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Travelling Post No. 60 - Around the World in 424 days!

Whilst it might not quite be so impressive as 80 days, and I didn't visit as many countries as Jules Verne's hero, it is still impressive by my standards.

I have been home for over 3 months now, and yes, you lucky readers, I have finally gotten around to finishing my blog.

Before I tell you the highs of my trip it is it time to tell you how I arrived home. On 29th December I flew from Vancouver I flew to LA, from their I flew to London arriving n 30th December; then after a long wait at Heathrow I boarded my final flight to Manchester where my Aunt Catherine (with whom I am indebted) picked me up and drove me to her house. It was one long trip!

As far as I knew the only people that knew were my Aunt and a couple of others; I was aiming to surprise not just family but friends. My plan, since August, was to arrive the day before, get a good nights sleep and surprise people on New Years Eve, sadly a certain brothers girlfriend keeps secrets as well as a sieve holds water, so most of my friends knew as did my brother. What is that phrase? - Best laid plans and all that! The secret had been kept from most of my family though, my mum's shrieks as she saw me proved that, and I had a great return home NYE.

So now onto the best bits of my trip. Like all good awards I have left my reasoning unexplained, for the most part anyway.

Best City

Sydney

Runners Up: Vancouver, San Francisco, San Diego and Portland

Worst: LA


Best Country

New Zealand

Runner up: Australia

Worthy mention: Hutt River Province for just being so Australian without actually being part of Australia. Even though the Australian government doesn't recognise you I do.


Best trips within the trip
(my coach trip around NZ doesn't count)
3 day Ayers Rock tour

Runner Up: Seven day tour of Australia's West Coast

Worst: Fraser Island - what was the point of going there?


Best Day Trip
Swimming with Manta Rays and on the Ningaloo Reef

Runners Up: Hunter Valley Wine Tour, Ice climbing, Milford Sound

Worst: Great Barrier Reef, just because it was so disappointing, avoid and go to the West coast if you can

Best activity that wasn't quite a day trip, thus does not count for that category

A two way tie between the 10 second Bungee jump and the 5 minute Skydive

Runner Up: White water rafting, Sheep Shearing

Best Museum, as visits to these do not count as activities or day trips they are 'visits'
Musical Project & Science Fiction Museum, Seattle

Best Hostel

The Green Turtle, Seattle
(Free all you can eat breakfast of fruit, brownies and more every morning)

Runner Up: YHA Cairns
(When I arrived after 3 days of being on a coach I had sausage butties ready for me, thank you Lucy & Ruth)

The Worst: The Fat Camel, Auckland (lets hope that isn't classed as libelous)

Best cinema

The open air cinema in Sydney of course.


(some of the) Best photos that I took (so none of me)

Hong Kong Gardens, Nov '06

Sydney Opera House at night, Nov 2006

Hillside cemetery on the path from Coogee to Bondi, Jan '07

When England gloriously beat Australia, Jan '07

At the butterfly palace in Melbourne Zoo, May '07

Dolphins at Monkey Mia, Aug '07

Yardie Creek Gorge, Aug '07

Mindil Beach, Sept '07

Jumping Crocs, Northern Territories, Sept '07

Uluru at Sunset, Sept '07

Sunset in the Outback, Sept '07

Opera House and Bridge, Oct '07


Sydney at night from the Skytower, Oct '07


Rotorua Mud Pools, Nov ,07


Waiotap Thermal Wonderland, Nov '07


Gollum's Pool, Nov '07


Pancake Rocks, Nov '07


Lake Matheson, Nov '07


Wanake, Nov' 07


Mirror Lakes, Nov '07


Milford Sound, Nov '07


Stewart Island, NOv '07


The steepest street in the world, Nov '07


Random lake on the way to Christchurch, Nov '07


Balboa Park, San Diego, Dec '07


San Francisco, Dec '07


San Francisco in the rain, Dec '07


Alcatraz, Dec '07


Seattle at night, Dec '07


Vancouver, Dec '07

Vancouver vs Calgary, Dec '07

Travelling Post 59 - Vancouver

My final stop on my around the world tour (unbeknownst to pretty much everyone) was Vancouver, where I arrived Christmas Eve and left on 29th December. I stayed with relatives and spent Christmas with them meeting second, third and fourth cousins for the first time. My accommodation was about 45minutes from the downtown Vancouver and so I only ventured to the city centre by bus a couple of times because the weather was mostly miserable.

The first time I visited was Boxing Day when not very much was open - sadly no Boxing Day sales. I did however get a good long look around, walking around the Chinese Gardens and then around Stanley Park. Boxing Day was the best day for weather I had in Vancouver and luckily I got to spend it looking at, arguably, on of the nicest cities in the world. The Vancouver skyline is amazing and when not looking towards the city you can look away from it and see snow capped mountains in the distance. Surely if I'd had more time there this would have become one of my favourite cities in the world. Sadly I didn't and I want to go back for a much more prolonged visit, one that might include skiing.















