Travelling is about places. They lead you to make plans, book flights, quit jobs (…get stressed ordering stuff you don’t need on Amazon, which you throw out once you get there). In the run-up to leaving, the places I’d be visiting dominated my mind’s landscape, filling me with anticipation and excitement. It’s what I talked about incessantly before I left, reeling off country names as if I were about to pop to Tesco for them.

Danielle and I have visited beautiful sites, listened to commentary, taken photos, and done the activities that we ‘ought’ to have done because we were there (and handed over a small fortune in the process). The majority of the time (and obviously excluding Stewart Island and the godawful ferry journey: see previous post), it was worth it: sea kayaking at Abel Tasman national park, taking a helicopter and hike up Franz Josef glacier, cruising…