Around the World in 444 Days

After 93 flights, 73 boat trips, 62 train trips, 38 buses, 11 rental cars, and 175 different hotels, we are finally home.  Thank you to all of you who prayed for our safety over the last 15 months, we definitely felt those prayers and saw them answered on a regular basis. 

 

After multiple discussions (during drives around Australia and New Zealand), we settled on our favorite 25 sights/experiences in the world.  I am positive that the order of this list would have changed had we taken a different route or seen certain sights at a different time.  Other things definitely affected this ranking such as where we had been prior to visiting one of the places below or even how tired we were at the time.  So, although I stand by this as a list of great things to do around the globe, you might visit several of these places and rank them in a completely different order.  We also cheated on a few smaller countries by simply listing the entire country.  I've added explanations of why we loved these places or ranked them as we did.   

 

Also, below is an email address for anyone who wants to contact us (family and friends ignore this new email address).  The address is jeffandrachelabroad@hotmail.com 

 

Jeff and Rachel

 

1. Patagonia/Explora Lodge (Chile) - Great hikes, glaciers, the best horseback riding we've ever experienced; this lodge has it all and in an incredible setting.  All of the Patagonia region is awe-inspiring. 

2. Taj Mahal/Amarvilas (India) - The Taj is, in my opinion, the most beautiful building in the world and you can see it from the window of your hotel room at the Amarvilas.  This and the Explora Lodge are the only hotels we stayed in that merit mention. 

3. Japan - I can't say enough about the kind, courteous people of Japan.  The culture is so vastly different from anything we experienced and we loved every minute of our 2 weeks here; if it were not so expensive, we might have stayed longer.

4. Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) - Untouched nature at its best; the animals are not afraid of people in the least; like visiting an open-air zoo with the most exotic animals of the world. 

5. Capetown and the Garden Route (South Africa) - No city in the world has such a naturally beautiful setting. Table Mountain borders the city on one side and the ocean is on the other.  The Garden Route has great hikes and quaint B&Bs; this is a great 2-week trip.   

6. Jerusalem's Religious Sites and the Jewish People (Israel) - To walk where Christ walked is an amazing thing.  Maybe as inspiring is the resolve of the Jewish people - what it took to start this country and the courage it takes to wake up every day knowing that 50 million of your sworn enemies are at your doorstep.

7. Ireland - Rolling hills and quaint towns with lots of pubs serving Guinness (I promise it tastes different here).  It didn't hurt our experience to see U2 in concert in Dublin, a fantastic city in its own right. 

8. Machu Picchu (Peru) - Set aside the historical significance of this site and wonder how in the world the Incas built a retreat this high up in the mountains.  Machu Picchu is an amazing place to sit and enjoy the lush, green view with mountains in the background. 

9. Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (Uganda) - They don't call this forest "impenetrable" for nothing.  We felt like Indiana Jones as we hiked in the only place in the world where you can find gorillas in their natural habitat.  Uganda was the most third-world country we visited and we could not have survived it without my friend Scott and his family - seeing the mission work they are doing and visiting with them was a bigger highlight than seeing gorillas within 10 ft. 

10. New Zealand - Probably the most naturally beautifully country we visited.  Also ranks high for us because of all the activities available here (we went skydiving, skiing, rappeling, jet boating, and fly-fishing). 

11. India - We had mixed emotions while traveling here.  It's filthy and very difficult travel, but our 3 weeks here affected us more than any other place we went.  We saw poverty like we've never seen it and the only way to descibe the Indian people and their culture is to say it is unique.   

12. El Questro (Australia) - The most beautiful gorge hikes anywhere in the world that we found.  Only here did we feel like we found the Outback. 

13. Soussevlei (Namibia) - These sand dunes are some of the largest in the world and gave us some of our best pictures of the trip.  The reds and oranges of the dunes at sunrise are unforgettable. 

14. Serengeti (Tanzania) - Best safari of the three we did.  The plains seem endless and Ngorogoro Crater is amazing.  We saw all the Big Five here in close proximity.   A good guide is the key - Harry was our hero. 

