James (Jay/Jim) Bunning

J2NZ

I had been on holidays to Europe and a bit further afield, but never done the proper 'Round the World' backpacking adventure. I started planning for that very event in 2004. Finally in June 2006 I got on that plane that started my year of backpacking around the planet. What an amazing journey! It changed my life like nothing else. And it was where I found my life partner...

My plans for that year included living and working in New Zealand. This was because I felt like I really wanted to move there permanently but needed to 'check it out' for six months first. I liked that NZ offers the perfect setting for my sport interests (Kite buggying/boarding, snow boarding, kayaking, snorkeling, trekking and climbing). I got a work Visa for NZ before I left the UK and then planned the rest of my trip around NZ.

As for the rest of the places I wanted to see, it was based mainly on my keen interest in the nature's offerings, much more than the cultural aspects. So I’d much rather be on a beach, trekking up a mountain or snorkelling in the sea than walking round an ancient pagoda… Although I did end up doing more of the cultural stuff than I expected.

Another aim of my travels was to learn to snow kite, kite surf, dive and paraglide on my travels… Final results: 3 out 4 - snow kiting was scuppered by a nasty snowboarding accident in NZ...

Apart from the photos I also uploaded videos on Youtube now: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=j2nzj2nz, my old videos are here: http://www.stick-e-web.co.uk/travel/videos/ And because part way through my travels Thailand banned YouTube (it depicted a video that was not too nice about their King) I also used Google Video too.

I also uploaded a few Quick Time panoramics here: http://www.stick-e-web.co.uk/travel/panoramas/ (go full screen and you can zoom in, etc).

And large images (including some panoramics) are on my gallery page: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/J2NZ/Gallery/

UPDATE Jan 2009I left the UK to live with Lisa in the USA. To start with we are going to be in Las Vegas. There is plenty of great hikes outside the city and a whole new (and enormous) country for me to explore. So there will be a load of new adventures documented here. I am also not working for many months, so I also hope to get the rest of my RTW trip up on here and repair the lost entries when Travelblog had a crash last year.
Finally I hope to centralize all the video clips and panoramics in one place.