I’m off! Well, I’ve left Melbourne, and yesterday Luke and I drove to Albury for the first and tiny step on this trip.

Here’s the brief itinerary for anyone interested, and if you have suggestions of things to do or places to go in these locations, speak now!

Flying out of Sydney April 10 with Asiana (a Korean airline) arriving in London April 11 via an overnight stopover in Seoul.

Three weeks solo in the Lake District, hopefully doing a bit of wild camping.

First two weeks of May with Daniel walking the Camino Ingles from Ferrol and seeing Santiago de Compostela.

Two weeks with Luke’s family in the Lake District.

A week in London with Luke’s parents.

Two weeks e-bike cycling in Switzerland and Austria between St Moritz and Innsbruck with time in Salzburg and a night in Hallstatt.

A couple of weeks back in the UK visiting Northern Ireland and travelling around.

In the morning Luke dropped Bonnie off at her version of Disneyland (long term in-home care with her favourite dogs and people) for the next 3 and a half months. While it would have been nice if she’d looked even a tiny bit sad, apparently there wasn’t even a backward glance as she raced into their backyard.

We drove up from Melbourne yesterday, leaving the rain behind and arriving to lovely sunshine in Albury. Luke’s mother, Lea, is away on a girls’ weekend with her four sisters so we are spending time with Luke’s dad. Pete.

After an afternoon visit with Kath, Luke’s nan, we settled on the couch with some wine, gourmet sausage rolls (blue cheese, walnuts and pork – delicious! Thanks Kath!) and watched a few episodes of Eugene Levy’s ‘Reluctant Traveller’.

Luke caught the train back to Melbourne today and I headed off to Orange for a week. I’ll then be flying to Sydney and catching my flight from there as Asiana doesn’t fly from Melbourne.

I had planned a solo mini adventure on the way to Orange via the Yarrangobilly thermal pool. I’d seen it online, and the appeal of a chlorine-free, 27 degree pool out in the middle of a National park was very strong. I left Albury at just past 11am, since the drive to the pool was supposed to take almost four hours.

Unfortunately, due to my slow driving and several stops, I didn’t get to the car park until 4:30. The ranger in the ticket office said the walk down was *steep*, which didn’t fill me with confidence. My walking buddy, Charmaine, had slipped on gravel a few months back and had to cancel her part of the trip due to a broken ankle.

When I got to the path it was extremely steep, covered in loose gravel and the light was fading, so I did what I always do and turned back. The trip wasn’t an entire loss though. I did see quite a lot of lovely views over Kosciusko National Park.

I also saw signs warning of brumbies (wild horses, sadly not sighted) and a wedge-tailed eagle ripping up road kill and dodging traffic.

I decided to stop for the night in Tumut, a small country town just off the Hume Highway. I stopped at the first pub I saw and booked a room. The Oriental Hotel is very like the pubs my family has owned. Wrap-around verandah, high ceilings, lots of old guys in plaid shirts propping up the bar.

Unlike my family’s pubs, they do a mean chicken karaage bao, it was delicious!

Now I’m in my room, which comes with free earplugs 😂 and it’s only 6:30pm. I might take a stroll down the Main Street and see what entertainment Tumut has to free on a Sunday night. I’m guessing not much!