15. The Fes Medina (Morocco) - Forget the markets of Cairo and Marakkesh, if you haven't been to the Medina in Fes, you haven't seen the most fantastic Arab market in the world; we would have easily been hopelessly lost in this maze in about 10 minutes without a guide. 

16. Slovenia - This is a beautiful, undiscovered country in Eastern Europe; great cafes along a river and Lake Bled close by. 

17. Ayers Rock (Australia) - Also called Uluru, this mammoth rock formation explodes out of nowhere in the center of the country.  A climb to the top was a highlight for us. 

18. Snorkeling in the Red Sea (Egypt) - We had bad weather while on the Great Barrier Reef, but I'm not sure  it would have beaten out our experience in the Red Sea even had the weather been perfect.   At Ras Muhammad National Park, we found amazing fish and the most fantastic, vibrantly colored coral anywhere. 

19. Abu Simbel (Egypt) - The Great Pyramids are impressive, but this unassuming temple in the southernmost city of Egypt blew us away.  The exterior statues are massive and the interior artwork is the most well preserved of the Egyptian antiquities. 

20. Bangkok (Thailand) - We may have loved this modern city more because we were coming from India, but there is so much to do and see here ...and such a fascinating culture.  A Thai cooking class was a highlight for us here, along with $8 Thai massages.   

21. Barcelona (Spain) - Maybe the best atmosphere of any city in the world.  And nowhere else can you see the architecture of Anton Gaudi, which is alone worth the trip. 

22. Angkor Wat (Cambodia) - Many of these temples are in ruin, but that gives you a feel of discovery as if you are the first archaeologist on the scene.  Throw in the sad, but fascinating history of Cambodia and this is a must stop on any Southeast Asian itinerary. 

23. Sydney (Australia) - The Sydney Opera House is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world; it makes the city.  But the rest of the city is nothing to overlook. 

24. Terracotta Warriors (China) - Walking out onto the observation deck to look out on the thousands of Terracotta Warriors is a highlight of China.  Maybe even more amazing is they don't even know how many more of these things are buried. 

25. Morro de Sau Paulo (Brazil) - This was easily the greatest discovery of our trip (Rachel found the island in a magazine article).  Its remote location south of Salvador, Brazil is attractive, but more so are the sandy streets (no cars), quaint cafes, and free mud bath on one of the many beautiful beaches. 

 

Honorable Mentions:  Halong Bay (Vietnam), Berlin (Germany), the Greek Isles, Petra (Jordan), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Hong Kong, Ko Lanta (Thailand), Okavanga Delta (Botswana), and Buenos Aires (Argentina)

We posted this listing right on top of our final Auckland blog so if you want to read that one scroll on down the page. 

 

The strange thing about this list is that we loved New Zealand as a whole, but it didn't have individual sights that stood out like Australia did - at least that partially explains the absence of New Zealand sights below.  Our top 10 sights/experiences during our 9 weeks in Australia and New Zealand (in order):

 

1. El Questro Wilderness Park - the Kimberley, Australia

2. Uluru/Ayers Rock - Australia

3. Skydiving in Queenstown - New Zealand

4. Sydney (especially the Opera House) - Australia

5. Heron Island - Great Barrier Reef, Australia

6. Cradle Mountain - Tasmania, Australia

7. Christchurch - New Zealand

8. Australian Wineries

9. Great Ocean Road

10. New Zealand vs. Ireland Rugby match - Auckland, New Zealand

Along the way, we've tried to sample a few sporting events that aren't popular in the U.S. (I will never go to a cricket match though).  We went to a Real Madrid soccer match in Barcelona and wanted to see an Aussie Rules Football game in Sydney, but were never around for a game.  We got lucky in Auckland to catch a rugby union contest between New Zealand and Ireland.  The New Zealand team is called the "All Blacks" - there's no racial connotation there - they simply wear all black uniforms (the New Zealand national soccer team is known as the "All Whites").  People here are crazy about the All Blacks and I was surprised we were able to buy tickets the day of the game. 

