Day 1 (London - Brugge)

We were both pretty unhappy about having to re-pack our rucksacks last night...it's going to take a bit of getting used to I feel. I'm starting to wonder if the best way to manage it would be to take what I need for two days at a time out of the rucksack and keep that stuff to one side so that I don't have to keep opening up the big section of the bag..definitely something to think about to try save some time and energy! I can't get rid of anything else from the bag as yet...we'll see how it goes and if I need to ship my crash mat and sleeping bag back home to reduce some of the bulk, because I probably won't need them until we hit Australia..we'll wait and see.

Alarm bells were ringing at the crack of dawn to get us up and ready in time to leave the luxury of the Park Plaza County Hall hotel at 6.45am this morning. We met the OzBUS crew and our fellow OzBUSers (along with 3 people who'd been on OzBUS 6) at Cleopatra's Needle shortly after 7am. We met the now infamous Alastair and Stephen and posed for some pictures with the bus before hitting the road shortly before 7.30am to drive to Dover to catch our ferry.

We've got a bit more info on what to expect after meeting Kim our tour leader. She'll be with us for the full 91 days, but it appears that we change bus a couple of times during the trip so we change drivers at that time too! At the moment we've got Martin who'll be taking us through from London on to the Turkey/Iran border, which by my calculations should be around June 4th. The type of bus will vary depending on where we are, that should be interesting!

Kim has been filling us in on how the trip will be run and the general housekeeping type issues. Rooming arrangements will be rotated to make sure no-one is stuck sharing with a snorer or someone with smelly feet for the whole trip. We need to make sure there are at least 2 people keeping watch over the bags when we're loading and unloading at hostels/hotels. Everyday before we arrive at our destination we need to have a whip around to make sure the bus is cleaned up, and other things like that. She's also been giving us a warts and all view about what can and will happen along the way with people irritating each other and how we'll be shocked and maybe even upset by what we see in some of the destinations along the way.

Bruges (or Brugge, pronounced Bra-hah by the locals) is a beautiful place, and I'll definitely be looking to come back to spend a bit more time exploring here. We're only staying a single night so made the most of the early afternoon arrival by taking a bike tour this afternoon. The route was about 5km around and we were excellently guided by Jos a local guy who runs bike tours during the hotter months and takes the winter off for his own holidays. The main square has every type of architecture I've ever heard of and is very, impressive. The roads are all cobbled making cycling somewhat difficult (I'm not a cyclist by any stretch of the imagination) but it was very enjoyable overall.

We're staying at Charlie Rockets hostel which is only a few minutes from the main square. It's got a pub downstairs and many, many steep and winding steps up to the rooms. Thankfully we're on the first floor so only have half the number of steps to try negotiate with the big bags. But having carted them all the way up there this afternoon it seems mad that we've to carry them back down again in less than 10 hours! Oh it really is whistle stop!

For dinner we all headed out to a local restaurant called Da Passage which was excellent! i went with local cuisine of Flemish Stew on recommendation from the bike trip earlier in the day, and I wasn't disappointed, it was delicious. Though the bill was cheap by Irish standards at €79 for 4 people (4 mains, 4 beers, 2 desserts), it wasn't helpful in making me to stick to my budget for the day. I'll be looking for cheap places to eat for a few days to make up the difference in what I'd budgeted for today and what I actually spent on the bike ride and dinner.

Now for the interesting stuff that you'll all be wondering about! The crew on the bus all seem really sound..though I guess it's early days yet so we'll see who starts rubbing people up the wrong way (hoping it's not me!). There are 20 passengers on the bus in total – 15 ladies and 5 lads. As we already knew, 9 of the passengers are Irish so there are some familiar accents dotted around the bus. I haven't had a chance to talk to everyone yet, and I've not caught all the names, but I guess that'll come in a few days time. There hasn't been any drama as yet, so nothing juicy to report to ye...the only thing that'll come of news is that the first person to lose something was......ME?!? I somehow managed to drop my phone while we were at a stop on the bike tour..thankfully someone spotted it (believe that was Alex..thanks!!) and I got it back. Won't be letting that happen again. And here's me thinking Loonie was gonna lose her stuff.

Loonie is talking about blogging but we're looking at her handwriting the entries and me typing them up on the road to speed up the contributions. Her inner luddite is stopping her from embracing the netbook and telling tales.

Tomorrow we're hitting the road to Germany with a stop in St. Goar to stay with Herman the German, who has been likened to a 70's porn star with a penchant for dressing in costume. Let's see how he greets us!

Photos from today are here,