The last few days have been incredibility relaxing and energetic. 

It may seem strange to some but we started our European adventures with a few days on the Australian coast. Wanda had a manic January, working many hours to ensure a smooth handover for her absence. And to top it off, she organised a massive, multi-event, surprise milestone birthday for Alistair!

What a thrill -- in spite of the amount of organisation required, we are ready for our trip. What we are about to doo, when we think of it, we are very excited.This adventure has been a long time coming. Planning started five years ago, when Alistair started his salary deferment. Over time we have bought the plane tickets (after many combinations of carriers, routes and destination points), checked our passports are valid (all good), successfully applied for ETIAs, ESTAs and ETAs for the US and UK, contacted credit and debit card companies to let them know we are travelling, booked accommodation in various places on our trip route (to get deals and avoid sleeping rough - never going to happen), contacted friends abroad to arrange get-togethers, created exploration plans for some of our town visits, packed, unpacked and repacked our bags (and fretted over clothing choices) and barely contained our mounting excitement about our soon-to-happen adventure.