A year in a backpack

Alternatively titled "how to break your back with one simple object."

I could take a suitcase, but for weekends and short trips this pack is so much easier. It's just nasty when completely full. And I mean totally full. A weeny bit over weight even, but I'll try to get away with it. After all, this is for a year!

This is it. Last blip from Hobart for a little while. I'm in my own bed for the last time for at least 12 months. The night before departure is always the strangest one. Everything takes on a strange significance, and there's a sudden urgency about making the most of the last moments with family and friends. We had roast lamb, but kept the regular traditions - watching the news, stoking the fire, playing with the cat. Erica and Bridget came round to respectively lend me scales and say farewell. They stayed to watch Dr Who with me and my parents. My family isn't big on ceremony, but I like how we do things.

This is the third time I've gone off for a long time, but this time there's no set return date - no uni to return to, no return ticket to use by a prescribed date. So it's the same, but quite quite different. But if nothing else I'll be back for Christmas next year. Who knows what will happen around that, but that is a date.

So now I must sleep and embrace the next adventure. I'm not exaggerating when I say there isn't anything is rather be spending the next bit of my life doing than studying my MA in Landscape History, but first I need to set out. So farewell tassie, I'll be back soon. And hello England, I'll be on my way shortly.