Day Eighty - Have we made it?????

I know you are on tenterhooks.... unfortunately we haven't made it back home, awwwhhhh, but we broke a record today trying to get home - yayyyyyyyyy!

We managed a staggering 1909 miles today - put that in your pipe Phileas!

Rather incredibly, and aptly, our place of rest tonight is called Marathon (Built on Paper ... Laced with Gold, http://www.marathon.ca/)!!! The skiiers amongst us (Martin Roscoe, Ruth Wilcox and Sophie Weiss) are having a field day, and you can't keep Jo Moran and Richard away from kayaking the Great Lakes.

Together we have travelled 18436.7 miles in 80 days - what a team! Just 3465 miles to go. I wonder, if like Phileas, we have misjudged the international date line, and actually still have one day left????

Day Seventy Nine - Great British..... Columbia

Well, we are in Canada now, but still have a rather long way to go before we get home....

We covered 291 miles today through tough icy, mountainous terrain, ending up 10 miles from Lake Tuya and my feet are just so cold. Why oh why didn't I chose to take a trip to the Caribbean??? Next time eh?

Day Seventy Eight - Watch out there's a Grizzly about

Due to the massive mountains, combined with glaciers as well as te icy cold, I'm rather impressed we even covered 34 miles!

We are in bear country!!! 5 miles from the Glacier Bay National Park.

Gorgeous isn't it? Well we have only 2 days left, are we going to make it????

Days Seventy Five, Six and Seventy Seven - surfing in Alaska????

I think day 74's exertions were a bit too much, we only managed 60 miles on dat 75, on day 76 we covered a respectable 334 and on day 77 we made 30 miles.

We are ten miles past Yakutat, meaning "the place where canoes rest". It is the surfing capital of Canada, and those more insane members of the group decided to give it a go. I just hope that hypothermia doesn't settle in....

Day Seventy Four - D'oh

Well you responded to my rallying cry didn't you?

We covered an astounding 1351 miles yesterday and have got to mainland Alsaska. We have found ourselves in Homer, Alaska - the halibut capital of the world! I never imagined that I would find myself in the halibut capital of the world, and I am beside myself with glee!

We have been made very welcome at the famous "Salty Dawg Saloon", but can't stay too long, have so much further to go....

Day Seventy to Seventy Three - All at sea

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The good news is that we have gone 14335 miles so far - so a massive well done to everyone!!!

The bad news is that we have got 7441 miles to go!

We did think that the whole trip was going to be 18000 miles, but after some interesting detours, it has turned out to be more like 22000!

As you can see from the map, we are currently in the middle of the Bering Sea. It's looking unlikely that we'll be back within the 80 days but it would be great to be home before Christmas.

With the team now numbering over 100, that's less than 75 miles each. So one final push and we'll be back in Blighty for the Queen's speech.

Day Sixty Seven, Eight and Nine - How cold can it get????

We seem to be be in the land of the volanoes...

We are on the island of Kamchatka in the Kamchatka Peninsula. We covered 195 miles in the last few days, the cold is getting to us, so we have slowed down a bit.... Anyway we managed to settle in Vasil'yevo.

Tom is on fire duty, as rumours have it, there are bears found in these parts....

I think I am finally going to find out if you can tell the difference between minus ten and minus twenty degrees!

Day Sixty Six - Mamya I love you!

We are heading north, and it is getting really cold. Tom decided to crack the whip and used the the cold to make us work even harder, and do you know what? It worked! We travelled by land and sea and covered a staggering 816 miles!

We are on Mamya, one of the Kuril Islands off Russia. It was increadible for those wild life lovers amongs us, great to spot sea otters (which were nearly hunted to extinction by the mid 20th Century), the steller sea lion and the northern fur seal. We've also spotted a variety of whales and dolphins here off the island.

Not surprisingly there isn't much variety of food out here, fish, fish, more fish and puffin for the more adventurous amongst us!

Days Sixty Three, Four and Five - Long time no sea

I've just been so caught up in Japanese culture, ok noodles and sumo, to write the blog for a few days....

Anyway we have done pretty well, 252 miles on day 63, 209 on day 64 and 261 on day 65.

We ended up in the city of Amori, where we tried our hand at curling. Rather fortuitously, Amori is also home to even more hot spas! I think we might need it, Tom and Helen are on our case and threatening to make us do lots of miles tomorrow.....

Day Sixty Two - "Hells" on earth

We are in the prefecture of Ōita, located on the Kyushu Island, and are in the town of Beppu.

We were so fortunate as Beppu is famous for its hot springs, which are known as the 'hells', or jigoku. Some are certainly not for bathing notably the Blood Pond Hell, with its reddish water (see photo), but we made good use of those which were! Asides from the usual hot water baths, there are sand baths, where were were buried in naturally heated sand, steam baths and mud baths, which are basically muddy hot water baths. I'm so relaxed, not sure if I can face doing any miles tomorrow!

By the way we did 98 miles today...

Day Sixty and Sixty One - Sumo and Soba

We are now on the main island in Japan, after covering 416 miles on day 60, we spent all of day 61 resting from all that work!

We have stopped by the city of Hayato and have managed to catch a Sumo match (that's me on the left - only joking, I'm fatter!!!)

I'm loving the japanese food, I'm trying to stick to shōjin ryōri - which means devotion cuisine. According to my guide "East Asian "Buddhist" cuisine differ from Western vegetarian cuisine in one aspect, that is avoidance of killing plant life. Buddhist monks and nuns prohibit harming of plant. Therefore, strictly speaking, no root vegetables (such as potatoes, carrots or onion) are to be used as this will result in death of vegetables. Instead, vegetables such as beans or fruits are used. However, this stricter version of diet is often practiced only on special occasion." so lashings of noodles with tofu - yum!

Day Fifty Eight and Fifty Nine - Japanic!

Well, we've made it to another country, we have landed in one of the many Japanese islands, Okinawa Island, which is approximately half-way between Kyūshū and Taiwan.

According to my travel guide:

"Okinawa also has its own religious beliefs, generally characterized by ancestor worship and the respecting of relationships between the living, the dead, and the gods and spirits of the natural world.

Okinawan culture bears traces of its various trading partners. One can find Chinese, Thai and Austronesian influences in the island's customs. Perhaps Okinawa's most famous cultural export is karate, probably a product of the close ties with and influence of China on Okinawan culture. Karate is thought to be a synthesis of Chinese kung fu with traditional Okinawan martial arts.

Okinawa has many remains of a unique type of castle or fortress called Gusuku. These are believed to be the predecessors of Japan's castles."

We made 57 miles an day 58 and 164 on day 59!