 

I was also surprised at how much we both enjoyed watching the match.  Obviously, some of the strategy nuances and rules are a bit fuzzy for us, but with the help of a guy seated behind us, we figured out the basic concept and followed along.  New Zealand, along with Australia and South Africa, are the powerhouses of rugby union and didn't have much trouble dispatching the Irish.  One of the most entertaining parts of the game was the All Blacks performance of the "Haka" or Maori war dance (I mentioned this dance in the last blog) - they do this at the beginning of every game as an means of intimidation.  Imagine standing across from 25 massive guys, stomping and arm slapping, dressed in all black, with tongues out and eyes bulging with craziness.  Intimidating is a mild description of this pre-game tradition. 

 

After 16 days of making out our bed every night and storing it away in the morning, walking to the shower, and not being able to stretch our arms out without hitting the walls, neither of us was saddened to turn in our campervan the morning after the rugby match.  It was a good way to get around and save money though, I just don't know how people travel around in those things for long periods of time.  Before we turned in the campervan, we made one last trip - north of Auckland to the Matakana wine region.  We found a few smaller vineyards with nice owners, but we both had hit our max on wineries so kept our tour there short. 

 

Our first full day in Auckland was Monday, June 19th.  I didn't mention earlier that we had barely escaped a major snow storm on the South Island (the areas just south of where we were at Mt. Hutt got about 1 1/2 feet of snow, power outages, etc.), but that nasty weather front followed us to Auckland and we were rained on all day Monday.  Thankfully, our day was focused on museums.  We started at the Auckland Art Gallery and also visitied the National Maritime Museum which had a great display of New Zealand's history of settlement by boat and current supremacy in yachting. 

 

Tuesday was a beautiful day and we took advantage of the weather to go up for a view of the city in the Auckland Sky Tower.  The Sky Tower dominates the Auckland skyline and is the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere.  Auckland, like so many cities, is not loaded with sights, but is a city to be experienced.  Compared to Christchurch, Auckland doesn't offer much in terms of character, but we enjoyed wandering the streets shopping and people watching.  One random thing we noticed here is that the city has a huge Asian population.  If I didn't know better, I'd have thought we were in Tokyo or Singapore.  It was also strange to think that Auckland holds about 1/3 of New Zealand total population - Auckland's population is about 1.4 million.  I just found it interesting that what is considered an international city is basically the size of Nashville. 

 

 

This blog has had over 75,000 hits in the past 14 months (even though I attribute about half of those to our parents) and we've had so much fun posting stories and pictures.  I hope you have all enjoyed following along with us.  We created an email address if any of you wish to contact us - it's jeffandrachelabroad@hotmail.com.  For our friends and families, keep using our old email addresses, this is just one we created for the blog itself. 

 

We will post one more blog when we get home - a ranking of our Top 25 Sights/Experiences in the world.  Jeff

Lake Taupo is in the very center of the North Island of New Zealand.  It is known worldwide for its fishing so we decided to book a half-day, guided fly-fishing trip.  Rachel had never been fly-fishing and I had only been once 7 years ago, so we were glad our guide, Dave, started us out  with casting 101 (see picture of both of us casting).  We slowly got the hang of it and I even managed (by blind luck) to catch one small rainbow trout (see pic of me reaching into the net;  the fish is too small to see in a picture).  Neither of us were concerned about catching fish though - it was a beautiful day and we had a great time just being out on the water working on our casting technique (see picture of Rachel casting). 

 

The next morning (Friday, June 16th) we took off for Rotorua, but stopped along the way at the Waiotapu Thermal area.  The area has a geyser similar to Old Faithful, but more impressively, has mud pools that percolate and steam eerily (see picture of steamy mud pit).  The entire area has geothermal activity including beautifully colored heated pools (see scenery shot of orange-colored edges of the Champagne Pool). 

 

Our next stop was in Rotorua at Te Paia, another geothermal area and Maori Cultural Center.  Unlike Aboriginals in Australia and Native Americans in the U.S., the Maori of New Zealand seem to have immersed themselves and become productive members of modern society.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand and share a settler mentality with the Europeans who came here not too much later.  Or maybe they interact better here because of the manner in which they are treated by Kiwis (there is a set aside number of seats in Parliament for Maoris).  You simply don't see Maoris in the dire straits that you witness with other similar cultures around the globe.  I'm not a huge fan of "cultural shows", but the dances and songs we watched here were really interesting and well done (see pictures of Maori "warrior" greeting our group and Maoris on stage performing).  The male "warriors" of the group performed a "Haka" or war dance that we would see again later - very entertaining. 

