About
What is this site all about?
Well this is predominantly a travel blog website as we think it is possible for us to go to every country in the world within our life time and we really just wanted to share it with all our mates. We’ve been blogging since our world trip in 1998, so our blog is one of the oldest on the net and even precedes the word ‘blog’. Since it’s inception, we seemed to have developed a bit of a following out there in internet land, so hopefully we’ll definitely make all the countries in the world before we die!
We are well on the way there as we have 69 countries or 35% of the World’s countries under our belt and we have just finished a 2 year world trip in 2007 having already done a 1 year world trip in 1998.
We try and avoid boring travel story stuff like “we went here and we saw this…” and instead we prefer lots of bum and fart jokes and a geeks perspective on travelling around the world.
We also think most travel blogs take themselves too seriously so this is really just us sharing our funny stories on the road. Ced has a Seinfeld like sense of humour and forgot to grow up so this is a travel blog just full of all the irreverent funny shit that happens to us on the road.
Most of our travelling is to places that are harder to get to, and the countries we go to are usually chosen on their cool factor, or if they have any interesting unexplained Archaeology since Ced loves unsolved mysteries.
We aim to do an international trip every year so stay tuned to the site or get an RSS feed to us if you want to follow our adventures.
Who are we?
We’re a couple of Australian desk jockies in our early 40’s who enjoy making our friends jealous with all the funky places we travel to.
Ced is a struggling cartoonist/comic artist with plans to write and draw a graphic novel and who is responsible for the artwork and writing on this blog, but for now he is moonlighting as a GP doctor in Brisbane.
Avril is in web design…
…but really she is a glass bead and jewellery artist and you can see her artwork at
http://www.heartofglass.com.au/
http://www.etsy.com/shop/AvrilBowie?ref=seller_info
http://dtll.com.au/sellers/avril-bowie
No… Who are you really?
OK… We are Red Fury (Avril), Black Mantis (Ced), and Grey Claw (Puddles)… We fight crime with our huge list of superpowers and bust new arseholes on stupid people. And we ROCK!!! Kitson is our little girl who is yet to show her mutant superpowers, but can bust out some charm whilst busting arse!
What do you like?
Funky Lounge Music, Comics, Martial Arts Movies, Exotic Food, Cats and Kittens, Breakdance & Funky Breakbeat, Retro 80’s and 90’s music, Travel, Rockclimbing, Computer Games, Bubble Wrap, Fluffy Things, Toys and Action Figures, Archaeology, glass, Kung Fu, Superheroes, Walking Dead, Game Of Thrones, Jeeps
What do you hate?
Cigarette smoke, People who don’t swing their arms when they walk, Body Odour, Rude Inconsiderate People, Package Tourists, Mainstream music, Cold Toilet Seats, Cold Showers, People who don’t wipe their arse properly, Dumb People, Touts, Narcissistic Personalities
For our country list of where we have been, you can click here.
Our first trip together was to Thailand for a month in 1996. We travelled around the north for 2 weeks, then the south for 2 more. This is when we first got infected with the travel bug.
We always talked about a bigger trip, a trip that would see us leave home for a long time. Finally, in early 1997, we decided on a date for this big trip, January 1998. We worked our arses off for the all important money that was needed to fund this extravagant trip which was to be called CED & AVRIL’S BIGARSED ADVENTURE… A trip that saw us travel for one year without working. A trip that got us to all seven continents in the world including Antartica. We pretty much went from Antarctica to Vancouver overland and then across the USA overland. The most excellent trip ever took us to: New Zealand, Antarctica, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicuragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, United States of America, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Egypt, Hong Kong, then back home to Australia. An unforgettable trip.
This was also the trip that we started blogging about even before the word “blog” existed!!!
In 2002, we were dying to get overseas again. We wanted another challenge. We decided on a 6 week holiday, trekking in Nepal from Jiri on the old route walked by Hiliary through rebel territory to the Mt Everest base camp, then over to the Gokyo Valley. We would fly out from Namche Bazaar back to Kathmandu for a few days before heading out to Singapore for some rest, relaxation and food. That trip was lovingly called Cedavril Vs Everest Base Camp – How Much Can a Kat Man Do?
That trip was friggin hard and knackered us and we lost alot of weight. So we fattened ourselves up again, and by 2004, we were ready to shed those kilos. We took five weeks off to go back to Thailand and to also visit Cambodia in a trip called Cedavril Tombraiding In Cambodia. We traipsed in a circle from Bangkok, to Siem Reap, to Phnom Penh, then to southern Cambodia to the beaches, then back into Thailand to visit more beaches and islands, then back to Bangkok. The trip finished with a week in Hong Kong for some serious shopping.
