Well this the first post (kinda). We knuckled down and started planning our adventure on Sat 6th Feb 2010, but only decided on blogging about it a week later.. so you will have to imagine that this was actually written on 6/7 Feb. “What adventure ?”,  “What’s this all about ?”, “Who are you?”, “Are you insane?”……. “I can hear you caring” (thanks House MD)  Well check out About Us and Best Laid Plan pages above to answer some of those questions. If you are new to reading a blog (Mom, Dad etc), look at the Credits page. If the pages I mention don’t work it’s because I haven’t done them yet ! So to the five people who accidentally stumbled onto this page and we hope to our family and friends, it’s….  

On with the Show –  87 Sleeps Go  

A BEEG wall map (socks shown for scale)

First thing – hang a BEEEG map and get some markers (done). Then get lots of great ideas and inspiration (easy). Next find the energy to do some basic planning (boring). V had a large collection of Lonely Planet guide books and a few hundred random web links. I got back from SA last Sunday so we decided that it’s now or never for the boring bits. True adventure I guess is having no plan at all, but we like plans, so we started with some basics; 

• What countries are we going through (more or less) ?
• What are the Visa Requirements ?
• How long will it take ?
• How much will it cost ?
• What gear do we need ?

Two hours on the web later and it turns out we are looking at 20 or so countries. The visa requirements seem simple with some exceptions – Russia, Mongolia and China we’ll get through a UK company called Real Russia, Vietnam we’ll need to send off to the embassy in London, for Laos the information is sketchy and the rest seems you can get at border posts (we hope). Estimated around £1000 each for visas !  (Vicki has promised to add an accurate ‘Budget’ page as a resource). 

We scribbled some estimated durations onto our wall map without too much detail. Pushing back our start date to 5 May will cause some problems (like trekking in Nepal during the monsoon – got to figure that one out), but it looks like we will be travelling until the end of the year or until the funds run out (whichever comes first). 

Then the scary bit, costs! We found a few sites around giving estimations for different countries…. Adding a randomly generated fudge factor we came up with an all inclusive average of £50/person/day for the duration of the trip. We hope to publish accurate figures as we go providing a resource for others. We’ll keep you posted, but an absence of posts means we ran out of cash in Borneo and can’t even afford 5 minutes in an Internet cafe. In this case we suggest you ignore this paragraph. 

We are both serious gear junkies. So the rest of the weekend was spent looking at gear online. Planning never really made it back onto the agenda once we started talking gear. We’ll have more for you on this one (a ‘Gear Page’ soon), but we are looking at 8-10kg packs (around 30-35L). I think we are going to have to change our names from Vicki & Simon to Fast & Light !

I’m sure the posts will get shorter and more interesting as we get into this – thanks for reading anyway !

We needed to get passport photos printed and check out the gear shops, but most importantly satisfy the hunger for a KFC Zinger. Shrewsbury, only 40 minutes by train, has a few gear shops and reportedly (google) two KFC’s. Got our passports photos at the Jessops on the walk into town, but I have to say V’s photos are the worst I  have ever seen – so bad that if I post them here I’ll be travelling solo – and there are 20 copies !  HUGE rip-off… £1 per copy. We should have just printed them ourselves at home.

High Sports (cool toys)

V wanted to check out snowboarding boots but we could not find ‘Sail and Ski’ (Note to self – practice navigation skills). We did stumble into a fantastic find. High Sports is a real enthusiasts shop on the edge of the centre. All the best gear, fair prices, small and friendly – highly recommended to anyone after real gear. They have a room full (floor to ceiling) of backpacks. V has a fetish for backpacks – more extreme than most women and their handbags – so she thoroughly enjoyed herself. I got spoilt rotten in anticipation of my upcoming birthday with a new pair of ‘travel’ shoes. They are the business !  Salomon XA Pro 3D Ultra .. the black/grey ones. My second piece of kit with GoreTex. Happiness is.

Starvation started to take it’s toll so we headed back into town in search of the KFC. We walked straight past it and continued wandering in a hunger induced haze for some time (in our defence it has closed down and the windows were painted over). We opted for the second KFC – which we had located during a previous visit to Shrewsbury. We know that take away is bad for us and we never really eat the stuff . Just think of it as training for the months of dodgy food ahead. It was excellent.

