While preparing for our second trip to Oz i was thinking about things we learned when travelling so i decided to write down some tips:

(1) Money money money:

• Maestro is by default blocked outside Europa: ask your bank to enable it (they can do it for a 3 month or 8 month period). Bear in mind that it will still only work in ATM machines, so not in shops!! The bank usually does this over the phone or via email and at no extra costs.
• VISA cards are very handy but they have a limit (by default this is 2500 euros): you can ask your bank to raise this limit (up to 10000 euros for a limited time) at no extra costs. The bank usually does this over the phone or via email.
• Make sure you have enough cash (either bought in Belgium or upon arrival): see reasons above ;)

(2) Taking the plane:

• If you travel with a cheap airline, make sure you don't exceed the weight limit of your luggage: if you do, buying an extra bag is cheaper then paying for extra kilos.
• If you have a backpack where you strap things to (like a tent, sleeping bag...) ALWAYS let the airline tag the things that are strapped to it. If they didn't and it comes off, they will never find it again and the airline is not responsible. Usually you have to nag a bit to get this accomplished.
• If you travel through London Heathrow ask before boarding the next flight if your luggage is on the plane (especially if you had too wait several hours for your connecting flight). This will minimize the chance you will arrive at the other side of the world without any luggage :)
• If the airline has lost (some) of your luggage, always ask for compensation. This way you can buy some things they lost. Also, keep calling the airline until you actually got your luggage back.
• If you travel far don't try and save weight in your luggage by wearing your heaviest clothes. Instead wear comfortable clothes to make the long flight more pleasant.

(3) Renting a car:

• Read the fine print: some rentals have crazy rules about insurance, where & when you can drive...
• Check the car before leaving with it and report everything that is wrong with it (scratches, bumps...)
• When renting a 4WD to do some offroading, experience is the key to not getting stuck in the middle of nowhere. You can take a course before leaving or, if you prefer, in the country you are travelling to.

(4) General stuff:

• Don't buy sunscreen, mosquito repellant... before you leave. Buy it in the country you are travelling to (it's the same sun but the UV factor can be very different, the mosquitos can be very different also) or make sure you know which factor to buy in advance.
• If you travel to remote areas: take lot's of water, take food for several days & let someone know when you will be back (and preferably also take an emergency beacon).
• When you go across the equator you need a different kind of compass (one for the northern half of the planet will not work on the southern half of the planet and the other way around).
• When taking pictures in very sunny areas, use a polarisation filter if possible.

There is off course a lot more to take into account but these are some of the things we learned already. A good month from now we will probably have learned some more when we are back from Oz :)

Both Lieselot & i have been dreaming of a trip to Australia for years now and this year we decided to make this dream come true. The plan has been conceived and some it has been booked already. Some details have to be sorted and a considerable amount of money has to change hands and then the longing can start.

We planned the trip together with the very knowledgable and friendly staff of Aussie Tours in Staden. We will take a plane in Zaventem and land in Sydney (with a stopover in London & Singapore) about 24 hours later. After visiting Sydney for 2 days we will fly to Alice Springs. There we will pick up our 4x4 rental car and head off for a 10 day desert road trip. To test our offroad skills, we will start the trip with a visit to Glen Helen, Kings Canyon and Ayers Rock (this is the part i am especially looking forward to!!). Leaving the red centre, we will then head north on the famous Stuart Highway towards Kakadu National Park and Litchfield National Park, ending up in tropical Darwin.

From Darwin we'll take our second and last domestic flight to Brisbane where we will pick up our second rental car for our 11 day drive along the east coast to Cairns. Along the way we will take a boat from Hervey Bay to Fraser Island (with some whale watching along the way hopefully) and stay on the Island for one night. As a grand finale we will spend our last full day on the continent by going snorkling to the Great Barrier Reef. Reluctantly we will board the plane home in Cairns (stopping in Darwin, Singapore and London), to land in Zaventem the next day. And then it's back to work...

If anyone would like to comment on this or the previous post, please be patient. I will try to enable this as soon as i find some time. If you realy want to say something about this website, this blog or anything else, you can always send me an email. Comments on the design of this site (or tips if you like) are always welcome because i am definitely NOT a designer. Comments on the php part of the site are on the other hand frowned upon ;)

For anyone who is interested, this site is written in php and uses a templating engine called QuickSkin which i realy like. It's easy to use and allows you to write clean code using the model-view-controller (MVC) principle. I use the same engine for the Rock Bujumbura site and for that site it made the internationalisation quite a bit less messy.

Welcome to my brand new blog. I'm realy not a passionate blogger since i rather like to do things in stead of writing about them. So this will be an attempt to write down some intresting events i attend, perhaps some technology news & any other thoughts i want to share with the world but it certainly won't be a diary of everything i do. For anyone who is wondering where the title of this blogpost comes from: it is stolen from this site, which is one of the most absurd and funny blogs i have ever seen.

The last few days have been quite strange. Lieselot & i got back from our trip to the States two weeks ago and we have been slowly addapting to our normal life again. It's a realy strange feeling to come home after almost a moth of travelling without any care in the world. The jetlag didn't help either. Trying to get up on time for work is pretty hard if you never feel tired at night. Picking up on other side projects (like Rock Bujumbura) is also a bit slower then normal but we'll get there. Anyway, the trip was fantastic & we realy didn't want to come home yet. You can find out more about our itinerary in the States here or check out some of our photo's on Netlog. The rest of the photos will follow as soon as possible.