About Us

About Us

Hello and welcome

We are Dawn and Paul, a lawyer and a carpenter, both in our late 40s, and have embarked upon a trip of a lifetime. Paul was born in London but emigrated with his family as a child in the 1970s. He returned to London 24 years ago and considers London his home.

We have both always wanted to travel more. I was inspired by my Uncle Raymond as child. He left home and followed the hippy trail through Afghanistan, India and beyond. The nearest I have been to following in his footsteps has been holidays to Goa where Ray first visited in the 1960s.

Paul has travelled more extensively. He went on a road triparound the States about 20 years ago, and he spent time living on a Kibbutz in Israel. He also lived on Vancouver Island for about 6 months. - I think it was 6 months, getting blurry in me dotage. - He always returns to London.

Paul and I met 3 and a half years ago. We were both 43 and neither wanted to live a midde aged life and so far we have been true to that.



We were married in Kingston on a rainy June day in 2010. We didn't invite friends and family apart from two friends to witness the ceremony, a girl from work Pauline and her fiance Colm. Paul had met neither of them before!!

It was a beautiful day followed by a honeymoon of two music festivals: Rock Im Park in Germany and then the following week, the Isle of Wight Festival.

Neither of us have children (something we both consider a blessing!) and nor do either have any pets anymore (although I do have my heart set on a few cats and collie fat chance in my dotage but that is still very much a moot point........no, it's not).  

When we are living our usual life in the UK we love going to music festivals. Paul's great love is music and he would attend a gig or a festival every night of the week if he could! We have been to lots of festivals over the last 3 years and love packing our stuff into a couple of rucksacks, pitching the tent and living in a temporary village of music lovers for a few days (admittedly, with the odd idiot thrown in for good measure!). I'm hoping this will be good practice for living on the road without home comforts on a longer term basis!

I love to read and my kindle is loaded with hundreds of books in readiness for our journey. We both also love gardening and only recently gave up our two allotments to prepare for our trip.

We are interested in what goes on around us: in history, current affairs, and other cultures. We are really enjoying learning Russian and Chinese and devouring all the information we can about the countries we are about to visit.

The name Wookytravels is after Paul. He is known by many as The Wooky - the one and fucking only - and any outlandish comments found in italics can be attributed to The Wooky. Mrs Wooky is always polite!

We are going to Australia to see Paul's family, and also to work there for a couple of years (the Australian economy is very healthy compared to the rest of the world).

In order to do this, Dawn has applying for an Australian Spouse Visa and we are taking in a few sights on the way.

Paul does not like to travel by air. He is 6'6" and doesn't fit into most plane seats and a 24 hour flight is not an option. So he came up with the idea of going by train. To Australia. And so we are. Most of the way anyway. We will have travel by bus in Cambodia, take ferries around Indonesia and a very small flight from Bali to Darwin (so we are cheating a little we will admit that, but funds just won't stretch to passage on a commercial ship).

We have The Man in Seat 61 to thank for his advice and inspiration. His website a wealth of useful information second to none, without which it would be very difficult to organise this trip.

There is absolutely no reason why we cannot drop everything and leave the country to travel half way round the world and live in Australia for a couple of years, earn some money and then head home in a similar fashion. However, if we leave it any longer we will be too old - speak for yourself love!


So we left London St Pancras International on 25th August 2012 headed across Europe to St Petersburg where we picked up the Trans Siberian railway through Russia and Mongolia, arriving in China 5 weeks later. We are travelling round China, Vietnam, Cambodia, maybe Thailand (depending on funds), Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and finally Australia, where we hope to buy a 4WD and drive down to Adelaide to see Paul's folks.

We don't want to plan the trip too much. This is very much a journey into the unknown and although that brings with it uncertainty and a little fear, it is also incredibly exciting and really brings it home to us that we are about to embark on a proper adventure.

This journal is primarily for friends and family but is also intended as an account for us to keep of our travels, to look back on and reflect upon when we're too old and decrepit to get out of bed.

This is an opportunity of a lifetime, an adventure that most people can only dream about but something we have both longed to do and are, finally, we have the chance to get out there and spend some time in distant lands.

We hope you enjoy following us on our travels.

Dawn and Paul

Disclaimer- Anything inappropriate, offensive, or downright ridiculous found on this blog will have been posted by the Woooky and will be posted in italics :-)