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Published: November 27th 2009
Before we give you a bit of a summary of today we would like to share some facts with you of the BBA which started on April19th 2009.
First though we would most sincerely like to thank all those people who helped make this adventure one we will never forget.
Arthur and Dorothy in Settle,Rhona and Eric from Leeds,Ian and Chris from Long Preston,Jean and Stella from Southwick,Anice and Bruce from Kendal,Alan and Alison from Edinburgh,Jamieson and Jackie from Edinburgh,Aileen and John plus all the cousins and Benvies from Montrose and nearby ,Wim and Dinny from Zwolle and Di and Sebastian from near Lucerne and to anyone we might have inadvertently forgotten a VERY BIG THANK YOU for the greeting and the hospitality you gave.Without this our adventure would definitely not have been as memorable.We look forward to hosting you in our home in Tauranga,New Zealand before too long!!
And to all those at home in New Zealand and Australia and wherever else in the world you might live and have followed us,a VERY BIG THANK YOU to you too for the support from afar. It was great knowing that there were family and friends(both new and old)who were
taking an interest and keeping us informed of what was happening in their neck of the woods.
And of course a VERY BIG THANKS to our house sitters in Tauranga,Judith and Leon without whom we would not have been able to travel stress free knowing that our home and two cats,Jack and Smith were all being so well looked after.We are so pleased you guys replied to our advert,what a find for us!!
Just for the record books
Adventure period - 19th April 2009 to 28th November 2009
Countries visited - 28
Total distance travelled by all means of transport - 86,373km!!!!!
Total distance travelled by car - 28,585km throughout the UK,Ireland and Europe
Days of rain when no sightseeing was possible - 3,one of the really amazing statistics considering the unpredictability of weather.We really seemed to be always ahead of bad weather turning up.
Total number of accommodations stayed at - 99
Country most enjoyed - Scotland,the culture,scenery,the people and our heritage.France came ina close second with Austria third.(if you met us or hosted us in some way and your country is not mentioned please don’t be offended because in reality we loved everywhere,including our ‘least liked country’
Country least enjoyed - Bosnia,the trash and the mad drivers some of whom as yet don’t seem to have forgotten that the war is over and use their cars like a tank!!
Best city - London,so much to see and do,the shows,the culture and the history
Least enjoyed city - Sarajevo which is still getting over the war
Best mountain scenery overall - Switzerland,what else did you expect,the place is grande!!
Best mountain pass - Furkapass,Switzerland,for the spectacular scenery and steepest road with sharpest hairpin turns.Exhilirating for the passenger and challenging for the driver
Most spectacular mountain location - Zermatt and the Matterhorn,a fabulous day and the weather couldn’t have been better for us
Hottest day - Travelling across Belgium heading to Zwolle,Holland when the temperature in RR hit 40C!!
Coldest day - Andorra in the snow
Best food overall - France,oh those boulangeries and their croissants filled with chocolate or cheese and ham and the yummy delicate chocolate sweets.........too much!!
Least enjoyed food options - Russia,still to come to grips with tourists visiting and expecting decent food
Cheapest vodka - Russia,there had to be something good about the country that we were going to put down our throats!!
Best museum/art gallery - The Hermitage,St Petersburg,Russia,absolutely fabulous,a real gem in more ways than one
Best drivers - France but probably because we didn’t try and drive in the big cities like Paris
Worst drivers - Bosnia,where they don’t seem to value their lives or those of opposing vehicles.Croatia came a close second.
Scariest road incident while we were driving - Malojapass,Switzerland and the truck coming down the hairpin bends and would simply not give way using not only his side opf the road but ours too.RR came within inches of being rammed off the road!!The incident with the bus on our side of the road in Croatia and veering to his own side in the nick of time was a close second.
Best guided tour - Old Trafford,The Field of Dreams and home to Manchester United FC
Best mountain hike - Mount Hochfluh,Switzerland,our muscles ached for days afterwards!!
Memorable other hikes - All those with Arthur and Dorothy, Ian and Chris and Bruce in Yorkshire and the Lake District
Worst hike - Day 1 Cinque Terre,Italy,thank good our daughters persuaded us to go and try again the next day when the whole track was open and the sun was out.
Best historical site - The Pyramids,Cairo,Egypt,one of Gretchen’s wishes and must see for this adventure
Most moving historical site - Birkenau,Poland,how this could ever have been allowed to happen is still beyond belief.And if there is anyone still in denial,then just visit this place
Most moving historical ceremony - ANZAC Day,Gallipoli,Turkey,wouldn’t have missed it for the world even though I nearly froze to death.
