I've not even left on my adventure yet, and I've already got flights booked to take me home...way too organised and it's slightly depressing to know exactly when I'll be back before I've even left..especially as I'm supposed to be taking a break from my normal super hyper planning mode! Re-visited Trailfinders today...weird experience.
Last week I was quoted just shy of €1400 for me to fly Perth - Melbourne, Brisbane - Auckland and Christchurch - Dublin (had to change the plan up a bit based on the revelations about trains appearing to be booked & the restriction about validity period of driving licence restricting when I'd be able to do some camper driving). I figured all's I needed to book was the Brisbane - New Zealand (now Christchurch) and New Zealand (now Auckland) - Dublin flights so I matched up with what Conor was booked on. The quote for him last week for his whole round trip was €1213 and I was told it was only valid until Feb 28th so we wanted to move on it.
You can imagine my surprise when we got in there today all ready to book those flights for me to be told that my flight would be a minimum of €4500 while Conor's has dropped to €1169!!!! The guy said I'd be better off calling a travel agent in New Zealand and tell them the exact flights I wanted to get on as it'd work out cheaper. So Conor's all sorted with little or no effort and I'm back online searching like a crazy lady for a reasonable quote as owing to the time difference I wasn't really going to get a travel agent too easily in time for Conor to finalise his booking. So I spent an age searching for a bargain...can you believe that I found the flights Conor's on from Brisbane - Christchurch and Auckland - London (need to sort out London to Dublin separately) for less than €700!!! That's such a saving on what Trailfinders were saying they'd have to charge...WTF??
I'm still in shock over the price difference..and slightly peeved that I won't be getting air miles for the flying I'll be doing. Had to pay more to get them on the flights and as we're now flying with Singapore Airlines (rather than Quantas/British Airways where I'd get the miles automatically) I thought why bother spend the extra. The guy sold us on SA because he started on about the A380 (in my naivety I had no idea what the big deal was about but Conor seemed excited) and the reputation of SA (again..I've never heard good, bad or indifferent I just wanted flights!). Somehow we ended up leaving the building with an itinerary in hand for Conor and with nothing in place for me..just the knowledge that I needed to get on the same flights within the next 24 hours to make sure we travel home together. Managed it but it seems that I don't get to go on the A380...it's one of the planes Conor gets on his way over!! ARGHH!!
Still..at least that latest drama is over..I've got a bus to get me to Oz and I've got flights to get me home :)
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Hyper-Planning Mode
I'm in planning overdrive...my brain's melting from entering dates into pretty much every travel site there is out there. Flights, trains, ferries, camper hire...so many modes of transport to try link up!
Finally popped into Trailfinders to suss out the price of Conor's flights, and my flight home. How depressing is it that he's gonna do twice the distance I'm doing for less money! Looks like we'll get a pretty sweet deal if we book before February 28th, so hoping to finalise flight dates this week and book them next weekend. From there we can start nailing down the rest of the transport. I'm working on camper van hire right now..still hoping for the 30% discount I was looking at for the hire in Australia. If we can get the discount that's another booking to be confirmed before the end of the month. Everything will be falling into place nicely ;)
Plan at the moment looks a little something like this:
Sail & Rail (Dublin - Holyhead - London)
Ozbus (London - Sydney)
Indian Pacific Railway (Sydney - Adelaide - Perth)
Some kind of touring (Perth - Ningaloo Reef - Perth)
Fly Perth - Melbourne
Ferry Melbourne - Tasmania (3 day tour then back to Melbourne)
Meet Conor in Melbourne
Camper van from Melbourne - Brisbane (via Great Ocean Road, Canberra, Sydney and if time up to Frazer Island and back)
Fly Brisbane - Auckland
Camper van from Auckland - Christchurch (looping both islands)
Fly home Christchurch - Dublin
It really does look like it's going to be the trip of a lifetime, and I'm incredibly excited to get it started. It's still a way away, but with everything falling into place bit by bit it's hard to contain the thrill sometimes.
First of my vaccination appointments this week :( Not a needle fan...but it's for the greater good! Not sure what the GP has on the table for me..she reckons three visits will get everything done for me, and thankfully I don't need some of what I thought I might so I'm down 7 shots on what I was preparing for...nice for me and nicer for my wallet!
Finally popped into Trailfinders to suss out the price of Conor's flights, and my flight home. How depressing is it that he's gonna do twice the distance I'm doing for less money! Looks like we'll get a pretty sweet deal if we book before February 28th, so hoping to finalise flight dates this week and book them next weekend. From there we can start nailing down the rest of the transport. I'm working on camper van hire right now..still hoping for the 30% discount I was looking at for the hire in Australia. If we can get the discount that's another booking to be confirmed before the end of the month. Everything will be falling into place nicely ;)
Plan at the moment looks a little something like this:
Sail & Rail (Dublin - Holyhead - London)
Ozbus (London - Sydney)
Indian Pacific Railway (Sydney - Adelaide - Perth)
Some kind of touring (Perth - Ningaloo Reef - Perth)
Fly Perth - Melbourne
Ferry Melbourne - Tasmania (3 day tour then back to Melbourne)
Meet Conor in Melbourne
Camper van from Melbourne - Brisbane (via Great Ocean Road, Canberra, Sydney and if time up to Frazer Island and back)
Fly Brisbane - Auckland
Camper van from Auckland - Christchurch (looping both islands)
Fly home Christchurch - Dublin
It really does look like it's going to be the trip of a lifetime, and I'm incredibly excited to get it started. It's still a way away, but with everything falling into place bit by bit it's hard to contain the thrill sometimes.
