Return to Southampton and a trip summary:

DKT

Blog 37  - Sailing into Southampton - a time for reflection on an adventure of a lifetime:

Well here we are!  - the homecoming back to Southampton - 126 days - a completed circumnavigation of our planet. Three ships, one plane, one train, 2 cars and countless other modes of transport on the way, but no camel or donkey ride, to protect my delicate posterior!

Thousand of miles travelled and still so many more blogs to write from those missing days following the emotional departure from Christchurch on 12th March and arriving at Petra (blog 34) in Jordan on 27th April. The constraints of time on shore excursions, lack and cost of ships' internet, a corrupted hard drive and a power lead failure causing some headaches and challenges. I was therefore very pleased to actually publish over 30 blogs from all over the world and hopefully you have enjoyed them.

(PIC) - Classic Melbourne buildings

A quick summary then of those missing blog days to give you an idea of how we got to Petra at the end of April... We left New Zealand and flew to Melbourne in South West Australia to stay a couple of days with one of Jacky's past students, Sonia and her husband Adnan. We had a terrific time in this wonderful city wholly due to our great hosts before having to leave all to soon for a 11 hour train ride to Sydney. 

(PIC) - Sydney bridge and Opera House

Ocean Princess in downtown Sydney

I had been to this City in 2005 working on a programme with Ian Wright; would you believe, climbing the very tall flag pole in Darling Harbour! Jacky used to live here back in the 70's so it was reminisce time all round. Another vibrant city so changed in the past forty years, indeed many changes since I was last there. What a great time we had here touring around and visiting old friends. Three days later we were joining the Ocean Princess, bound for Singapore.

Brisbane panoramic river view

This was a very nice 800 passenger cruise liner, small enough to get into tighter and shallower moorings along the way.  We stopped at Brisbane, Airlie Beach on the Great Barrier reef and Darwin in North Australia. All have good memories although I was disappointed with our coral reef stop as the 

The Coral Reef platform
and rough boat trip..

weather was not good and I was unable to see below the ocean. As this was the only real reason for coming here I had to be content with an internet cafe surrounded by hoards of young and keen backpackers, gosh I did feel my age that day! Jacky however braved the 2 hour rough boat trip and did her beloved snorkelling, although she did 

look a bit 'green' on her return! 

Brisbane cyclone damage

Darwin was a place I took to heart - It was heavily bombed in WW2, in fact it was the same Japanese squadrons that had wreaked havoc at Pearl Harbour only months before. Darwin suffered a greater tonnage bomb drop and many ships and lives were lost here. That goes almost unrecognised against the Pearl Harbour raid. 

        Brisbane Harbour mangroves

There was also a well publicised Cyclone Tracey that swept through here on Christmas Day 1974 and destroyed the entire city centre. Once again another disaster hitting the lives of many. How many times have I written about earthquakes and natural disasters, plus the adversity of the human race to recover and pick up the pieces afterwards? 

The Komodo Dragons

We sailed on towards  Indonesia and in particular Komodo Island, the home of the very big lizard affectionally know as the 'dragon'. We went on a hike and were lucky to find a couple of big ones out in the outback. Jacky went 

            Pink Beach  in Komodo

snorkelling again at the famous Pink Beach and pronounced it the best snorkel experience ever. The market stall holders there were just a bit too keen to sell us trinkets, which was a shame and soured 

the day somewhat. 

Ho Chi Ming City

Our Sanpan in the Mekong Delta

On we sailed across the South China sea towards Vietnam, into Ho Chi Min City and a day trip to remember in the Mekong Delta. Witnessing still the effects of one of the most infamous wars in history between the Viet Kong and the USA, an unbelievable  50 years ago - how I remember it as if it were yesterday - life is                                                         passing by oh so quickly!

Th Big Buddah

Around the Thai coast to the lovely island of Ko Samui where we visited a coconut plantation, watching the monkeys being trained to fetch down up to 900 coconuts of the right type and size in a four hour day shift. We also visited a temple and a beautiful beach voted as one of the world's top ten. A very nice holiday island out of the way                                                       of the busy mainland. 

Raffles Hotel - Singapore

China Town - Singapore

Then it was a few days at sea till we docked in Singapore and undertook all the classic tourist visits including the fantastic Botanical Gardens, China town and of course Raffles Hotel where we had a sumptuous afternoon tea. The city transport system is brilliant and very reasonably priced and we got around quite a bit here, Jacky as usual hiking around and filling every minute while I did a few things in small doses, as is my wont. 

The Ocean Liner QM2

We then joined the QM2, a big change from our little Ocean Princess, we were now two of 2600 passengers and in a wholly different ball game. Personally, out of the three cruise ships I preferred the P&O Aurora the best, but more on that point later.

An image of Crab Island

image of Fishing fleet  - Crab Island

Our first two ports of call on the QM2 were both in Malaysia - the first stop was our only disaster of the whole world itinerary. We wanted to go to the off shore delight and quaint fishing harbour called Crab Island to get away from the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. We however got stranded in a shopping mall due to poor ship and shuttle bus information and never saw anything worth  seeing. Out of frustration we both bought even more clothes to bring home!  Just to be at Crab Island in spirt I have included a couple of web images...

