A few of you have asked where exactly we’re going. Well, for much of the time (in Europe especially) we don’t actually know….that will be a daily surprise. If we like a place, we’ll stay – and if it’s not quite to our liking, we’ll move on. So more on the European campervan itinerary at a later date (that is, we’ll let you know where we’re going once we get there!)

But in the meantime, here’s the plan for the first stage – the getting to the UK part. For those who have been to any of these places, feel free to comment with any suggestions about places to go, things to do, sights to see etc.

We head off on 26 March and fly from Christchurch to Kuala Lumpur for a week. Then we have 12 days in Vietnam and Cambodia, starting in Hanoi, then Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh and Siam Reap where we’re looking forward to seeing the temples at Angkor Wat. Then a week in Penang (that’s the part of the trip where Air Asia thinks our bags are worth more than us: the return tickets are $9 each, the taxes are $20 each and bags are $24 each).

Next, a week in the “Golden Triangle” of India with a personal car and chauffeur/guide for most of the week in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, followed by a week in Kathmandu. We won’t have time to trek anywhere nor even go to the Everest area by land transport, but we are hoping to get one of the scenic flights where, weather permitting, we’ll get to at least see Mt Everest. (Don’t worry, Peter G, we’ll sit in the back row because a plane has never backed into a mountain yet, has it?)

After that, we fly to Mauritius for a few days then onto South Africa where our good friends Remo and Angeline are organising 10 days or so of travel which may take us as far as Capetown to the South, and possibly the Victoria Falls to the north. We’ll start in Johannesburg where they live and see how we go!

No worries if we don’t see any wildlife though, because we’re hoping to get all of that on the next stage, which is a safari starting in Nairobi and finishing in Zanzibar: 11 days in Kenya and Tanzania including trips into the Serengeti, the Ngororgoro Crater, and the Olduvai Gorge.

All of that part is in tents with sleeping bags and roll mats on the ground so we’ll have a few days R&R in either Zanzibar or Dar es Salaam to recuperate, then an overnight flight via Qatar and Tunis to Casablanca in Morocco. We have nearly a fortnight in that country, where among other things we will spend a night in a Berber camp in the Sahara, before spending the last few days in Marrakech.

The last leg is an EasyJet flight to London where we arrive on 12 June. Then the second part of the adventure begins!

For now though, that’s enough typing on the iPad (a little practice for doing posts on the run once we’re underway) because my arm is sore….we had part one of our innoculations today. 2 injections in each arm so we’ve got things like Cholera and Yellow Fever sorted. The only part that hurts more than than our arms of course is our wallet….

Thanks for persevering so far – but you DID ask! Well, some of you did….OK, one person vaguely mentioned it perhaps…..