Simon Hartley & Jessie Watts
Travel Itinerary 31/03 - 25/08/2009Si and Jess 2009 RTW adventure
31st March
London - Jo’burg; transfer flight to Vic Falls 1st April
Vic Falls to Cape Town Overland Tour (Zimbabwe/Botswana/Namibia/South Africa) 3 weeks 02/04-24/04
Capetown Township Teaching Volunteer Project 3 weeks 24/04-15/05
16th May
Cape Town - Bangkok (in Bangkok for check in 2pm on 17th)
Gap Adventures Siam Discovery 22 day tour 17/05-07/06
(Bangkok - River Kwai - Ayutthaya - Chiang Mai - 3 day hilltribe trek - Chiang Rai/Golden Triangle - Khao Sok NP - Koh Samui - Koh Tao)
7th June (after 1pm)
Bangkok - Melbourne
Backpacker campervan hire Melbourne - Cairns 8/06 - 05/07
5th July
Cairns - Auckland
Backpacker campervan hire Auckland - Christchurch 06/07-26/07
26th July
Christchurch - Nadi, Fiji
Feejee Experience Mangos and Mantarays (hop on hop off coach service)
Viti Levu and the Yasawas
4th August
Nadi - Los Angeles; transfer flight to San Francisco
Trek America Gold Rush 05/08-16/08 (Yosemite NP, Sierras Nevadas, Great Basin....)
CUT SHORT on 9th August - Greyhound bus to Las Vegas
Car hire, Las Vegas - San Francisco (Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Lake Powell, Zion and Bryce Canyon, Las Vegas, LA, Big Sur, Monterey, Wine Country) 11/08-24/08
24th August
San Francisco - London
Arrive back London Heathrow 25th August 10:30am
Travel Blog Posts
Movie World
Published: February 8th 2012Europe » United Kingdom » England » West Midlands » Stourbridge
August 28th 2009
Here's the long, long overdue final blog! Yes, we're home now and for once I've had unlimited time to finish the blog, however if I waited too long I'd never do it. After 5 months, travelling felt like it was everyday life and now we're home, I wish we’d gone for longer but there's only so much one can afford! Jessie however, is mostly glad to be back; maybe her travel bug has been squashed! Not that we both didn't have an amazing time... so I wrote two and a half years ago! Here it is finally completed; hope you enjoy what I have endured to finish after much procrastination. So then, the good old U S of A. Very much the modern world. The cities instantly drew images from the movies we'd grown up with, ... read more
August 5th 2009
Bula!! There's a word which Kiwis tend to often overuse - 'awesome'. However, there have been times on our travels where the word can be used wholely appropriately. After arriving in Fiji I was already missing New Zealand, not only for its scenery that really was genuinely awesome, but also the freedom of our campervan home that let us go where and whenever we liked. For the first 4 days of our time in Fiji, we travelled on a Feejee Expererience bus which despite its aim to show us the culturally rich 'real Fiji', frustrated us in confining us to a group schedule. Not only this, but there are not many countries which could follow New Zealand for scenery and although beautiful palm fringed beaches are a fine sight in most people's book, in contrast they ... read more
Adrenalin Central in Winter Wonderland
Published: July 25th 2009Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Christchurch
July 26th 2009
Kia Ora! What a fantastic new world of adventure we've discovered! Luckily we've been largely blessed with good sunny weather, having really only had two miserable days over the last three weeks (that's better than your average English summer ain't it?!). The scenery has been incredible (even better with the winter's snow) and the list of things to do endless, so we've got a fair bit of catchin' up to do! From Paihia (Bay of Islands) we returned south via the scenic west coast, passing through the ancient Waipou forest, which contains huge Kauri trees, some of which are believed to be 3000-4000 years old. I've never driven round so many corners - to say it was windy would be an understatement. No wonder the Ozzies joke about Kiwis being unable to travel in a straight ... read more
July 9th 2009
Hello again, is the weather still nice over there?:(:) We've ended up driving 4163 miles (over a 1000 miles a week!) between and around Melbourne to Cairns settling into fine sunny dry weather by the second half of our journey and now (via a 4hr flight) have been put back right where we started or so it seems! Auckland, like Melbourne can't make up its mind between being sunny and overcast or wet and is nearly as cold (about 15 degrees). What's more we're travelling south from here (rather than north) so it will get even colder. Oh well it's hard to get everywhere at its best time of year when you're going to so many places. You can't get everywhere at once in Australia alone at its best time of year! Despite being a bit ... read more
July 1st 2009