The frighting Gondola ride

Rice Padi fies  & Museum 

The second destination in Malaysia was much better, a visit to Langkawi island which included a trip to a padi rice field and Museum and a ride to the top of the mountain on the world's steepest Gondola ride (at 42 degrees of gradient) and also the longest single rope (at 950m). Quite an experience and a bit daunting.

Tuk-Tuks by the score

The Swiss Hotel - Kandy

The temple at Kandy

It was then a few more days at sea straight across the Indian Ocean to Sri Lanka and a cross-island coach trip visit to Kandy, the ancient centre of the palace and temple of the Kings in the days of Ceylon. We had lunch here in the Swiss Hotel the former home of Lord Mountbatten. Our coach had a police escort there and back or we would never have made it back such are the traffic problems on this island, 300,000 vehicles (including masses of tuk-tuks) in Columbo alone. The guide told us that the traffic on this day was light as it was yet another of their 28 days of public holidays, the most of any country in the world! ( now thats a record that Dubai has not got!)

Burj Khalifa Tower
The world's tallest!

We then cruised towards the United Arab Emirates and the city of Dubai. What an unreal and opulent place this is. It's like a version of the Disney world of Hollywood. Don't get me wrong, it's a fascinating place to visit with lots to see. There are some amazing buildings, hotels and parks and the river trip was splendid. BUT! it looks like a bunch of very wealthy people needed to spend their cash and the only way was, "lets get in the Guinness Book of Records"- make us the tallest, the biggest, the best in what we do, whether it's the Metro, a skyscraper, a shopping mall, an airline, a horse race, even building whole artificial islands you can see from space! 

Opulent Dubai

All this size and opulence happened very quickly from a small fishing village. Believe it or not in 1900 the whole residential area was less than two miles by one mile in total area. Their whole world changed in 1966 when oil was discovered and to be fair they ploughed the profits straight back into infrastructure and welfare. You really have to visit Dubai; I guess you could stay a week and not see it all. I think we did jolly well in the two days we were there - the hop on hop off bus is the best way to get around.

The rocky desert of Oman

Then we cruised to Muscat in Oman and a visit to an ancient fort in the rocky desert. You know the rest of the journey from there, Petra, Suez Canal, Italy and Portugal to Southampton. We are arriving with the three Cunard 'Queens' all docking together to celebrate QM2's 10th birthday. A wonderful experience albeit at 5am on a UK May morning! 

the 'Three Queens' arriving
 in Southampton on May 9th 2014

There we are then, 126 days, 22 countries, over 30000 miles and still counting.

P&OAurora

The three cruise ships we travelled on were all different. Our preference was the middle range size of the P&O Aurora. Even though we were only on that ship to Auckland we were treated as round the world guests. There were also more varied activities and a very personal and friendly entertainment department who remembered your name, as was also true with the Ocean Princess.  

The Cunard Line  - the three Queens at sea after leaving Lisbon 

Cunard are in between, they are not sure any more where they sit in the hierarchy of cruising. In one breath they say they are the only true ocean going liner and a flag ship of guests and voyages and in the next breath they are doing leg to leg repeats where you feel as if you are not on a voyage at all. Except perhaps the very small minority of passengers who were travelling all the way round and had an exclusive lounge area at the bow all to themselves with a 'strictly no admittance' entry policy for the leg guests. Each to their own of course and everybody gets out what they put in so my opinion is purely personal.  I still loved the ship and the experience.

I will continue to write the remaining blogs in order to print out in book form to keep as my personal diary. I wrote these blogs for my friends who said I must write something of my adventure. A once in a life time experience made possible by the the wonderful creative itinerary that Jacky put together. I tagged along for the ride really, my main part being the driving in New Zealand.

Spectacular New Zealand

In summary I have to say something to close this chapter of blogs of our round the world adventure, the highlight of which was undoubtedly New Zealand's rich tapestry of landscape and culture.  The Maori Legend will always be with me and the kiwi triumph of life in the face of adversity is simple humbling.

The Maori legend

This wondrous small planet of ours that we call "earth" is mysteriously yet strategically placed in a vast vacuum of a universe in
order to preserve and cultivate life. Surely then it must not be abused and

The solar system montage 

neglected by power and greed and the pace of modern life, but rather sustained and cherished lovingly. Beauty such as I have witnessed on our journey should constantly remind us as Earth's fortunate human inhabitants that rare splendours were created for the good of all races, despite challenges of differing creeds, colours and religions.

Planet Earth

We are after all but temporary custodians of a very fragile planet and should be forever grateful for our gift, a gift that surely cannot just simply be a freak of nature or to be explained away by some big bang scientific theory.  I have been awakened again after years of doubt to believe that a superior force, or being, chose Earth's human race to look after, to love and cherish its world and its different cultures to work and live together for all eternity.

Thanks for looking at my blogs and posting some very special comments. God bless and go and see the world, spend the kids' inheritance, they will survive bless them. I promise deep down they would want you to enjoy yourselves!

DKT  - May 10th 2014