We're going around the world! :D

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Hi all,

As most of you are aware by now next Monday my girlfriend and I leave the UK (quite possibly for good) to embark on a journey we've both been dreaming about since teenagers. I'm going to be running a blog about it which can be found here: http://www.jacobellwood.co.uk/blog but I'll be copying and pasting the blog posts into here with the photos for your benefit, aren't I nice?

Below is the most recent post from about 10 days ago.

Just over 2 weeks to go, the final countdown!
By Jake Ellwood on October 23rd, 2015

The final countdown is officially on!

It’s been a long time coming but we can now see light at the end of the tunnel, our break for freedom is getting closer and with us getting busier sorting out the last minute items and saying final goodbyes to people, it’s approaching faster than ever.

Before I get too involved in that, Ana and I went to Bruges recently for a random couple of days away and fun little road trip. We enjoyed it a lot! Lots of walking, enjoying the architecture, the sights…and maybe some Belgian chocolate…ehem.

Have a couple of photos

There are a lot more photos, haven’t had the time to go through them properly yet, I’ll do a separate post for when I do!

Aside from that, I’ve expanded the blog a bit to help document the trip. I’ve added a page called ‘Map‘ and have embedded a Google Map which we will edit and update as our trip progresses. It’s a bit experimental at the moment whilst I play around with it but I can see that growing quite a lot. The idea being that for anyone who wants to know where we were last known to be can see, plus we can link posts/photos to each destination as it’s another way for us to remember key moments…lets see where it goes!

I’ve also added a contact page for anyone that wants to get hold of either of us. I’ve done this in form method to try and avoid unnecessary spam.

What else is going on? Well pretty much everything is sold now, the only remaining BIG item to get rid of is the Sofa, otherwise we’re pretty much there. We move into Dads new place tomorrow as my place has now been sold.

Also, one thing that has been a weird and surreal experience…after years of working and spending on materialistic things…reducing everything down to the absolute bare minimum…either selling off or giving away your possessions as we simply won’t need them for at least a year. The wardrobe now has maybe a weeks worth of clothes (outside of what’s in the backpack), I’ve never owned such a LITTLE amount of tech since I was about 14…it feels good.

I think that’s all for now, the next post will be from Portugal.

Best,
Jake

I'm doing this as when I documented the Iceland trip a lot of people seemed to enjoy it, I'm hoping for a similar result, basically for you all to enjoy the photos and the journey.

If anyone has any suggestions for either the thread or the blog I am open to them - I want the blog to grow over the next year, there has already been talk of a seperate page to run a mini foodie blog as well (we're both foodies ).

Also don't forget to subscribe to the blog if you want email updates

Anyway, that's all for now. Ana and I are counting the days, I'm barely sleeping. Cannot wait for the roller-coaster to begin!

Hope you enjoy,
Jake

 

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Thanks Greebo, yes I've bought 2 extra higher capacity batteries so we should be good

 

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Maybe so! Hit me up if you think we will

 

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Thank you very much

 

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Thanks Jase, I'm sure it will be

 

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Thanks all!

 

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Where are you actually going?

Current plan...

Portugal
Australia
New Zealand
Indonesia
Singapore
Malaysia
Phillippines
Japan
Hong Kong & Macau
Vietnam
Cambodia
Laos
Thailand
Sri Lanka
Egypt
Portugal

 

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Don't worry there will be plenty!

 

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Thanks very much.

Be warned though, there will be lots of foodie photos

 

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OK First update from me, and it includes 2 posts, the first one I didn't do a post of its own as there wasn't much to add, but I'll add it in here anyway!

Next stop, Melbourne!
By Jake Ellwood on November 17th, 2015
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Greetings from Portugal! Olá!

After an extremely busy few months, from booking the flights to Australia back in September, the moment has finally arrived. Today at 13:35, we will be boarding our Emirates flight to Melbourne, Australia.

The journey is as follows. It will stop at Dubai for 90 minutes to change planes, then it carries on until Kuala Lumpur, where the plane will refuel and make its way to the final stop of Melbourne. Total travel time is 25 hours…we’re sure by the end of that we will not be as bouncy as we are now.

Rewinding one week. We left the UK on November 9th and began our drive to Ana’s parents house in Seia, Portugal. The first part of the journey was from Essex to Newhaven, then a ferry crossing to Dieppe, France. From there we drove to Irun, Spain (pretty much without stopping). The next day, we made our way to Portugal, and finally we arrived.

