Day 0 - Finally it starts

Our journey continues

• Singapore (4 days),
  
• Melbourne (2 days) with Great Ocean Road and the mountains (5 days), continue to
• Cairns (Great Barrier Reef, rainforest, historic railway ride and beach (7 days), continue to
• Auckland (3 days) and tour of the North and South Islands of New Zealand (41 days), continue to
• Brisbane, along the Gold Coast into the Blue Mountains 11 days) and ends in Sydney (5 days) before we leave on November 27th. will board the plane home.
  

It's finally starting. The time for planning and checklists is over. At the same time, we realize that neither Karin nor I (Volker) have ever traveled for such a long time in one go. Each of us has a lot of life experience and we have seen a lot of the world. Nevertheless, we are excited to get to know new things.

The animals (1 dog, 2 cats) have been taken care of, the final instructions have been written and, as always before a trip, despite the long lead time and really careful planning, the night before departure is rather short.

For us, being halfway around the world in just under 3 months means not only packing 3 underpants and 2 shirts, but also taking clothes for hot and humid (Singapore), 20-30 degrees (Australia) and 15-20 degrees (New Zealand). We're taking a total of 75 kg of luggage with us on the trip - and we've already planned to wash it more often.

We have now been in the air for 8 hours (of 12.5 hours), drinking our first Tiger beer and letting the Singapore Airline pamper us. There is now WiFi on board, from altitudes of 10,000 feet and when you are not flying over a critical area.

It's not really possible to get enough sleep on a plane. It will be a challenge until we get into a new daily routine. We land in Singapore at 1 a.m. while it's already 6 a.m. there. So we first have to get through about 5 p.m. without sleeping to get into our rhythm. This means that we will then go a total of 35 hours with just a morsel of sleep. It would be best if we looked for a “dancing” location right away.

The flight also had turbulence, so that Karin felt quite queasy in the stomach. We're taking it slow. Overall, the flight is quite strenuous. It doesn't fit into our biorhythm and the aircraft noise is loud. My head is also buzzing a bit.

On the way to the hotel we talked to the taxi driver. His anticipation of the upcoming Formula 1 event is limited. The locals have little interest in Formula 1 - it is more of an event for business people and especially foreigners, who then flock to the country. The taxi drivers then like to take a few days off, although that would actually be good business for them. They prefer not to because the streets are completely blocked. Yes, you can do it like that :)