Best of

After travelling for 350 days, visiting 136 places in 19 countries* across 106,659km, and having a couple of months back home in Sydney to reflect on our ‘year without seatbelts’, there were a few stand out experiences, places, meals, rides etc. Here, then, is our ‘best of’ list – the superlative account of the trip, […]

The Gear

When you travel for a year there are a small number of objects that become essential to your happiness. When Sarah thought she lost her head lamp in Kigali her distress was not because she lost a ‘thing’ but something that was vital in certain situations and not easily replaced. She held similar fears when […]

Perth: the far side of Australia

Full set of Perth photos

We got our cultural cringe out of the way early at the airport in Denpasar waiting to board our flight to Perth. A more bogan bunch of Aussies would be hard to find and we felt the exoticness of the past year fade away, especially when the news on the […]

Singapore and Bali

View the full set of Singapore and Bali photos

We stopped over in Singapore for a few days to meet up with my sister Rachel, my brother-in-law Tony and their two kids, Grace and Harry, who just happened to be on their way to France for a holiday. It was great to see them.

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Huangshan: Climbing steeply, mountain torment

The Huangshan mountains are the kind of mountains you imagine when thinking about China: craggy, covered in pines growing at odd angles out of the rock, shrouded in mist and peppered with bamboo on the lower slopes. To get there we stayed in the nearby town of Tunxi which has one old street where the […]

Shanghai: Hijacked by culture

Complete set of Shanghai photos

We left you in the last post as we headed back to Beijing from Chengdu. You can read all about our adventures in Beijing in one convenient blog post. We left Beijing via high-speed rail and sped out of there at 310km/h. This rail link is quite a piece of […]

Leshan: Buddha’s largesse

Complete set of Leshan photos

While we were in Chengdu we took a day trip to see Leshan’s Giant Buddha a couple of hours away by bus. The statue is the tallest pre-modern statue in the world – how’s that for a claim to fame. It has to be one of the prettiest from any […]

Chengdu: Panda land

The complete set of photos and videos are here

When we booked the 11:30pm flight from Xi’an to Chengdu along with an executive apartment style hotel we had no idea what a bad combination this would be. A word on air travel in China first: it’s best avoided. Despite a plethora of humongous airports the […]

Xi’an: Warrior style

The complete set of Xi’an photos are here

Xi’an is one of those towns that loom large in a tourist’s mind for one attraction only, in this case the Terracotta Army. The city of Xi’an is no slouch though, having been around for, well, let’s just call it a hell of a long time. As […]

Pingyao: Putting the old back into fortified walls

Full set of Pingyao photos are here

The one drawback to train travel in China is that it’s hard to buy tickets for a journey if you’re not located in the city you want to start from. We couldn’t buy train tickets for the journey from Datong to Pingyao until we arrived in Datong, by […]