Well, that was it! This was our first great adventure together. Since that trip we have been back to Australia and New Zealand, both countries hold a special place in our hearts. We have not been back to any of the Asian countries we visited, and do not really have any desires to do so in the foreseeable future either. We have over the years realized that we enjoy more “westernized” countries and cities, and that it basically why, some people love and travel all over Asia, we have not done that, it is that simple.

To see two pacific islands was cool but we think and read in our journals that our tight budget and expectations did not meet the standards we could afford at the time. We have been back to the pacific later, visiting Tahiti, Easter Island and the Galapagos Islands. 1997 was our first around the world trip, and we did it again in 2005, and we will not be surprised if we do it one more time in the future. It was an adventure, with highs and lows. We can see now that we both were sick a few times during the trip, and that we both longed for not staying in dorms. We also did the classic mistake of trying to do too much in too short time, we can read that in our diaries quite a lot, it is better to allow better time to slow down and get a feel for a place before traveling on down the highway.

We made it through the whole journey without having any big rows or falling outs, we can see that Tanja worries a bit about this, after all, we had only been together for a few years, and living on top of each other for 24 hours a day, can make any couple a bit loopy.

We met many great people along the way, sadly we have lost contact with all of them, we wish that maybe one or two will read this and find the younger self a part of someone else’s adventure of a lifetime.

And what were the highligts? Australia for sure, standing on top of Ayers Rock was a once in a liftetime experience. Surfing in Byron Bay and snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef among the others. Black Water Rafting in New Zealand was another highlight, and we did revisit many of the places we saw both on the North and South Island when we came back in 2005.

We hope those of you who have read some or all of the epic 19 posts from our travel diaries have enjoyed the read. It is a verbatim translation directly from the diaries, no censoring og altercations have been done. Thank you for following and liking, travel safe and let love rule.