Tuesday 21 June 2011

The perils of setting off on an adventure

There's nothing like a few days of worry regarding your departure due to nature taking a nasty course. In our case it was volcanic ash, which had been and gone a couple of weeks ago, and then just had to reemerge a couple of days before takeoff.

We'd heard that the same flight as ours, but two days earlier, had only made it as far as Johannesburg - a mere 1400kms from our destination of CapeTown. Then the ash was in Australia: TIger cancelled all flights, noone was flying to Adelaide, sydney flights were cancelled etc etc. All of which sent us to checking the travel insurance policy as it looked likely that we may be delayed.
But we optimistically arived at the airport this afternoon to find Singapore Airlienes humming along and we have completed the first leg to Singapore.  It's 10pm and our next flight to South Africa leaves at 2.10am. fabulous though the Airport is, four hours in the middle of the night when I should be tucked up in bed seems a long time.

We did have a couple of delays getting to the airport whenthe first time Ewan left his jacket at home- turn around and go back and then when he realised he didn't have his wallet either- turn around go back again!  Oh the joys of travelleing to far off places!!!

Your tired but releieed correspondent Dianne

Friday 10 June 2011

One and a half weeks to go

"The planning is half of the journey" - or words to that effect.

In our house there are alternate ways of planning for travel as I am discovering.

One is the measured well-researched do-it-ahead-of time type of planning. It consists of hours spent perusing all of the travel advisory sites, talking to people who have been to your planned destination, reading the recommnded novels and reference books well in advance, and planning a variety of experiences so boredom and exhaustion never sets in.

The other is a 'we don't want to overplan' approach. Such a laissez faire attitude is probably highly successful in low season, but at other times???
The other danger sign is the lack of variety, along the lines of: 'The ruins here are suppposed to be great....'  'So and so says don't miss the ruins at........' and 'these remote ruins are very hard to get to but....' However the final straw is surely 'we won't have time to see the Mediterranean as there are too many exciting ruins to see inland.....' Aaaaargh!

from your well-planned but worried soon-to-be traveller

Dianne

Sunday 5 June 2011

Two weeks to go

Why is it that the closer you get to departing the slower the time goes?!

The gorgeous Erin, in anticipation of our arrival, has sent a list of essential requirements for us to transport to her including:
  • 65 small (!) koalas complete with boomerang and lifesavers cap ( and dare I say it made in CHINA!)
  • 2 Australian cookbooks for the teachers she has worked with (what exactly is Australian cuisine anyway? Who knew that Masterchef would result in a plethora of cookbooks!).
  • her reading glasses ( obviously not a lot of reading going on for the last 6 months)
  • a tube of vegemite ( for one of the hostel kitchen staff who loves it)
  • Jigsaw puzzles for the kids (they don't have them in South Africa???)
  • books for the kids (ditto)
  • connecter pens for the kids (ditto)
  • ipod headphones (ditto)............
So by my calculations, once I have packed all of these essential items I will only have space for my toothbrush, 1 T-shirt and a pair of shorts: the rest of my clothes I will have to wear onto the plane I think!

Your impatient correspondent,

Dianne