From Switzerland to Australia - Part 2

After a wonderful time at home in the beautiful mountains of the canton of Schwyz, it's off again for us on 6.6.2022 into the wide world. We are very excited, even though we still have a lot of work ahead of us.
We have already managed to navigate the administrative challenges, such as deregistering with the municipality, canceling health insurance, etc. To make life a little easier for you in a similar endeavor, we've summarized the unsubscribe process under "Tips and Tricks".

What happens next?
We had actually planned to return to Georgia and continue our journey in the country we had grown so fond of.
However, given the current circumstances with the war, the many conflicts, and the borders in neighboring countries that are still partially closed, we have once again changed our original plan.
It now looks something like this:

• From Zurich we take the Flixbus to Hamburg and from there we start our trip through Scandinavia (about 4 months - until the end of September).
• First via Denmark, a small part through southern Sweden with a planned canoe trip of several days, Norway and finally through the wooded Finland to Helsinki.
• Ever since we started our world trip, Australia has been our cycling destination!
  Since the border reopened on February 21, 2022, it's clear to us that we'll be catching a flight to Australia 🤩 when winter sets in up north. Never in our lives would we have thought that we would reach Australia this way. Our cycling hearts ache a little at not having cycled the planned route to the coast of Australia and from there flying just a "stone's throw" to the red continent.
  But as so often in life, things turn out differently than you think.
• In Australia (Byron Bay) we will, among other things, visit Beni's host mother (language stay 2016), then drive a large part of the south to Perth and finally scramble up the west coast to Darwin. Whether we really drive everything by bicycle or still a part with the camper, we do not know ourselves yet 😅.
• In Australia we will take about 8 months. Because the country is so incredibly large, it doesn't make it easy to plan by bicycle. To be on the safe side, we have now applied for a one-year visa. Unfortunately, we do not have the visa in our hands yet. Since we were in Georgia for more than 3 months, we have to undergo a health examination for the visa. Of course, this is only possible with a trusted doctor of Australia, which is located in Zurich and which costs us an unbelievable 700.- CHF per person! More about the Australia visa under "Tips and Tricks".

Planned route - world trip part 2

Before we set off, we bring our equipment up to speed. For example, we are currently sealing the seams of our new outer tent with silicone to make it waterproof.

Furthermore, due to the extreme distances in Australia, we considered how we could pack food and drink (up to 15 liters per person) for several days onto our pack animals.
So we purchased the 49-liter Rack-Pack from Ortlieb, which will fit on Beni's luggage rack:

You'll read whether we'll actually get our one-year visa and how our launch went in the next blog post sometime in June!

Update donation appeal Ukraine

We also promised you that we would provide an update on donations for the situation in Ukraine.
You can find all the information you need in the updated blog post: Ukraine needs our help – call for donations