Planning to learn to say G'day

 

Australia Tourism is currently using the campaign slogan

Come And Say G’day

as the focus of their Visit Australia campaign. Some of you may even have seen the associated TV ad

so it only seemed right to reference it in the title of today's blog post. 

Their message also references the native Australian perspective I spoke about in yesterday's post. They say:

We acknowledge the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Owners of the land, sea and waters of the Australian continent, and recognise their custodianship of culture and Country for over 60,000 years. Australia.Com - Acknowledgement of Country

Long Term Planning

I was surprised last year to discover that I'd been planning that 2023 holiday since 2020. Well this year's holiday far exceeds that. Indeed in 2017 I began a file entitled 'Australian Routes' which includes a number of ideas which have informed the current trip, seven years on. 

The core of the trip

To put this planning in context, it was in 2016 that my brother, sister-in-law and I got together for me to help them to plan their first visit to Australia. They were travelling as a family to inform their ideas about the possibility of re-location there. I enjoyed the planning with them and they booked for a trip which they took in April 2017. Leading to them deciding to emigrate which they did in September of that same year. 

In that April 2017 visit they took the following route:

stopping at:

Whereas our trip from Sydney and back goes a bit further north, but has the same general shape and many of the same locations.

So, the core of our holiday is to finally get to see my brother, sister-in-law and our nephews and nieces, only one of whom, Grace, the eldest niece who visited Cardiff in 2023, we have seen since 2017. 

A Holiday in Five Parts 

So with our trip to visit the family in Tamworth at the centre of the holiday, we seem to have a holiday in five parts.

• The first few days of arrival - Perth
• A week of exploration - Sydney
• A week of travel - The Route Above
• A week with family - Tamworth
• A few days on the return journey - Four days in Tokyo

I suspect, and hope, that each of these parts of the holiday will have a distinctive feel, but together will form something special. It certainly feels like this as I brim with excitement with two days before it begins.