The Long Journey Home: An Outline
‘All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.’ – Martin Buber.
‘When you truly love your journey, the destination is just a bonus.’ – Katrina Mayer.
Disclaimer: I have wanted to click ‘publish’ on this post for ages! I have known about my big travel plans for April-June 2016 for more than six months and it’s been really difficult keeping quiet until my plans were more firmly fixed in place. But at last I am in a position where I can let you know exactly what I’ll be doing until June 2016.
The First Clue
You got your first clue about where I might be heading when I posted my anti-bucket list back in August. I already knew at that point that I would hopefully be ticking one of the big five off my list in 2016, as well as one from the cheat list I incorporated at the bottom of the post. My next clue came when I posted in October about my future plans. I hinted that I had something big on the horizon that I was super excited about, but I had to remain pretty tight-lipped about my travel plans until I was one hundred percent certain that this major trip of 2016 was going ahead.
A Big Announcement
Well, I’m happy to finally be able to tell you that we are going to be doing the Trans-Siberian Railway*! And this isn’t all – I’ll also be heading back to the South Island for a two week road trip before leaving New Zealand.
I am beyond excited for this trip. We have finally paid for things and we’ve set a date. Come April, we will be leaving New Zealand for good and travelling overland back to the UK, arriving back in June.
*visas allowing!!
So, without further ado, let me share the exciting details on this incredible trip!
South Island, New Zealand
My travels will begin with a short trip back to the South Island. I will have roughly nine or ten days to explore some of my favourite places in New Zealand, including Wanaka, the West Coast, Aoraki / Mt Cook and Glenorchy.
I’m hoping to hike part of the Routeburn track, camp and cook my own meals, walk lots of shorter tracks and take loads of photos. I generally just want to enjoy some time in the great outdoors making the most of the late New Zealand summer.
North Island, New Zealand
After my South Island road trip, I’ll be heading back to Wellington for one night to say goodbye to my friends here. I’ll then continue to Auckland the next day to spend a couple of nights with one of my oldest friends, her partner and their baby.
Our timing sucks – I’ll have been living here for 18 months by then and she’s been living in the UK. Now that I’ve decided to leave New Zealand indefinitely, she’s moving here for good! Still, it is nice to know that I’ll always have someone to meet me at the airport when I get off my long-haul flights in the future. I already know that when I leave New Zealand in April, it won’t be the last time I’m in the country. I love it too much to stay away for long!
Mongolia
From Auckland, I am flying to Ulaan Batar in Mongolia. I am beyond excited and more than a little nervous about this. It’ll be my first solo trip outside of
a non-English speaking country! Yes, it’s taken me until the grand old age of
twenty seven to pluck up the courage to travel alone to a country that will really push me out of my comfort zone.
Understandably, I am feeling a bit daunted at the prospect of travelling here, but I’ve booked something wonderful. I was inspired by Young Adventuress and her travels in Mongolia. I’ll be spending a week horse riding in the steppe with a company called Steppe Riders. Number one on my anti-bucket list ticked off!
For those of you who don’t know, I used to be a keen horse rider. I owned a horse for ten years before he sadly passed away in March last year. Before that, we had a pony and up until the age of twenty three, I rode very regularly. I spent summers at my local riding school helping out with the daily horse care and getting as many free rides as I could.
While I would say I am an experienced horse rider, I have to admit I will be extremely rusty when I get back into the saddle in Mongolia! No doubt I will ache like hell for the first few days! However, I really can’t wait to get back into it and experience the vast Mongolian steppe from horseback.
China, specifically, Beijing
Once my week with Steppe Riders is over, I will be heading to Beijing for the next stage of what I am unofficially christening ‘The Long Journey
Home’. I’ll be meeting up with P in Beijing and from then on we’ll be travelling together.
P is spending a few weeks in China prior to my arrival, and Beijing will come at the end of his time in the country. He’s planned much of our stay there, so I’m unsure exactly what we’ll be up to! All I do know is that we are spending a few days in Beijing together, exploring the city and hopefully getting out to see the Great Wall. And then… The Long Journey Home really begins.
The Trans-Siberian (China, Mongolia and Russia)
On the 4th May we will be hopping onto the first of many trains that will take us across Asia. We’ll spend nineteen days traversing China, Mongolia and Russia in our bid to get home using trains alone.
We have booked our trip with Real Russia and after some back and forth we decided to book the trip ourselves rather than do one of their tours. It worked out so much cheaper. It also meant we could add in a stop at Krasnoyarsk between Irkutsk and Moscow. You can see our route in the map below.
After stopping in Ulaanbaatar for five days, we’ll travel north into Russia, stopping first in Irkutsk. Irkutsk lies close to Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake in the world. It contains roughly 20% of the world’s unfrozen surface fresh water (cheers Wikipedia!). We’ve scheduled five days here before getting back on the train. Following Irkutsk, we’ll travel onto Krasnoyarsk, where we will spend three days before the final push all the way to Moscow.
The Russian section of our journey is perhaps the biggest mystery of the entire trip, since I simply can’t begin to imagine what it will all actually be like. I understand that I’ll be seeing the bare minimum of what Russia has to offer. However, I am eager to experience what I can of the country and find out what it is really like, beyond the picture that is painted by the media.
I can’t help but think that it is going to be one of the biggest challenges I will ever face. It’s also going to be one of the biggest adventures I will ever have too! I’m glad I’ll be making the journey with P, as we will have each other’s backs. Any problems we encounter can be faced together, rather than alone!
On into Europe…
After Moscow, P and I are keeping our plans deliberately vague.
We will have roughly twenty three days. This isn’t much time to cross Europe and get back to the UK by train, so we want to have the freedom to pick and choose our destinations as much as possible.
What we do know is that we need to be on board the Eurostar that will take us back to London on 16th June. In the meantime, we’ll continue to think about where we’d like to visit… Minsk? St Petersburg? What about Krakow, Vienna, Munich, Budapest…? There is so much choice. I can’t wait to see where we end up.
UK, London and Home…
We arrive back in London on the 16th June. First, we’ll spend a couple of nights there visiting friends and doing touristy things in the capital. After that, The Long Journey Home will officially end when I catch my train back to Wales and P and I split up. It’ll be a sad day! The wedding I am attending is on the 18th June.
And after that, who knows? Everything is up in the air and nothing is decided… Yet!!! I have countless ideas though… I’ll keep you posted with my plans from June onwards…