Railway Research

After checking out the consumer outdoor shops and a book shop we headed home. V got herself another travel guide (Lonely Planet’s Trans Siberean Railway). Who would have thought that you need a 380 page book to explain how to get on and off a train for 2 weeks, how hard can it be ? Carrying the guidebooks seems more challenging to me, besides, I prefer the idea of electronic versions on an iPhone.

We spent the remainder of the weekend looking for information online, playing with the WordPress themes and plugins, and generally chilling out as we were both stiff and sore from walking around Shrewsbury.. yes… from walking around a little town for a few hours – what have we gotten ourselves into ?

Nope… I’m not going to tell you how much I got spolit on Valentines day.
V didn’t do too badly either 🙂

So today I emailed the Vietnamese Embassy to request pricing for a multiple entry visa. They responded efficiently and informed me that they are closed until 22nd Feb, but that the visas cost almost £100 each !  Considering all the other visas in the region are less than £30 each  this is crazy ! V and I have decided we’ll take the chance and try to get the visa in Hong Kong. I suspect this will be a challenge. The biggest issue with the visa is that you need to specify an entry and exit date – not realistic in our case.

Then I contacted a motorcycle training school in Shrewsbury (very helpful –  Complete Bike Traning). V and I decided it would be good to get bike licences so that we can rent bikes if possible. Foiled again !  Turns out we need to convert our SA drivers licence to  UK ones first. It takes 4 weeks and they keep your passport – ummm.. we need those to go snowboarding !  Then a 3 day of course before  the first level exam – for which you may have wait a couple of weeks to get an opening. Then on with another course and exam before you get a full licence for a small bike. Looks like we’ll have to hire bicycles !

V arranged a great day out today, the perfect opportunity to test some of my recently acquired gear in amazingly sunny UK weather. A colleague of V’s from work was kind enough to be our guide and driver. We headed south for adventure (but not too far).   

Clee Hill from the top of Ludlow Castle

Titterstone Clee hill near Ludlow (see geo-tag) is a goliath of English geology. The summit climbs to a towering 533m. Due to the heavy snowfall the moutain could only be accessed form a remote car park some 2300m away. The challenge looked epic and daunting – chances were good that we were going to lose digits to frostbite – but we had no choice. Okay. Maybe NOT. 

A small snowball !

The locals reckon that Clee Hill was used during the Second World War to pick up radio signals from Moscow (hence the Kremlin Pub). Apparently there are no higher hills between here and Moscow. I’m skeptical !   

It was a beautiful short trail. Perfect weather with fluffy knee-deep snow in some places. My gear performed flawlessly keeping me warm and dry all morning even while fending off snowballs of varying size and rolling down snow covered slopes. Only one minor injury – Chirs managed to mangle a knee and tear his pants – that’s what you get for trying to lob a 15kg snowball at me.   

After the apline expedition we headed for the Medieval Urban Gear Testing Grounds (LMUGTC) of Ludlow and it’s castle. I figured it would approximate some of the historic places we intend visiting.  

So to answer the question – No I don’t leak.. well not when covered in GoreTex.  

More photos in the gallery >>.

“Ah, my birthday. Normally I’d put on a festive hat and celebrate the fact that the Earth has circled the Sun one more time; I really didn’t think it was going to make it this year, but darn it if it wasn’t the little planet that could all over again.” – thanks House .  My best one so far – got away with tonnes of cool loot and my V has spoiled me rotten – again. Thanks to all.

V’s New Lowe Apline Pack. Click for Specs

What a weekend ! The idea was to got up at lunch on Friday and spend it with J&S in Stockport – do some leisurely gear shopping and possibly go for a day walk in the Peak District or get V a snowboarding lesson at Chill Factore. V got solidly stuck at work on Friday afternoon, so we only got to Manchester in the evening. Between 9 and 1 Saturday we bolted around every big name shop in what must be an Olympic record. Our shopping list was long, but it was more about seeing and trying on things we had seen online. V’s essential item was a backpack (I think she already has 7 – what’s one more). She found the perfect one at Snow and Rock .  To quote V, “It has a whistle, but no bells” – the chest buckle doubles as a whistle. I’ve been hearing about all its specs, features, pockets, buckles and zips ever since. It is really quite a pack – think I may have to get one too 🙂

Shopping is Tough

I found a pair strops for myself (ones that don’t make me look like I’m wearing flippers) and we made a dent in our list with a few other odds and ends. I miss being able to pop into an outdoor shop whenever I want – it really isn’t the same as shopping online. Thankyou thankyou J&S.

