What now?

It's all a little surreal, sitting in my kitchen, typing on the same keyboard which wrote my first blog, drinking tea from the same mug. Not much has changed. The neighbours built a new deck, we got a big new recycling bin, there is a giant big box store being built down the road and my cat is a little fatter, otherwise...same old.

Did we really truly just spend the past 4 months on the underside of the world? Did we really bike around the whole South Island of New Zealand? Were we really in Australia?
Maybe it's just the jet lag, but it feels like a dream.

Looking back at the photos helps, but I think the real significance of what we've just done has yet to sink in.

"What was the best part of the trip?" people have already asked "Where was your favourite place?" and of course the inevitable "So, what now?".

I am having a really hard time quantifying, picking bests and favourites. New Zealand/Australia, biking/caravanning, surfing/hiking - I don't think these things can really be compared.

The easy answer...I loved it all. Of course there would be things I would do differently, places I wouldn't go back to, things I had wished I had seen, but I think every part of the trip was important.

Regardless of whether I loved or hated it, the thing for me now is to discover the impact of my travels and interactions. How will what I have just done and who I have just met become a part of who I am and what I do and not just fade away between the pages of a photo album?