Landed...

We've just landed in Londontown, after a long but uneventful flight over. No burst oxygen cylinders, no strange engine noises.. just the amusing stupidity of a group of young'uns heading to Bangkok, and the occasional technical mishap with the entertainment system.

And although we're now halfway across the globe, it's still a small world after all - on the way to Lecky's cousin's place we ran into them in a cafe near the train station. Talk about good timing.

It's pretty cold, but not unbearably so - four Canberra winters have prepared us well - although it's dark by 4:30pm and at the height of daylight it still feels like it's about 4pm QLD time. So far the London highlights include the rows of monopoly style houses, double decker red buses and red telephone booths, and a cool little squirrel eating an acorn in the park. Looking forward to a good sleep under a heavy doona tonight, and then hopefully adjusting to London time tomorrow...

Time to jet

After what feels like no time at all, we are just about to head off overseas to start the big trip. Our preparations seem to have taken a back seat to Christmas shopping, eating and drinking, but after much procrastination, we're almost ready to go. The bags are packed, the itinerary confirmed, money banked and mail cancelled - now all we have to do is lug the winter coats from tropical Cairns to winter London. The weather forecast for Monday is -3 to 3, so it's going be a rude shock after several very pleasant weeks in North QLD. But freezing temperatures aside, we're both eagerly anticipating the start of our big adventure.. right after a 12 hour wait in Sydney airport.. I suppose you can't have it all good...

Mangoes and Mackerel

We've now landed just west of Cairns, and have been pretty busy doing a lot of important things.. like picking mangoes and going fishing.

Lecky's older brother Nik has wisely invested in a hardcore mango picker. It's basically an extendable pool cleaner handle, with a wire loop and mesh bag with a blade at the end, which cuts the mango stem when you pull on a string. Having scoped out several targets around town, we hit the trees in the arvo armed with a ute, three boxes, the mango picker and a tolerance for green ant bites. An hour or so later we had three boxes stacked full of prime bowen mangoes - roughly 5 standard trays worth - a lot more satisfying than paying $2 each in a shop!

We also did a trip out to the reef on Tuesday. Five minutes after dropping the anchor, one of the lines went off - first fish of the day (landed by Lecky's dad) was a lovely 85cm spanish mackerel (small one). We also managed to boat 2 Coral Trout, one of which was a nice size (65cm), and I also got a 45 cm one....for those who are interested Coral Trout is one of if not the most highly prized reef fish, selling for $49/kg at the moment!!! Lecky and his dad disappointingly hooked 2 good sized trout only to pull up the head and mangled carcas respectively as big sharks smashed them during the struggle...

Overall we threw back or lost more fish than we kept - including two more mackerel (snapped the line) and some small reef fish.

Following the fishing we landed on Green Island for lunch, setting up a picnic under a tree on the beach. Swimming was kept to a minimum due to Irukandji jellyfish and our lack of enthusiasm for hospitalisation. Swimming was performed either in a stinger suit (looks like a Cathy Freeman Sydney 2000 get-up) or in the resport pool only.

Pies, Rum and Petrol

So, as we head up the coast I've noticed a couple of things worthy of mention:

1. Although many people will tell you that Yatala pies (between Brisbane and Gold Coast) are the best pies going around, they aren't. Don't misinterpret, they're good...but they're not the best. In my eyes the top 3 in order are Beefy's Pies (at Ettamogah Pub - on the way to the Sunshine Coast), Elaine's Pies (Canberra), Sam's Pies (Innisfail - NQ). Elaine's Steak and Mushroom gets a notable mention but the lack of mushy peas relegates it to second behind the Signature Steak with Mushy Peas at Beefy's. In the Beefy's picture below, you can see all the awards on the wall inside!

2. If you get the chance to go on the Bundaberg Rum distillery tour...do it, even if you don't like rum. $25 for 50 minute tour including 2 drinks at the end for tasters....on that topic, make sure one of them is the Royal Liqueur...its only available there (not sold anywhere else full stop) and is sensational. Maybe don't take the 10 a.m. tour as we did though, as its a little tough drinking 4 rums at 11 in the morning (Anita was on driving duties this day obviously!). I was hurting.

3. Buy petrol in QLD. Although theoretically petrol should get more expensive as the distance from distribution increases, it seems there are too many businessmen in Mexico. Cheapest petrol south of the border, 105.9c/l....cheapest north of the border (although Brisbane is suss) 93.9c/l, most expensive 98.9c/l. That's right, my litre numbers are bigger than my $$ numbers!

