Each journey starts with an idea, moves into the research and costing phase, chrysalises into an itinerary and finally, heart pumping, booking buttons are pushed and a journey is born.
The Idea 
Having had to terminate our travels prematurely back in 1991 – the idea was that we would always go back to England and finish what we had started. Thus England was always the bull’s eye in our plans.
Research and Costing
Due to numerous reasons – we decided earlier on in the piece that we would like to avoid flying wherever possible. Darryl’s injuries do not accommodate it and frankly I do not like flying these days.
Having decided that we wanted to return to a country approximately 17000 kilometres or around 20 flying hours away – thought was going to have to be put into how we were going to get there.
The obvious option to look at was world cruises and this is where we had to spend considerable time researching and costing. A direct cruise from Australia to England was soon ruled out as too costly so alternatives were researched. Over time cost friendly options presented themselves and the first part of the journey started to evolve.
Part two of our journey stemmed from the question “What are we going to do once we reach England”? Having had to forfeit a lot of European travel last time – it was again obvious that this was going to be the perfect opportunity to make good our previous shortfalls. Again considerable time and energy went into researching and costing a train trip around Europe and over time an itinerary has emerged.
Part three (getting home) is still under research and costing and will emerge as the journey grows.
The Itinerary
Having spent a considerable amount of time on the research and costing and knowing my way around an excel spread sheet – the itinerary came together easily and was quite fun. As mentioned above – a direct cruise to England was financially out of the question. After a lot of web surfing we managed to find a cruise from Singapore to England that was a third of the cost of the direct cruise. Some more surfing and we found a re-positioning cruise from Brisbane to Singapore. Again significantly more affordable. The time gap between the two cruises is three weeks which we plan to spend training it from Singapore to Penang then back. We have relatives in Penang who we will be able to stay with.
The European leg of the journey was definitely the most taxing on our time, energy and brains. Should we buy Eurorail passes? Which of the 51 independent European states should we visit? Which direction should we travel? Which of the millions of accommodation establishments should we book? In the end, on the advice from the Man in Seat 61 http://www.seat61.com/ we decided against Eurorail passes. We also booked most of our accommodation on the Booking.com site. This site allowed us to book all our accommodation in advance without having to pay any deposits and with cancellation fees not applicable until a few days before arrival.
The remainder of the itinerary has us staying at my Aunty Charlottes house in Reading, England. Amazingly fortunate for us – she has just built a new house and this house in Reading will be available to us for the time that we require. The plan is to use this as our base and resting point.
The Journey
The journey will be the accumulation of all of the above. It commences 20 February and I hope you will take it with us.
