I've lost count of the days....

After being in Quebec City for months, we began to feel like natives but realised it is time to move on.

With one false start we made it to somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. Luckily my Dad (Martyn Smith) is a seasoned sailor and he got us back on track. With his steady miles and a huge contribution of literally thousands of miles from Tom and H, we decided to give ourselves a little treat and stopped off in Ireland. Obviously we couldn't leave until St Patrick's Day (due to the moon, religious week, and other such things it couldn't fall on the Sunday 17th) - so we had to celebrate twice, both on the "official day" - the 15th and also the 17th. Naturally I had to partake in the colcannon, champ and boxty, (yum, I was in heaven - potato heaven) and bread with lashings of butter. The meat eaters savoured the traditional Easter dish of corned beef and cabbage - obviously all washed down with copious amounts of Guinness and whisky. Not surprisingly it took us a while to sleep off our over indulgence.

Tom and H needed to get back for the London Marathon and pushed us on, when we would rather be in bed.

We finally touched down on GREAT British soil three weeks ago, unfortunately my camera was ruined by the saltwater, so don't have any evidence to prove it....

It was amazing how quickly the miles passed once we got back to the UK. Before long we could see the Parkinson Tower and that gave us the final inspiration that our weary limbs desperately needed. In total we covered 22745.27 miles - impressive eh?

We've had a wonderful journey, and I certainly couldn't have made it without such a wonderful team (gosh, I'm gushing like an Oscar winner), but, as Dorothy said, "there's no place like home".

Day Ninety Seven to One Hundred and Six - The life of luxury for us!

We managed to make it to Quebec City.

Well la di dah, we are staying at the rather impressive Château Frontenac grand hotel - well we deserve it don't we (well, probably not really, as we haven't travelled that much lately have we??)? As you can see in the photo on the left, the hotel overlooks Quebec city. It's so posh it has what it calls a "canine ambassador" - "readily available to greet guests, accompany them on walks or simply be around for a bit of petting!" - what we call a dog walker....

http://www.fairmont.com/frontenac/

We managed 394 miles, sounds good, but this is for 10days! I think we better push on. Not just yet, I'm booked in for a massage...

Day Eighty One to Ninety Six - A New Resolution to Finish?

Well I think we have over indulged rather a lot. We've only managed 383 miles in 15 days (then again, I must have racked up a fair few miles moving from the sofa to the fridge!).

We have settled up in Trout Creek, on the edge of the Algonquin Provincial Park.

Hopefully we'll get home soon, with all those extra miles from people making New Year's Resolutions to get fit...

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....