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Finally, in September 2017, we left the Islands for what I now call our Touring the World part 1! Leaving the island of Gran Canaria for: Madrid-Dubai-Hong Kong-Hanoi-Hoi An-HCMC-Sydney-Yarra-Melbourne-Hobart-Auckland-Waipu-Wellington-Rotorua-Taupo-Napier-Christchurch-Dunedin-Queenstown-Warrnambool-Singapore-[back to the UK via Gatwick then -> Lichfield -> Las Palmas.
At last more pins in the mapamundi !
Summers we like to spend touring our country of birth and in 2018 we visited: Dorset, the Home-Counties, Bedfordshire and Burton-on-Trent.
2018-19 was a whole new adventure in the other direction to the THE AMERICAS: USA – LasVegas, Albuquerque, Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam; Canada – Peterborough, Oakville: Mexico – Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, Morelia, Patzcuaro, Macheros, Teotihuacan, Puebla, Tulum, Chichén Itzá, Ajijic, México City, New York then back to the UK via the Atlantic Ocean.
This time our European interlude included Cadiz and Sevilla as well as Grand Canaria and the in UK: Cambridge, Kendal, Edinburgh, Dorset and the South Coast, Brighton, Pitstone, Lichfield (again) and Alrewas.
Our Third Big Tour began with a return to Mexico: Puerta Vallarta, Guadalajara, Patzcuaro-Muertos, CDMX-Chapultepec, then to the Caribbean islands of Saint Lucia (via Toronto!) and Martinique, back to the Cheltenham UK (via Paris), on to Australia: Perth, Melbourne, Mornington Peninsula, Maroochydore, then Covid hit!
We stuck it out in Australia for as long as we could, after all early in 2020 the UK did not look like a place you’d want to be. In the non-travelling time I took the opportunity to look back on some of the things we had accomplished in our Previous Lives before we embarked on travelling the world.
But sadly the death of my mother on 1st June brought us back to England. This meant that for the time being we were bound to the old country, however, taking a Covid cautious approach to travel we still managed to see and experience new places: North London, hopeful now we continued touring Kiddermintster, Beeston, Covid Cruising, Winter, Cumbria, Billesdon, Barnet again, Wales and after a failed attempt to get to some warmer weather we went to Darlington.
For a while, through 2022 we seemed to be confining our selves to travel in the UK, Ludlow, but managed to break out into Europe to the low countries: Brussels, Amsterdam, Groningen, Utrecht, Rucphen. But still returned to the UK for a while: Cumbernauld and Liverpool. Then back into Spain: Murcia and Bedar.
Then, towards the end of the year, finally broke free crossing the Altantic, a brief stay in Brooklyn then a bucket list cruise of the Panama Canal. Topping it off with a meet up with friends and family in Florida.
Still 2023 and we made the mistake of returning to the UK much too early, weather wise but managed to make the best of it by seeking out Cosy Homes. April, hoping for an improvement in the temperature we decided to move home – that is go for a Cruise in our narrowboat and not go back to where we started. Then we managed to enjoy an British summer. Again, as summer moved to autumn warmer climes beckoned and we migrated south through Spain to the Canaries. As we entered 2024 we thought it time to have a bit of rethink about our lives. We were back in the UK for 100 days (covering a lot of old ground so no boring blog this time) and then the travel bug bit again.
Touring the World Part 4 – We’d been to Mexico twice and both time intended to travel south into South America but first stop Mexico (again!).
The story continues 2024-2025
Or here’s the Master Index in chronological order.
In case you’re wondering, in the title Islands is plural because we left the UK over 12 years ago and the Gran Canaria is now a place we keep going back but now more as visitors!
Leaving the Islands 