It’s hard to believe that after boarding our flight to Dubai on Christmas Day 2018 that 20 weeks have come and gone. What an adventure it has been! At times it felt like we were living like Royalty and at other times like peasants with the latter being just as enjoyable. People make the world go round and there are substantially more good people on this planet than bad, judging by the acts of kindness we came across. The journey was made all the more enjoyable by catching up with friends and family along the way and making new friends.

The trip certainly reinforced some mental confidence into us two oldies as we dealt with all the logistics of travel, trains, buses, diffferent countries, languages, their cultures, and currency etc. We both loved learning the history. (We still suck at Trivia though.) There were no major travel disasters for us and we’ve had so many wow moments on this trip. The closest we came to disaster was our choice of airline from Amsterdam to New York via Iceland (Wow airlines). They went into liquidation a matter of weeks after we travelled with them. We don’t know how we would have coped without Google and Google maps, each of us shining at different times, when the need arose.

For the statistically minded:

Hotels/beds 45

Planes 18

Trains 55

Monorail 4

Funicular Railway 2

Buses 60

Ubers12

Taxis 9

Cars 3

4 wheel drives 3

Boats 22

Airboats 1

Helicopters 2 (who would’ve thought?)

Camels 1

Huskies/Dogsled 1

Zip lines 1

Time zones 16

Countries 23

Nights at sea 47

Kms walked per our iPhones 1172

Considering we were on ships for 47 nights (some of that time in ports) our walking averaged out at 8.37 kms per day. Not a bad effort and should see us coming home skinnier haha. I think that weight loss was offset by the alcohol and food intake. You have to agree there is nothing nicer than a red wine when you’re freezing or a nice cold beer on a hot beach day. We are certainly fitter!

I am so glad we persisted with our blog even though it may come across as 2 travelling bogans. The blog was initially to bring back the memories for us and to keep our children informed of what we were up to. If anyone else got a laugh, relived their own trip or learnt something along the way, we consider this a bonus.

Our battered and torn suitcases are only just going to make the journey home. One now has a square wheel and the other one has a handle that doesn’t retract. They’ve been dragged through snow, ice, rain and sand, along pebbles and cobblestones and up that many flights of stairs that I don’t care to remember. They really should be framed and hung on the wall.

We’ve gone back and revisited our hashtags that we were so gung-ho about more than 20 weeks ago. #liveitbtreatheit, #wontdiewondering, #jkruthiedotheworld, #noregrets. Mission accomplished!

This trip couldn’t have happened without my partner in crime and life, travel agent, lover and best friend, namely Ruthie. She did most of the planning but I did step up at crunch times when needed. I’ve got to say tongue in cheek that Ruthie followed the five P’s plan and it paid off. Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

It’s funny how the mind works. At one stage Ruthie and I thought we could do this forever. Now we’re journeying home, we can’t wait to get home to see our family and friends. We’re convinced we do live in the best and luckiest country and reside in a special place. And in the words of Dorothy, “there’s no place like home…..”

Pinch me!

Jeykay and Ruthie blogging off until next time.