Saturday afternoon we went down to London for a surprise (for us too) engagement party for V&T that went on till 2am – that was a looong day – but great fun to be around good friends. By Sunday afternoon we were all spent but it must have been even worse for J&S – at least we could snooze on the road back home.

V off to work - Look'n Good in GoreTex

Look what arrived by courier yesterday. No, not V. The ‘Chilli Pepper Red’ Downpour Jacket. A serious piece of gear.. for a serious adventure…. serious. Should also come in handy for our snowboarding trip next week – will report back on how it performs in the snow.

And yes i’m also a gear junkie. I got a travel shirt yesterday – from Rohan (not the kingdom) and am wearing it today with the intention of hand washing it tonight in the sink to see if is dries by tomorrow !

BTW – We are both in pain having decided to start a tiny exercise routine, about 30 mins a night, to get us ready for the snowboarding and travel. I hope it makes a difference (doubt it), but I guess its better than just sitting on the couch (we do that too).

After hours of searching over many days I’m officially bored of trying to find travel underwear online in the UK. I’m going with Jockey ! It must be something to do with underwear models – pretty sure their gym routines are longer than 30mins and they make me feel “Less Brad Pitt than Brad Pitiful” (Thanks Tim Minchin).

Would it not be more comfortable if V could shop for me, and I for her ? Shopping for lingerie is just so much more satisfying than shopping for  jocks 😉 … and to any outdoor clothing manufacturers out there, “Travel Lingerie ” seems to be an un-tapped market.

Time to stop messing around make this available to the whole wide world. There will be changes, upgrades and general messing about with the blog over the next few weeks – it’s one of my favorite things to do. Lets see what happens when I push this button… hmm… probably nothing… what a dissapointment.

On the Temtiwr trail

Incomprehensible languages !

Got to spend the day yesterday mountain biking at Coed-y-Brenin in Wales with V and a friend of hers from work. Beautiful place but their rock-garden trails are tricky, especially since it was V’s first time out with her cleats. The weather was great, almost ‘hot’ when the sun came out and infinitely better than the pouring rain we had previously. Great to get out and feel like we have done some exercise. More training definitely can’t hurt.

Today we got down to planning some dates and times for the Trans-Mongolian train and other stops in Russia. We want to book our train tickets in advance as recommended by many sites and also need to provide this information for the Russian visa. We’ll be booking tickets and sending off for visa’s when we get back from snowboarding (week after next).

I’m looking forward to the Star City tour, which needs to be pre-booked. They have to do a security check before letting you in. Would love a flight on the ‘Vomit Comet‘  or a hop in a Mig but both are prohibitively expensive so we’ll settle for the standard tourist sites and possibly some fun with AK47’s at a firing range.

Russia is already looking more expensive than we planned !

We’re heading off to Passo Tonale for a week. Snowboarding and Italian food – paradise ! Conditions are looking good. Can’t wait.

This will be the last bit of ‘comfort travel’ for a while. A hotel to come home to, flights and transfers all booked and hassle free. Nothing like what’s coming our way in May….

Shitnal Railway Station

[Edited] We’re back from boarding in Passo Tonale – what a great time. Perfect conditions, great company, hellish neighbours, disastrous trains and a 26kg snowboard bag !

Hope to have the DVD in stores by the end of the month. It took 24hrs to get to the resort (38 hrs awake) and 12 hrs to get home. Eish… Long story… Good thing V took the time to write it up – I just edited. Boring trip drama after the break.

(more…)

The company I work for rocks!  Spoke to my line manager today about our travel plans and he is cool with me taking unpaid leave for the rest of the year instead of resigning. Since they have crap loads of work lined up for next year it means I will have a job when we are done travelling which will be quite usefull since we will be flat broke by that stage. Thank you Mott MacDonald.

Well.. Forty Days and Forty Nights… left to go. I Thought about taking a trip out to a desert and fasting for the duration but the 50 Deg C heat in Oman last year has tarnished in my interest in deserts.. still very interested in desserts though. I think we’ll rather go Mountain Biking in Wales tomorrow.