First of my vaccination appointments this week :( Not a needle fan...but it's for the greater good! Not sure what the GP has on the table for me..she reckons three visits will get everything done for me, and thankfully I don't need some of what I thought I might so I'm down 7 shots on what I was preparing for...nice for me and nicer for my wallet!
Friday, February 6, 2009
It's been a while
My doesn't time fly when you're waiting for a big trip to come around ;)
Today marks 62 work days left *bounce*. I'm sure I'll miss it somewhat when I'm on the road, but I really can't wait to finish up and not have to think about oncall and whether I'm free to work in 17 weeks time. I'm sure I'll struggle with the lack of regime a little bit, but I'm excited about the challenge. I'm either super organised, or super lazy - 100% commitment in either direction, but never been too good with down the middle. I'm hoping to work on that!
My camera has arrived and is very swish and beautiful. I severely struggled with it the first day I tried to use it and ended up with every photo being a blurry mess. I couldn't work out how to set a shoot mode on it (really should have read the manual first) but I've eventually got there and managed to get some non-blurry, very clear images, so I'm a happy camper. Next item on the wish list is a netbook to bring along with me. (Conor's just bought one and I'm tempted to 'borrow' it). As much as I'd love to be able to leave my inner (and sometimes outer) nerd behind, I'm not sure I could function without a computer for the three months of the bus trip. I reckon it'll be handy for entertaining me on the days we're driving for 18 hours, for sorting out my good photos from my crappy ones, keeping a journal (though I'm very tempted to keep a physical one that gets stained with coffee and whatever else along the way) and for getting emails and blog posts ready on the road for mail at the next stop along the way.
I've still not done anything about a new passport - really need to get onto that. Because I'm being so laid back about sorting that I've not done anything about Visas either. Though on the Visa front I don't know what I can do until OzBus provide some kind of itinerary for the trip. All well and good using the itinerary off their website and calculating days that way but I'm sure that's all very much subject to change and may not be valid any more. The one thing that I have done is started some research into vaccinations - now I'm scared!! For the list of countries we should be hitting there are a good few vaccinations recommended/suggested. I did a count of the number of shots we're taking about..and it's 18!! I'm not a happy camper..I hate needles..HATE HATE HATE them. But, I know I need to get them so I've called my GP to try set up a schedule to get them all done in enough time to spread them out and avoid having to get a massive cocktail all in one go. We'll see what she comes back with next week.
The facebook group that I set up for the trip has two new members. It's cool to see other people getting excited about the trip too. I'm looking forward to meeting all of these new people when we get to London..wonder how many of us will stay in touch after the trip.
Loonie has resurfaced at last...she's working herself to the bone to save for the trip. Wish I could say the same about myself!
Today marks 62 work days left *bounce*. I'm sure I'll miss it somewhat when I'm on the road, but I really can't wait to finish up and not have to think about oncall and whether I'm free to work in 17 weeks time. I'm sure I'll struggle with the lack of regime a little bit, but I'm excited about the challenge. I'm either super organised, or super lazy - 100% commitment in either direction, but never been too good with down the middle. I'm hoping to work on that!
My camera has arrived and is very swish and beautiful. I severely struggled with it the first day I tried to use it and ended up with every photo being a blurry mess. I couldn't work out how to set a shoot mode on it (really should have read the manual first) but I've eventually got there and managed to get some non-blurry, very clear images, so I'm a happy camper. Next item on the wish list is a netbook to bring along with me. (Conor's just bought one and I'm tempted to 'borrow' it). As much as I'd love to be able to leave my inner (and sometimes outer) nerd behind, I'm not sure I could function without a computer for the three months of the bus trip. I reckon it'll be handy for entertaining me on the days we're driving for 18 hours, for sorting out my good photos from my crappy ones, keeping a journal (though I'm very tempted to keep a physical one that gets stained with coffee and whatever else along the way) and for getting emails and blog posts ready on the road for mail at the next stop along the way.
I've still not done anything about a new passport - really need to get onto that. Because I'm being so laid back about sorting that I've not done anything about Visas either. Though on the Visa front I don't know what I can do until OzBus provide some kind of itinerary for the trip. All well and good using the itinerary off their website and calculating days that way but I'm sure that's all very much subject to change and may not be valid any more. The one thing that I have done is started some research into vaccinations - now I'm scared!! For the list of countries we should be hitting there are a good few vaccinations recommended/suggested. I did a count of the number of shots we're taking about..and it's 18!! I'm not a happy camper..I hate needles..HATE HATE HATE them. But, I know I need to get them so I've called my GP to try set up a schedule to get them all done in enough time to spread them out and avoid having to get a massive cocktail all in one go. We'll see what she comes back with next week.
The facebook group that I set up for the trip has two new members. It's cool to see other people getting excited about the trip too. I'm looking forward to meeting all of these new people when we get to London..wonder how many of us will stay in touch after the trip.
Loonie has resurfaced at last...she's working herself to the bone to save for the trip. Wish I could say the same about myself!
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