This time last year it was just something we were talking about doing, and now I have been home for one whole week from the first of MANY trips to my new favourite place in the world – the UK.
I have always been a nervous flier. I hate planes, I hate trains, I hate boats – I’ve never been in a plane accident, nor a train accident, but the boat thing I think is justified considering my history. Funnily enough, I am not nervous in cars and I’ll get on a strange horse without batting an eye – yet I’ve been involved in a pretty serious car accident and have fallen off more horses than I can count!
All the nervousness aside, I decided after my mum passed away in November last year that I wanted to see the places I had written about in my book. I was done talking about it, it was time to do it. We set a rough date in the calendar knowing what events we had on through the year, but nothing really got set in stone until about 6 months before the whole thing was meant to be happening.
In hindsight, I think the reason I was so calm about everything once it all came around is because we HAD been talking about it for so long. In the end, the entire three week holiday went off with hardly a single hitch, likely because my pedantic, slightly anal way of making plans finally came to good use.
You see, when I use that part of my brain in my writing process, I become exceptionally akin to Digitally Baffled’s ingeniously clever Instagram posts about plans and doings and all of that…. hmmm yesss, indeed….
I can easily become bogged down in researching every single tiny, insignificant detail to the point where I completely derail myself and absolutely no writing gets done. And yet, it turns out that planning a trip overseas that way leads to a very calm, relaxed me and a very enjoyable trip!
We began our journey after spending a few days with our lovely friends who came to house sit our doggos and ponies in our absence. It made everything so much nicer knowing the animals were happy in their regular routine, albeit with different people. From the farm, we headed off to my cousin’s house in Brisbane. We stopped in to see our grandmother to say hello and goodbye, then made our way to the airport with several hours to spare. We were joined on our journey by my cousin’s daughter who was also on her first overseas trip. In all, there were four of us! A nice round number.
From Brisbane we had a short flight to Sydney and a short layover there before our flight to Abu Dhabi. It was there in the Middle East that the first part of our adventure would really begin!
My beautiful friend Kat has been living in the UAE for a couple of years now where she is a teacher. Fortuitously, we would have a long layover there, so she took the day to pick us up from the airport and show us around. From the airport we made our way to Dubai where we wandered around the Mall of Dubai for several hours, made a purchase or two, had a meal, took a LOT of photos and just in general caught up with Kat before she drove us back to the airport with time to spare for the next leg of our journey.
I do not ever want to drive in the Middle East again. As fascinating as it was to see, and as fun as it might be playing spot-the-four-or-less-digit-number-plate on one of the dozens of Maseratis, Ferraris, Aston Martins, BMWs or what ever else happens to fly by – it is less fun when one of said vehicles merges in front of you crossing six lanes of traffic without indicating. And all of this happens while they are driving on the wrong side of the road, I might add! Well, my American friends might disagree with my assessment of right and wrong side of the road, I suppose – but the lack of indication and total disregard for vehicle/road safety is horrifying anywhere…!
Once we were back on the plane it was a short (six and a half hours…) flight to London, Heathrow. But I think I’ll leave the next phase of our journey for another day. Signing off!
Victoria Clarke 