This post is about travelling. If anyone is interested in where we're planning to go, this is the read.

The proposed route is something like this: Fly via the USA, stopping in Fiji for a couple of weeks, to New Zealand. Spend there 6 weeks or so tramping about the north then south island. From there, fly to Australia. This bit is all a bit vague, but we expect to be in Brisbane around Christmas. From Oz, the basic plan is to travel overland (and sea) all the way home. The most challenging part of this presently appears to be getting out of Oz without flying. It appears that ferries and the like simply don't exist. Answers on a postcard or by posting please. Options currently include taking a quasi freight vessel, hitch hicking a sailing boat ride of some kind or find a passing cruise ship. Or, failing anything very sensible, being forced into a flight. We plan to go either to Papua New Guinea or to Timor (East if all is clam). From there, the journey will be to island hop through Indonesia with a final leap into Singapore and thence up into Malaysia. Onwards and upwards into Thailand, skirting around through Cambodia and into Vietnam. South to North and into China we will find ourselves. We expect to hang a left through Yunnan before taking a deep breath to assist us up over the Himalaya and onto the Tibetean Plateau. Lhasa should not be too cold at this time of the year (about April/May ish next year). To experience some of central Asia without entering a war zone we shall take in some serious desert by heading over to Kashgar and the Southern Silk Road. For a bit at least. Then East, for why head home before time, to pick up the Great Wall and through Inner Mongolia to Beijing. It may be by this time appropriate to turn for home, which will likely be up through Mongolia proper and on into Russia at Irkutsk. We want to go there principally because it on the risk board. Here the virtue or otherwise of the train is likely to become clear as we turn west across Russia. When we begin to see European stars we expect to head south and by one route or another (possibly into Turkey and Greece) to Spain and all the way over to the far South Western corner of Portugal. This would complete the entire trans Eurasian land journey. Or something. And in relative terms, we will then be home.

Of course, it is virtually certain that these plans will change significantly along the way. However, the general principal of travelling without flying from the other side of the world is the general scheme.

All of which should be much fun. Anticipated highlights abound. Tramping about NZ, island hopping in Indonesia, Vietnamese bikes, Tibet and Everest from the otherside, the mystique of Kashgar, being as far away as possible in Ulaanbaatar, Russian Vodka and fir forests. We are both also pretty excited about being able to travel right through and bit by bit the cultural shift that is East to West. And of avoiding winter for a year or so.

Some may recall the prettygoodtime address. It has been resurrected for this trip, having performed sterlingly in the past. Best get some Visas sorted out ...