timing

On this trip we're headed to some great places, but we're not heading there at a great time.
Australia is an exception. Any other time, I think northern Australia would likely be too hot. Right now, it's pretty good (although another 5-10 degrees would be welcome some days).
However, we're headed to SE Asia for Monsoon season, then northern China in October (could be cold), then the UK and Ireland in November (will be cold). We cap it all off with a short stint in Iceland on the way home in late November. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing we'll have about four hours of sun each day.

The worst part about cruising along in winter or fall for nearly a year isn't the weather. We're sitting in Australian winter now, and the weather's better than New Zealand's summer ever was.
No, the worst part is the daylight hours. Outside of maybe next month in SE Asia, I'm not going to see sunlight past 6:30 p.m. until the days lengthen back home next summer. We're on the wrong side of Daylight Savings for a year.
It makes it hard to squeeze in a long day's traveling, especially when you tend to sleep in slightly past dawn.

Daylight isn't the only thing we've missed perfect timing. The currency fluctuations haven't been in our favor, either. When we got to New Zealand the NZ dollar was at a several year high against the US dollar. At the time, of course, we were primarily spending our US savings. After a year of earning NZ dollars, the Kiwi has fallen from around 75 cents to the US$ to 61 cents.
It's kind of like buy high, sell low. At least our money should go farther once we get to Thailand.