The plan: Backpacking to Australia

It's been almost a month since we set out to travel. The departure date is May 26th so we are about one and a half month away from the Australia expedition.

This whole thing is just so fun and exciting! I think the planning and preparing stage is no less fun than the actual expedition itself. For the past few days we've been up until like 4 in the morning to plan our itenerary. Charlene pursuaded me to buy this book "Frommer's Australia for $60 a day" and it really proved to be a great help! I think this kind of books is much more useful for first-time travellers like us, compared to the famous "Lonely Planet" series (which I initially intended to buy, btw). Frommer's is more opinionate, it gives a lot of useful advices and tips while Lonely Planet is like an encyclopedia that you must be really into backpack travelling for sometimes to be able to appreciate it. We found that after reading the Frommer's book, we were able to plan our itinerary very detailed. I can now image ourselves wandering on the street of an Australia country, while gusts of chilly wind blow heavily through our hair and on the hills, herds of cows and sheeps gaze peacefully beside the beautiful cottages. I let my imagination go wild. It's just gonna be so amazing!

Last weekend we went out to look for the backpacks. There were a promotion at SportsConnection where they were giving like 30 to 80 percent discount so Charlene and me thought there was no better chance to grab ourselves two backpacks. We end up buying a Vertikal Traihead III which is 65+10 littres in capacity and a Vertikal Bellwether II which is 55 littres in capacity. I'm a bit worried that the luggage will be overweight because we are going with budget airlines. My plan is that we are going to pack as much as the weight barrier allowed into the backpacks and check-in; the rest will be stuff into two small bags that me and Charlene will carry as handbags. I'll figure out a way to make the handbags *look* as small and light as possible :grin: (while infact they are gonna be heavy like hell). Hopefully everything will be ok.
To speak more of our travel plan, it look something like this: backpack + camping + budget airlines + coach. Yes that's right, save as much as possible. We can camp anywhere possible in a dome tent, to save the accomodation cost. We are also taking coach whenever possible. It is gonna be very challenging. But we love the fun and we are gonna make it.

• Our initial itinerary is like this (I'll post the detailed one once I have some time):
  26th May: fly from Singapore to Darwin on TigerAir.
• 27th-28th May: visit Darwin and Kakadu Park.
• 29th May: Darwin - Melbourne on Jetstar Air.
• 30th-31st May: visit Melbourne and the surrounding area. Touring the Great Ocean Road.
• 1st June: Melbourne - Cooma by coach, and then to Snowy Mountain.
• 2nd - 3th June: experience the chilly weather :D
• 4th June: Cooma - Canberra - Sydney by coach.
• 5th-7th June: visit Sydney and the surrounding area.
• 8th June: Sydney - Murrurundi by coach. Visit Hunter Valley.
• 10th June: Murrurundi - Brisbane by coach.
• 11th June: visit Brisbane. Cuddle the Koala :D Set out to Whitsunday on Jetstar Air.
• 12th-15th June: Various activities at Brisbane, including camping, hiking, snorkeling and whale watching :D
• 16th June: Whitsunday - Brisbance - Darwin on Jetstart Air.
• 17th June: Darwin - Singapore on Tiger Air. Home sweet home.

That's it for today. I must do some work now.