Mission Australia 2013 - Day ZERO

Jul 08, 2013 – Nov 06, 2013

Planning – Planning & More Planning!

Having been to USA & Indonesia, I had the confidence of travelling international but the catch was our 2 year old daughter about whose health and travel capability I was really concerned. However, assured by my better half and partner in crime ‘Neha’; I went ahead with the planning of my old time favorite Aussie Trip.

Vineet, my friend from Allahabad, had already invited me over and he came about to the start point of my research & planning. Soon I realized that if I wanted to do justice to Australia, visiting New Zealand in the same trip would be a big challenge and would not be doable within a 15 day holiday that I could get.

Thus, I went ahead and formulated a rough itinerary of including Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Cairns, Gold Coast & my favorite – Uluru (thereby eliminating Adelaide & Brisbane). Also, due to the fact that Uluru had direct flights just from Cairns or Sydney and given the fact that I could fly out to Delhi from either Melbourne or Sydney only; the most optimized route came about to be Perth -> Cairns -> Uluru -> Sydney -> Gold Coast -> Melbourne.

Following the fixing of itinerary, I had to now look upon the budget allocation (airfares & accommodation) as well as the visa procedures, which I did, in due course of time and after 1500 email exchanges, 400 minutes on international calling; I finally applied for the Australian Visa and got it within 2 days.

When it was time to proceed with the booking of air tickets, the deal price touched the skies due to exchange rate still I had to do it. Following week, I booked the accommodation at most places leaving just Melbourne open & flexible. Soon, my inviter friend Vineet explained to me about his exam just after our visit and its implications to which I decided to extend my Perth stay by one day (thereby advancing my departure) and renting a car right outside the Airport. Also, I had decided to rent the car at Uluru when I read really negative reviews about the monopoly of AAT Kings tours there. Melbourne obviously had to be by rental car for the Great Ocean Road.

Following weeks, we got totally busy preparing the Check-list or as we call it the “Pack-List” and shopping for the essentials that we didn’t have. I assigned Neha as the in-charge of packing and after so much planning and brainstorming, 2 days before the travel date, our bags were up and ready for check-in (hats-off to Neha).