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!!!!!!!