After five and a half months back at home in Perth we are starting to get ready to be reunited with our bike back in England.
It has been quite a time back home with many highs and lows.
On returning home we had one of the camper trailers that we hire out stolen from our yard, we then had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends that helped make up for that low.
Then at the end of February our daughter and son-in-law moved out of our house into their very own house not too far from us, moving brings all sorts of pressures in there own right!
At the end of March we made a road trip to Melbourne to pick up our replacement van, a 7000 Km round trip. While we were there we caught up with more family and friends, including Ali, a Turkish man we met in Turkey.
Since then though we have been battling insurance companies trying to get insurance for our new van, and while we were in Melbourne our yard at work was broken into twice more, stealing some tools and equipment that were housed in a trailer and some of our good scrap steel.
We have also been battling government bureaucracy with a license we need to run our workshop! Sometimes we wonder if it is all really worth the trouble.
We really don't get the feeling that the Australia we knew remains and we think maybe Australia could be a better place if we took after Europe more and were maybe less like America, though that analogy will be put to the test when we get to America. Maybe we will change our minds?
Another high while we have been home was being able to get out on our spare bike and do a couple of rides with our friends from the Ulysses club, most enjoyable. Though a low for both of us has been how little our dollar buys us back home, we can fairly confidently say the only countries as dear or dearer than Perth are Norway and Switzerland, maybe Finland and Sweden come close also.
Leaving home again is going to come with mixed emotions again, excited by the prospect of being on the road again, a little scared by what that entails and sadness and worry to be leaving our immediate family behind to struggle on with their lives while looking after our home and businesses for us.