Yep, the planning’s going well. I’ve got stuff fully booked until the 17th of March and plenty more almost-booked following that (taking me through to mid\/late May). It’s been quite fun doing it actually – I even went wild and went to a backpackers travel agent place to get assistance in planning the trip. The one downside is that my (already packed) day-bag is chock-full of brochures for sights, tours and activities. :-)<\/p>\n
So, what’s next then? Well:<\/p>\n
24th February<\/b> 28th February<\/b> 1st March<\/b> 4th March<\/b> 8th March<\/b> 17th March<\/b> That’s it so far, booked-stuff-wise. Aside from that I’m planning on:<\/p>\n Should take me up to about the end of May, whereupon I’ll be settling somewhere (probably Melbourne, but who knows how I’ll find the other Aussie cities on my trek around) and getting back the money I’ve spent on all those bloody tours.<\/p>\n Way I see it, I can either be cautious, save some dosh and do some<\/i> things around Oz or I can splash some cash and do shed loads of fun stuff<\/i> around Oz.<\/p>\n I can still stay within budget(ish), which is pretty awesome, and in my experience so far I’ve seen and done MUCH more on the tours than not. There’s just more going on and, well, you get to do loads of activities you just might not think of otherwise. Plus you meet loads of cool people. In short – it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think I like the tour method of getting about.<\/p>\n If you don’t agree, then don’t go on a tour. And you’re wrong. And you’re stupid. And you smell.<\/p>\n Too far? Ok, sorry :-)<\/p>\n Right, I’m off to get ready and head out to enjoy the Chinese New Year celebrations over in Melbourne’s China Town (yep, it seems that as all cities must have an Oirish Bar, they must also have a China Town)!<\/p>\n Toodles,<\/p>\n Pat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yep, the planning’s going well. I’ve got stuff fully booked until the 17th of March and plenty more almost-booked following that (taking me through to mid\/late May). It’s been quite fun doing it actually – I even went wild and went to a backpackers travel agent place to get assistance in planning the trip. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-pats-thoughts","category-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI’m checking out of Melbourne and coaching it to the Grampians National Park<\/a>, whereupon I’m going to spend a few days enjoying the sights, doing LOTS of hiking and perhaps indulging in some abseiling (maybe even some climbing, if I’m feeling brave enough). <\/p>\n
\nHeading back to the Magnetic City (at least it appears to be for me, as I can’t seem to leave it for any length of time) – Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\nGetting on board the Wayward Bus’ Classic Coast<\/a> 3 day tour of the Great Ocean Road!<\/p>\n
\nArriving at Adelaide and spending time chilling out and, perhaps, indulging in a winery visit or four.<\/p>\n
\nThrowing my bags into a trailer and climbing into the passenger seat of a 4WD vehicle, on the apparently (and I can believe it) awesome<\/i> The Real Outback<\/a> 10 day tour through the, er, “not-fake” outback, seeing all the usual sights (Uluru, Kings Canyon) and some other special stuff too. Check out the website<\/a> – it’s a good source of excitement for me at the mo :-)<\/p>\n
\nArriving at Alice Springs.<\/p>\n\n