The calm before the storm

Well folks, after much consideration, we have created a blog for our travels despite the anticipated abuse we (or certainly I, the male half of the enterprise) will receive for doing so. One of the main reasons for doing so is to avoid the need for the proverbial long winded, and universally disliked, group emails. Go on, admit it, you never liked them. Anyway, we know our parents will read it at least!

So here we are, a few days before departure, a mixture of excitement and nerves/uncertainty, which is probably to be expected given that we have never undertaken a trip like this before.

A brief summary of our itinery is:

31st August: We fly into Rio and intend to travel to Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru. Too much to be seen/done there to mention under the title 'brief summary'. Suffice to say, it'll be a long and tough but hopefully great 10 weeks. The focus of most of our attention for the past few months given the sheer size of the place and amount to do/see there.

12th November: Fiji for 10 days of what will be well earned R & R on the beach.

22nd November: New Zealand where we are hoping to rent a car/camper van for the 4 weeks and make our own way around both islands.

20th December: We fly into Sydney and have booked to stay until after NYE wherein we will probably head up the East Coast and take it as it comes.

3rd March: We fly to Bangkok where we'll probably head to the islands for a few weeks and then intend to visit Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before we are due to fly home on the 23rd April.

A long road ahead then.

Hope you enjoy the blog and keep in touch via email (scollinsdaly@hotmail.com, lmallon@hotmail.com).