number of countries visited: 33
number of days out of country: 332

time in transit (train/bus/car/boat/planes): 1,127 hours (46.9 days or 6.7 weeks)
total miles traveled from city to city (train/auto/boat/planes): 82,620 miles
number of nights on trains: 9
number of nights on buses: 9

number of nights camping: 70
number of days climbing: 38
number of nights eating pasta: 72

number of books read: 56 (robin); 49 (erick)

just posted the last installment of photos from australia, pretty much all climbing photos. they’re in the usual place:

http://picasaweb.google.com/robin.h.liu

quick recap, from melbourne we headed up to canberra. spent a couple days climbing on ACT granite, very tuolumne like with lots of slab and also nice cracks. had some fun bushwhacking, it took 2 hours of bushwhacking to get to the start of one climb.

from there we headed to the coast and climbed a day at point perpendicular. unfortunately we timed it poorly and the weapons range was closed the first day we were there. spent that day bushwhacking and found some really dirty climbs we didn’t want to get on. had a good day at point perpendicular though.

then headed into sydney to visit some cousins i’d never met before, then up the coast to corindi beach to visit a friend we met traveling in jordan and egypt at the end of last year.

from there, headed to frog buttress, renowned in australia for it’s crack climbing. we had the whole place to ourselves for 3 days and got on some really great climbs. definitely worth a trip back there one day.

which brings us to the end of our international portion of our trip, hard to believe that we’ve been traveling out of the country for 11 months.

we got in 3 good days of climbing, did a few of the classic routes but way too many routes there, you could easily spend months there and not make much of a dent in the book.

we drove through the grampians on the way back to melbourne today, just to check it out. rock and scenery look nice, next time we come down here we’ll have to check out the climbing there.

next up, we slowly head up to brisbane starting tomorrow. we’ll stop and climb a few places, tentatively ACT granite, point perpendicular, and frog buttress, as well as visit relatives in sydney and a friend we met traveling in the middle east on the coast.

climbing pictures from arapiles posted in the usual place:

http://picasaweb.google.com/robin.h.liu

the trip to tasmania with my parents was good and relaxing. we went to cradle mountain national park and then spent a few days on the east coast, visiting freycinet national park, tasman national park, and port arthur. one day erick and i hike out to the totem pole (probably the most famous climb in australia, at least the most picturesque) and saw a group of coloradans preparing to climb it with a cameraman in tow. didn’t recognize them though…

next up, we’ll head to mt. arapalise for 5 days to check out the climbing there and also a side trip to the grampians.

tasmania photos posted in the usual place:

http://picasaweb.google.com/robin.h.liu

finally posted pictures from rarotonga and the month in new zealand in the usual place:

http://picasaweb.google.com/robin.h.liu

we headed down along the south coast to dunedin and did some easy climbing on the beach. then headed to mount cook and it cleared enough to see the lower glaciers. headed back to the coast to timaru, where we spent an hour searching for a climbing area which is supposed to have a 10 minute approach (we never found it) to the sounds of animals (cows?) screaming because they were being slaughtered. a horrific and disturbing sound.

then headed to castle hill, world renown for the bouldering, and bouldered a little. mostly walked around because erick can’t really boulder and risk falling on his bad knee and i’m a big wuss, especially when we didn’t have a crashpad.

new zealand was nice and fun, although we did a lot less hiking and climbing than we expected due to erick’s accident. we think he has a minor sprain in his left knee, probably will be another month before it feels good, another few months before it’s at full strength.

next up, we head to australia for our final country. we’ll spend some time in melbourne with family and meet up with my parents. then we’ll take a week trip with them to tasmania and hopefully some climbing after that, knee dependent. we’re looking forward to sleeping in beds again after camping every night in NZ, good food and wine as well.

lots of driving, easy day hiking, a little climbing. erick got the stitches out of one knee but the other knee isn’t doing too well, still inflamed and he can’t straighten it. we’ll get it looked at again.

we first went up to the bay of islands, then down to rotorua to see some of the geothermal stuff then down to taupo, where they had just held an ironman. we spent a day climbing in beautiful whanganui bay. the road down was a bit rough and we scraped up the car a bit, good thing it was a rental and a well-used car. we only got on a couple climbs since we didn’t have a guidebook and there were no other climbers there, so it was hard to judge how difficult the routes were.

we opted not to do the famous one-day tongariro crossing (dubbed the best one-day walk in NZ) and instead did a small portion of it and hiked up to the top of mt. ngauruhoe instead (mt. doom in lord of the rings). it’s a cool looking volcano but unfortunately it was completely clouded over when we reached the summit so we could barely even see the lake in the crater. the ascent was hard work through loose scree and deep ash but the descent was very quick, scree-skiing most of the way.

went to egmont national park in the west and saw tarakana, the volcano the used as mt. fuji in the last samarai.

which leads us to the ferry. we had some time to kill before catching the ferry and erick decided to play on the trampoline at the campground. he successfully did a few flips but on the last one landed on the edge of the trampoline, hitting both knees on the metal edge and falling to the ground. the result was one badly bruised knee and one knee with two deep gashes (you could see the fatty tissue) but not much blood. fortunately there was a medical clinic close by and they stitched erick up in half an hour for only ~US$21 consultation fee. amazing how much cheaper and efficient the visit was than in the US. so we’ll take it easy for a few days until he’s able to hike and climb again.

rarotonga, the largest of the cook islands is beautiful. unfortunately we chose to go there during wet season, so it was really windy and cloudy the whole time with some showers so we didn’t hang out on the beach or anything. the first day we rented bikes and biked around the island, 32 km. it was really beautiful with a nice lagoon and picturesque beaches. second day we did the cross-island track with a dutch girl staying at the same hostel. the trail was mostly through jungle, very steep and slippery and led to a big needle in the middle of the island with good views and ended at a waterfall.

we’re now in new zealand, on the north island at the bay of islands. we decided to rent a car for our time here so we can climb and easily do hikes, etc. it’s weird having a car again and driving everywhere. we are enjoying the english speaking everywhere and the friendly people. a week here on the north island then we take the ferry across to the south island for the remaining 3 weeks.