After 14 months exploring the wonderful country of New Zealand, sampling the Kiwi way of life, hospitality (& wine) and meeting the weird & wonderful wildlife, and a further 2 months immersed in the stimulating, colourful, exhilarating and at times exhausting countries of SE Asia, our journey ends in North Wales, on a relaxing week's holiday with Mum & Dad, designed to allow us time to catch up on the last 16 months and recover from, er, our 16 month holiday! The fact that it's taken me almost a week to actually put pen to paper (as it were) and add this little adventure to our blog is an indication of how we are settling back into life in the UK, finding work, catching up with friends and WWOOFing for our parents while they provide free food & accommodation for a couple of months… slowly!

Mum & Dad hired a lovely little cottage in the Conway Valley at Trefriw, close to Snowdonia National Park, which acted as our base for a week of walking in the glorious Welsh countryside, exploring castles, towns, unusual properties, RSPB reserves and the island of Anglesey, eating delicious food, and of course lots of tea breaks (quite how many breaks we take daily for tea, etc, only became apparent as I was sorting the pictures out - quite a lot it would seem, I was almost embarrassed, almost…) The first thing that struck Su & I upon our arrival was the stunning countryside of North Wales. I don't know why we hadn't expected it, or for that matter why we haven't been before, but we were blown away at just how beautiful it is. As with parts of New Zealand, North Wales receives more than its fair share of rainfall so the valleys of gently rolling hills are lush with an array of vibrant greens, the fields are separated with dry-stone walling, ancient woodlands are abundant and most noticeably it feels old. New Zealand is obviously a very young country in terms of settlement and the thing we both missed there was history. Here the countryside feels old, perhaps old isn't quite the right description - in NZ we often felt as though we were walking through Jurassic landscapes and at times we wouldn't have been particularly surprised if a T-Rex had jumped out at us (except for the fact that they are long gone, but you know what I mean). Here, when you walk through the countryside you can really sense the history, myths and legends of the land, and I think we both felt it, perhaps more than normal, because of our recent travels.

We enjoyed a couple of beautiful walks in the Welsh countryside, the first from the doorstep of our cottage to Llyn Crafnant, a nearby lake, which we walked around (via a tearoom, lunch stop & cake stop!) before returning. It was a fabulous start to our holiday, and a wonderful introduction to the beautiful countryside, as well as a lovely, relaxed environment in which to walk, reintroduce ourselves to the sight & sound of UK birds & other wildlife, and catch up with each other's news. A couple of days later we headed out for another walk, this time to Nant-y-Coed, an ancient woodland (Coed means wood in Welsh) behind the village of Llanfairfechan, which was enchanting, a tiny magical little space full of verdant plant life, a tumbling river which we crossed with stepping stones, and filled with birds. We could have remained here for the larger part of the day, but it was only the first tiny section of a longer walk that took us up into the hills from where we had amazing views over the sea and nearby island of Anglesey, and eventually picked up a Roman Road which led us back. But I say eventually for good reason, for although we were following a guided walk from a walking book, the book did not include a proper map, only a diagram, and the instructions were sometimes rather vague to say the least! We stumbled around the hills, amongst sheep following directions like follow the stone markers until the last one, then ignore the indication to turn right and continue straight ahead, which is of course only useful if you know which marker is the last one! Overall our stumbling around was successful, and we found our way to the Roman Road, but the way back down was even more vague and we completely missed our downward route, eventually finding a path that simply led downwards and involved a massive detour. Still, we found our way back to the car, thankfully seconds before a downpour began which had been threatening for a while, and were all very happy to see the car, and the flasks of tea! Sadly our planned walk at Snowdonia was abandoned due to the weather - yes, ok you can call us fair weather walkers, but true Welsh weather had returned and it was grey, veering between light drizzle and heavy downpours and more importantly the clouds had closed in so that Snowdon itself was not visible. So we contented ourselves with a little drive around the national park and a few tea stops!

During the week we stopped in at a couple of RSPB reserves, to help reacquaint ourselves with British birds and see what was about. One was the reserve at Conway, perhaps not my favourite - although about 15 years old it still didn't feel fully established and was perhaps a little sterile, though it had wonderful views over to Conway Castle, but the second was the cliffs at South Stack, over on the island of Anglesey. We actually arrived about 15 minutes after a sea mist had blown in and the entire area seemed a little eerie and cold, but we walked, carefully, around the cliff tops, which were covered in purple heather and yellow gorse, had a quick cuppa to see if the weather would change again for us and we were rewarded after a while when the mist lifted, the mournful sound of the foghorn ceased and we were treated to wonderful views over the sheer cliffs, over to the lighthouse and more importantly to the thousands of birds nesting on the cliffs below, including guillemots, razorbills, puffins, and the chough whose numbers are on the decline. Standing on those cliffs looking down took both Su & I back to the Catlins in NZ where we stood on similar cliffs at the Nuggets, albeit watching very different wildlife.

