Australia is fast approaching. Don’t know how up to date we are with the blog but our son, M, and daughter-in-law, D, have moved to Australia and we are about to encroach into their space and visit. D has a break from school the second week of July so we scheduled a visit to mesh with the break.
It is a long way to Aus and I hate to do a two week trip with that distance covered so it has been extended to a month. A week of diving from a live-a-board on THE reef, a week plus of touring and about 10 days of visit/touring. After Saba we left most of our dive stuff in the bags in a closet ready to hauled out and packed tight. Today I started to add to the pile, fine tuning what we need for a month. Haven’t done a long trip like this one for a while so it is a learning, or maybe remembering, experience all over again. We will also be stepping out of our ‘carry-on only box’ to transport things D & M had left behind and after 5 months abroad find they need.
The mess that is our library
Two or three days ago we spent time refining a budget for the trip. We needed to know how much cash we are going to carry. Aus is credit card friendly, they don’t charge user fees, and most places take cards. With the Amazon Visa we do not get charged any fees over and above the exchange rate so I think a credit card is a good alternative. We will use ‘the bank of son’ (this is the reverse of the ‘bank of dad’) to do our cash exchange since he is changing C$ to Aus$ often and in much greater quantities than we would so he gets a good rate.
We have also decided to return to Kona in November. The diving is good there and we are not traveled out for this year, at least prior to a four week trip to Australia. This will keep me occupied for the next three weeks til we exit to Australia.
September is still open and we are looking at maybe departing again, this discussion is ongoing but if we don’t make up our minds soon, the time will pass. We will see what comes of that.
Ciao for now