My friend Tfer and I are travelling from Istanbul to Tokyo using local transport. We start the journey in St Petersburg with a short stop in Eastern Europe and then onto Turkey.

After traversing the southern shore of the Black Sea, we cross into Georgia and Azerbajian. From the capital Baku, an oil tanker takes us across the Caspian sea, onto Turkmenistan. Via local bus and trucks we visit the people and places of Uzbekistan, Tajikstan (via the Fan Mtns and Pamir Highway), Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan, Russia, Mongolia, China. We will then catch a ferry across to Korea and finally a hydrofoil from Pusan to Japan's west coast to arrive in Tokyo via train.

With Lonely Planet's support, we will be posting video postcards to our 4-5 month trip to a small interactive website.

Each 2 minute postcard, will be a story we discover whilst travelling one of the most ancient paths on the planet. Our little project's aim is to entertain, inform and intimately connect us all to remote and little known (or seen) corners of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East.

If you would like to subscribe to our fortnightly video postcards go to the "Traveller's Teacup" website ( http://www.teacup.net.au/news.htm ) and enter your email address into the subscribe box at the bottom right of the blog...or you can also get links to the video postcards here at Nomadology :)

Its the holiday session right?
And you'd think it would be a good time to just relax, put your feet up with a cuppa tea. Just watch the pelicans fly past?

"What a about a trip across to Lord Howe?" The Robinsons seem up for an adventure. "Be at the marina at 6am on the 1st January". Yes, and that I am. You read it correctly that's 0600 on new years day.

Brain mushed and tired, the five of us board the little Red Rizla and set out across the bay, past Cape Moreton and to the ocean beyond. Sleek boobie birds duck and divebomb the waves.

48 hours later

Storms, squawl and sickening 3.5m swells. 130 nautical miles off the Australian coast and the full moon shines on no signs of relief. Frothy waves crash against and over the bow of the boat. A massive cargo ship steams past silently and our rock and roll days almost come to an end.

On day break, haggered with seasickness and sleep deprivation, we retreat.
Tack! and like that, we surf the mercury swells back to the termite mounds of the Gold Coast.

Facing one last challenge, we done orange figure hugging lifevests around our waists. Fishermen and onlookers watch as we catwalk our way up the tricky Southport Seaway.

Minutes later, dead calm. Relief and a musical interlude from the ship's stereo.

Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take
'cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again!
AGAIN!!!

Anchors away!

After a long but rocking rest, the unconsciousness is punctured by sea-lion barks and helicopters overhead. My binoculars reveal Seaworld is a mere dingy ride away. Giddy Japanese loverbirds are taking a champagne yacht tour. They reenact their "Titanic" Leonardo and Kate fantasy on the mast of their boat. At its helm, an Aussie skipper looks on, counting the bookings and his holiday houses.

We cruise back north through Coomera's Saltmarsh wetlands. All around the country's lungs are eaten by the cancer of urban progress.

We pass harbours locked in time, and archorages chosen for loosing time.

Beacons lead us home across the bay where 4 days earlier we had set sail on our faithful ship, and thoroughbred, the Red Rizla. She held us well and took us home, creaking a sigh of relief when we tied her ropes to the dock.

www.robinsoncruises.com