Queue one extremely busy week, unpacking the car, the sofa arriving from the UK (we couldn’t let it go!), re-organising the backpacks, eating A LOT of delicious Portuguese food (although that is standard in this country) and before we knew we’re sitting here in Lisbon airport, before embarking on one of the longest plane journeys possible.

We have updated the Map and have worked out we have covered approximately covered 1250 miles so far.

Also don’t forget you can subscribe to the blog, just enter your email address at the top of the page.

Take off is in 90 minutes.

See you on the other side!

Jake & Ana

Melbourne city, Grampians National Park and the Great Ocean Road

By Jake Ellwood on November 26th, 2015
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Hello all,

So we have been in Australia a week to the day, and we certainly haven’t wasted any time…except the jet lag recovery of course. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t too bad. The service on the flights was very good (Emirates) and with it broken down into 3 x 7 hour flights it kept the intervals regular; although by the time we arrived at the hostel we were very ready for bed. It took us a good 4 or so days to be fully in the swing of things, and you just constantly have that feeling you get from staying up all night as a rebellious young adult.

We were staying in a hostel in St Kilda, and the first few days we ventured into the main city and locally as well (so we could pop back easily enough for a quick nap when needed, plus its easy to get around thanks to the great tram system).

First of all we visited St Kilda’s beach & pier (where we saw Fairy Penguins of all things)

St Kilda also gives an amazing Sunset…

In Melbourne, we visited the famous Queen Victoria Market; now as foodies this was like going to heaven for us. The smell of the food in the air was incredible, seeing fantastically delicious looking things in every direction….mmm…

We decided to take a day and visit the Melbourne Museum which was fantastic! There was lots of interaction with a lot of the exhibits; no doubt it was designed to keep children amused (which is probably why it worked so well on us)! It also has an IMAX cinema showing 3D documentaries and we saw one about the underwater world. The rest of the museum was brilliant!

Our treat for this city was a guided tour of the Grampians National Park where we hoped for stunning views and encountering some nature; we were not disappointed! We would both highly recommend this tour (if you’re coming close to Melbourne any time soon) – It’s a great day out and gives good value for money with the right tour operator. Part of the trip included the commentary where we were lucky to learn a lot about not only Melbourne’s history, but also Australia.

We managed to get up close to a Kangaroo! They’re strange but very cool creatures.

On our last day in Melbourne we explored a bit more, enquired about a riverboat cruise but decided not to and instead went for the Eureka Skydeck, which is a viewing level on the 88th floor of Melbourne’s tallest building; the view was breathtaking!

And that concluded our visit to Melbourne city! We both really enjoyed it here. The people were friendly, the food was good (which is the most important thing of course), the city has a lot of history from when Australia was colonised and the gold rush era as well.

Over the next few days we picked up a hire car and our target was Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road and the coast line, stopping in 3 small towns as we go to break the journey up.

The Great Ocean Road was something we had been especially looking forward to for a long time. We had heard nothing but good things and seen incredible photos online, so our expectations were high…Once again, we were not disappointed! The weather started out a bit overcast but really brightened up later in the day.

Along the way, following a recommendation, we stopped at Maits Rest (along the GOR) to visit a rainforest!

The last part of the Great Ocean Road was stopping for the 12 Apostles. They were…well the photos can do the talking.

That sums our first week! Tomorrow we will reach Adelaide in the morning, check in at our AirBnB and begin exploring once again! We will put in information about the rest of the drive on the next blog post.

That’s all for now!

Jake & Ana

I hope that's not too many photos...

Anyway, I left some out, but the original blog post is here if anyone wants it http://jacobellwood.co.uk/blog/phot...pians-national-park-and-the-great-ocean-road/

Oh also, I'm not looking for C&C on this stuff. It isn't a photography trip, just a lifelong dream I'm sharing with you, I hope you enjoy it.

Jake

 

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Thanks all, glad you're enjoying them!

Nice one Wez, can't wait for NZ. Feel free to put the photos in here if you like

Today we held a Koala, which was ridiculously cute and cool. The supervisor didn't find it too amusing when I told Ana to open the backpack and get ready to run though...

Flying to Brisbane tomorrow!

 

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Glad you're enjoying yourself!

Really jealous you're getting to see Melbourne and the GOR. I couldn't do it when I was there as it was too cold!

Koalas smell funny don't they?

Where are you staying in Brisbane? Just to let you know, Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin one) is just outside Brisbane and well worth seeing.

