Preparation

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Hey everyone. This is my first blog entry of many that will probably start in September. As some of you who know me, I'll be heading out to New Zealand/ Australia with my girlfriend, Charlotte in September. We'll be backpacking New Zealand for a month or more and then we'll be traveling all over Australia until we find a place we like most and will be settling down and working/living there for the remainder of the year. The trip itself will be in September and will be lasting for a year (longer if all goes well). I honestly can't wait to go. You'll probably see a few more blog entries before September just to update you on the preparation of the trip.

Well, so far, everything is going according to plan. I've sent away for my passport 2 weeks ago, so I should be seeing that in 2-3 weeks now. The whole process was quite interesting considering I don't have a guarantor to sign for it. There's so many hoops to jump through if you want to leave the country and the line-ups at the offices are insane (because you need a passport now as a Canadian citizen if you want to go to the USA by plane). Oh well, it's all taken care of, so that's a load off my mind.

Charlotte and I have started purchasing our gear for the backpacking of New Zealand. For Christmas, we got our sleeping bags and Charlotte got me my backpack. Just recently on a +15 journey downtown (for those of you who don't live in Calgary, a +15 is a walkway above the roads going from building to building downtown so you don't have to go outside), Charlotte and I went to MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op). There, we bought our tent (Seedhouse SL2) which only ways 1.8 kg!!! We still have to buy the footprint for it, but that won't add too much weight. We also got our camp stove (Whisperlite International - runs on many different fuels... yay!) and fuel bottles, pots and pans, utensils, and camp suds (bio-degradable for cleaning said pots and pans). All and all, everything weighs MAYBE 4 kg. It's so light. It's hard to imagine that all this stuff is so little weight!

After purchasing all this, the whole idea of us going has become so much more real. I know that as soon as my passport comes in the mail, it'll feel that much closer to leaving.

The only thing we have left to really purchase is our footprint for our tent, our clothing that we want to take with us, and some miscellaneous odds and ends. We're going to be buying our fuel for our stove in New Zealand as well as our food/rations there, just so we don't have to worry about the customs issues with them.

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Comments

[Kareena]

up up and away!
wow that's so exciting Jason! I'm happy to see I get to add another blog to my list :D I'm such a dork, also a tip: so that you don't have to take scrubbies for the said pots and pans just use some pebles or rocks from around your site and swish them around in the said table settings. Make sure that if your by a stream it is safe to wash in, my brother got really sick when he was there because up stream was a sheep farm not on the map and the water was contaminated....can't wait to hear more from you two.