Greetings from Budapest!

Wow, it's been a week already and we're in Budapest after travelling through France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic and Austria.

Budapest is a great city, much nicer than Prague but the beer is a bit more expensive. We're camping outside of town in a beautiful wooded valley with ski lifts to the top of the hill for great views over the city.

Our first night was at a campsite in Belgium where we got to try out our kit for the first time. We've got the warmest sleeping bags and an absolutely brilliant tent. It's not rained yet, in fact everyday has been over 20 degrees!

The second night we bush camped in Germany, just to get ourselves familiar with the routines. Then it was off to Prague for a couple of days where we ate massive steaks, wild boar, ostrich and sank lots of beer all for less than a tenner each!

On our way between Prague and Vienna we went to the Church of Bones which has to be seen to be believed. Promise we'll put some photos on soon.

Travelling with a great bunch of people mainly English, a few Scots, an Irish girl and a couple of Kiwis. The beers are going down too easily and cheaply, food is brilliant, everyday we have fresh meat and veg (eating better than at home).

Tomorrow we're off to Bucharest and Dracula's Castle and we're looking forward to 4 days of wild camping, so best make use of the showers tonight!

Until the next point of interest...

4th of April – Doesn’t time fly?! Christine’s finished working at AEI now and I left Positive Solutions on the 2nd of March. As we’re both unemployed now I suppose we had better watch the pennies although all we seem to be doing at the moment is spending money buying our kit, getting jabs and malaria tablets etc.

Everything else is going well, looks like our house has been rented out now, we’ve done a few car boot sales – amazing how much stuff you accumulate but don’t actually need or use.

Only thing left now is the cars – anyone interested in a V8 Discovery or Punto Sport?

As far as kit goes, it’s strange how much you think you need and how much you actually need. We’ve got to carry our lives on our backs (in a 80 litre backpack) so no room for hairdryers and loads of makeup, but I’m sure we’ll manage.

We actually leave Newcastle in the early hours of the 6th of April – being tight, we’re taking the Mega Bus overnight to London, spend the day shopping in Harrods to buy some luxuries with our wedding gift from Uncle Gary and then to our last hotel for a while.

Setting off from Hammersmith at 8am on the 7th means we’re officially on the road then and should be leaving God’s own country on the 12.15 sailing to Calais. A quick blast through France and Belgium and we’ll be at our first stop in Germany in time for a few beers around 8pm. What are the chances of it being wet and windy on the first night we have to put our new tent up?

We were intending to meet up with our colleagues and friends over the next few days but as we’ve still got loads to do, unfortunately this isn’t going to be possible. On that note, we’d like to say our farewells, wish you all the best for the next 12 months. We hope you’ll keep in touch and we’ll try to keep you up to date with our blog as much as possible.

Taliban? Where?……