7 weeks yesterday we will leave Northern Ireland for the first stage of our journey to Cape Town; Hogmanay in Scotland.  Which means there are many many things to be done….

Look who made it onto page 2

The first, as always, is to make a to do list, which obviously includes lots of things we have already done just so we have the pleasure of ticking them off.

After a week relaxing in Scotland (by relaxing I mean reading most of our African guide books from cover to cover) we have spent the past two evenings trying to tackle our ever growing to do list.  I feel we are gradually making a dent.

Tonight, amongst other things, we have contacted shipping agents in Belfast regarding the handling of our container in which both vehicles will be shipped home from Cape Town, we have filled in forms for the Carnets (like a vehicle passport), attempted a Western Union money transfer to our Tanzanian guide for climbing kili, confirmed details regarding our arrival in Libya with our Libya tourist guide and looked into road tax for the trip.

We have compared, in some ways, the preparation for the trip to that of a wedding.  You can plan all the things you need to do many many months in advance ( in some case years) and yet many, if not most, can not be competed till weeks before hand when everything suddenly needs to be done right now, and everyone needs your passport at the same time.  The only difference is that at the end of the wedding day, no matter what disasters happen, you still know what the result will be.