[Insert elegant segue here] More RTW/2 gear arrived today. Ordering clothing online is once again proving to be a pain. Should have gone for the S not the M ! Patagonia Borderless Trek Zip-offs Odd name since they are going to have to go through a LOT of borders 🙂

Sunday will be more RTW/2 trip prep. Got to get those passports off next week for visas. Will also post more on Tonale and make a decent dent in the video editing.

Team MMB+3

Mountain Biking was great fun as usual and Betws-y-coed is stunning. We must go back there in summer. The weather held but we had a late start and took an easy cruise around parts of the Marin trial with a crowd from V’s work. I have now had enough of renting bikes. They are never setup how I like and there is always an issue – like having to get the bike back to the hire shop before it closes. When we get back from our travels I want one of these.. all donations welcome.

View from the top

Betws also has a serious selection of outdoor shops – V and I had a little time for browsing. You know it’s a cool shop when you can walk around all muddy in your MTB gear and no one notices ! So much more satisfying than browsing on-line when you can try the stuff on. We had big plans for Sunday; Visa applications, video editing, trip planning and the Tonale blog report, but these all failed to get off the ground when mission control had technical issues….. getting out of bed. Now we are really running out of time !

Got a letter from Open University. Looks like I passed the Physics short course ! Completely chuffed. No idea of the mark – it just says ‘Pass’ – hopefully I get some more feedback. Now just the Maths ECA to complete (nervous).

Finally got the visa applications for Russia, China and Mongolia off to Real Russia today. If you research Russian visas you will eventually end up on the Real Russia site. They seem to be the best, but their site and on-line forms can be frustrating. Being in the mood for visa applications is rare ! Best advice; fill the forms out carefully and when you are done messing around call or email Real Russia for fine-tuning. The staff were excellent, and for the price they should be. Let’s see if their service is as good…

Pirate Jesse

And don’t forget Sept 19 – International Talk Like a Pirate Day … Enjoy the chocolate eggs and bunnies – Caramel eggs rock ! For more information on the subject… Eddie has a bit to say.

Seems our blog may be wandering off topic… not to worry, as soon as we get on the road that will all change. Busy weekend ahead !

Covered in Bees-tings

We needed to get a lot done this weekend and didn’t do too badly. V and I climbed into our trip entertainment and general trip-tech on Friday. I ripped my entire West Wing DVD set to iPhone video (see end of post for more info). We both still have a lot of sorting to do, but it was a really good start.

Don't look left

Saturday morning we were up early to catch a train into Birmingham for various bits and jabs (around New Street station). I hate needles, but survived. Can’t say the same for our wallets, a total of £245 each for Hep A, Typhoid and Jap B. The latter being £80 per dose – 2 doses ! Seems we will have to go back again in the week for the Japanese B Encephalitis vaccine. They did not have stock even though we had made an appointment for it !

With sore arms we toured the gear shops in the vicinity (Snow and Rock & Blacks) where we picked up a few more bits and pieces. Socks, pants for V, stuff sacks, and my Merino wool t-shirts from Icebreaker. Got to love their marketing and since they are made in New Zealand it will be fun to see if they make it all the way back home. [more palace intrigue below]

(more…)

X-Men V (V, not 5)

Yesterday was our last fitness training/MTB trip out to Wales before we start travelling. Perfect shorts and T-shirt weather for the first time this year and a great group of people. The MMB crowd, our friends and some new ones, 12 all together. The Coed Llandegla black trails are just so much fun – even on a rental bike with marginal breaks (who needs them anyway).

V was pretty sick with a cold and should not have been out on the trail. Everyone knows that wolves can spot invalids. One seems to have gotten hold of her – tis but a scratch. Bad chain-ring !

Today we started to pack away and sort our junk. It wasn’t long before we got discouraged by the sheer volume. Maybe next weekend, but we are running out of them.

Added some photos from the weekend to the gallery – Thanks Phil

Happy Birthday Dad – form both of us.

And great to see you getting all those years of collecting and research online. Keep it up.

More than a week since our last substantial post ! Couple of reasons/excuses. We have been very busy, and I have been sick with a nasty cold.

