My bags are packed and I’m ready go. I actu­ally man­aged to fit all my stuff in just my back­pack. It weighs close to 16 kilos, with the bulk, maybe 10 kg, made up by my dive gear. It feels bloody heavy, but it’ll be a lot bet­ter than car­ry­ing an extra dive bag around with me. The gear will kind of garan­tee at least some income, so it’s worth lug­ging it around.

My jet­plane leaves at 4 pm today, so I’ve still got a few hours to kill. Today I’m just fly­ing to Lon­don. I’m going to visit some friends there and down on the coast in Dor­set. Then on sunday I’m booked on to a Quantas flight to Mel­bourne with a short 2-hour-stopover in Hongkong.

I’ve spent a lot of time away from home, but I still get nervous a bit every time I leave. Once I’m on the plane it’ll be fine, though. There’s a reason why alco­hol is for free on board. Calmes down the nerves. That’s a reason as well why all the cheap air­lines will never be able to tap into the long dis­tance mar­ket. People would need to spend all their hol­i­day cash on expens­ive booze even before arriv­ing at their destination.

Any­ways, I prob­ably for­got half my stuff, but that doesn’t mat­ter. Got my pass­port and my tick­ets. Everything else will sort itself out. I must not for­get to bring tis­sues to the air­port! Hope­fully, there’ll be loads of excit­ing travelogues and pic­tures in the next few years for you to read and watch, start­ing with my next dis­patch from Mel­bourne in a few days.

So long and safe travels, guys…