Well, we’re off again on our travels, and this time we have a cuddly travel companion simply called Red Bear. He’s done the trip before to some destinations, and as you can see, he even learned to swim in Turkey a few years ago – this time he’ll see bits of the world from Queensland to Hong Kong to the USA to Hawaii; to crossing the equator and the dateline, cruising Australia and around New Zealand. But this time he’s having a geography lesson for the sake of our grandchildren – with adult bits thrown in, of course!

So, buried in a frenzy of packing and sorting and lists, in just over a day, we make the slog to Brisbane airport again and hurtle towards England via Hong Kong.  I tried my very best to avoid the trip – even to the point of having the worst bout of ‘flu for the preceding five days that I’ve ever had, but inhaler, cough linctus and the remaining antibiotics to hand, I’ll make it, somehow. I’ve tried not to forget to pack anything, but probably have, and all the items on the list are ticked – apart from one. So all that remains is to drop the last few essentials into our cabin bags and head for check-in. In theory.

Red Bear is all fired up and raring to go, paperwork is filed in order of usage, suitcases are modestly packed and it’s goodbye to wonderful Noosa. And hello world. Again!

We hope you’ll enjoy the Adventures of Red Bear for the next three months…