Where are we going?: The million dollar question. You would think that we would identify our route prior to starting the season – it is, after all, a significant decision – however we have never been good when it comes to route planning. Regardless of our intentions, we’ve found that it shifts mid-passage anyway and we end up somewhere completely different than we could have ever predicted.
That said, one always needs a starting point and our current game plan looks something like this: We leave our home in New Zealand mid-August to return to Atea. The first four months will be spent exploring the west coast of Malaysia and Thailand. As the SW Monsoon approaches in April, we will head east again, along the north coast of Borneo towards the Philippines by mid-2015.
At least, that’s a plan… and the one that we are sticking to at the moment. Where we point our bow to from there will depend on several factors: The need to return to New Zealand for our daughter’s surgery, work opportunities (to fund the fifth season), where our curiosity and our free spirit leads us. Top considerations are 1) return to the South Pacific via PNG, the Solomons, New Caledonia and New Zealand, or 2) westward through the Indian Ocean towards 2a) Africa or 2b) the Mediterranean.
‘Cause you see, the thing about traveling is the more you do it, the more you find there is out there to do. To choose one is to not choose the other, and those exclusions are very difficult to accept.
Atea 