We landed in the UK on 3 January 2013 after a night flight from Bangkok . We had left the UK on 25 August whilst it was still warm, green and pleasant. Since then, it has felt like we have more or less followed the sun around the world. We of course expected to arrive back in the middle of winter, nevertheless, it still felt surprising somehow to see the bare trees, mist, cloud and the shortened days. However, we can now enjoy the novelty of a European winter and having to do strange things like wear shoes, a jumper etc. We can also enjoy the things we'd missed during our travels. Top of the list was undoubtedly cheese. Apart from New Zealand, we'd found that in quite a large proportion of the world the word 'cheese' means improbable stacks of plastic orange sheets or foiled-wrapped triangles. What a luxury to now be able to have aged cheddar, manchego, roquefort and brie...

Arriving home, we found that our lovely families had cleaned our house, bought us flowers, sent us a parcel of goodies to cheer us and stocked up on food (including the aforementioned cheeses). What a brilliant homecoming!

Over the coming days, we are looking forward to enjoying further missed pleasures such as going to the cinema, baking bread, drinking champagne, wearing different (non-smelly) clothes and playing guitar.

We've had some amazing experiences on our travels; hang-gliding/ paragliding; volcano-sledging; white-water rafting; Angkor Wat-ing; elephant-riding and reef-diving to mention but a few. The highlight of the trip is hard to choose, but we both agree that the five day trek in the Torres del Paine National Park, Chile, is about the best thing we experienced on our travels. The hiking and camping in a vast, dramatic icy wilderness and the sense of achievement from reaching the Torres (the Towers) at sunrise on the last day, will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

We've met some wonderful people on our travels and we've also seen how lucky we are to be able to live so comfortably as we do in this country. We hope we can always keep that memory in mind.

Thanks to everyone who has followed our trip.

Love,

Chris and Steph