my travel journal
Very lazy day today. Woke up, went for a bike ride (whilst Dad was looking around trying to find a place that could open to top-box and the lock on the bikes…).
A view of the beach at Arromanches, Normandy, the site of D-Day many years ago.
Had some authentic French lunch and then set off again for another ride around Arromanches - this time with Dad because he had managed to get the top-box open…
Today was a lazy day.. to begin with. Entertained myself in the park for a little while, just wasting time until a little after lunch when Mum rushed down and informed us we had to leave - Dad had lost the keys to the top box (a container thing that we put on our roof racks to carry stuff) and two of the bikes! Oh no!
So we had to hop in the car and start driving and re-tracing our steps back to the service station we stopped at after arriving in France, in the hope that some how the keys where still there. We drove for a few hours back to the petrol station, looked around furiously for a small shiny set of keys, and discovered our keys were no where to be found. We even reported the loss to the local police station in case someone miraculously handed them in. Then we headed back to the campground.
Rhys went with Dad into town that night and we all ate dinner before nodding off…
We caught the ferry across to France and drove to a campsite in the town of Arramanches in Normandy, France, which some of you might know from the famous battle of World War II known as D-Day. It is best known as one of the beaches where Allied forces landed on June 6, 1944, to begin the liberation of mainland Europe of Nazi forces.
Mulberry Bay harbor, Arramanches, Normandy, France.
After setting up camp, we had nothing much to do so we just passed the time with games and reading, as it was getting pretty late. We’d start exploring tomorrow.
Woken up this morning by mum, telling us to get down stairs straight away to make sure we could say goodbye to Jacki before she left for work.
It was more than an hours wait before Jacki got down stairs, let alone left for work. She said she was late because my younger brother, Rhys, was up at a “ridiculous hour”. Rhys claimed he usually got up at five in the morning (not eight, like he actually does).
Dad and Andy went to a garage to sort out the car (we were having some handbrake issues). We (Mum, Rhys and I) sat around and watched Harry Potter on DVD until they got back. We were about half way through the film when Dad and Andy when to collect the Peugeot and we set off after lunch (my diary reads: “we were only half way through when the two old men went to collect the car“).
We stopped in a campsite called New Forrest near the town of Pool, were we set up camp for the night.
I felt a bit timid, maybe a bit scared you could say. I really didn’t want to go - to leave all my friends behind, and the life I had known for the last 5 years, but I was also excited. That, and I guess I had to go - it being my parents decision, and all.
Our red Peugeot 405 just leaving our house of 5 years.
We set off around six-thirty in the morning and before we even leave our driveway, dad broke the handbrake. Whoo! Anyway, after hours and hours of solid driving we arrived at Andy & Jacki’s place around ten at night, heading off to bed son after. But it wasn’t until at least an hour after getting in bed that we actually went off to sleep, because Elsa, Andy & Jacki’s cat, kept terrorizing (playing with) us.
It was kind of weird thinking that we’d be living in that red car, and a fold-up camper van for the next six months. Really makes you think about how excessive our society is. I mean, do you really need a huge house with lots of bedrooms, and on-suite and a swimming pool, when a family of four can live out of an old Peugeot and a camper van? I’d rather be seeing the world in a crappy red Peugeot than be stuck inside a mansion.
In 2002 my family and I left England after nearly six years of living and working in “ol’ blighty” and headed home to Australia. But we didn’t head straight home on a plane or something, we decided to take “the scenic route” - we traveled around Europe for four months, then headed over to the US for two months and then back to Australia.
So earlier today I randomly decided to go back to my diary from this year and start reading it again - just to get me back in the mood of traveling.
Since I’ve been reading my earlier diary, I’ve decided to start posting My Old Journal entries so you can all read through my previous travels. I’ll start tomorrow with Tuesday June 11th, 2002, and finish on December 6th, 2002. I won’t just rewrite my diary entries though, I’ll use both my diary entries and my memory as well as my new knowledge, now that I’m older, to help recount the six months we traveled for in interesting, engaging detail. I’ll also try to post a few pictures by scanning the photos from our old photo albums.
Look forward to reading all about my first long-haul travel adventure starting tomorrow!
I’ve recently started a list of things that I want to do, see, drink, taste, smell, or experience in my life time. You can find this list here.
If anyone has any suggestions for additions, please comment here.
With a possible change of plans, comes a re-thinking of my route and were I’ll go. Since I will likely only have one year or one year and a few months, I’ve been thinking about shorter trips in less countries. Maybe Asia or South America?
I’m leaning more to the asia idea, so I came up with a very basic itinerary;
That should satisfy my itchy feet for a while - at least enough to give me three or four years to finish university…then I’ll head back out for a real adventure.
When I’m traveling, I won’t have access to a computer all the time, so I’ll have to write posts up in bulk after the fact, so you’ll have a steady stream of new reading/listening/watching material. For example:
Basically you’ll read everything 2 weeks after It actually happens. This will give me time to make sure I don’t miss days for posts (though I’m sure this will end up happening) and to make sure I don’t need to worry about getting to an internet cafe at the end of every day.
So, to get into this habit, and to avoid a big gap in posts when i actually start traveling, I’ll start posting now two weeks in advance. This means you’ll see things two weeks late. You should see at least one post every day, though, which would mean there will be nearly 600 posts by the time I actually leave (wow!).
As anyone who actually reads this blog often (no one) will know, I will be taking an expensive laptop, camera, D-SLR camera and video camera with my on my trip around the world. This, it seems, is a problem for most insurance companies who want to insure a maximum of $5000 personal belongings, with a $750 item limit.
Luckily, I found “1cover.com.au” which will cover everything! They have the standard $5000 thing, but they let you specify extra items to cover - and their limit will allow me to specify everything I want to cover. Whoo! Granted, the cover is about $980 for one year but…I’ll take what I can get.
So if someone mugs me or something, I’ll be covered for all my (very valuable) equipment 
awesome.