The Hunt for Red October, rattles away on the TV in the background, as our accommodation bookings and transport documentations are filed in their homes for the next three months. As we close in our European adventure the US sub confronts its foreign target and pauses. They Shadow box for a moment, sizing each other up, concluding it is safe to fulfill that which has just been a plan until now. The captain prompts CIA agent Ryan to go ahead and take the final calculated step: "What do you want to say?"

Our being is not perched upon such a knife edge but the nerves; they are real. And the excitement of that which is now tangible. In just a few hours we'll rise in the dark and drive south out of the Hunter Valley, our home, toward Sydney and onto London.

Our first steps in our loosely dubbed European tour will be into the Georgian House bed and breakfast in Westminster, ready for sleep. It's not the start to our couch surfing oddessy we had pictured having read such great tales and hosted so many strangers ourselves. But after several requests without a single response we've no choice. That fun will come later. In London we will test our backpacking legs to see if we can stand the trials of hostel living; dirty loos and crowded dorms in the heat of an English summer. It's what deodorant was made for.

We can only imagine the adventures that wait for us there. The friends we'll make over pints and the challenge of capturing landmarks like The Big Ben in uncommon ways. It's gunna be great. But now its time for sleep.