 

Our final stop in Rotorua was the Agrodome for a proper sheep shearing show.  You can't come to New Zeland and not see a sheep shearing (there are  40 million sheep here vs. 4 million people - crazy!).  The crowd consisted of me, Rachel, 2 Brits, 2 Canadians, 4 Kiwis (nickname for New Zealander - can't remember if I mentioned that before), and about 250 Asians (Korean and Japanese predominantly).  The Asian crowd was able to plug  in headphones and get a translation of the show, but the reactions were delayed and it was a tough crowd.  The host did a great job though and relied on the few English speakers in the crowd for most of his banter with the audience - I even volunteered to be guinea pig for some cow milking when most of the crowd seemed hesitant (see pic of me milking).  The shearing itself and information about sheep was fascinating (who knew there were 19 varieties of sheep - see pic of all 19 on stage and one up close). 

 

We drove that afternoon to Waitomo for our last sight in the central part of the North Island.  Waitomo is famous for its massive caves so we signed on to a 4-hr. trip (called the Lost World) exploring the Mangapu Cave system.  We started the trip with a 330 ft. rappel into a canyon (see the picture of the 2 of us hanging before the descent) and then hiked up into the pitch-black caves (see picture of both of us with our last sight of daylight).  The highlight of the caves came as we turned off our headlamps and watched the ceiling light up with glowworms. 

 

We left after our "Lost World" tour and headed for Auckland.  Jeff

I spoke too soon on the last blog about having a second ski day.  Mt. Hutt was closed on Sunday because of high winds so we headed north to Kaikoura where we had scheduled a trip to swim with dolphins.  I am not sure if there were any others foolish enough to want to go out for a swim in 30 degree weather (water temperature of about 46 degrees fahrenheit - thick wetsuits don't really protect you when it's that cold), but the wind and rain were equally brutal on the coast and all trips for the day were cancelled. 

 

We obviously needed indoor entertainment, and the vineyards of Marlborough Sound provided just that.  New Zealand is known for it's white wines (cooler climate - most wineries don't produce many reds).  We found several very nice wineries in this area on the very northernmost part of the South Island.  We made 4 stops with our favorites being Montana and Lawson's Dry Hills vineyards. 

 

On Tuesday, we made the crossing from the South Island to the North Island via the Cook Strait.  It was a rough ride across (see picture of me holding on to my cap as we entered open seas; we quickly retreated indoors) - I'm just thankful it was our last boat on the ocean's open waters.  We hit Wellington about mid-afternoon and decided to immediately visit the Te Papa National Museum.  This museum houses well organized exhibits on everything New Zealand - from history of European settlements to Maori culture to sports successes.  We skipped most of those exhibits and went straight for an exhibit focused on the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.  There were great interviews with Peter Jackson, and others on the creative side of the film, which explained many of the complex special effects used in the movies.  Rachel and I both enjoyed all 3 of the movies, but by no means are we "Lord of the Rings" junkies, so I was surprised at how enthralled we both were with the exhibit.  We came back to Te Papa the following day to see some of the other exhibits.  The museum is almost overwhelming in its size and scope, but well worth a visit. 

 

Prior to our trip, I would have guessed that Sydney was the capital of Australia and that Auckland was the capital of New Zealand.  I would have been wrong on both counts (Canberra is the capital city of Australia).  Wellington is actually the capital city of New Zealand, and while there we paid a visit to the Houses of Parliament and got an extremely informative tour (see picture of me in front of the "beehive" which houses the executive and legislative branches of the government).  As they are still part of the British Commonwealth, the New Zealand system of government is closely related to the Brit's version.  One of the more interesting things that we took away from the tour is that there is a member of New Zealand's parliament who is rastafarian (supposedly rides his skateboard to the House of Representatives) and another who is a transgender....pretty open-minded set down here.   

 

We left Wellington on Wednesday, June 14th, and headed north to Lake Taupo.   Jeff