AND AWAY WE GO! - WEDNESDAY 20 MAY - DICKY BEACH to DUBAI

What a whirlwind week we’ve had.   

Having made our travel arrangements to travel through Dubai, exactly two days before the first missile was directed at its airport, to say we were unsure of how our travel arrangements would look would be an understatement.

With the ceasefire of hostilities in place, modified scheduling of flights out of Brisbane resumed barely two weeks ago, while the leader of the free world seemed to have no other agenda than to disrupt our plans.

Even while he threatened annihilation of an entire country (a step down from from “a civilisation” at least) last night, we started to believe we might a actually be flying, so hastily booked a hotel room and transfers at the other end, where we might make some plans as to what happens next.

The result of all that uncertainty piled on top of our missteps of last year, was that the ride to the airport felt quite different this time.  Not the wind-down after that last minute cleaning panic, not the “what have I left behind”, not “here we go again”, just a kind of contented relief, and of course gratitude for all the things that have aligned to allow us another year “on the road”.

HOW’S JO? - TUESDAY 19 MAY - DICKY BEACH via MT KOSCIUSZKO

For lots of reasons mostly to do with being a bit occupied with life, we’ve been a bit remiss in not bringing updates on the state of well-being of the other of us.  

Eight months ago, during our consultation prior to surgery, her orthopaedic surgeon stated that his objective was to receive a postcard from us twelve months from that date from somewhere in the world after we had returned to our usual peripatetic ways.   He warned that we could expect that it would realistically be 18 months until her recovery could be considered to be “complete”, and even now we have no reason to doubt that prognosis.

We have sent him the above as an interim measure.   To mark the sixth month anniversary of that fateful day, a photograph taken just below the Mt Kosciuszko lookout, about half a dozen kilometres below Australia’s highest peak.   We thought about completing the walk, but then thought that there’s no point in getting older if you don’t get wiser, so settled for the half distance six kilometre round trip.

From that one can deduce that the world is once again our oyster, although one which for a time at least, we may well be exploring at a pace that reflects the condition of our lower extremities.