Around the World 2024
The Holiday of a Lifetime (8th March - 6th November)
Ticking off some of the Bucket-List before we Kick the Bucket!
What an unforgettable eight months it was. All thanks to my amazing dearest loveliest Lebley Jane.
28 countries in 5 continents with 100 different accommodations averaging 2.42 nights per stay. A few too long but so many not long enough.
What follows here is a summary of the whole trip. You can click the links (or the photo collages) below to zoom into that part of the holiday in detail, or just scan the summary images and read the briefest of notes here. I still can't believe how I ever did travel blogs whilst actually travelling before. This one has taken me TWO YEARS to complete. Obviously we did a lot more, for a lot longer and went to so many destinations, it was never going to be possible to record everything as we went and, let's face it, to do so would have detracted from the enjoyment of it.
I estimate that Lesley and I captured over 20,000 (yes, twenty thousand) photos and videos of the trip and I have tried to go through them all, removing the worst ones and any duplicates. Most of the photos have been cropped in some way and thus improved and all of the videos have been processed in some way - perhaps combining them, perhaps editing them but always compressing them to a smaller format, at the expense of some quality.
Anyway, apart from acting as a handy on-line diary for Leb and me, I hope it will serve as an interesting record for our grandchildren, and close family at least - or anyone else who might be interested.
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When we came back, perople often asked us "so what was your favourite place?" or words to that effect. The truth is there have been so many highlights. I'm going to try to summarise them all here.
March
The trip started with us staying with Žem & Frankie in Bendigo. It was the perfect way to start the holiday - with family in a new part of the world for us, but one that was still just like home.
We then left these shores and headed for another, quite familiar country, New Zealand. We had long planned a road trip around that amazingly spectacular country and it was simply fabulous. We started on the South Island, at Queenstown, then drove up along the west coast up to Marlborough aqnd then caught the ferry across to the North Island.
After New Zealand, we flew across the International Time Line, arriving in Mexico City pretty much the same time we left Auckland. The main reason for going to Mexico was to see the full total eclipse in Mazatlan, having witnessed our first in Exmouth, WA the year before. But we also packed in a visit to Teotihuacan and the Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City. The four days we had at La Paz which included snorkelling with whale sharks and sealions.
April
Next was the USA and visiting New Orleans and experiencing the music of the French Quarter. We both loved New York and it was great to be in the Ukrainian quarter when "speaker" Mike Johnson finally agreed to pass the military aid package to Ukraine (only about 10% of that has been delivered even now).
Spain's Barcelona was next. After a couple of nights in the massive coastal city we caught the train, via Zaragoza to the Rioja region and then onto San Sebastian in the Basque Country. These were all magnificent.
May
After April had turned into May, we arrived in France so Leb could have a birthday treat week with her sister, Lucy in Nerigean in South West France. So much delicious food and wine. Lovely.
Whilst Leb stayed on in France to reduce the number of things they had missed in their conversations, I had a great few days in London, watching Spurs v Man City, visiting the Hunterian museum and attending a talk by Yulia Mykytenko at the Ukrainian club.
Then, Leb rejoined me and after I met her at Gatwick and picked up a hire car, we drove south to the delightful Sussex village of Alfriston to hear a great talk on Piltdown Man by Vernon Reynolds.
We then had a lovely road trip down the south coast of England, seeing Julia & David in Brighton, Ingrid Brocklesby near Bournemouth, Leb's dear uncle Barry in Looe before popping in to stay at Lyme Regis.
Paul and Judy McKeon kindly hosted us for a few days before we retraced our wedding 37 years ago at the still functioning Catholic Church and the sadly derelict Sodyba.
It was great to see Rob Steel and Elly Nason and their growing family before going back to Bucks. We visited all our first homes in High Wycombe before heading up the M40 to Oxford where we had a lovely evening with Primatologist Simon Bearder.
Leb and I then split for a week whist she visited her dear friends, Susie Pascall and Nicky Villeneau including, thankfully spending a few days with Toots before her health deteriorated. I spent a week in Nottingham.
June
By the time we rejoined eachother in Stroud, it was truly summer in the month of June. We had another lovely week with Leb's other sister Tina and Jan and friend Ruth Moore.
After the Cotswalds, we headed west towards, and sometimes just crossing, the Welsh Border. We stayed at a lovely holiday cottage in the middle of nowhere on the Black Mountains, called The Birches. Anyone that knows me won't be surprised to learn that is used to be the home of Elaine Morgan. It was actually where she started her writing career. It was at The Birches too, where Leb unfortunately picked up a very nasty injury doing some exercises. We didn't know it at the time (at first we thought it was sciatica) but she'd developed a sacro-iliac joint dysfunction. Poor-ole-Leb would regularly be in agony for weeks after this.
By this time the Euros had started and so I had to somehow fit in as many evenings watching football in British pubs as I could. It was tough sometimes! After The Birches we headed north. First stop was Liverpool, where we visited the Beatles museum, had a ferry ride on the Mersey and a great musical night in The White Star pub. Over to Manchester where I visited the national football museum before we caught up with Fax and Anne Stojic.
Then it was up to Ambleside for some hiking (yes, I still can't believe Leb did that hike, still in agony) in the Lake District before driving across the Pennines (with Leb lying on her back in the back of the car) to Newcastle for a night in the Toon and then up the Northumbrian coast, to do a very quick visit of Lindisfarne.
The big UK leg over, we handed back the car at Edinburgh airport and then flew to Oslo and then had a wonderful train ride across the mountains to Bergen where we went on a boat ride up a spectacular Fjord. Oslo was probably the worst time for Leb's hip pain and it was really only the thought of the long flight home that prevented her pulling the plug on the whole trip. She would bravely carry on. We did have one lovely afternoon relaxing in a world class swimming pool in Bergen. I think that helped.
