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.

Travel Blog: New Zealand

04/12/12 - Rotorua

Rotorua is a small town known for 2 things; its geothermal wonders and its Maori heritage. There are so many geothermal parks and spas, and Maori villages and cultural experiences, that it's overwhelming trying to decide what to do if you're only there for a couple of days!
Right facing our hostel was a public park, complete with the usual children's playground, but with the additions of steaming ponds, bubbling mud pools and naturally heated spas to dip your feet in.  The other trips I mentioned at the start were so expensive that we decided to combine a few by visiting Te Puia.  This is a Maori site that happens to be a geothermal valley, complete with erupting geysers.  These natural wonders are so surreal, that unless you're a professional geologist or a whizz at physics, they're hard to get your head around! To normal people like you and I, all we need to comprehend is not to get too close to a steaming or bubbling pool, as they can reach up to 90C, and secondly the sulphur gas they emit absolutely STINKS.  But the smell is worth it, as I'm not sure how many other places in the world you can get up close to an erupting geyser that isn't dangerous. It's certainly not something you see everyday!
The geothermal wonders are not the only attraction, though. The land is still owned and managed by Maoris, who populate 35% of Rotorua. At Te Puia they teach how their ancestors utilised the land, such as cooking food in the boiling pools.  They also put on a cultural performance, including serious practices they would have followed in pre-European times.  This was one of the most memorable parts of our whole trip so far, for this very reason - they chose Rik to be chief.
The show was set up as if we, the audience, were a visiting tribe, and the home tribe (the performers) had to make sure we came in peace before they invited us in.
Once inside, they sang some welcoming songs, before the chief had to conduct the 'official' welcome.  This traditional Maori welcome is a firm handshake, followed by touching noses twice.  So Rik had to go up on stage, face 5 very nearly naked, very intimidating men, and touch noses wih them.  It was SO hard not to laugh, but we were warned beforehand that we mustn't as it is very disrespectful.  I filmed the whole thing anyway so get in contact if you would like to see this very manly interchange!!
The rest of the performance was brilliant, especially the world famous haka war dance.  The girls were really talented singers and the men were so invested in their words and actions.  If anyone goes to New Zealand and doesn't experience any Maori culture, then they haven't seen the real New Zealand. The main greeting to say hello is Kia Ora (bro) and that is the ancient Maori language.  And their tribal symbols are sold everywhere, as pendants carved out of bone or jade - which they call Pounamu and used to think was more valuable than gold - that made me smile!

There's so much to do in Rotorua we simply couldn't fit it all in.  Zorbing was invented here, so we went to do a bit of that. Well, Rik did, I didn't as 
1. it was mega expensive and 
2. I'm a big whimp. 
It looked like fun though! We also visited the Hobbiton movie set tour, which is on a farm about an hour away.  It was so beautiful, and we went at the right time as they had built extra holes for The Hobbit, and you now get a free drink in The Green Dragon Inn.  It was disappointing to learn though that there is nothing behind the hobbit holes! It's just mud and grass, as they only build the exterior.  The detail in the whole place is amazing though, down to hobbit clothes on washing lines and real vegetable patches, extra large versions to make everthing and everyone else appear smaller.
So we crammed a lot in, but I wouldn't have it any other way on this speedy tour of NZ.