From: Tony <theworldjog@gmail.com>
Date: 22 February 2017 at 10:51:17 GMT+8
Subject: Re: World walk blog China 16 

China/Vietnam/China visa run. Some good news and thoughts on my route ahead.
Thanks to Harry James, originally from England for helping me sort my train ticket to Kunming for my ' visa run.' Harry speaks fluent Chinese as he has been living in China for two years working as a teacher. It was a relaxing 19 hour journey of over 800 kilometres/ 500 plus miles. I now have a wait of a few hours for my final connection to Hekou, the border with Vietnam. That takes about five hours. I will then return to Harrys house with my fresh Chinese visa and finish my walk across China.
I have not mentioned it before but I had a lot of hassle getting my six month Australian visa!
Because I spent more than three months in Russia which is surprisingly a health risk I had to do medical tests. I thought this might be a nightmare to organize in China. I was almost considering skipping Australia and New Zealand 
I considered walking South America as a plan B instead. To be honest I have never heard of any full four-continent circumnavigation that didn't include Australia. Even though South America would have been technically acceptable, I just didn't feel good about it.
In the end I found an international medical clinic in Chongqing and on Monday I passed my medical examinations and tests. I was sub sequentially granted my six month Australian visa. I was particularly worried about the X-Ray exam as I am just getting over a bad cold, not to mention the smog which I have been walking in here since November! Once again thanks to Harry and Benjamin Kniebe for their great help in helping me locate the clinic.
Message from Australian Immigration:
" Dear Tony ,
We are delighted to inform you that your Australian Subclass 600 Tourist visa has been granted and you are free to travel to Australia! Please find attached your Visa Grant Notification letter as issued by the Australian Immigration Authorities."

My Australian route will be:
Perth to Melbourne. Possibly Tasmania but I haven't decided. Melbourne to Canberra, Dubbo to Sydney. This is across the Nullarbor desert. Michael Gillan
who did such a wonderful job crewing for me on my world run (from Melbourne to Alice Springs to Darwin) has kindly offered to come on the road and crew again 
New Zealand, South Island from Bluff to Cape Regina in the north island.

As mentioned I was considering walking South America instead and looking at the route in the final photo posted here. From Lima, Peru to Machu Picchu to Brazil (Amazon region) to Guayana, Surinam to French Guayana and back to Georgetown. After considering it as an alternative  I am pretty sure that I will include it before I take on the USA. Thanks Benjamin Kniebe again as he is one of my route consultants. I appreciate this so much as he is so busy. Benjamin is also fantastic at checking stuff for me (including long tunnels in China and finding better ways) on Google Earth satellite image maps. He goes over it with his magnifying glass and even checks googles pictures.

From South America I will be island hopping through the Caribbean to Florida. Cuba is my main interest. I am not sure about Jamaica as it has a dangerous reputation. I am now almost certainly going to walk the perimeter of the USA. Florida to San Diego, to Seattle to New England to Florida. I really want to walk Japan, so I might do it as an extra by walking from Seattle to British Columbia, Canada and then to Japan and possibly South Korea. Then returning to USA west coast.
From Florida to south Europe; Gibraltar or Spain.
No ' when will you? ' questions please  Its not really fair to me as I am walking  around the world. Many times when I estimate I feel locked in to a schedule. Schedules require one to know in advance how many days and how much distance one will walk in in advance! I have been doing really well with my New Years resolution: avoiding this terrible wing-clipping question. So far, I only have been giving vague estimates, and that's only to those I have committed to previously!