In 2005-2007 we decided that we would go and live and work in Ireland as a base to do Europe and Africa for 2 years and it was a HUGE trip and affectionately entitled CED & AVRIL’S BIGARSED ADVENTURE RELOADED!!! We started off going back to South America and doing Brazil, the Galapagos, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua and Cuba over 3 months and then settling in Ireland where we pretty much did every country in Western Europe, Iceland, Tunisia, Quebec, Turkey and even managed to get to the World Cup in Germany. We finished up in West Africa doing Mali and the amazing Festival Au Desert, Burkina Faso and Ghana, which made it 28 new countries.
However, my grandmother ended up getting a brain tumour so we headed home early and cancelled our East Africa trip and our plans to go home via the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Ced was really depressed coming back as we really didn’t finish our trip on high, so in early 2008 we started Cedavril’s Bigarsed Adventure RESURRECTED!!! and we headed back to Africa to Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda before shooting up to Poland to catch up with our friend JC. Avril then headed to Murano in Venice to do a glass beading course and Ced bummed around Eastern Europe with mates to bring our country count to 60.
2009 was a fairly domestic year with a snowboarding trip to New Zealand where unfortunately Avril broke her arm and Ced managed to do some trekking in Tasmania.
In 2010… Holy Cow… we fell pregnant!!! Yoiks!!! And that of course meant we needed a holiday so we first went to swim with whale sharks in Western Australia and then we headed off for 5 weeks to Palau in the South Pacific to swim with Jelly fish after watching Survivor Palau and then off to Japan to check out glass and big robots. That trip was called Cedavril Vs Jelly Fish In Palau and Big Robots In Japan.
Our baby girl Kitson was born in 2011 and that meant that we needed to see whether she had our travel superpowers and so in Jan 2012 we headed to Vietnam and Hong Kong for a 4 week backpacking trip with a baby. Our travel blog officially now changed to Ced Avril & Kitson’s Bigarsed Adventure. Unfortunately our cat Puddles the Grey Claw and defender of our secret headquarters when we are off fighting crime also died that year at age 18.
Kitson managed to bum around Bali with us well in 2013 so in 2014 we decided to head back to the Himalayas to visit the mystical Bhutan, so we dragged her up a huge walk to Tigers nest and a Tsechu festival before teaching her to snorkel on Redang Island in Malaysia in Ced Avril & Kitson’s Bigarsed Bhutan Adventure Reincarnated.
And in 2015 we’ve just finished a 5 week trip around Taiwan and also Niseko in Japan where Kitson learnt how to ski while me and some mates made a rap video in Fat Suit Boys In Japan. And we’ve just been to Christmas Island to see robber crabs and the amazing Red Crab Migration that is one of David Attenborough’s top 10 wildlife experiences and now one of our top 5 favourite places on the planet.
In 2016 we headed to Hawaii and the USA again. But darn it, that was no new countries so in 2017 we headed out to Borneo and Brunei just to get another country in. In 2017 we did one of our best trips ever driving my Jeep up to Cape York the northern most tip of Australia.
Then in 2018 we had a quieter year with just a trip to Fiji.
But in 2019 we hit Hong Kong and the Philippines to go swimming with whale sharks and then we did a double meridian crossing of the Simpson Desert and out to Uluru in our Jeep.
And we even closed the year by heading to Korea and Whistler for snowboarding.
But now in 2020 the world has gone to shit but we still managed a lot of local 4×4 trips as well as a remote island camping trip to the bird and turtle sactuary Lady Musgrave Island.
Where are we going now?
We reckon the international borders aren’t going to open until 2022 so it’ll be all local trips in 2021. Hopefully we will hit Christmas Island again for the Red Crab spawning and if New Zealand opens up we’d be keen for some snow.
What’s on the list?
Shit being parents could certainly cramp our style for a few years but I’m still dead keen on getting to every country in the world still… so our to do list for the next few years is China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Eastern Russia. Just recently, I’m starting to get interested in Central Asia around the Silk Road as well. And it is highly likely that we will do a 4×4 trip from Botswana to Namibia. I am also thinking about going back to Antarctica for our 50th!
So stay tuned…
Wow–great intro. Envious of how much traveling you’ve done so far. But just because you are parents doesn’t mean you are limited to resorts and packaged tours from here on in! As you know we are just about to finished 1yr of travel backpacking through SEA, including India and Sri Lanka. It CAN be done, as long as you are prepared to travel slow and incorporate lots of kid-friendly activities. Also I think the age of the child is also crucial to your successful experience. Personally I’d recommend 4yr+ kiddies cus they can walk quite a bit and probably wouldn’t need their naps anymore, yet still small enough to sit on your lap if need be and they don’t eat that much yet 😉
Good luck with attaining your very exciting goal of visiting all the countries in the world!