Hey, I have been off work for almost 10 months now but I haven't been idle. Well, not all the time. Daniel and I have now spent about 6700 hours together (no Daniel this is not comparative to a life sentence) and if I hadn't been keeping myself busy I imagine Daniel would have voluntarily removed his ear drums by now. One of the projects I have been keeping myself out of trouble with is designing gift cards, a bit of a change from law I know. We have been living out of suitcases a lot so right now the... Continue reading

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Daniel and Marty were pretty excited by the first snow in Red Deer and as soon as Marty got home from school (he's a teacher for those who don't know) they legged it off to the nearest slope - see the video on YouTube. I have a great video they took which shows them running up the hill but then as the snow melts the camera drops down and focuses on the snow, totally missing their virgin ride - and another of Dan thinking he is Jason Bourne - will upload later. Continue reading

We were told before coming to Red Deer, Canada that there were loads of great thrift shops to be found here. Yesterday we looked online and found that most of them were on the same (very big) road so off we went. The first shop we found had a sale on - all items 25 cents!! Even after filling our arms with more than we could carry the total bill was only $2.75 so feeling bad we told the nice lady to keep the change, all $2.25 of it. I have never seen anyone look so shocked, like we had... Continue reading

Canada is awesome, as soon as we crossed the border from the USA we knew we were going to love it. Not big fans of the almost impressive amount of traffic heading in and out of Vancouver but aside from that we feel right at home. If we weren't so excited about going back to Jersey we would be filling out our immigration applications now. The tent is on its last legs which wasn't a great discovery as we are now in below zero camping conditions. Will let you know how we get on. Continue reading

Wow, we have just loved New Zealand. It feels like we have seen most of the 50 million sheep, and many many new lambs and at least half of the 9 million cows. The South Island is one of the most beautiful places i have ever been. Every day we kept thinking that we couldn't possibly do anything that would match the previous day, but we did. Just an amazing place we are already planning a return trip to. NZ was our first camper van holiday and although it has worked out at double the budget, coming in at around... Continue reading

The views are just so stunning around every corner that i am sure i will be needing a new camera for America. Daniel and I are now in a cosy routine with our campervan. Campervan Dan is my tour guide (Dan having muted the radio - GPS linked tour commentary that came with the van after about 2 minutes - "what is this rubbish"). We are both in our element as we are tripping over rainbows, my favourite thing next to twinkling lights, and Daniel is taking the most incredible photos. Mine are ok. I am a point and shoot... Continue reading

Daniel and I are now settled into our cosy campervan in New Zealand. We are on the South Island and have felt a few aftershocks from the recent earthquake. The photos is of our view this morning (before i lost Daniel who had wandered off taking photographs and been gone so long that he was in danger of me declaring him dead and taking all his assets). It really is beautiful here. The camp site we are in tonight is even more gorgeous; we are tucked in around the corner from Franz Josef Glacier. We already had a peek but... Continue reading

There is thick "mist" in Jersey so may have to add a few hours to my 35 hour flight from Jersey to Brisbane. Flights to go: 4, airports to avoid spending my meagre travel allowance in en route: 6. Continue reading

I was so nervous about heading home for 10 days right in the middle of a round the world adventure but it has been amazing. I am writing on the eve of returning to Daniel who remained in the Gold Coast and i am pretty emotional. I feel so blessed to have such amazing people in my life; friends and family all of whom have been so lovely and kind and generous this week. Jersey is a beautiful place as well and driving around everyday (especially when it was fabulous and sunny) felt like a dream. I am now ready... Continue reading

BALLARAT, VICTORIA (aka the coldest place on earth) This is a good example of Daniel multi tasking - he is playing on his computer, making sure the clothes dry AND playing board games with his little sister CJ - who won incidentally (every single time they played). The Corden family home in Ballarat. Family Monopoly game (hour 7) Clever CJ Yey, i'm clever too! John and Gen's black cows. Cute and fluffy just for winter. Dan's virgin Pavlova (decorated with CJ's first star shaped meringue) Wendouree lake. The beautiful marshland they are about to artificially fill with water. Numpties. The... Continue reading

Third stop: Pondok Pieces. Balian. West Coast Bali. Whooooooooo Hooooooo. After 4 months of traveling through SE Asia without any surf we made it finally to an ocean with surf. We checked into Pieces and it was nice, a beach hut in a green garden with the usual rock walled bathroom and all that. Asked them about the board and fins I'd requested.... Dive fins and an old boogie with a shortboard leash. NOT HAPPY. So we stayed a day. Got some kick arse photo's and headed to Kuta so I could hire a board and surf and ANNA could... Continue reading

Second Stop: Sarinbuana Eco Lodge. Mount Batukara. In central Bali. Hey there it's Dan again. So our second stop was the above mentioned and well.... not sure what to say. I am a bit conflicted about the place. The positives are it was beyond beautiful and green and tropical and secluded and all that..... But man it was so expensive. When we booked it the GBPound was cranking.... since then though... down down down.... So we were a bit bummed out about that. We had our own little cottage which was lovely.... it had an outside shower and a fantastic... Continue reading

