A friend at lunch was telling me her about travels in Vietnam this week. Travels in Asia never seem to be without stories of what spectacles you see on motorbikes. Her story involved a man driving a motorbike with a pig laid out on the fuel tank. The pig was dead and cut down the belly with legs splayed out for all the world.  He had to lean over it to steer the...

Another busy week has come and gone.  Steve had his last rabies vaccination; boys enjoyed the second week of holidays and I finally pulled my finger out and organised all the landlord, house, contents, storage and transportation insurance.  Don’t normally name drop but thanks to Suncorp – I’ve been impressed with their service as a first time customer.

I finished work for...

Now we are counting in days!  Panic is starting to set in. So many things to do and the list doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter.  On top of everything we now have a ute to fix after it was side swiped by a truck this week when parked in the street.  Ahhh! These things are sent to test us I know but we could certainly do without the inconvenience thanks! 

This week we...

This week was a week of lasts - the last week of school and pre-prep with school parties and concerts; the last piano lesson and last basketball session.  In fact, the last day of school for a long long time, which I had to remind Harris of when he whinged that only 5 children in his class were going to be there on the last day for ’clean up’ day.

We also survived our...

Another week has come and nearly gone and I think it has rained nearly the whole time.

This week I have learnt that cleaning can be hazardous. Do not … and I repeat, do not try to clean a kitchen drawer with slightly too wet fingers because you are at risk of having that drawer fall on your foot at high speed and cause you to swear loudly in ear shot of your children and...

We got in and booked some flights to take advantage of one of Air Asia’s sales. Think we now have the hang of their website.

Flight path:  Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur on 15th February.

Flight path: KL to Phnom Penh on 23rd February.

Plan to start our stay at Singing Kites shortly after our arrival in Cambodia.  After that … who knows?

For all of you out there wondering what the heck we are doing … here it is (kind of). As previously mentioned we have flights into a continent and out again and this is how it looks.

1. Brisbane to Jakarta via Sydney on 4th February 2011 – yippee. Spend this time with my cousin and his family. Need to fly out about 14th February so we don’t overstay our welcome!  Need to...

Karlee is our 3 legged wonder dog who will be 13 years old when we leave in February.  My parents are the willing and able babysitters for the 12 months that we are travelling.  She will be sadly missed and we dearly hope that she is well in our absence.  Physically she is very well, despite having cancer and her leg amputated at 9 months of age.  I do worry that she will...

Me, pushing 2 empty containers down the hallway to the study.

Five year old Finn, Patrick’s friend, sticks his head out of the room and asks “What are they for?”.

My reply, “Oh, just to pack stuff in”.

Finn turns to Patrick, “What is she packing stuff for?”

Patrick announces matter of factly, “Because we are going round the world”.

Finn declares, “You’re lucky!”

Patrick...

I am sure every person who has every travelled anywhere at all has ummd and aaahd over what they will take with them and what they will carry it all in. As soon as the idea of RTW was tossed around I began googling backpacks etc.  Holy mackerel! A whole new world opened up. All our travel to date had been with suitcases.

In my first overseas journey to the USA as a 17 year...