Starting a new trip with a new pack

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WELL I'M pretty excited and pumping with a new adventure about to begin and I'm just a couple of metres away from my front door and ready to go. Just before I head out, I want to show you something. On this trip most days I'm going to do some travel hacks each day to give you some information. I'm taking this black backpack and the little day pack. I am a fan of taking old backpacks which have a lot of character. Like these ones I'll show you.

This is the very first backpack I ever had. This was my hiking pack between 1988 and 2004. As you can see it got very old and held together with a piece of string in the belt and on the straps. It is very faded - this is its original colour. It's very old and bits are falling out. I used this a lot when travelling around New Zealand and also in my early travels in Australia and some local travel around here as well. Anyway this did wear out and I had to put it into retirement in 2004. This formed the first part of what I call my travel museum. So that was my first backpack.

Then I bought this one in 2004. This still has the tag from the rather epic trip I did back from Easter Island earlier this year. It has a few more tags but as you can see it is all falling apart here. The bottom is falling apart as well. It's got to the point where it's almost dangerous to be using this now for long hikes. This bag now has bits of fishing line holding it together, so it's definitely time to retire it. This backpack has done extremely well. It has travelled with me to every continent in the world. It has done treks in just about every continent and seen lots of treks in New Zealand and here in Australia as well. It has done a lot of life and it is very sad to see this being put into retirement but it is getting too dangerous to keep it going. So this is joining the other backpack in the museum.

So now I have this new backpack which I've just bought and getting ready to take on its maiden voyage for another hike and this has come with a little day pack which attaches to it so it will be very interesting to see what happens with this. In this one, I'll do a separate vlog on this, I have all my cameras and cards and laptop - all the valuable stuff as I'm less likely to lose this as I keep it with me at all times. Once I've checked in at the airport I'm not going to see the big bag until I reach my destination. At least I've got my peace of mind with everything I need.

Anyway I have to get out the door very shortly so I'll catch you further down either at the airport or on the plane. I'm not sure what sort of videoing I'll be doing there, but I'll catch you later.

OK I'm all good to go now. All my valuables and passports here and all my gear in the big bag, so goodbye home. I'd better bring the gopro. That's the new front door. I'll stain it when I get back.

Well greetings from Brisbane Airport. I've got the boarding passes and everything. I'm about to board the plane so I've got to head down to the gate which is quite some distance away. Surprise, surprise, it's still like the first of November and right behind me is a Christmas tree so that's an indication of how desperate the retail industry is around Australia at the moment. You wouldn't expect those things to be going up until the first of December.

There's my ride to Wellington. It has just arrived and it looks like a bunch of people coming in on their trip to the West Island. Once they have cleared out, we'll jump on board and cross the ditch to Wellington.