So to summarize what happened last week;

• Russian and Chinese visas have been sorted and the Mongolian one should be ready tomorrow – so we should get our passports back this week.
• V got a very early birthday present.. and I haven’t seen her since.
• We’ve basically got all the bits and pieces we need – I think the only thing left on the list is a new toothbrush.
• I completed my Open University “Maths for Science” course and assessment. I suspect my first ever “A” for Maths is on it’s way – unbelievable.
• Booked our travel insurance with Travel Nation – V researched options for hours. Let’s hope we don’t need it.
• Made good headway on the IT bits for the trip – finding translation apps for the iPhone and getting our data in order. The iPhone is such an amazing tool for travel. Guide books, talking phrase-books that say “those drugs aren’t mine” in Mandarin, GPS, Blogging, Skype – there is an app for everything. But.. what if it gets stolen ? Then we’ll do it the hard way and make sure everything is backed up to Google docs.

And that’s not all…

(more…)

Belated news of the passing of one of our key pieces of kit (Sanyo Xacti CA-9 video camera). It’s been all over; from the deserts and wadis of Oman to the ski slopes of Passon Tonale. We prepped it to go Mountain biking in Wales and in the morning it was dead.

We’ve been impressed with it’s performance and it is so cool being able to wash it in the sink after being in the mud, but I am not happy with Sanyo Europe. I gave it to V for her birthday last year and it failed after 11 months of minimal use (no abuse). Sanyo Europe are not willing to honor the warranty and insist that I send it back to South Africa for evaluation. No international warranty policy and no time left. It would have been great to get some good quality video on our travels. Next time.. Canon/Sony only.

Last week was quite a week, but we are getting there !  We got our passports and visas back. I have to plug Real Russia once again. They were fantastic ! (albeit expensive). Have booked a ferry from Denmark to Norway and started boxing up bits and pieces. Saturday we popped into Birmingham again for some last minute shopping and to get some Dollars and travellers cheques. We got what we needed (TK Maxx is incredible) but there was no electricity at Birmingham New Street station (first power failure I have seen here) so were not able to get our forex. Not a problem – we ordered online and it will be delivered by post. Can you imagine getting cash in the post back in SA !?

On the way back we stopped off at Cosforth to visit the RAF Museum (5 mins by train from home + a 20 minute walk) We’ve been talking about going since we got to Shifnal. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The new ‘Cold War’ hanger is stunning and well worth the visit. As always, museums are free. I’ve uploaded some photos to the gallery.

V spent most of Sunday trying to arrange hostels and accommodation for our first few days on the road in Denmark and Norway. What a nightmare. If they are not closed for the ‘off’ season they are full or overpriced. One serves pancakes and coffee at 21h00. At around R1000/room/night it should come with a masseuse, not pancakes !  We have had to take hotels and B&B’s – blasting our budget to pieces in the first week – let’s hope the rest of the trip is cheaper than expected. Looking forward to a danish in Denmark.

We are nearly there…  ONE WEEK OF WORK TO GO !!… Lots still to do.

I’m fiddling with WordPress a little at the moment – hopefully I won’t break anything permanently. I Need to sort out the image gallery and make some CSS changes.

Packing frantically and getting all the last minute things done. What a mission. We move our pile of stuff up to Manchester tonight. Been too excited to sleep, so we are in zombie mode. Had a great evening out with our friends from V’s work on Thursday – thanks for the great biking Sam and Chris, maybe we’ll see you next year !  Shifnal’s been good to us being so close to Wales.. but time to bring on the world (well half of it). [more coming – got to run to fetch the rental van]

–Update – So long Shifnal.  Said goodbye to all the lovely people at MMB and after sitting on the M6 in Friday afternoon traffic managed to successfully move all our bits into a corner of J&S’s garage. Sim had to return the van this morning (What a rubbish no one way rental policy Enterprise has) and after all the hard work finally collapsed into a coma in the afternoon sun in J&S’s back garden. -V-

It’s a bank holiday here today, so we are just lazing around with J&S and sorting a few odds and ends for the trip. Feels odd to be on permanent ‘holiday’. We spent yesterday afternoon at a braai with some safas and zimbos in Liverpool. We stuffed ourselves on meat and wors (enough to keep us going for a few months). Geat food, great company – thanks to the hosts et al. Iron Man II tonight 🙂 vaccines tomorrow 🙁

Insert smart caption here - I've had too much beer

No big arms allowed. How long before we have another ‘home cooked’ meal ?
[added] Thanks J&S for everything. Was great to relax for a few days and get everything in order. With a bit of luck we won’t see you until next year 🙂