Well I am off again. I had been in Australia for almost 5 months and that is about all that could be reasonably expected from me given the recent frame of mind. During that five months Jill and I bounced around furiously catching up with family and friends, hunting for jobs, and raiding our container full of stuff.

Jill had found a gig that saw us setting up camp in a charming little coastal town called Bargara (on the water near Bundaberg). We rented a house, set ourselves up and got down to living life back in Australia and giving up our nomad ways. In reality, we already had this section planned but had to do something with ourselves in the meantime.

I will write more about Bargara later on because it really is worth the write-up and some of the pictures are just stunning. But anyway, back to the reason for writing. Jill and I found an amazing cruise that was to leave Spain and relocate to Australia. Given the war in Gaza and the relatively unsafe passage through the Suez Canal the company decided not to risk it and instead to travel around Africa (something that almost never happens).

As we have cruised Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific as well as around South America and into the Antarctic, the opportunity was too good to pass up. Added to this was the multi-day stops in South Africa, which gave us enough time to get on a Safari and tick some pretty big bucket list items.

Oh and the most important thing…It would get me to (and a bit over) my goal of reaching 100 countries.

Needless to say that the 12 week jaunt didn’t work that well for poor Jill who had just started a new job. She did mention it at interview and was selected anyway. But at the interview it was a flippant ‘oh I’m sure we can work around that’ however after her feet hitting the ground, the reality of 12 weeks without her started to land. So she decided 12 weeks were not an option and for the first few legs I was to go alone and she would join me for the main event (around Africa).

We stayed in this position for a while before Jill came up with the idea…hey, we are paying for two people, it seems like a waste… Why don’t you find a friend and not waste the extra berth in the cabin. So after a bit of chat my sister Karin decided that she would join me to see the first 4-5 weeks worth. So the planning began, and Karin even did the 4 hr drive up to Bargara for a few days to work through the logistics.

To be fair we did do the tourist thing too, wandering the beaches and even did a whale watching adventure on the Lady Musgrave experience.

Planning done, we were off. A Saturday afternoon flight (packed) from Brisbane for about 17 hrs to Doha. At this point we had a 9 hr layover (without lounge access). Our seat allocation for the next leg was crappy, but we were assured in Brisbane that it was only us in that row, so we didn’t complain.

After our 9 hrs of milling about the airport, we hopped another flight (for 6 hrs) to Amsterdam. Our wander down the hall went fine until we got to our row to find that 2 of the 4 seats that were to be ours were already occupied. Oh well…another packed flight. When the next 6 hrs were over we were exiting Schiphol Airport.

At this point we were picked up by close friend (Michel) for the 45 minute drive to Alkmaar. Alkmaar has featured on here a few times now, mainly thanks to Michel and Sonja who introduced us to it. For us it was about a third of the accommodation cost of being in Amsterdam and was only a 40 minute train ride into town. This meant that we could live cheaply and just ride in to town to see the sights each day without destroying the budget.

And beyond that, it is a lovely little town.