Round the World in 150 days



Howtown, Ullswater before the trip

At last Gregor and Debbi have started their round the world trip. They won £6 at the races in Hong Kong but it was spent on cocktails. They are staying in hostels and with relations for some of the time during the 9 weeks in Australia and New Zealand.  I had a surprise phone call from Sydney yesterday, they had booked a hostel but did not have the address with them so could I look it up on Google Map and direct them to the hostel. It was cheaper to do this by phone using an Oz SIM card to the UK than to pay for time at an internet cafe. They really are living on a budget.

They have spent 4 days in Melbourne and will be in Sydney for a week before moving up the coast to Queensland where they will stay with my cousin Robin for the weekend. He has a splendid estate on a river with boats, various exotic vehicles and other mantoys to play with.  It should keep the costs down for them and allow them to access the barrier reef.

They should have fine tuned their travel style by Christmas when they will be in New Zealand. Gregor will be expecting the family to boost his finances, £2000 for 5 months did seem a bit optimistic. The South American leg of the trip in the new year will last 3 months and they have no contacts there to help eke out their dwindling resources.

Honkers here they come

Returning and cleaning the car

Hong Kong nightlife

Gregor and his girlfriend Debbi have now left the country on a 5 month round the world trip. They managed, largely as a result of my constant nagging, to keep their packs down to 12kg as they set off on the first leg to Hong Kong or Honkers as Gregor dubbed it yesterday. They continue via Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil. Aileen retrieved the keys for her Mini, which Gregor had dragooned for the past 2 years, and he had cleaned it as well. We gave them a send-off in Byres Road where we had a stretched lunch at La Vallee Blanche, a fine French restaurant in Byres Road.

It seemed like the start of my real retirement, with all of the children now more than 400 miles away. Today was the start of the winter rains with the roads unable to cope. We had lunch at Blairgarry with Ellie, Alan and Pauline. The Milton Burn was fuller than I have ever seen it and the roar could be heard 100 metres away in the lounge of Blairgarry. And at the end of the week, we fly off to Delhi for a three-week post-retirement trip to India and Nepal.