OVERLAND CRUISING

Its only 12 weeks today and we head of for what we hope is the journey of a lifetime , visiting 25 different countries on an overland trip to Australia. We have started our vaccinations and have been adding clothing and equipment to aid our comfort and sleeping .

Well getting down to the nitty gritty now . We went touring around Derbyshire and the Peak District in the motorhome last week and found a great Rohan shop in Bakewell and managed to spend a small fortune on their latest outdoor gear . We drove into ashbourne and found all the shops boarded up and loads of people milling about , apparantly we stumbled on something called shrovetide which basically a giant rugby scrum of hundreds of people trying to wrestle an oversized football to various places in the town to score a goal , the game is played over 2 days between the Up,ards and the Down,ards of the brook in the middle of town . Bizarre !!!

We have now had all our vacinations and have our anti-malerials and altutude tablets , Our passports are at the various embassies waiting for visas , I ordered our first batch of us $ today from Thos Cook and will order more in the next 2 weeks . We are busy tidying the house and garden for our year away and have decided on a last trip in the motorhome next week to the Hereford area then it has to go into storage.

We still have not worked out how to upload photos on to this blog so that is my task for tomorrow plus sorting out a bank account for Oz

This is our last sunday at home and we are trying to pack a years personal possessions into our rucksacks . What with medicines , personal hygiene , electronics (cameras , notebook , phone , plus leads and chargers ) and the minute space thats left to fit a wardrobe of clothes . If you look at future photos on this blog and think we are always in the same clothes you now know why .
We will be spending this week saying goodbye to friends and family plus making sure that we have covered all our committments in England for a year .
Sandra is stumbling around the lounge trying to adjust her bag to make it as comfortable as possible on her back . We are using the same packs as we used in 2002/03 when we did our last big trip ( Macpacs ) , they suited us fine then so i hope other than age not to much else has changed .
Now looking forward to meeting our fellow travellers next sunday morning in Victoria which is likely to be busy as the London Marathon is on .