Surprise for my Sister

As luck would have it, my sister Kate flew back into the country on Sunday morning after 5 weeks in South Africa and Europe. Her boyfriend at the time figured that perhaps she may actually want to catch up with her brother before he disappears for 12 months. Smart lad. So, together we devised a surprise visit to say hello, inserting an overnight stay on my connection between Gladstone and Sydney. From the reaction on Kate's face when I arrived, it looked like the surprise worked.

We went out for dinner, with Kate's travel stories and photos serving as our entertainment. It sounded like she'd had a blast, and it made me even more excited to get started. Sadly, I was only in town for one night so we said our farewells before she went back to work on Tuesday. Despite the rushed visit, it was great to catch up and say a proper goodbye, rather than doing it over the phone.

Kate had one request, in an effort to put some semblance of sanity into her lunatic brother's naive travel style: keep a blog. This way she could keep track of me, and at least have an informed idea which consulate to reach out to if (and perhaps when) I disappeared. I'd never been much of a writer, after all I'm an engineer by training. Thankfully, this simple ask would turn out to add so much more value into my trip, and help keep alive memories which would otherwise have faded with time. For this I am eternally grateful. Plus, it couldn't hurt for someone to know where to find me, if I did get a little too adventurous.Weiterlesen