Above - the Vancouver skyline from Stanley Park
Below - Ice Hockey match Vancouver Canuts vs Calgary (Vancouver won)















One evening my third cousin, or is it second cousin once removed I 'm not sure, took me to watch Ice Hockey. A proper manly sport with fighting on the pitch and plenty of beer off it. Like cricket in Australia I really got into Ice Hockey, it is faced past, great fun and really brutal, what more could anyone want in a sport?

Most of my time there was spent with my relatives whom I had never met before; they all made me feel really welcome which was fantastic. Christmas was great, it was good to spend it with a family, Christmas with friends on the beach in Sydney was also great but this was different. I've not been a fan of Christmas for a long time but the past two Christmas' have really changed my mind.

I left Vancouver early in the morning on 29th December and arrived into Manchester early evening on... ooh can't finish that now that's for a different post.

Travelling Post 58 - Seattle

Wet, wet wet, that is the best way to describe Seattle, particularly in the winter. Gone was the crisp coldness of Portland, replaced with the miserable wet which was also cold and windy.

Weather aside Seattle is a pretty decent city, busier than Portland but not as bad as San Francisco or LA. It is surrounded by nice park lands, or so I'm told, I got the chance to visit just one which was nothing special but when I planned to go to the bigger better parks the weather just put me off.

Whilst in Seattle I did two noteworthy activities, the first was an underground tour. About a hundred or so years ago Seattle was wrecked by a great big fire, which was no real big loss as the city was a bit of a hole, poor drainage being a major problem. Because of the drainage issues the city needed to be built around 12foot higher than it originally stood but due to sthe lack of money and someone lacking a sensible idea this wasn't possible to do right at this time. The solution was to build everything at ground level and raise it several years later in stages. The underground tour was on the post fire sidewalks which, unlike the roads were not filled in with cement when they were raised. It was a fascinating look into how US cities were built.

The second noteworthy activity was a visit to the Experience Musical Project & Science Fiction Museum. Both museums were fascinating and the EMP was the most interactive museum I have ever been to, they have a room full of instruments where a computer teaches you how to play one song. It's major downside was how it seemed to give the onesided message that all US music is great but other than that it is a place where you can spend hours looking at its few exhibits. Rather predictably I preferred the SFM, whilst less interactive it was crammed full of Sci-Fi artifacts and displays that even the most knowledgeable Sci-Fi geek will learn something.

Next Stop: Vancouver, Canada

Travelling Post 57 - The day I went to Seaside

The US West Coast is split between three states, with California being the most southerly, Oregon in the middle and Washington bordering Canada. After California I made the natural progression and headed to Oregon, specifically Portland.

Portland was a breath of fresh air, in comparison to California and I mean that quite literally. No where in California was ever really cold, but Portland... well by gosh I could see my breath, it was that cold. I haven't been in that cold for a long time. Mornings on Margaret River's vineyards was cold, and once or twice there was a morning frost on the vines but during the day if it weren't raining it was pretty warm. Portland never warmed up, and it was most refreshing. I'd never thought I'd miss the winter so much, but Portland was so refreshing, what was best it was a crisp cold, no wind and only the odd dash of rain. However having been in Seattle for the past couple of days, I've changed my mind, I want the sun back. Winter is nice for a couple of days but when it starts raining and the wind starts blowing I really don't like it.

Portland itself is a pretty great city, it is surrounded by great park lands and woods which I spent much of my time strolling around. I also did a bit of shopping in this sales-tax free state and spent a bit of time looking into the local history. I also liked it because I felt safe. In Californian cities I didn't feel all that safe walking around after the sun went down but Portland, despite having a 1million plus population felt like a large town not a city.

My whole West Coast experience has been city after city so I thought, for a bit of a change, I'd go to a small town by the sea and so off I went to Seaside. Sadly the weather was terrible all rain and wind and no sun. The town was nice enough and the Oregon coast was impressively rugged but the weather was just lame. I also visited their neighbouring town of Astoria, where parts of The Goonies was filmed. I tried to go for a walk in Astoria's woods but Oregon was recently the scene of a particularly bad storm and much flooding, the damage stopped me at every turn by fallen trees and broken pathways. After failed walks and bad weather, but a very relaxed couple of days I left Seaside for my next US destination - Seattle.

Travelling Post 56 - California in Pictures

Los Angeles

Fresh Prince of Bel Air House, outside Universal Studios, on the Walk of Fame

San Diego

Balboa Park and aboard the USS Midway.

San Francisco

On the way to Alcatraz, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge