Just a quick note to let you all know that the journey has truly begun…right now, we are on the InterIslander ferry “Kaitaki” having just left Picton for the trip to Wellington. It’s an overcast day, quite warm though and the very nice man in the Kaitaki Lounge (the Koru Club of the high seas) has just advised that the northerly is turning to a southerly and that “it might be a bit lumpy out there today”….excellent news, just what I need (not!)

More exciting updates to come once we leave the country (at least I hope they’ll be exciting) but for now the news is simply that we have had all the sad farewells, we’ve had a lovely family dinner last night at Te Rito (Winsome’s home), we’ve even had crayfish for morning tea from one of those little caravans near Kaikoura. The Adventure before Dementia has started!!

A few of you have asked where exactly we’re going. Well, for much of the time (in Europe especially) we don’t actually know….that will be a daily surprise. If we like a place, we’ll stay – and if it’s not quite to our liking, we’ll move on. So more on the European campervan itinerary at a later date (that is, we’ll let you know where we’re going once we get there!)

But in the meantime, here’s the plan for the first stage – the getting to the UK part. For those who have been to any of these places, feel free to comment with any suggestions about places to go, things to do, sights to see etc.

We head off on 26 March and fly from Christchurch to Kuala Lumpur for a week. Then we have 12 days in Vietnam and Cambodia, starting in Hanoi, then Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh and Siam Reap where we’re looking forward to seeing the temples at Angkor Wat. Then a week in Penang (that’s the part of the trip where Air Asia thinks our bags are worth more than us: the return tickets are $9 each, the taxes are $20 each and bags are $24 each).

Next, a week in the “Golden Triangle” of India with a personal car and chauffeur/guide for most of the week in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, followed by a week in Kathmandu. We won’t have time to trek anywhere nor even go to the Everest area by land transport, but we are hoping to get one of the scenic flights where, weather permitting, we’ll get to at least see Mt Everest. (Don’t worry, Peter G, we’ll sit in the back row because a plane has never backed into a mountain yet, has it?)

After that, we fly to Mauritius for a few days then onto South Africa where our good friends Remo and Angeline are organising 10 days or so of travel which may take us as far as Capetown to the South, and possibly the Victoria Falls to the north. We’ll start in Johannesburg where they live and see how we go!

No worries if we don’t see any wildlife though, because we’re hoping to get all of that on the next stage, which is a safari starting in Nairobi and finishing in Zanzibar: 11 days in Kenya and Tanzania including trips into the Serengeti, the Ngororgoro Crater, and the Olduvai Gorge.

All of that part is in tents with sleeping bags and roll mats on the ground so we’ll have a few days R&R in either Zanzibar or Dar es Salaam to recuperate, then an overnight flight via Qatar and Tunis to Casablanca in Morocco. We have nearly a fortnight in that country, where among other things we will spend a night in a Berber camp in the Sahara, before spending the last few days in Marrakech.

The last leg is an EasyJet flight to London where we arrive on 12 June. Then the second part of the adventure begins!

For now though, that’s enough typing on the iPad (a little practice for doing posts on the run once we’re underway) because my arm is sore….we had part one of our innoculations today. 2 injections in each arm so we’ve got things like Cholera and Yellow Fever sorted. The only part that hurts more than than our arms of course is our wallet….

Thanks for persevering so far – but you DID ask! Well, some of you did….OK, one person vaguely mentioned it perhaps…..

As some of you know, Pauline watches Shortland Street most nights, and occasionally I will join her to see what’s going on. The other night, there was a ditzy character named Bella who uttered a classic line when urging her friend Lana to make the most of an opportunity before it was too late: “Caveat emptor, Lana, caveat emptor!”.

Well, Bella, what you really meant was “Carpe Diem” but thanks for the advice – that’s exactly what we’re going to do, very soon. In 103 days, we will be taking off from Christchurch on the first leg of a 2.5 month journey to the UK, via South East Asia, India & Nepal, and Africa….then we’ll be in a campervan around Europe, the UK and Ireland for 7 months or so.

And this blog is hopefully going to be our way of keeping in touch with you all whilst we’re away. In the next few months we’ll post updates as our plans fall into place, and then the idea is to regularly keep you all informed of where we are and what we’re doing. Watch this space!

The first thing I have to do though, is learn how to work this blog….I’m sure I’ll fathom it out.

Cheers

Andrew