We also spent some time in the Welsh towns & villages, exploring Conway Castle, and some of the more unusual buildings in the area. Conway Castle, built by Edward I of England, is an impressive semi-ruinous structure in a prominent position overlooking the Conway estuary which dates from the late 1200s. Today it is an empty shell with an inner and outer ward to explore and turrets from where you can look out over the walled town of Conway, said to be one of the finest medieval walled towns in Europe, along the Conway estuary and to the Welsh countryside beyond. And in case you're wondering about the number of silly photos on the website, this was the point at which we were filling Mum & Dad in on the habits of certain cultures when it comes to taking photographs - I'll say no more! In addition to the might of the castle there were two smaller properties that really caught our imagination during this trip. One was Britain's Smallest House, which is on the harbour side at Conway, and consists of only 2 rooms, one up and one down, and was obviously built for somebody very short (hence would be perfect for Su!) although its last inhabitant was 6 foot 3! Sadly we didn't get to see inside this tiny property but found it charming to look at from outside. The other property was the Ugly House (Ty Hyll), just outside the village of Betws-y-Coed in the Snowdonia National Park, although it was certainly not ugly - we all fell in love with it and wanted to move in! There are several stories and legends surrounding the building of this property, but one stands out above all the others and hence that is the one I shall tell here because it's so wonderful I want it to be true! It refers to the ancient law of Ty Un Nos which states that if you could build a property between sunrise and sunset with 4 walls and a chimney with smoke rising from it by daybreak then you were entitled to keep that property. Furthermore, if you stood at all 4 corners of the property and threw an axe then the land between the property and where the axe fell is your land! The result is a captivating little building, seemingly thrown together with large lumps of rock, which today houses the Snowdonia Society. Again we were unable to see inside the property but the grounds were open to all for a walk and we spent ages here, both in the stunning cottage garden, and the small woodland beyond which is a real wildlife lover's dream. If you're ever in the area you have to pop in!

Finally the story of our trip to Wales wouldn't be complete without the mention of food. Su has returned home where she left off - as the mistress of the kitchen - and our trip was no exception as she took control of the food budget and much of the cooking. We breakfasted on her homemade granola, with fruit and yoghurt, a wonderful start to the day, munched our way through the day with fresh homemade sandwiches made by Mum and/or Su, plus Mum's Christmas cake & sausage rolls and Su's Madeira cake, and finished the day off with a home-cooked meal of roast chicken, trout, or a variety of locally made pies and cheeses. We also found a delightful pub called the Lord Newborough at Dolgarrog, which was a magnificent find. Under relatively new ownership this pub served outstanding food, mostly locally sourced, at excellent value. It really is one of the best pub restaurants any of us have been to, and I still dream of their lamb cooked in hazelnuts - it was mouth-wateringly good. We also stopped out a few times for tea and in a little café at Llanberis in Snowdonia National Park where we munched on honey scones and cream, we encountered Daryl Jones, a true Welsh character who owned the teashop and various associated businesses selling local produce. We got into conversation with him about some photographs on his wall by a local artist who specialised in night landscapes, and had captured some amazing pictures of the Northern Lights over the Welsh countryside, a rare occurrence, and ended up with some fabulous stories, told in English with Welsh pronunciation, and a Welsh bear hug as we left. He put a smile on our faces that remained for some time.

And so now we are back home and beginning the next stage of our lives. We are planning to stay at Mum & Dad's for 2 or 3 months to earn a little bit of money and also stabilise plans for the future. As mentioned at the start of the blog we are helping with some work about the house & garden in exchange for their kind invitation to stay without paying for food or board while we save. Su has today begun work back at the bakery where she worked before departing for New Zealand, and it looks increasingly likely that I can find some relief work back at the library for the summer months and may also be able to find some work at the Wine Cellar in Hunstanton depending on how many hours I can get at the library. I'm also reviewing the blog before we get a journal printed (I just know there will be many spelling & grammar mistakes within as much of the time it was a race against the meter) which will give me a chance to reflect on all our wonderful adventures, and I'm looking over my many thousand photos to see if any are worth entering into various travel photography competitions. I'm also going to see if I can turn any of our many experiences, good and bad into travel articles. Who knows?

And so I guess that's all folks! Su and I have had a truly wonderful adventure over the last 16 months. We've almost become an old married couple as we've actually lived and worked together since working in Greece in 2006, Su taking care of the food and budget, while I've taken care of the organising and job-hunting - we've made a good team. And it will be really strange now to set out on our own again, as we are heading in different directions (it was strange enough in Wales to have separate bedrooms, although we both loved it - Su could go to sleep early without her eye mask on and I sat up for hours listening to music and reading!) We've experienced many wonderful things together and helped each other through the tough times that come inevitably with travel. We both owe a huge thank-you to Mum & Dad for all their support and encouragement throughout this adventure, not to mention putting up with us while we saved our pennies, and also a big thank you to those of you who have been following the blog - it has proven a wonderful way to keep in touch with life back home, we're in contact with friends and some family members who we haven't seen for years just because of this blog, and of course we've met many people along the way who have continued to follow our adventures. But mostly I want to thank my lovely sister Su for being a wonderful travel companion, and for putting up with me as I've been glued to computers, swearing madly as they've taken hours to load my pictures, or loaded them out of order, or even lost a chunk of my writing!

So with lots of love to our family, and all our friends old & new who helped to make our adventure into the wonderful experience it was, we'll sign off for the last time. Thanks for the amazing memories!

With love, Jo & Su, xxx