Eight years. That's how long it's been. And that's long enough. Enough we said. Time to move on.
April two thousand and seven. That's when we landed on the slightly soggy shores of London. If New Zealand -Aotearoa- is known as the land of the long white cloud, what was this place? The land of the long, uh, grey, soggy cloud?
But ooh-boy what was this warm, wet, flat rubbish being imbibed? The start of a love affair, that's what. A long, tasty, sticky, ever-so-slightly intoxicated love affair. Welcome to the second coming of UK Real Ale (literally: it was in its death throws when we turned up).
I like to think we helped save it - a different London pub almost every Wednesday, fuelled by the goodness that is Real Ale. Good times, a great way to see London and a neat way to actually see your mates ... always a hard thing with the physical spread of London.
Anyway. I digress. What I came here to tell you, was this: we're out, we're off, the time has come, we're moving on and we're doing it with bells on.
We're selling up shop and giving away the rest. Amazing how much crap you collect over eight years, eh? And dang, this is more effort than we thought it would be. Who knew that trying to give stuff away on Free Cycle would be more effort that actually selling it? The less it goes for (i.e. free), the less people seem bothered to turn up and get it. Crazy.
So. It's time to leave! We fly out of the UK on the 14th of July. We've still got a few weeks to go. This is good, very good, because we still have a heck of a lot to do. Sigh - there is always one (lots) more thing.
After that we've got about seven months travel lined up. If the money lasts that is, or, according to Inga, 'if the budget gets bigger' or 'what budget?'. Hah, I suppose that we may also get sick of it after a while, right? We may just get lazy and park it up somewhere strange for a while.
The start should be fairly laid back: a nice easy flight over to Greece for two and a half weeks relaxation on Kalymnos island, with nothing to do except for relaxing, getting sunburnt and drinking cold beer. Aaaah. Lovely jubblies. Whilst this is happening, our little purpose-purchased left had drive car will be slowly drifting across the waves (on a ship, it's not magic) from London to Athens.
After our beach stay, we pick up the car in Athens and drive the first of our 3,000 pootling kilometres, heading directly to Albania.
The first couple of month's plan is to drive from Greece back to the UK via the coastal Balkans: start in Greece (beach, sun, cold beer) -> Albania -> Montenegro -> Bosnia & Herzegovina -> Croatia (a week in this old fisherman's house on -aaah sooo lovely- Otok Zut island) -> Slovenia (camping & hiking) -> Austria (more camping & hiking) -> Italy -> South of France, close to Carcassonne for Tamlyn & Sami's wedding and then visiting Stef, Vanessa, Jack & family in Vezenobres, close in Nimes.
Finally, it's back to the UK to sell the car quick as a flash. Chop chop as we only have a few days till we fly to Peru on 16 September... and that's the extent of the official planning so far!
The next four or five months we're looking at South America and Mexico/Cuba, loosely travelling along the lines of Peru -> Bolivia -> Chile -> Mexico -> Cuba (before Cuba gets turned into a big 'ole McDonalds!).
Where is the final destination - we must have one, right? Right?!? Well, no, we don't. The plan is to figure that out on the way. We have time. And lots of it.
No one seems to believe that answer, but that's all we have for the moment... we'll update when we know further :)
So. Come with us. Electronically. It'll be fun.
Maybe you could even meet us up for a cold beer somewhere along the way? That'd be nice. Real nice.
April two thousand and seven. That's when we landed on the slightly soggy shores of London. If New Zealand -Aotearoa- is known as the land of the long white cloud, what was this place? The land of the long, uh, grey, soggy cloud?
But ooh-boy what was this warm, wet, flat rubbish being imbibed? The start of a love affair, that's what. A long, tasty, sticky, ever-so-slightly intoxicated love affair. Welcome to the second coming of UK Real Ale (literally: it was in its death throws when we turned up).
I like to think we helped save it - a different London pub almost every Wednesday, fuelled by the goodness that is Real Ale. Good times, a great way to see London and a neat way to actually see your mates ... always a hard thing with the physical spread of London.
Anyway. I digress. What I came here to tell you, was this: we're out, we're off, the time has come, we're moving on and we're doing it with bells on.
We're selling up shop and giving away the rest. Amazing how much crap you collect over eight years, eh? And dang, this is more effort than we thought it would be. Who knew that trying to give stuff away on Free Cycle would be more effort that actually selling it? The less it goes for (i.e. free), the less people seem bothered to turn up and get it. Crazy.
So. It's time to leave! We fly out of the UK on the 14th of July. We've still got a few weeks to go. This is good, very good, because we still have a heck of a lot to do. Sigh - there is always one (lots) more thing.
After that we've got about seven months travel lined up. If the money lasts that is, or, according to Inga, 'if the budget gets bigger' or 'what budget?'. Hah, I suppose that we may also get sick of it after a while, right? We may just get lazy and park it up somewhere strange for a while.
The start should be fairly laid back: a nice easy flight over to Greece for two and a half weeks relaxation on Kalymnos island, with nothing to do except for relaxing, getting sunburnt and drinking cold beer. Aaaah. Lovely jubblies. Whilst this is happening, our little purpose-purchased left had drive car will be slowly drifting across the waves (on a ship, it's not magic) from London to Athens.
 |
| Ohhh: isn't she cute? Little Mrs 'Ford Fiesta Style Climate' |
After our beach stay, we pick up the car in Athens and drive the first of our 3,000 pootling kilometres, heading directly to Albania.
The first couple of month's plan is to drive from Greece back to the UK via the coastal Balkans: start in Greece (beach, sun, cold beer) -> Albania -> Montenegro -> Bosnia & Herzegovina -> Croatia (a week in this old fisherman's house on -aaah sooo lovely- Otok Zut island) -> Slovenia (camping & hiking) -> Austria (more camping & hiking) -> Italy -> South of France, close to Carcassonne for Tamlyn & Sami's wedding and then visiting Stef, Vanessa, Jack & family in Vezenobres, close in Nimes.
Finally, it's back to the UK to sell the car quick as a flash. Chop chop as we only have a few days till we fly to Peru on 16 September... and that's the extent of the official planning so far!
 |
| Green: We fly to Kalymnos, blue: our car is shipped to Athens, Black: we drive from Athens back to London over 2 months |
The next four or five months we're looking at South America and Mexico/Cuba, loosely travelling along the lines of Peru -> Bolivia -> Chile -> Mexico -> Cuba (before Cuba gets turned into a big 'ole McDonalds!).
Where is the final destination - we must have one, right? Right?!? Well, no, we don't. The plan is to figure that out on the way. We have time. And lots of it.
No one seems to believe that answer, but that's all we have for the moment... we'll update when we know further :)
So. Come with us. Electronically. It'll be fun.
Maybe you could even meet us up for a cold beer somewhere along the way? That'd be nice. Real nice.
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