Beginning number 2 - last day at work and first stop Tasmania
Past weeks flew by. Finishing up at work, selling our dear and beloved furniture, practise packing, attending as many social gatherings as possible and planning filled up the days easily.
Leaving an awesome, one-in-a-lifetime job is not easy and I am still not sure what am I thinking. At the same time I am confident new opportunities will come up if this author-thing won't work out.
The planning:
I have spent hours on reading, creating maps, estimating how many nights we'll spend and where. Soon you realise that traveling won't necessarily be a chill 15 months off but hard work. Hard work of leaving places, saying goodbyes, keeping in mind other places you want to see instead of getting stuck for one month in one little village.
I already notice that my timelines tend to get longer and longer. "Surely we can add one week to Tasmania, two to NZ, maybe another month for Western Australia" and boom suddenly we won't have time to go to South America.
Clearly ruthless prioritisation applies to all aspects of life, including travel.
First stop: Tasmania
Now I'm glad we didn't do a long-weekend type of trip to Tassie during our time in Sydney. That would have meant us skipping it now but instead we get to do a 2-week roadtrip almost all around the mini-Australia! Two weeks is a bare minimum but we'll see plenty more than in four days.
Route is:
Hobart - Bruny Island - couple waterfalls on the way - Queenstown - Cradle Mountain - Penguin (!!!) - Launceston - Bay of Fires - Freycinet National Park (Wineglass Bay) - Maria Island (they call this the Eden on Earth) - Port Arthur - back to Hobart for two nights.
We will aim to use as much free camping sites as possible but I have to say I'm not 100% confident we'll be able to sleep in a tent when the temperatures are around 10 Celsius. But we are used to sleeping with our hats on after the last winter in Sydney - the houses here are so cold!
Next time I hope to share amazing photos from Tassie - learning photography has been definitely a new challenge for me!
The Beginning (and preparations: Camera gear)
It's official - we are leaving Australia and going traveling! Countdown is 4 weeks and first flights to Tasmania are booked.
I don't promise to document every step we take but I do intent to share as much as possible so it'll be easy to follow our journey across couple of continents.
Preparations so far have included:
- A practise back over the weekend. I was done in 30min while the other half took 3 hours. I will be carrying way too much stuff versus him who claims he'll survive with one jumper for 14 months. Ok.
- Buying more stuff. Next on the list: Get rid of old stuff.
But in all fairness I had to get a proper camera. One can't go on with iPhone panorama & Photoshop Auto Tone- function forever. I went with Panasonic Lumix 100 (LX100) based on the size and recommendations from a trusted source, dad. Since I didn't know anything about photography it's been couple of long nights learning about all the finer details about this travel companion.
I'm pretty sure first attempts I publish here will be fairly shit but at least then you see how you improve.
And now we'll start from the very bottom. Here's my camera (and globe from Jessica!).
Photo taken by iPhone 7s, edited with Photoshop Auto Tone.