It occurs to me I haven't provided some closing information relating to Europe. What are some things I learned, what would I do differently? How much did it cost? Just how much ground did I cover? Let's find out! The final costings for the entire six week adventure came to $14,441.36 (AUD). Considering this is the sum total cost of a six week trip I think budget-wise I did extremely well. I could have done better but this was still much less than the 20k I was anticipating. Undoubtedly one of...

It was a bittersweet moment passing through security. The reality of heading home was starting sink in. I was ready though, six weeks is a long time to spend living out of a suitcase moving between destinations every few days. The waiting game for boarding and departure was eased by using almost the entire 60 minutes of included international call minutes on my phone plan calling Mum to let her know I was through security and waiting to find out what gate I needed to go to. Once I found out...

It's the final day. With my bags packed Sarah dropped me at the station and I was back on my own. The journey back to London Paddington was a direct ride as opposed to the one out where I had to change at Bristol Temple-Meads. I had purchased the ticket a few days beforehand and ended up going for a first class ticket so I didn't have to deal with trying to cram my suitcase in somewhere. It was another beautiful day, forecast to get to around 29 degrees. Even with the air conditioning on the...

It was a day for staying fairly local, after a busy six weeks of adventuring the legs were starting to cry enough (can't wait to see the full stats of this trip, I feel like I've walked hundreds of kilometres)! How interesting it was to be back in a car after several weeks travelling by train! One last day of adventuring remained. A slow start to the day finalising getting my suitcase packed and then it was off to lunch at the carvery. When I was told by Scott to have a light breakfast (or...

A celebration of all things 1940's! The Dig for Victory Festival is held every year in Somerset, showcasing fashion, vehicles and military weapons of the 1940's wartime era as well as some modern elements with historic flair. We arrived early after picking up Scott's father-in-law Steve, found a parking spot close to the entrance and queued up. As we made our way in the organisers and staff were all dressed up in period fashion. We wandered around the stalls checking out some of the wares on...

Today I caught the train out to Bath. A town rich with Roman history. There are two bus routes in Bath, with both routes intersecting at the train station. I caught the inner city Red Route first to see the sights around the landmarks of town and get a lay of the land for walking later. The tour started by passing the rail viaduct from Bristol. Designed by none other than Brunel. His work on the entire train line between Paddington and Bristol means his name pops up a fair bit along the entire...

Another day, another city, another bus tour! I made the short train ride back to Bristol today to check out the town as I only passed through on my way to Weston and Worle. There was only one bus route in Bristol that took around 45 minutes to complete so I decided to catch it twice around to get a view from both sides of the bus (no repeat of Hamburg here!). Being that I was there on a Wednesday also helped as it was very quiet so there were plenty of seats on the bus. The tour actually...

Plymouth is a seaside horbour town that has a long and rich maritime and war history. The just over one hour drive down to the Plymouth ends with us seeing the ruins of the old church that was bombed during the blitz in World War II. It has become a bit of a recurring theme that remains of a church were either the result of bombing during the war or destroyed in a great fire. We walked up from the parking area to the top of the hill near Smeaton's Tower lighthouse. Which, interestingly, is not...

Today was a fairly cruisy day checking out some local areas while Scott had a bit of time off. It was lucky he was able to swing some time off in lieu of extra work he had done during a bank holiday (public holiday for those of you reading back home). We headed out to Cheddar Gorge, the home of Cheddar cheese, though given how much cheese we had already sampled during the Bath and West show the other day I'm not sure either of us were particularly keen for another round of taste testing. I...