Pleased to say the weather has got a lot better here! Another example of how huge this country is (and how far we've come) - it may have been cold and wet in Victoria but here in Queensland we've had perfect sunny blue skies with temperatures now in the very comfortable mid-twenties! Upon leaving Coff's Harbour we came across one of Australia's icons, a 'big' icon! Australia is famous for its 'big' things - they are in your face large sculptures used to advertise the product or the theme they are selling. Fittingly, the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour was the first which started the craze in 1964. Since then there are now over hundred with many becoming a cult phenomenon - some people even use the objects as an excuse for a road trip! I'm ... read more
The Freedom of the Open Road
Published: June 22nd 2009Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Coffs Harbour
June 22nd 2009
G'day! How's sunny England?! Melbourne was a bit of a shock to the system. There I was thinking 'it's Australia, it can't get that cold', going out in just a t-shirt and hoody and later returning to the hostel to grab my jacket, hat and gloves! Apparently they had just been hit by a particularly cold spell plus the on and off rain made matters worse. Melbourne is a great city though, despite lacking the major sites that Sydney may hold it has a very livable feel to it and is extremely multicultural. We found you can eat any food you like (too many Thai restaurants though!), though as with Sydney an 'Australian' restaurant we could not find! What do they have I suppose, only having European settlement over the last 200 years? Will have to ... read more
June 9th 2009
Sawat-dii Khrap! We've been loving Thailand over the last three weeks experiencing a new culture and way of life. To sum up in as little words as possible... elephants, temples, Buddhas, snakes, shakes, rice, noodles, tuk-tuks, songthaews, jungles, waterfalls, ladyboys, monkeys, markets, monks, massages, beautiful beaches, geckos.... Following on from the River Kwai we spent the next day relaxing at Erawan Falls (also in Kanchanaburi) where we bathed in beautiful clear waters where the fish nibbled at our feet if we stopped still for too long (a little disconcerting!). In the afternoon we visited and walked along another part of the death railway - so called as the number of sleepers laid down along its 400km stretch matched the number of deaths (mostly caused by malaria and typhoid) suffered by the POWS and asian workers during ... read more
'Hitler has only got one ball....
Published: May 18th 2009Asia » Thailand » Western Thailand » Kanchanaburi
May 18th 2009
Hello from steamy Thailand! Yes it's very hot here 29 degrees + and its sticky heat not like the hot dry heat of most of Africa and far removed from the changing weather of Cape Town (which was a bit like a British summer, all but a relatively good one!). It's also the wet season here, however when it rains it only pours for a short time then clears up. Most of the transport and the hotels have air conditioning fortunately so when you walk outside it's a bit like stepping into a sauna! We left our house in Cape Town 4:30 saturday morning (only a couple of hours after I'd finished the last blog so didn't get much sleep!) for a 2hr flight back to Johannesburg (where we'd originally landed) and then a 9hr flight ... read more
May 16th 2009
Our time in Africa has sadly come to an end so I thought I'd finish this chapter of our travels before we fly to Thailand (on Saturday 16th) to experience a whole different culture and new array of experiences! As you may know by now we have been spending Monday to Fridays volunteering in Hout Bay (about 15 minutes from Cape Town where we are living) at the primary, high school and township community centre. This experience has been at times rewarding but at others frustrating. The main activity at the primary school has been helping kids with computer skills - these computers have been donated by the Irish (who seem to give an awful lot to these communities, in housing also) and there is a set program for them to follow. Unfortunately as the computer ... read more
May 6th 2009
We were up early for our first day at school. I was a little nervous and if Si was then he didnt show it. Our first job was to help the little ones (5/6 yrs) with extra literacy work. This consisted of reading with them and talking through various letter/colour books and talking about items from containers all beginning with the same letter. Naturally the kids were most excited and tickled by the items that made noise, e.g) a toy that croaked when you pressed it and one that made a 'mooing' noise. The resources were fairly basic and I wished i'd bought some books from home to help. There also seemed to be no visible plan of what to do with the kids, something that was soon to be a commom feature in all our ... read more
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