In the interest of blogging every little bit of minutiae, I thought I'd scribble down some thoughts on what's been going through my head about leaving and going travelling again so soon after getting back. Of course by saying scribble, you all should realise I mean metaphorical or virtual scribble, cause this post is going straight from my brain to cyberspace.

It's definitely a different thing going a second time, at this time before leaving last year, I was pretty nervous about flying into Hanoi and what exactly it would be like on the other side. That part of it doesn't so worry me so much this time around (don't worry Mum, I'm not going to be complacent or cocky), what I've been dreading more is all the difficulties that go along with the extended travelling thing - early morning trains and busses, lugging your entire life around on you back, dealing with 7 days worth of clothes 6 days after a laundry run...

You may be reading this thinking that I'm not looking forward to this new adventure -not true. I'm spending my last couple of days in Australia staying in Kings Cross. What's got me about this area is how similar it is to other backpacker ghettos around the world - a street of cheap accommodation followed by a travel agency followed by a dodgy massage parlour, all interspersed with the occasional pissed Brit.All these have somehow jogged my memory to all the good things associated with these areas.

I've learnt from last years trappings and got my luggage down to one bag, with nothing strapped to it, and a new addition, a brand spanking new laptop. I've dropped the 2nd smaller backpack, tent and all the attachments, so I'm about 5kg lighter and shouldn't further develop any sort of spinal curvature issues and walk like a normal person, not some demented 2 shelled turtle.

The laptop is a bit anti-backpacker, but seeing how useful they were to people that had them last year, I decided to go to the dark side and invest in a Dell. As I'll be doing the bulk of my touring through Europe, I'll be taking advantage of the copious lashing of free wifi the continent has to offer these days, the added advantage being not have to pay for internet or sit in a grungy, dimly lit cafe trying to decipher a Cyrillic keyboard.

One thing that had changed is I've found it a lot harder to leave. I'm not really sure why, maybe cause I know I'm not going to return to Tassie to live permanently for a very long time with this move or maybe its because I remember how much I was looking forward to be coming home at the end of my trip last year, then there's the fact that this time doesn't have that whole naive sense of the unknown feeling that comes with starting out a trip like that to block out any pre-homesickness rubbish.

I'm pretty sure that'll all disappear when I step of the plain and get through customs. However, that's 18 hours of travelling away. Can't wait....