These are a colelction of photos taken over the last two years (2004-2006) of various parts of Northumberland and Tyneside. From the quayside to Wallsend, via Tynemouth up the Northumberland coast and into the Cheviots.
I wrote the below just over two months ago:
It’s 2pm on Wednesday 23rd August. I went cycling at lunch and whilst out and about, I decided to get a blog set up on our web site.
It’s going to be used for logging our around the world trip; both the planning and the trip itself.
I’m using WordPress (http://wordpress.org/), which is an extremely easy to use blogging tool.
It’s now 25th October and I have switched our old web site to this new one. See the About page for more info.
Over the last few weeks we’ve been buying most of the kit we’ll need for the trip. We’re sticking to a single rucksack each and trying to go as light as possible, however this is tricky given the amount of things we need.
The most expensive items have been:
The amount of electronic stuff we are taking is a bit mad: two mp3 players, two cameras, two phones. It’s not the device themselves, more the power/USB cables that take up the space. For data storage, we are taking a range of memory cards and backing up to CD and uploading to Flickr when we can. We’ve been fairly good at picking up bargains from shops and Ebay.
Our kit list/budget will also include jabs, which will be around £250 each and insurance, which will be around £140 each.
Had the “free†jabs yesterday: hepatitis A & typhoid in one arm and polio/diptheria/tetanus in the other. Both arms now aching quite a bit… drove to Jon & Katia’s last night and it hurt to put the pound coin in the tyne tunnel booth (had to stretch out).
Just getting to grips with this blogging business. Paul has been moaning at me for not writing anything yet. Sitting here watching the start of the Great North Run that my friend Maria is running in – Good luck Maria!
House got put up for rent last Friday (22nd Sept) via Belvoir:
http://www.belvoirlettings.com/25255/ 
It’s weird seeing your own place on a web site with a price tag. Kind of further confirmation that we are going to be leaving it behind. I was cleaning out the grate in the front room the other day and thought “we probably won’t have another open fire in this house†(unless of course November gets cold, which it hasn’t over the last couple of years). Sad thoughts really… we’ve put so much work into it over the last few years and love living there. Obviously it’s not just the fact that we are off travelling but that we will be living down south when we come back from travelling.
It will be great if we get the rental income, though 
It was only three weeks after we’d booked the tickets that Thailand decides it’s time to start messing up our plans. I had thought that it was a stable enough place, and didn’t even bother researching the political situation in the country. However, it’s fairly easy to find out the events that precipitated the coup.
The main story on BBC and other places is that people are annoyed at that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s handling of the sale of his multi-billion telecoms business to Singaporean investors, and his avoidance of tax. This ended up in the (then) PM’s rushed general election in April; the opposition didn’t bother to register and so it was a worthless victory.
However, if you read a little further into things it seems that there is another element/undercurrent to the story. 
Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin (pictured, looking like he’s just been woken up), the supreme commander of the armed forces, is a Muslim. He’s the first Muslim in charge of the Thai army. There have been events in various southern parts of the country (Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla) that the FCO call civil unrest and insurgency; 1,400 people have been killed in these areas in the last 2 1/2 years. These are predominantly Muslim areas in what is a mainly a Buddhist country. The appointment of the General was meant to try and appease the Muslim minority in these areas and help the civil unrest. Now he’s staging a coup d’etat. Makes you think.
Anyway, I hope that things are cleared up. A country that relies as much on its tourism as much as its textile and rice exports, isn’t going to want to dry up its stream of visitors.
Photos from our holiday to the Dingle Peninsula in September 2006, Co Kerry with Jon and Katia.
Had the jabs for Yellow Fever yesterday (Monday 11th) in Whitley Bay at the authorised yellow fever place. Neither of us had had a needle poked in us for a while and so we were somewhat nervous beforehand.
Becs went first and the nurse got her to lie down in case she felt faint. As it happens she could barely feel it. As I went second I was able to ‘handle it’ sitting up on a chair.
It’s a virus transmitted by mosquitos, and if we hadn’t been immunised against it, we could have caught it in Africa and/or South America. As with other viruses (like the jolly Japanese B encephalitis), there is no cure and treatment is ’symptomatic’ (ie they try to make you feel nicer by making you cups of tea and putting wet flannels on your forehead). It’s quite possible to die from: mortality is between 15-50%.
The vaccine is a live, supposedly avirulent, strain of the virus, known as 17D. This has been used for 50 years ‘without reproach’ but then again you come across things like this that make you think! However, you also read stuff like this:
The low incidence of yellow fever, generally a few hundred reported cases per year, has led to complacency among travelers. Four of the five cases of yellow fever among travelers from the United States and Europe in 1996-2002 were exposed in South America. All five cases were fatal and occurred among unvaccinated travelers.
(from the US CDC – Centre for Disease Control)
Cost was £84 (£42 each).
Only TB, Typhoid, Polio, Tetanus, Diptheria, Japenese B, Hep A, Hep B and Rabies to go!
On Monday (4th September) I booked the tickets. We had gone into http://www.courtneyairsavers.com/ on the Saturday before we went to Ireland and planned the route.
It’s made everything a lot more real, as we have now put down some hard cash for something! I don’t have the details here (this is being written from a hotel room in Aberdeen) so I will put the exact dates and so on when I’m back home.
Edit: the dates are now correct.
8th December
Heathrow T4 – Nairobi
(BA65 Dep 1005 Arr 2120)
A month in Kenya with Dan, Pilar and Alex, and some safari-ing.
9th/10th January
Nairobi – Dubai T1 – Bangkok
(EK720 Dep 1715 Arr 2315; EK384 Dep 0315 Arr 1205)
5 weeks in Thailand, hopefully with a dash of Cambodia and a trip down Malaysia to Singapore.
12th February
Singapore T1 – Perth
(QF72 Dep 0910 Arr 1510)
12 days in Western Australia
24th February
Perth T2 – Sydney T3
(QF580 Dep 1025 Arr 1725)
18 days on the eastern coast of Australia, Sydney and the Barrier Reef with Tim.
16th March
Sydney T1 – Christchurch TM
(QF45 Dep 0925 Arr 1420)
5 weeks in New Zealand, overland to Auckland.
13th April
Auckland T1 – Santiago T1
(QF321 Dep 1715 Arr 1245)
5 weeks in Chile and Peru.
20th/21st May
Lima – Madrid 4S – Heathrow T2
(BA7233/IB6650 Dep 2055 Arr 1435; BA7058/IB3166 Dep 1630 Arr 1750)
Back home in time for Charlotte and Will’s wedding!
Cost
Now the bad bit! Total cost for the tickets is £3490 (including taxes) for the both of us (£1745 each). It’s slightly more expensive than more RTW tickets as we are having to pay extra for the leg down to Kenya as Africa isn’t covered in standard RTW routes. Standard fare for that route excluding Kenya is £2790 (£1395 each). Kenya flights are £700 (£350 each).
