This is our last goodbye...

For one last time, we can say Gruezi to you all without it sounding strange,

It has been just on 5 months, many thousands of km's, 10+ countries (most of which where in the last 10 days) and enough language and currency changes to make anyone's head spin. For everyone that has asked we are due to fly out of Zurich at 2230 tomorrow (Wednesday, or Mittwoch if you will) via Hong Kong and will be back in the land of Oz on Friday morning at 1100 ("There's no place like home, there's no place like home").

In our last leg, as most of you will already know, we covered a great deal of ground (somewhere in the vicinity of 5000 km's of plane, train and coach travel) and were lucky to see so many places I never thought I would have the privilege to see. Honestly, we have done just so much it would take me way too long to try and tell you every single place that we have been - so I'm not going to, besides, I'm sure there will be enough stories and photos to keeps us going for weeks after we get back. But there were plenty of highlight moments - I'd like to share just a few with you.

Our stay with Darko and Jess in Edinburgh was awesome. Just one of the many amazing places we were lucky enough to get to (and would have loved to have spent much more time in). Such a true haven for artists of all walks. The real highlight was spending time with our good friends, met some great people, got drunk several times and kilted it up. It also happened to be festival time and we managed to get to see the "1 Man Star Wars Show" - endorsed by none other than George Lucas himself - an absolute corker.

Every city we visited across Eastern Europe was just incredible, and as is across the most of Europe, each has so much history and so many stories to tell (both uplifting and horrendous). Grand architecture, opulent palaces and cathedrals - did I mention history (come on, some of the buildings have been around hundreds upon hundreds of years before the colonisation of Australia - a written description just doesn't really cut it). We walked through the Brandenburg gate, stood upon hallowed ground in Krakow, experienced the full range of emotions at Auschwitz and gazed across the city of Vienna from it's highest point. Everywhere we stayed should have been given much more time, so much more, but I do suppose that that's what these trips are about - a chance to see as many of these places in a short time without spending months trekking around Europe. There are so many places we would love to go back to like Budapest and Vienna [Wien] to name just a few. We ate, drank and stayed in places that made us feel like royalty (places which had often had actual royalty stay there, not to mention the occasional megalomaniacs and multi-millionaires) - we shared our moments of looking completely out of place and times of being treated exceptionally well by brilliant staff like at the Raddison SAS Alcron in Prague. Quite literally 5-star all the way. Despite we even had people in there 80's on this trip, there were only 16 of us which made all the difference and for the most part the company wasn't bad at all. All made even more enjoyable by our tour director James and driver Martin, 2 genuinely good blokes. I don't know if I would personally choose to do a tour like that again, the style of it isn't quite up my ally, but I feel very very lucky to have had the opportunity to do it.

Here comes the hard part. Time to say goodbye to Zurich, Switzerland and Europe. As much as as we are glad to be heading home, we would also be happy to stay - but in this wild and crazy world I guess you can never really know what the future may bring. We have made some good friends, been educated and travelled further and wider than I ever thought possible - taken more photo's than an average bus load of Japanese tourists - and experienced so many things beyond our expectations. I guess that really does bring us to the end. Soon reality of home life will be back in full swing, we'll be making our way around the traps to see you all in due time (I'm sure you'll all hear from us soon enough, one way or another), share some moments, photo's and memories. That means for the most of you the next time you hear from your intrepid travellers our feet will once again be on Australian soil.

For now, farewell to Switzerland and Europe. I don't think either of us will forget the experience, ever. We will see you all again very soon.

As a final note, a massive thanks to everyone who made our home away from home feel like we were welcome - and would be welcomed back too. There are many of you, you know who you are and you all know you are welcome in the land downunder and our home.

Jimi and Ness.