1 week to go! We finally got our passports back this morning! It was such a relief. Although I had every faith in the visa company, it is good to finally get my passport in my hands. It is quite essential for travelling so I've been told... After getting a few last bits and pieces, I think I'm ready to go now. I haven't practiced packing my rucksack yet but hopefully all my things will fit. I've checked the weather for next week and it's due to be fine, so we...

16 days to go! It's been a long time since I last wrote on this. I've just be so busy! As predicted, although we have been quite organised with booking things in advance, there have been a number of last minute hiccups. We've had a bit of a difficult time sorting out our India visa. For those of you who are thinking of visiting India, you need to be aware of a few things or else you'll lose money (like we did). Mid November we sent off my visa application ...

45 days to go! It seems like I've got a lot sorted in the last 15 days. I finally have someone lined up to rent my flat for the year. He's paid a deposit and there are just a few formalities to go through before he signs the contract. I don't know too much about him and have only met him briefly, but he seems a nice enough chap. I've also got various certifications done for my flat (electric, gas and EPC), so everything is proceeding quite quickly now. The onl...

60 days to go! Not long to go now. I've had loads of people looking around my flat, so hopefully I'll get someone signed up as soon as possible. I've slowly started boxing all my things up, so it's starting to feel very real that I'll be moving out soon. It doesn't feel like there's much more to do for preparing for the trip. I've got all my clothing and ruck sack sorted, I've had all my injections, the majority of the plane tickets are booked.... Everything el...

75 Days to go! After a week of talking to lots of hideous estate agents, my flat is finally on the market to rent for the year. The guy from Belvoir! said to me that I will probably have a choice of 2 or 3 people who want to rent my flat. Hopefully that will be the case. We booked some more of our flights last weekend, so we've now got up to Japan sorted. We're next due to go back in a few weeks to book the flight to Perth. From then on we'll probably have to d...