4 "Bungalows" on the waters edge. It's another budget priced accommodation but was clean and very charming. Our hosts (Victor and Blandine) brought us fresh coffee every morning, did our laundry, jump started the car and made us a Tahitian specialty Poisson Crux (raw tuna in coconut milk). 

We are writing this from their place, looking out to sea, it's probably time to take a quick dip in the ocean!!

See you soon from the mighty USA!

A land of Hobbitses and their preciouses!

We decided to spend just 16 days travelling around the North Island of New Zealand. We hired a car and set off for a whirlwind trip. 

We had taken the advice of various eminent kiwi's about where we should go and where to avoid.

Stop 1: The Coromandel peninsular

A great bit of coast an hour or so from Auckland. Fantastic winding roads, one horse towns, beaches and cliff tops. We stopped initially in Thames and then continued to explore finding Hot Water beach: an amazing stretch of beach that is heated by geothermal water! you just dig a hole in the sand and the hot water bubbles up allowing you to have your own hot spa on the beach! 

We ended up staying in Anna Grieves' mums holiday home in Whangamata (pronounced Fangamata) for 3 days. This gave us plenty if time to explore the great deserted beach, small town and surrounding area. On leaving the beach house (called a Batch in NZ) we headed south and inland towards stop 2.

Stop 2 Rotorua

You can't move for hot springs in Rotorua! It seems that every other hotel is heated by geothermal energy with huge sulphurous clouds of steam rising out of drains in the road and holes in the ground. It is a little bit like staying in someone's fart and the smell can be pretty powerful! The actual town is cool, situated on the edge of a large lake and close to some cool attractions. We spent an afternoon walking through the 120 year old Redwood forest and checked out the mighty Huka Falls.

Stop 3 Hamilton (via lake Taupo)

Because time was getting away with us we made a tactical decision to ignore much of the south of the island and headed on a huge day of driving round lake Taupo, passing the snowy mountains of the Tongariro ski fields then headed north again ending up in Hamilton. We chose this city as it was close to Mangatata the home of Hobbiton where the shire set for The Lord of the rings trilogy and the Hobbit movie was built. Dave was excited to finally be heading home back to hobbitville!!! The tour was great well worth the cash, you even got a pot of middle earth ale as part of the price in the  the Green Dragon pub (now a full pub in the set from the movies).

Stop 4 Northland

We wanted to head to the most northern tip of NZ (as we had visited the most southerly town, Bluff, in the South Island) so set off on the looong drive north stopping in Whangarei and Paihia en route to Cape Rainga and the end of NZ! The northland is split by islands and estuaries with rainforest, huge cliffs, grassy plains and cool beach towns the weather did its best to mess our plans up but we made it to the end in sunshine got the obligatory sign post photos and then headed back south to end our NZ leg of the trip in the surprisingly nice city of Auckland!

Our trip so far has been incredible, we have seen amazing places, stayed with inspirational people and achieved more than we had hoped to do. We have recently started planning our return back to the real world and are excited about future adventures!

Next time, the end of NZ and chilling in Bora Bora!!

South Island done (almost!)

It was late in the day, we were heading north along the Haast highway optimistically heading for an overnight stop in Greymouth when we passed a sign for the Fox Glacier. With daylight fading we turned off the highway and drove 3km along a side road to the start of the Fox Glacier national park. Rain was in the air and darkness was threatening to descend on us. Undeterred we embarked on a 4km trek up to the base of the Glacier. It was well worth the walk. The Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph glaciers are a rare spectacle, being two of the only glaciers to descend down a mountain range and still be a glacial 200m above sea level thereby making them readily accessible by visitors. There are strict rules regarding actually walking on the ice (you must hire a guide) but just being able to walk along side this force of nature is a real privilege. There are pictures and markers along the path highlighting how far the glacier has retreated in a relatively short time, about 1km in the last 20 years!

After taking some photos and enjoying the wild feel of the valley we headed back to the car and continued our long drive north. 

A storm was brewing, with strong winds and heavy rain combining with very wiggly roads to make our journey slow (but exciting). We stopped off at small mining town and checked into the only hotel/motel/backpackers and campground in town and waited for the storm to abate.

Next morning we aimed across country for the town of Nelson to use as a base for exploring the top of the South Island. 

Nelson is the gateway to the North Island (with a little town called Picton having a large ferry port). It's also a really pretty town with great beaches, bays, swanky cliff top houses and restaurants. The Able  Tasman peninsular is 30 minute drive away, a national park with a really sheltered coastline ideal for sea kayaking and coastal walks. 

After spending 3 days exploring the area we headed south down the Coastal Highway along rugged coastline with numerous seal colonies basking in the sunshine!