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Published: February 28th 2011
Our little homeworld...
Our house is the one at the top...So, here we are again...
One day to go. That familiar swell of excitement mixed with the flutters of anxiety invading my every thought. There's been a lot of planning and organisation gone into every aspect of this trip, but I can't help but worry about what's been missed.
This trip has been in the planning stages for the better part of three years. It's been in the back of our minds slowly gaining momentum while we've been getting on with the routine of everyday life. Thankfully we've had plenty of distractions to keep our thoughts occupied, but during those short periods of tranquillity that are so rare when you have two small children, we were forever dreaming and slowly putting the plan into action.
The gap between trips wasn’t supposed to be so long but life does have a way of laughing in the face of any well made plans. We were going to wait till Nate, our first son, was a year or so then leave, but we seriously underestimated our fecundity… Within six months of Nate arriving on the scene Faye fell pregnant with Gabe, our second son. So we’ve now waited till he’s a
Bedford
One of the nicer parts of our home town... year old, and the time has come… We’re off!
The last few months have been complete bedlam...
This trip is different from our last in that we're not getting a house sitter for the duration; we're actually letting it out properly hoping to gain a nice bit of income to keep us going while on the road. It's funny to think that this house, where we've lived for the last six years, where both our children were born (only one intentionally) will no longer be our home. It will still be our house, but in a few days time someone else will move in, adorn it with their own possessions, turn it into a statement about who they are, turn it into
their home and we'll be left essentially homeless.
The house contents have been cleared out leaving an empty shell. Faye and I have lived together for ten years and in that time we have managed to amass a staggering amount of 'stuff'. All of this plus the necessities required to care for two babies left us wading through a mountain of possessions. It took a while but it’s all been sorted. We've stored the possessions
'Stuff'
Everything you need for a big and little man... I hope! we'd never want to part with, one of which is a car, and not exactly something we could stuff in our parent’s loft. For this we've hired a garage, which was perfect as we could also store the furniture and white goods we wouldn't want to lose or have to buy again when we return...
It's been quite a cleansing experience to shed everything else. We've been busy recycling, freecycling, donating, car booting and ebaying and when all else fails we've thrown it away. Our life is now free from clutter; we’re now only left with sentimentality and the essentials for when we return.
We’ve also completely redecorated from top to bottom in rental friendly neutral tones, covering the colours and stripping the last vestiges of our personality from the walls. Although time consuming and hard work, it’s actually turned out to be a good thing as the final time we closed the door it was completely unrecognisable from the home we once loved… Time to move on!
So, what’s the plan?
Strangely there isn’t much of one, other than to make it to Asia, then Australia. Unlike last time we have no limits to our
What we're travelling with.
Hopefully these will be at least a third smaller once we leave the cold countries behind. journey other than funds. I took redundancy 7 months ago and since then have been a ‘stay at home Dad’ while we prepared for this trip. Faye has handed in her notice so she has no job to return to. We have no responsibilities pulling us back within a specific time frame and nothing specific to achieve out of this trip other than spending as much time together as a family.
We have a flight booked to Berlin, then the current ‘plan’ is to head through Eastern Europe into Russia, train across to Mongolia and then down into China before ending up in South-East Asia. Here we’ll hang around for a while, drifting between the many countries that make up our true travel love, before finally heading into Australia to continue where we left off a few years ago circumnavigating the entire country.
We’ve got all our visas sorted for the countries that require them initially which entailed six trips into London and the parting of £789.60. For some reason I assumed children would get some kind of discount, but as they have their own passports that’s not the case. At least they’ll be left with an awesome
Size comparison....
One big pile of luggage. One tiny man. looking passport to look over when they’re old enough to appreciate the trip they undertook even if they can’t remember it.
So how do you pack as a family for life on the road?
There’s only one answer to this, and that is “with great difficulty”. It doesn’t help that we’re going to encounter extremes of temperature and climate with freezing cold through Europe, Russia and Mongolia and tropical through SE Asia. We have lots of heavy cold weather gear, which we’ll shed once we reach warmer parts. Faye and I know how to travel light for ourselves but we’re left scratching our heads as to what is required for two tiny men. We’ve probably over packed, but we always have the option to jettison stuff on the way round if we find we’re not using it.
We’re both taking our own stuff and one of the boys stuff each, spreading the load between us, all of which leaves our packs bulging at the seams, but we still think they’re manageable. We will have two pushchairs with us though so if they do get too much, we’ll just swap out one of the boys for our bags…
The Mighty Mini...
She's being put to bed till we return.... they may not have straps but they’re much lighter.
So this is it, our last night in the UK for a while…
I’ve had a ‘To Do’ list for the last couple of months that has been constantly evolving and changing. Currently everything has a tick next to it which should put me at ease. Instead I’m left wondering, what have I missed? 😊
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Sophie and Dale
Sophie & Dale
Cool Photo
This photo is awesome. So cool to see your little homeworld like this :o)