Last summer, for a wee change, we thought we would take a trip around the world. Just to see how the other half lives. It took us 173 days to go over 30,000 miles travelling through Egypt, India, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, Hawaii, Canada and eastern USA; an epic journey of global discovery following in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus and Princess Diana.

The country in which we spent the longest period of time was Australia.

When we reached South Australia, in the winter, we were abruptly reminded of home our first job was planting gum trees, all 1,000 of them - we donned oilskins- and welly boots and set out in a cold wind to be showered with horizontal snow and hailstones. Needless to say, in true Hebridean style, we soldiered on - Neil also built a fence, Australian style. I remember Neil saying something about leaving all this sort of thing behind - including the weather. Let's move north, he suggested. We had just spent two months living in T shirts and shorts tramping across a very hot south east Asia, back packs bursting at the seams in anticipation of the Australian winter. Near Adelaide we also spent a short while working for a dear old lady in her large organic garden. The weeds look very different over there.

We moved on north enticed by pictures on the local news of sunshine, bananas and tropical fish. We arrived in Queensland via Greyhound bus and landed on an organic banana plantation. Out with the T-shirts and shorts, on with the insect repellent - which was frowned upon by the owners. Our first night here we shared dinner with 30 people all around the same table - it was a wedding feast. We found the Australian people a very generous warm hearted people. We shared our bedroom with all manner of creepy crawlies the ants are not only green, but over half an inch long; the bathroom was always the place for an interesting encounter - at night the toads would take refuge here croaking their hearts out. The plantation itself was alive with snakes, grasshoppers, wallabies and guinea fowl. I was presented with a machete knife and spent some time cutting down old banana leaves, while Neil was given the tractor - an old Massey Ferguson - for cultivating. He also cultivated a good tan that week. Early mornings we were picking fruit, capsicums, aubergines, cherry tomatoes and bananas, of course together with tasty paw paws. We saw the whole process from picking, through sorting, washing and packing. The packed fruit was then sent down south by rail to the big cities.

Neil remembers trying to get his bearings at night, spending hours staring and searching for familiar stars - and even more confusing, the sun went round to the north during the daytime. Things are different in the southern hemisphere. But not when it came down to a good old fashioned dram - a familiar sight down under, but in the heat, it was mostly beer and coke people drank, iced, when taking a refreshment.

Our next stop in New South Wales, we landed at a small cattle ranch right out in the bush - in the valley where we stayed there were four different nationalities living close to one another. Neil worked here at building and repairing fences, calving cows and he even made a 5 star guinea pig run - now home to mother and three offspring. They have their problems out there too, just like home. The fence Neil made around the garden kept the hens out, but then got invaded by grasshoppers, who ate the garden. So the hens were let back in ...

I was busy 'playing' with the horses, part of the work routine out there - the horses worked the cattle, but Neil preferred the Toyota Jeep. It was very dry and very hot and there had been no rain for months - the ground was so cracked and bare. Fire was always a worry, smoking was positively 17. dangerous outside. We were getting frazzled by the glorious heat and there people were praying for rain. We could tell them about the rain in Coli. And no, we did not miss that. They listened with envy to our stories of persistent horizontal rain from July to March and our 8 week summers.

We flew to a cooler Aukland early in October to stay on a farm in North Island over 2,000 feet above sea level - 15,000 ewes and 300 Friesian bull calves (for the USA beefburger market) on just 600 acres of prime grazing hilly ground. The high quality must have been something to do with the volcanic activity.

The afternoon we arrived, we gathered by motorbike a paddock of 138 ewes with 157 lambs (Southdowns). Not such a good count this year they said but each paddock gathered after that was better than the last.

Thousands of photographs later and after 3't. months working in mostly blinding heat, we headed east for home and the lure of ColI. We were just beginning to miss that cool gentle breeze and the distinct smell of the sea. So we lazed on a beach in Hawaii for a few davs - some competition for the beaches here in the Hebrides, but with lovely warm days all the time.

On to the west coast of Canada and a winter wonderland of snow greeted us in Alberta - we thought we were gradually becoming acclimatized to our winter. But I managed a last swim of the year in an outdoor pool on sunny Kiawah Island, South Carolina, on 1st. December.

Our last stop was Washington DC - an elegant city bursting at the seams with Christmas shoppers and alive with the Christmas spirit - Christmas is very popular and very contagious in the USA.

After all the thousands of miles travelling the world the last seventy miles were not of the smoothest. The Lord of the Isles lurched and rolled past Coll, tried for Tiree before taking us back to Oban. A familiar story?
When we eventually arrived home, somewhat shell shocked, to hurricane force winds, driving rain and snow - on with the Coli winter woollies and welly boots.

They say that man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it.