Best underground - Moscow,once we mastered it and got a colour coded map.We knew there was something else about Russia other than the vodka
Worst underground system - London,no air conditioning in 30C + heat
Best value hotel - Best Western,Beroun,€19 per night double and that included a hot breakfast.The breatest find on Booking.com
Best appointed hotel room - Campus Serha,Barcelona
Most difficult accommodation to find - Varese,Italy,we nearly gave up after driving backwards and forwards for over 2 hours trying to find the hotel which was up a hill.
Easiest hotel to find - Hotel Paris Leige,it was 50 metres from the Gare du Nord,we didn't even need Google Maps!!
Pokiest/worst hotel room - Wadowice,Poland followed closely by Lake Bled,Slovenia although the scenery was just gorgeous
Best television - England where we were able to get a year and a bit ahead on Coronation Street.Although we haven’t seen it since the end of July!!
Best idea - Buying the microwave and toaster when we picked up RR.It saved heaps of money on food although we were getting just a little bit tired of microwave meals on our laps as the adventure came to an end.
Paris to Singapore
We feel a bit like a couple of deflated balloons this morning.The adventure is almost over!!
It has been the most memorable experience either of us have ever enjoyed and rates up there with other monumental highlights of our life together such as our wedding day,the birth of our daughters and the marriage of daughter #1 earlier this year.
But as they say ‘ all good things must come to an end ‘
The weather in Paris this morning is actually looking up from over the past couple of days although it still looks cool as dawn struggles to arrive.We don’t think we could live in such conditions with the sun rising so late in the morning and setting as early as it does in the afternoon.We are certainly looking forward to more hours of daylight back in New Zealand.
We arrived down to breakfast just after 7am thinking we would be the first there but met a man with an All Black jacket on.We immediately thought he was a Kiwi(as you do) but discovered as we started a conversation with him that he was in fact Swedish.Never try and tell where a person is from by their clothing.Well most of the time anyway!!He had travelled to places we have been on this adventure and it was interesting sharing our thoughts on places like Bosnia with a European.
We were basically packed last night and just had to adjust a few things this morning before we were off down the road to the Gare du Nord.
Here though we thought we might have hit a ‘roadblock’when we noticed the large number of people on the platform.Paris CDG airport does not have a dedicated line for travellers going to the airport so you share with the workers who get on and off at stations along the line to the airport which is the last stop.
The word ‘retarde’,which we thought also meant delayed,was appearing against all the trains on the indication board bound for the airport.Then of course every announcement was in French so we could only make out the odd word as to what the problem.
There should have been a train about every four or five minutes but clearly there hadn’t been one for a while judging by the number of people.
We waited,and waited,and waited and then decided that we would give the situation of no train 30 minutes to resolve itself and then we would head back upstairs and out of the station and pick up a cab to the airport.That would still give us 2 and a half hours before the plane was due to leave.
After 10 minutes of waiting a train did arrive but it was so full already and there were people ahead of us on the platform squeezing in that we had no chance with our suitcases and backpacks .
So we let that one go and waited,and waited,and waited for the next one which arrived ten minutes before we were going to revert to the taxi for the airport.
This train was fairly full but we had good positions by where a door opened and so got ourselves on.Others came behind us and by the time the doors closed it was like the Tokyo subway all over again.
Thankfully passengers got off at each station as the train went down the line and half way there we were free to move our arms.
Although the station at CDG 1 says it is at Terminal 1,it isn’t actually and we had to catch a driverless shuttle to Terminal 1 itself.
We had checked in on the internet at the hotel and reserved our seats on the upper deck of the A380 as it looks like there is a little more room in the small economy cabin at the rear of the plane behind business class.So the rest of the checkin at the airport was a breeze and we were soon sitting in the departure lounge with the ‘big bird’waiting outside for us.
Here,we shall leave what happens for the rest of the day as in fact the day itself is going to ‘fly’by very quickly as the plane heads east into the approaching darkness.
With no more sightseeing we don’t expect there will be much else to report before we arrive back in New Zealand,midday Saturday,NZ Daylight saving time.So for now au revoir!!and thanks for being with us on our greatest adventure!!
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Leebee
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You are coming home!
That blog entry should have come with a warning....would bring on tears! My workmates now think I am completely silly as your blog brought a tear to my eye! Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!