This trip has been something James and I have been wishing, planning and saving for a number of years. We always knew we wanted to backpack around the world, although we mostly have the same ideas of where we want to go, we knew there were certain places and things we needed to do alone. So one night sitting in bed looking at our world map, we accidently came up with our plan. It helped that a group of our close friends wanted to do a mate’s trip to South East Asia for a few weeks in the July 2014 holidays. So this became our start date and from there our itinerary grew, and grew and grew. What started as a possible 12-month itinerary suddenly grew into an 18-month trip.
During this time we also decided it would be ridiculous not to buy an apartment in our beloved old city of Adelaide, assured in the fact that when we come back it will only be more surprising and inspiring than when we left. Perhaps the move was not a stroke of genius when money is concerned, but definitely a perfect future abode to return to one day.
As you could imagine the 10 months leading up to the trip was hectic to say the least. Firstly uprooting happiness from our gorgeous cottage house on our favourite street in Adelaide a few days before Christmas, to the stress and craziness of settling in to our new apartment the New Year. As painful and trying as it all was, it was most definitely worth it. Our gorgeous slice of our Adelaide has been a saviour for this trip, and our future. Saving became easier as staying in most nights was more enjoyable and knowing that once on our trip it would take care of it self was reassuring, it will also soften the re-entry blow of coming home.
So after only a few short but sweet months in our place, we packed it all up and shipped our belongings back to our wonderful parent’s houses, quit our jobs and said our final goodbyes to our friends. Our goodbye’s to our families was probably the hardest but on our very last night James made sure the goodbye celebrations would be something to always remember, but for another reason… After dinner with our parents and James’ brothers and sister, he ordered a bottle of Moet for us all and begun one of his ‘thank you for everything’ speeches to the parents, and then turned to me, dropped to his knee, said something wonderful that neither of us can remember, and then asked me to marry him. I cried, everyone cried, James somehow smashed his glass of Moet and cut his hand, his brother (who missed the whole speech due to other ‘pressing’ matters) joined in on the celebration of not only our farewell but also our engagement!
So higher than the clouds we were about to fly above, Thursday the 3rd of July we left our wonderful family, friends and city to explore this magical place called the world. Wish us luck.
- Rhiannon
