The next few days were spent taking in the delights of the surrounding area. The first of these 'delights' was Stonehenge. It might have been fascinating from an archeological perspective, if only the archeologists could agree what the whole thing was for. Bottom line, 3,500 years ago some people hauled a few large stones a long way and left them sitting in a paddock. It was impressive, sure, but not so impressive when you consider that at roughly the same time in Egypt they were building the pyramids of Giza. A far superior taste of English culture and history was the town of Stratford upon Avon, where we got to visit the church where Shakespeare was buried, the house where he lived and the pubs were he got rolling drunk. Hard to imagine a genius like that, who had so much insight into the human condition, growing up in a little town like Stratford. Or maybe little towns give you more insight because everyone knows everyone else's business? Still pondering this question, we took a day to check out the town of Bath, famous naturally, for it's Roman baths, built there nearly 2000 years ago and still in pretty good shape. 
It was also a very nice town to wander around with some very stylish Georgian architecture.
The next day we relocated ourselves to Richmond, an hour north of London and right next to the Thames. The weather was still holding for us so the next morning we got up and walked for a couple of hours along the river before jumping on a ferry and heading into the city. Another short stroll and we made it to the Tower of London. We'd both been there before but it was worth seeing again. In any case, Christine needed her jewel fix to make up for her disappointment with the Scottish crown jewels (I mean really: a 50kg 'stone of destiny' - you can't exactly wear it can you?) The English royal jewels certainly do not disappoint, with an extraordinary collection of rare gems pilfered from every corner of the earth so that tourists from those corners can come and look at what they used to own. 
Also fascinating was a tour of the Tower conducted by one of the Beefeaters, who gave us some of the more gruesome details of the towers history. Still not done with castles, the following day we drove to Windsor in our continuing quest to meet the Queen. Windsor was massive, far bigger than we expected, and it was fun taking another tour from another soldier (this time a Guardsman) who had no hesitation in telling us what he thought about the more 'radical and subversive' elements in our society, which seemed to include republicans, colonials, the non-English and, oh yes, republicans. We also got to visit parts of the inside of the castle, walking through the various staterooms where the Royal family actually entertain their guests. I was reminded of a 'Goodies' skit when I was a kid, where the Queen and Prince Phillip are having their cornflakes in their pyjamas, being constantly bothered by the tourists walking past. Weirdly, the tour was stopped short of one room by a guard who informed us that the Queen was in there having guests for tea! We said yes, yes we know, we're late - but that didn't fly. 
Our last day in Richmond was spent looking at our final royal dwelling, Kensington Palace. We didn't go inside (you've seen one gold-plated, jewel-encrusted four poster bed, you've seen 'em all) but we did chill out in its very nice garden. From Richmond it was off to Beaconsfield to stay with our friends, the Padgett's, who had very kindly agreed to put us up again, despite the fact they were packing to move to Seattle! We used this as a base for the next few days and took the chance to catch up with our friend Marnie, in London, as well our friends Phil and Nicky, who we had met on the Canada leg of our travels. They lived not far from Beaconsfield so we drove on over and had a very, very lengthy lunch at one of the local taverns. Our friend back in Australia, Jules, had been doing some research for us (we were getting lazy by this stage) and suggested we should see the play "Much ado about nothing" at the West End. David Tennant and Catherine Tate were the leads (from the Doctor Who TV series) and it was brilliant.
After saying our goodbyes to the Padgett's, it was time to head home. The flight from Heathrow to Singapore was pretty uneventful (for a change) and in Singapore we stayed with an old friend and work colleague of Christine's, John Gordon and his partner, Peter. They had a fantastic place within striking distance of about a thousand interesting things to do. More importantly though, they had a pool and that's pretty much where we stayed. We did make a few short trips. On the night of our arrival we met up with 4 additional ex-pat mates of Pete and John’s about 9 bottles of wine later, great food and extra champaign celebrating how good life is for all of us we went to bed around 3am, a great reintroduction to the Australian tradition of drinking far more then necessary. We also caught up with an old friend of ours - Steve and his lovely girlfriend Yohanna - and another when John and Peter took us out for drinks and dinner and we got to see Singapore from the roof of one of it's tallest buildings.
After four days of soaking up the heat (because we had seen precious little of it in the last 10 months) we departed for the airport and our final leg home to Sydney. Qantas had one little surprise left in store for us though, cancelling our flight (and not bothering to ring and tell us) and then putting us on the A380 via Melbourne. This got us into Sydney about 4 hours later than expected but, nonetheless, we were home.Well, we were away for 296 days. We visited 20 countries and around 90 different cities. There were planes, trains, buses, ferries, taxis, cable cars, gondolas, jeeps... and one camel (not recommended). We realise that we love trains and we hate planes and everything else depended on where we were going. In the week or so since we got back we've been asked a dozen times what our favourite country was and every time I think we've answered differently. Every place had something to offer (even Naples with its perennial garbage strikes) and there wasn't a single day of the whole trip we regretted. Having said that, it was great to be home and back in our own bed. Christine was reunited with her beloved car, and we picked up one slightly disgruntled cat from his grandparents, for whom the last 10 months had been something of a dream as well, getting fed three times a day and constant attention. Back to reality, Hammond! Being away that long has definitely changed our perspective, and, having lived for 10 months out of two suitcases we are now madly throwing out things in our apartment that we realise we don't need. Hopefully our new 'minimalism' will last and our traveling will help us to lead simpler and even happier lives. If you've been reading this blog we hope you've enjoyed it. It you've been to some of the places we visited we hope it brought back memories and if you haven't then we hope you are inspired to go. Because, in the words of the great philosopher, Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
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