I wrote this below intending it for our newlandswiththekirklands blog though I wasn't sure it would pass the John test as it was a bit different to what we have blogged before and indeed it didn't make the cut. So rather than it disappear I thought I would post it on here instead and let it live. I might also add a few more bits now I know it's not getting another audience!
Travel musings
Being a backpacker is a funny thing. I don't think we have felt in quite the right demographic on this tour in Australia, but we have still enjoyed it and had a laugh with lots of different people and been taken to incredible places so it has been worth it. And I have been so pleased to have had John as my friend and ally and person to be with at the end of each day.
Our time on this Loka tour in Australia has given me a few thoughts on things that I decided I would start to record here. Here are the smiles and trials of my travel musings...
- Looking down at my legs and feet and being surprised they belong to me as they have turned a different colour in this climate! I don't think I've ever had the tops of my feet and the soles such a contrast before.
- We have stayed in about 7 different hostels and a friendly welcome at a hostel makes a huge difference to my impression of a place.
- Camping for a night starts to seem appealing after some hostels!
- I can now use my 'old age' as the reason I'm not doing drinking games or going clubbing!
- I now know which type of shampoo bottle is most likely to squirt open in a rucksack and how long it takes to wipe up. And that how when you have learnt this, it is important to follow through and put said bottle in a plastic bag.
- I am very very glad that I seem to sleep so well and go straight back to sleep in hostels or trains or tents.
- My phone lasts so much longer on Airplane mode before it needs recharging again.
- The Spirit of Queensland train doesn't often run to time. It makes British trains seem punctual to the extreme - hanging around for over an hour at a very quiet station is not considered strange and there is not much hurry when the train does arrive.
- Train journeys and delays are good for catching up with diary writing.
- Shopping can take a long time when deliberating if 25p extra is worth it for Ainsley Harriot cous cous!
- Eye masks are really great! They help you sleep in in the mornings when light would normally awaken you and they are great at avoiding distractions on planes and trains (and boats!).
- I can actually survive without the delicious looking gelato in Australia and after a while I even stop thinking about it! But when I have my first ice cream since UK, a 'Maxibon', it is so so delicious!
- The Swiss army really give you a Swiss Army Knife.
- I don't like sleeping on the top bunk of a squeaky bunk bed!
- Carrying a backpack is heavy, but heaving it on to your back is worse. But even worse is seeing the fellow traveller whose wheel had come off his wheely suitcase and now has to carry it awkwardly everywhere.
- Having a kindle loaded with books is really wonderful for me travelling.
- I can brush my hair with a comb when the hairbrush I had lost so many bristles, it wasn't really worth carrying around anymore.
- John is good at starting conversations with new people. I'd rather try pretend I was invisible.
- I have really enjoyed that fact that we've been in 'The Tropics'. It sounds so adventurous and I hadn't thought before that so much of Australia was in there. Although, admittedly the heat has been a bit too much a lot of the time!
- I don't enjoy the often present tear when travelling on a budget when deciding whether to spend money. Go for the cheapest hostel and then be disappointed if it's a bit grimy. Walk past all the cafes and try be content with the same cheap meal from the supermarket. Choose the cheapest airline and then the distress realising it doesn't include baggage and watch the air hostesses walk past you with the food trolley. I have got a lot better at doing things the budget way now though. Sometimes I miss the times when the only guilt of ordering a cake was the calories, not the cost, but on the while I adjusted. I love doing free things like geocaching and walking along the beach. And of course reading is an ever present free joy. And it has made me appreciate again how free of money worries my life has been. And we have been able to do all the big things we wanted and appreciate that ice cream and meal out when they came! [that last bullet point wasn't in the original blog]
At the moment we are very much looking forward to our time in New Zealand. We fly over there on 20th January. We are staying with our friends in Wellington for a couple of weeks. The thought of being in a home is wonderful - having a bedroom, a kitchen where you don't have to dry everything with a wet tea towel, a bathroom where you don't wear flip flops in the shower because you're just not sure about the floor...! Then we will be on the road in our rented camper van. At the moment that sounds great too. Being able to go where we want when we want. Not having to pack up again each morning. But I do wonder if we will find ourselves longing for the clean sheets of a hostel and not having to think about when and where to empty the toilet tank or longing for the space of a big kitchen. I've never travelled in a campervan before so it is definitely another adventure. How big will it be? How will it feel to drive? Any suggestions of easy cheap meals to cook in a campervan gratefully received!
I have been pondering how and what to blog about generally now. It seemed easier when we were in Uganda to blog about things, I guess because we had more time. Now that we are 'travelling' I'm not quite sure how to do it. I've kept a blog for a few years but no one reads it so I haven't had to worry about what readers would think of it! And now we even seem to have a few people following the blog that we don't even know! My inclination now is to do a blow by blow of all the fantastic places we have been. But then some people have been kind enough to say they enjoy reading the blog and it's not just a showcase of photos so I'm not sure how to proceed?! We really do love your comments. Maybe if you read this you could comment letting us know how you would like us to blog from now on? Little and often? More or less photos? More or less writing? What we do or what we think of a place? Your thoughts would help us out 😀