Next was the Baltic States. Starting with Riga in Latvia. We wanted to spend longer in all three Baltic States and I had planned a road trip through parts of Latvia I'd never been to before, but because of Schengen Shennanigans the plans had to be curtailed and we had to limit ourselves to just two nights in Riga.
July
We then made the relatively short but comfortable bus ride only to Tallinn, Estonia, and not the islands I'd planned to visit. Still, three nights is better than nowt.
Last, but certainly not least of the Baltic States was, of course Lietuva, tevyne musu. We caught the bus again back down to Vilnius. We had planned this for months too because we wanted to be there for the centenary of the Tautos Švente.
Whilst there, we bumped into old friends Rasa Mačiuliene, Paul Markevicius, Christine Harmes and a new aussie one Belyssa Radzivanas. I made sure I spent time visiting memorial sites to the Litvaks, decimated in the holocaust in 1941, victims of genocide thanks to a great deal of local collaboration. It was at Paneriai that I lost my wallet (or was it stolen?)
Krakow in Poland was next. After eating an inconceivable amount of pieriogi, we had a short break in the mountain resort of Zakopane where we enjoyed bathing in hot spa waters under the mountain tops. One exciting, but ultimately, typically, disappointing night was after staying an extra day in Krakow to see England narrowly lose to Spain in the European Championship final.
More Schengen shenanigans left us no choice but finding somewhere hot and sunny outside of the EU zone, so we flew to Antalya, Turkey for some hot days in the sun and our first snorkel since Mexico. It was only here that Leb finally had her hip problem properly diagnosed - Sacroiliac joint dysfunction. At least she could now seek out the right advice.
August
Next, we flew back to Türkiye, but this time to the cosmopolitan metropolis of Istanbul. There, we had the very pleasant surprise meeting with another Lith-Australian friend Kristina Tamosauskaite Aktaş.
The biggest pleasant surprise of the whole trip for me was next - Montenegro, and its wonderful coastline where we did more snorkelling. I had one of the best birthdays ever in the capital Podgorica. A boozy day of hiking, wine, visiting Roman ruins, football and a lovely meal. Twelve days of Montenegran bliss.
Next we again caught the bus south to the capital of Albania, Tirana, where we had a short stay but full of delicious food.
Our original plan was to hire a car and drive to the Albanian Riviera near Greece but after I lost my wallet (and driving licence) in Vilnius we flipped our coast time to Montenegro.
From Albania we flew to Perugia to spend a few days with Leb's old friends Julia and David at their gorgeous holiday home before hopping over to Sardinia. It was a lovely few days until Leb stood on one of those bloody sea urchins. It took weeks before the barbs started to dissipate.
September
Next we caught the bus to Bavaria, in Germany and the old city of Nürnberg where my Oma and Uncle used to live. Unfortunately I couldn't find their graves in the cemetery but I did trace the site of the Nuremberg Nazi rallies and their war trials. Then onto Munich where, continuing the Nazi theme, we visited Dachau.
We then we had another dose of Schengen Shenanigans and we had to leave the Euro zone for a few days once more and go back in blighty to stop the Schengen clock. It's a hard life!
It was so lovely to catch up with old mates, Jake Holloway, Romas Kinka and others.
After that, we flew back to Europe, and caught the train from Munich straight to Innsbruck in Tyrol, Austria. It was here that we made the culinary discovery of Kaiserschmarrn, the most delicious pudding - as long as you are starving!
Keeping the alpine theme, we then caught a train across the mountains to Garmish-Partenkirken (GaPa, if you can't remember the name!) and then Füssen to have many, many selfies on or nearby Wank Mountain.
Next was supposed to have been a cycling tour around Lake Constance (Bodensee) but the weather was bad and we just has a day's biking to Wasserberg instead. Leb, by now, was getting regular great advice and support from Dr Ryan Peebles and so even felt confident to cycle.
October
From Konstance we caught a train to Basel where we caught our Rhine River cruise, which would normally be a holiday in its own right. Amazingly for us, this was just a tiny part of our whole trip!The cruise was great overall but being polite to four bible bashing Trumpers was a strain for me and it was good to get off in Amsterdam.
Leb left me in Amsterdam a day early to be with the ailing Toots but we met up again soon enough (after the most unglamorous stop for me - in Crawley!) for the next leg of our amazing trip, a first visit to Morocco.
So, to Morocco, and the famous city of Marrakech. This was my 69th country visited and a very unique place. We also visited the coastal town and city, respectively, of Sidi Kaouki and Essaouira. We we ate tagines galore.
Then it was back to blighty where we went our separate ways for a few days once again. Leb was able to say a final sad farewell to Ruth (Toots) Catherine Haines and more time with friends and family whilst I had a much more selfish time bombing around England drinking beer, watching football and seeing old mates, some of whom I'd not seen in decades. Andy Smales, Paul Stevenson, Antony Cobb, Steve Buckley, Jeff Newcombe, Steven Clarke, Paul Chamberlain, Simon Bishop, Jason and Tim Caunt to name just some.
Amazingly I saw Forest beat Crystal Palace at home and Leicester away and even did the City Ground tour for the first time. I can't believe I would return to Perth after this trip was over with Forest sitting third in the Premier League. Amazing times!
November
Finally, we had one last relaxing five day stay in Bali to draw breath and to try to get back into the right time zone before heading back home, some 236 days after we left.
Wow!!!
How lucky am I? This was definitely the holiday of a lifetime. Two years on, I still can't quite believe we did all this and even scanning through them over and over again now, it seems too much. But there it is. We did it and I want to acknowledge that of course it wouldn't have been possible without Leb having such a brilliant idea at just the right time in life.
Thanks, mi'darlin'!