Bali. 4 weeks, 5 hotels. Hello world it is Dan here. Currently sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Kuta... If a bomb goes off I shall have a great view for at least 2.3 seconds... Anna is concentrating on her book so you have me for a few updates... First stop: Ubud Okay so the last thing you had from us was Malaysia. Well Bali and Indonesia are so so so completely different. We landed at the airport and the surf was BOOMing. But we were off for some culture up in the mountains. Stayed at the Kebun Indah,... Continue reading

Tioman has been fairly voted one of the most beautiful Islands in the world. It is largely formed of lush green jungle covered mountains surrounded by clear blue/turquoise seas where you can experience some of the most beautiful diving sights in the world. We didn't like it. Bizarre i know. We were in Tioman for 10 days flying in on the Berjaya airline from Kuala Lumpur. The flight was definitely part of the experience, it is an old prop plane which reminded me of holidays in my childhood and the view as we approached Tioman was sensational. The Islands rising... Continue reading

Hey folks Daniel and I have well and truly recovered from our cycle ride, in fact we have finally had an opportunity to relax and de-stress. It is only now that i realise how pumped up we were cycling in Vietnam. Unfortunately we are now in transit for 3 days and staying in Bangkok tonight. The news is full of the rally filled streets and riot police etc. We decided to avoid the centre on this occasion and are safe and happy at a small hotel near the airport. Daniel's laptop was stuck in a shop in the centre of... Continue reading

We were staying at Tao Garden, about 20 minutes outside of Chiang Mai' centre and driving in there were people everywhere throwing buckets of water at everyone who passed. There were loads of people in the back of pick ups which had large bins filled with water in the back and everyone had water pistols, buckets and massive water machine guns. Every time we stopped at a traffic light it was chaos as each pick up launched attacks on all the other loaded trucks. Some people were just sat at the side of the road wit hose pipes spraying everyone... Continue reading

This was the sign awaiting us as Chiang Mai airport and once we arrived at the resort i found that i was listed as Mrs Wife everywhere, much to Daniel's delight! I am now Miss Anna so that's good. We are spending three weeks in Chiang Mai, over Songkran which is a water festival celebrating the Thai New Year (our third New Year of the year). We were soaked at lunch the other day by the staff during the festival they held here. We joined the throngs yesterday See separate post re Songkran for more pics. Tao Garden is lovely.... Continue reading

Aside from Daniel hurting his ankle on the uneven roads (many not better than Vietnam which was surprising) we had a pretty good time in KL at the Grand Prix. We stayed the first night in a Tune Hotel "5 star sleeping experience at 1 star prices" by the cheap airport in KL. I say cheap airport because all the low cost airline flights go in and out of LCCT and that's where we started. It was pretty cool actually, everyone was friendly and helpful i was relieved to finally be staying somewhere cheap. My stress levels have been sky... Continue reading

Still in hotel in Ho Chi Minh chilling out. We feel al bit jet lagged bizarrely. I had my hair cut by a professional yesterday (admittedly one who didn't speak English but still a huge improvement on what Daniel had done). It looked kinda nice although i need to figure out how on earth to blow dry it now. We have just totalled up how much money we have raised for Challenge4Ben as Daniel is about to be on BBC Jersey radio and we are up to £1,108.50 so far. Thanks to everyone who has donated. Anna and Dan Continue reading

We took this at 6am just before we left for our last day. I look far too eager! Our day started with a broken pannier bracket which meant we didn't leave til 6.05 am, also known as the weirdest rush hour traffic in the world - only in Vietnam would the roads be so bad at this time on a Saturday. It felt like rush hour the entire morning, getting steadily worse as we approached and entered Ho Chi Minh. It was quite foggy to start with and later on the white mist turned to brown smog and black smoke.... Continue reading

75 km (plus 5 around Long Khanh) We left Tan Nghia, never one of our planned stops, at 6.05 am and arrived in Long Khanh at 11 am. We then cycled around the city for an hour looking for somewhere to stay. Several people told us there were no hotels we we decided to push on to the next town, Bien Hoa, but just as we started off on Highway 1 Daniel spotted a hotel, basic but better than last night and we were quite relieved as it's getting hotter by the day and both of us are in a... Continue reading

65 km We set off quite happily after several days off the bikes, heading to La Gi where we were planning to stay the night. Daniel had found a great little hotel and we thought we may stay there 2 nights before the final few days to Ho Chi Minh. Unfortunately things didn't really work out. To get the long version you will have to ask us over dinner and drinks or read the book i am trying to write as i have not yet had enough food or sleep to tell you about this eloquently and without swearing. In... Continue reading

For a host of reasons which i will explain below we took a taxi from Phan Rang to Mui Ne this morning and are staying here for a few days. The drive was really interesting as we haven't been anywhere to speak of by car for a while. I took the opportunity to make some notes and lots of photos to remind me what this unique country looks like because when we're on the bike it can be a bit tricky. We left the hotel at 7.50 am and arrived at our hotel 11ish. We are staying at the Full... Continue reading