GAME OVER!

Home soil, safe and sound. Tea, chocolate, fish and chips! We've been reunited with our stuff and realised we have a new view of it - it's all junk! If we can live out of a bag for 8 months we don't need all that rubbish, we don't even like most of it! So, prompted by our memories of Father Townsend's garage full of junk, we gave the local charity shops a little boost, and following in the footsteps of brother David Townsend (who one of these days will put his own wife on Ebay) we are going to make our millions selling the rest of our junk on Ebay!

So, a summary:

Best liked country: Fiji

Least liked country: America

Best hostel: HI Buffalo, America

Worst hostel: Hostel of the Rockies, Denver, America

New likes: Pad Thai (noodle dish), sushi, fresh lychees, watching elephants wee

New dislikes: overnight buses, durian (yukky fruit!), being sneezed on by elephants

Number of different beds: 52

Number of vehicles used:

cars - 11

planes - 10

trains -14

subway/underground -10

buses - 29

coaches - 27

taxis - 19

minibuses - 13

boats - 11

gondolas - 1

tuk tuks - 15

elephants - 1

bamboo raft - 1

white water raft - 1

walking - miles and miles and miles!

Most amazing things God made: the Grand Canyon, New Zealand West Coast, Niagara Falls, sunsets, bamboo, coral reefs and fishies, the sea, lots of lovely and amazing people!

Most amazing things people made: pyramids and stuff in Mexico, big towers like Empire State and Petronas, huts out of bamboo...errr...ok God wins.

Some pretty awesome specific answers to specific prayers - some of these definitely miracles!:

Upgrade and £800 on first flight

Our car sold after we left (thanks to Matt's Dad!)

Cal's glandular fever all gone!

A free car from Denver to Tucson, USA

Fiji coup didn't kill us

A place to stay in New Zealand (thanks Dave and Regan)

Money for our medicals in NZ for visas

Visas that came through unfeasibly quickly!

A job in NZ, lots of hours, but only for 3 months

Enough money to continue travels after NZ

Insurance all sorted when camera stolen - new one quickly

Some hefty fees fo flight changes not charged

Camera fixed itself when on the blink

....and lots more relating to other people too! Thank you to God for all that and for keeping us in one piece. He is amazing!

If you want to know more, hear more, see more - invite us round for tea!!

See you soon and put the kettle on....

THE END