And so I'm finishing this as I began, sat on the sofa at Highfield Gardens...

We arrived back at Heathrow at 5am on Friday, headlong into predictably miserable weather (I shouldn't have worn sandals, I nearly got frostbite). But despite that I'm ridiculously happy to be home! At the moment I'm walking around amazed by the novelty value of the most stupidly mundane things like road signs and English coins. Not loving the fact I can't mentally halve every price I see now though!

It was SO good to see family and friends again. And my lovely, lovely housemates had even cobbled together a little hamper of food and cider for me (nearly all gone now)! I spent my first evening back lodged on the sofa with Mr Boxall, eating takeaway, drinking Kopparberg and watching Series 2 of Spaced. Then last night I went out to the Bless to be reunited with lots more lovely people.

As this is the final blog I thought I'd put in a few random stats for you...

Best trip: Our safari to Uluru
Most used phrase: "Shall we have a cheap one tomorrow?"
Worst hostel: Adventurers Backpackers, Townsville
Most beautiful landscape: Mt. Aspiring National Park, New Zealand
Best food eaten: Okonomiyaki in Chiba
Number of cups of tea drunk: Approximately four million
Number of books read by Jim: Nine
Best city: Melbourne
Things I missed most whilst I was away: Friends and family, cider, BBC 6Music, cooking properly for myself, having a wardrobe of ironed clothes to choose from as opposed to a crumpled selection of tat...
Wierdest person we met: Rab C Nesbitt woman from the Whitsundays trip
Number of Botanic Gardens visited: Far too many
Best cafe: Cafe Bibliotec Hello, Kyoto
Worst moment: Losing my camera in Takamatsu
Number of hours spent on buses: 20 million

Things I will miss:
1. Waking up and knowing you're going to see something new and, more than likely, quite beautiful
2. Meeting new people all the time
3. Sunshine
4. Cheap sushi

Things I won't miss:
1. Air travel
2. Killing time
3. Lugging that bloody backpack around
4. Jim (joke!)

Travelling is definitely the best thing I've ever done. I'm already planning the next trip...