Aussie (the Koala) didn't smell smell. After you gave him back we could tell we had been holding an animal but a few minutes of airing out and the smell was gone - oddly lots have people have asked us if the Koala smelled!

Speaking of Koalas ....

 

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Brisbane is pretty...

More coming soon

 

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30 degrees and 65% humidity....

It's a tough life... Someone's gotta do it

 

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Jacob, make sure you check out the Southbank area and the artificial beach if you haven't already.

South bank done well. Love it, the night vibe is awesome. City beach was fun!

 

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Good for you guys One of my friends and his partner have just done what you have it seems like a popular thing too do in this odd world we live in and its completely understandable when onces life can end so suddenly these days.

One question I would like to ask and that is how much money do you and your partner have in your bank account before setting of on an adventure like this ? And what plans do you have when its all over ?

I'll be following you guys as I want to do this myself once I have no debts all bills to worry about.

We've budgeted around £1000 per month each to do this. We know that Aus & NZ will cost more per month but SE Asia will be considerably cheaper so it'll balance out.

We will both come back with plenty of change so no panic there. Afterward...we want to travel more! Do some volunteering, visit countries we haven't been able to this time around.

No other plans or commitments. I won't be coming back to England though!

 

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Ah yeah, we wont be buying things like that as we wont be doing something so silly like getting married

We're off to Moreton island today! Will be doing a blog post soon with photos from Adelaide!

 

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I hope you're taking good care of that!

 

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Sorry! Yes we've done Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns and Port Douglas and now we are in Sydney...

Unfortunately, my MacBook Pro is in for repair - but we've done the blog posts - http://www.jacobellwood.co.uk/blog - you'll see the posts

I'll copy them to here when I get my laptop back this week

 

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How did you break a brand new MBP?

I didn't. I picked it up one day a couple of weeks ago and noticed a knocking noise...shook it, really loud knocking noise. Figured out it was coming from the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Did some googling and found that it has been happening on these new models...doesn't affect it at all...but still not good for a few month old laptop!

Anyway, picked it up today, they replaced the screen and the noise is gone. Good Apple warranty

So...Adelaide...

Adelaide – Gorge Wildlife Park
By Jake Ellwood on December 11th, 2015

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Hi all!

Sorry for the delay with the photos and the blog post; as always we have been very busy with a lot going on and several things happening in quick succession!

Anyway, that aside we arrived in Adelaide safe and sound. The remaining drive after the great ocean road was quiet and uneventful, but that was always going to be the case when you’re comparing it to the GOR.

We spent a week in Adelaide and stayed in a room via AirBNB in Underdale, which was close to the beach, the city and the airport! Our host was fantastic and if you’re ever looking for accommodation in that area, we can pass on her details.

Adelaide city itself was quite the contrast compared to Melbourne! It’s much smaller, very quiet, not many tall buildings and also quite widely spread out. It made a nice change when walking around and exploring though.

On the first day we decided to get the bus, but being impatient, we decided to walk towards the city and go to the next stop to pass the time…which we kept doing…before we knew it we had walked to the city! We walked towards the centre then headed north to the river and walked along there, doubled back through the botanic gardens and headed back into the centre and the market (which by the way was nuts) and then eventually got the bus back to Underdale. The Fitbit told us we had walked over 14km that day! No wonder our feet were sore!

(My cat is called Tony...didn't realise his empire had spread so much )

Over the course of the week we explored more of Adelaide, went to Henley Beach, had a lazy sofa day and then finished the visit off with a trip to the Gorge Wildlife Park, with our main objective was to have a cuddle with a Koala…and we certainly did!!!

The park was somewhere we both really enjoyed, it was great for not only getting up close to animals, but ones which are very tame and used to humans. We were very surprised when the Kangaroos came up to us looking for attention and a stroke.

Naturally we saw a wide variety of animals throughout the day, we would really recommend it as a place for the whole family. Entry is only $15pp as well, so not bad at all!

They have Koala holdings at certain times of the day, you do not need to book in advance nor do you have to pay extra; you queue up, they bring the Koala’s out, wait your turn and you can either have a pat or a cuddle, ask lots of questions (we certainly did) and get some photos!

We also thought about opening the backpack to fit the little guy in…which we were sure the keeper hadn’t heard before…wonder why she didn’t look very happy; we thought it was a brilliant idea!

That’s it from Adelaide, a great little sleepy city which was well worth the visit. Next up, Brisbane!

Jake & Ana

Will do the Brisbane Blog post tomorrow - Enjoy!

Blog post link

Jake & Ana