Hitting the road

Wednesday night we camped in Port Macquarie, right by the beach. The campground was entirely surrounded by temporary fencing - probably a hangover from schoolies in order to keep the paying drunkards in and the vagrant drunkards out. There was a group of guys who seemed to have kicked on with their celebrations - when we rolled in at around 4pm they were already wasted and singing along to Bob Marley tunes at the top of their lungs. All good fun. They were stil trying to go hard at around 9pm after we'd rolled back in from dinner. Even funnier was when there was a bit of commotion in their tents at around 9am, and then about 10 minutes later, some sorry looking dudes standing around hosing down an air mattress :-)

Later on we accidentally took the scenic route towards Grafton. All seemed pretty sweet for a while - lush green fields, quaint houses and peaceful grazing cows - just like we'd entered The Shire with all the hobbit folk. Then we hit a dirt road, apparantly heading back to the Pacific Highway. Ok, still pretty sweet, a bit bumpy, but lots of nice trees and green fields. Then more trees. And then no more signs. Until we saw a big sign for a religious commune in the middle of nowhere - what the?! Around this time, we're thinking: is this some kind of real-life version of "The Village"? Time to wind up the windows, lock the doors and get the hell outa here before Murphy's Law causes us to break down and have to go in search of help, only to fall into the hands of a cult community and be forced to eat nothing but lentils and spirulina juice... Thankfully, we didn't break down, and about 10 km on joined back onto the main road.

Thursday night we camped out in Byron Bay. Apparantly schoolies week is still going strong in Byron too - or maybe it's just the kids who can't let go (or aren't ready to face up to working for the council next week). Having not been to Byron since Blues n Roots several years ago, it's hard to tell if much has changed. There seems to be a healthy split between cheap and scabby takeaways, and swanky restaurants for the more discerning patrons. We chose the first option for dinner, since the 3 tortillas for $10 seemed too good to pass up. Unfortunately they're also really hard to eat, and 20 minutes later I'd managed to drip spicy sauce and sour cream all over my skirt and shoes, and generally made a right pig of myself.. but I guess that's nothing new.

Now it's the weekend and we're staying at my sister's place in Brisvegas. Thank god we're not sleeping in the cruiser, because it's been 34 degrees and stinking hot since we got here. We've been having fun entertaining their dogs, Ksubi and Levi, patting/teasing the cat, Kamal, and generally not doing much except sleeping and eating....

F@!k you, Canberra

True to form, Canberra bid farewell to us in fitting style. After our last day of work, we handed over the keys to our landlord, and headed off down the hill walking towards Tilley's. When we were about half way there (think: too far to head back, not close enough to run for it), a cloud descended upon us with torrential rain and sideways hailstones. The place is in drought for 5 years, and then the day we decide to leave, it pours. Awesome. I love sitting in pubs in a white shirt and soaking wet jeans.

The Joy of Moving

We are currently in the process of packing up our belongings and preparing to move out. Now for anyone who has been fortunate enough to have avoided this unpleasant exercise, be warned: moving house is an exhausting, stressful and seemingly never-ending task. Here are some points to consider for anyone contemplating moving:

• No matter how many things you have, you can always survive on less – sell, dump or donate
• The majority of people at garage sales are tight-arse wankers .
• The number of packing boxes you’ve estimated will always be less than the number you end up packing.
• Cleaning an entire house will drive you insane. Don’t kid yourself, just hire a cleaner.
• Stock plenty of snacks in the house while you’re packing!

In spite of all these negative aspects of moving, it is actually very liberating to rid yourself of possessions and strip back to the bare essentials. And when the kitchen is cleaned out, you get to eat all the takeaway food you can handle...

The Grand Plan

It’s the sort of thing many people talk about doing, but most of the time, the plans never eventuate. Life has a way of throwing things into the pot that make long term travel difficult or impossible; mortgages, work, children and even pets. Some people would rather spend their money on other things, or they just don’t have that travel bug. And that’s fine if that’s what makes you happy, but right now, it’s not for us. So before mortgages, work, children and pets start to complicate our lives, we’re off round the world on a footloose and fancy-free adventure.

In the coming months we plan to sell most of our household possessions, give notice to our landlord, stock up the Landcruiser and give Canberra the big finger as we make tracks for Cairns. Then on the 28^th of December, its goodbye Cairns summer, hello London winter (which is probably not the ideal start to a trip, but hey, at least we’ll be used to living in a cold, dark, beachless city).

In a nutshell, the plan is simple: land in London, do a few months work to help finance the extended trip, mosey around Europe for the rest of the year before heading over to South America for several months, and finally fly home.

Our ticket is a Qantas-British Airways round-the-world fare, courtesy of STA, that takes us on a merry sojourn something like this:

Cairns – Sydney – Bangkok – London – Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) – Buenos Aires (Argentina) – Sydney – Cairns

There are a lot of great things about this ticket. The first is that it allows us to travel for up to 18 months - most RTW fares are limited to 12 months. A RTW ticket means that we won’t have any worries about buying a return flight, had we opted for the one-way ticket to London. When it comes to entry/exit and visa requirements for some countries, having a definite ticket and date out of there makes things easier. And despite having never been a huge fan of Qantas or British Airways, this will mean we rack up mega points on our newly acquired Frequent Flyer membership.

Now we just have to cross our fingers and hope there won’t be a burst oxygen cylinder on our flight…