Eve of departure

Well all the planning is done, all the listing of things to do, and get, and mend, and install are ticked off and we are on the eve of departure.

At this point in our 18 month plan we would like to say a huge ‘thank you’ to everyone who has helped us and encouraged us at every stage.  We have especially had a very large number of well wishers in the last few days since we went public.  To all those who responded please accept our apologies that we have not had the time to reply individually.

When we have told people what we are doing we have always got a reaction.  It is true many have doubted our sanity but mostly it has been one of pleasure and excitement for us.  There has also been a lot of nice envy - from those who would like to do something similar but perhaps do not have the circumstances to do it. To those we would say, ‘why not’,  maybe you can, but you need to think big and be brave.  Start planning now and follow us.

Love,

Mike and Carol

All kit and stuff assembled, weighed and trial packed

Our kit - now you see it...

...now you don't

The big day looms and yesterday we got all our equipment together for the first time and fitted it into the Tab and the Land Rover.  See picture ‘Our kit’, the items not in the picture are lubricants and spares.  By the way to save time and  a few key strokes we call our Land Rover ‘Pyj’ after its registration number.  It all fitted in easily as we had planned it carefully, as you can see in the second picture. Mike then nipped round to the local gravel pit to get it weighed on their weighbridge. The complete unit was 3.320 tonnes and individually the Land Rover was 2.5 tonnes and the Tab  0.820 tonnes. The caravan nose weight was only 63 kg, all within specifications.  However the water jerrycans on the front of the Tab were empty at the time.  When they are filled up the nose weight goes up to 93 kg - not quite so good.   Pyj was a bit down at the back when loaded and in the afternoon the roof box of lubs and the diesel jerrycans (one empty at the moment) were moved forward on the roof rack to try to even up the overall load. Later, a  re-examination of all our stuff revealed that several of the heavy but not so essential items could be discarded  to save a bit of weight - in fact we shed about 40 kg of kit and tools.  This included the bird table! Not such a daft idea - we started using a bird table last September in Scotland and on our first day we had Crested Tit on it!

Opening for business soon

We will start blogging soon.  Please see our 'Home' page for details of our plan and trip.  There are also pages on preparation stuff, visas and things close to us.