Update: Tickets, Visas and Backpacks!

Our Australia Trip is now 3 months away...

Happy New Year folks!

We hope you all had a Christmas to remember, all across the world in all sorts of exotic destinations!

We had our last English family Christmas for potentially 2-3 years, which consisted of parties and food, gifts, and relaxation; it was glorious! 

So here we are, it's January 2015, and Australia is a mere 12 weeks away. It's beginning to feel real. 

In early December I purchased my backpack, an Osprey Farpoint 70, which comes with a detachable day-pack, a must for day-trips and any hiking pursuits!

The bag feels comfortable and similar in specification to my trusty Berghaus which I took to America for a month in 2009.

It has a side-opening zip as opposed to top-loading that just makes sense for me, as I did find the top-loading a bit of a chore. Taran worried it might lessen the integrity of the bag i.e. the zip breaking, but it seems very sturdy thus far, and it will be bolstered with a bag-cover or strapping for our aeroplane travels. 

We have also both got some packing cells. I got them for Taran for Xmas then purchased my own when I realized they were pretty decent for their price!

They seem like they will easily fit all of Taran's t-shirts, some shorts, then his underwear/socks in the smaller ones. I will probably use them the same way although I will have some dresses and more clothing options.

What can I say, I take half my wardrobe to Taran's house each weekend so it is going to be quite a task to narrow down my choices to take travelling!

A few weeks ago we also applied online for our First Working Holiday Visa.  

This was quite a quick and easy process, although, the card I was using to pay the 220quid cost, was declined on first try, and blocked until the following day...

So I learnt my lesson about using a payment card which isn't my everyday debit card for making expensive purchases, but then, once the card was unblocked and I tried to buy the visa again, I couldn't get past an infuriating error page.

Hours later, the next morning in-fact, immi.gov (the Aussie visa people) confirmed on Twitter that overnight there had been a service outage... so I didn't have some black-mark against my name, it was merely the website being a dick and making me sweat! So, we both got there in the end! Relief! 

Then last week, came the biggest landmark in our travel-prep: purchasing our plane tickets!

We bought ours via Kayak, through the agent gotogate.com, having previously used Kayak to get an idea of prices.

We chose to fly with Singapore Airlines as they have come highly recommended and their price was suitably competitive.

We paid £633.00 each for a one-way ticket to Melbourne. This seemed like a decent deal, and according to someone we know who is going to Oz today actually, they paid around 600 each in April 2014. So we have probably not lost out on much by booking around 3 months before departure.

So a lot has happened in the month of December, and its probably been the most exciting and progressive month of 2014 in terms of prepping for Oz.

It felt like such a distant dream for a long time, but now all the plans are set in-place and other than saving up more money, organizing our packing, and sorting out boring home matters, we have few milestones left before the actual magic date we leave: March 24th!!

Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at Nomad'erHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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