Trip Preparations

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1. DECISIONS- made in Spain April 2008
Why should a “Gap Year” be the prerogative of the young? The idea of a Gap Year is to have a break between the world of study and the world of work; in other words, between university and career. Well I never got the chance to do that. Therefore, a gap between the world of work and retirement seems thoroughly appropriate. With this in mind I’m starting to plan a trip around the world to gentle myself in to the strange concept of not having to get up on Monday mornings to start the working week. It is an alien concept. I’m actually a bit scared of it. Having spent years saying that when I retire I shall do this and have the time to study that, the thought of burning the bridge that leads me to work five days a week is decidedly daunting. Will I paint, try my hand at upholstery, do a course in linguistics, walk the dogs regularly, swim lengths of the pool each day and become an avid gardener as I claim? Will I write another children’s book (the first and last was published some years ago now and I still haven’t written the intended sequel)? Or will I drift in to the gin and tonics by the pool whilst cultivating a true ex-pat tan, like so many 60-somethings who live in Spain end up doing? Well I hope not. Maybe if I pack up work then, without time to think about it for too long, pack a rucksack and go, in my usual state of “Not Having Time to Do This and That”, then I’ll come back satiated with experiences and chilled out enough to actually enjoy having the time to do this and lots of that and grow old a little more gracefully than I seem capable of doing at the moment. I can’t quite imagine what it will be like to be indispensable, even although I want to be free of the commitment of employment. Ego, I suppose, and wanting to be “needed”. How very stupid! I need to re-evaluate things!. Life isn’t a rehearsal and there is a big world out there.
So, with this in mind, after some time with just a nebulous idea of “travelling about a bit” on the savings, I have finally decided to plan a Pension Gap Year. Hopefully it will be one where I can do some of those things I’ve wanted to do for years, like snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, backpacking in the Far East and lazing in the South Pacific. I say “I’ve decided” but this has been a joint decision with my “better half”. My husband, John retired just over three months ago at Christmas and he is about 26 going on 62, horribly fit with itchy feet. We need to do this; to circumnavigate the globe whilst we are still young and lively enough to enjoy the travelling. So, it is April and we have decided that a good time to go would be sometime in August when our eldest son and daughter-in-law will be able to come to stay in our house and look after the three doggies. So, all that has to be done is to tell the boss that I will be leaving at the end of June (allowing some time to get organised before the Big Journey), get on the web and look for flights, get things in order and then go. But first, the best bit. Get out the atlas and plan the route!

2. Route Planning May 2008
The long list is too long! It would need three years not one and anyway the plan is now for eight months rather than a year, so we have to prioritise. We have decided not to “do” a whole year because of family commitments. In the traditional gap year, the need to do as much as possible within one year is dictated by finances and the need to get on the career ladder. It occurred to us that we could just about afford two gaps of between six and eight months each and we’ve already climbed the career ladders that we wanted to climb! So, no need to “do” every continent; we’ll leave Africa and South America until next time!
Why go east? It does seem the most logical way to travel. After all, the world rotates that way and it means that when we get past Fiji we’ll gain a day, sort of. So I have this perverse desire to go west, across the Atlantic, on to the Pacific, down to the South Pacific, Australasia and then back through some of South East Asia. We are toying with the idea of getting some kicks by driving Route 66, or maybe crossing Canada by train, boat, bus and plane. The highlights need to include the Grand Canyon, some Robinson Crusoe Pacific islands, the Fox Glacier in New Zealand, the Great Barrier Reef and the Kakadu in Oz, seeing Komodo dragons in Indonesia and The Beach (as in the Leonardo film) in Thailand. As one can tell, this is to be a “chill” experience of seeing some of the natural wonders of the world, rather than a cultural odyssey. Had we been seeking the latter, we would probably stay in Europe to revisit some of those wonderful cities we have enjoyed in the past, like Florence and Paris and explore those unknown to us, like Krakow and Vienna. We’ll leave those to another “next time”.
After extensive surfing, the final decision is to buy a British Airways/Air Pacific/Qantas RTW ticket (round the world), with ten flights and two overland gaps (gives a total of twelve “legs” which is the maximum this kind of economy ticket allows). This is flying from and back to Heathrow (easily accessible for us here in Spain) so we can visit family before and after the trip. Presumably by the end of August the luggage mountain at terminal 5 will have eroded to an ant hill, so our rucksacks should get on the first flight with us.
Next thing is to run our itinerary ideas past our well-travelled offspring, check the Home Office advice page for anywhere too dodgy, check passport/visa requirements and then book the flights. We finally settle on flying from London to San Francisco, and spending the first month travelling around California, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Death Valley and the Pacific coast. We then plan to fly to Hawaii to see some volcanoes then on to Fiji via a short fuel stop in Kiribati and on to New Zealand then Sydney for Christmas and New Year. After that it will be a flight to Cairns then on to Darwin. Thereafter, the plan is to spend a month in Indonesia to see some of the islands like Lombok, Komodo (where the dragons live) and Flores. After this we plan to fly to Singapore and overland to Bangkok then back to Heathrow in April; twelve legs, four continents and around 28,000 miles. That should do for a good eight months! Let’s get on the web and book it up!

3. Getting Organised May/June 2008

It is May and summer has most definitely arrived in Spain. We have three months to get organised for the Big Trip but the beach beckons every weekend and I am working until the end of June. Therefore, I need to indulge once more in my life-long hobby of Making Lists. I am a compulsive list-maker and it drives other people nuts. I make lists, then lists to prioritise lists, then after crossing off a few things I re-make the same lists. Firstly, there is the list of What to Take. Then along comes the Things to Buy list, the Things to do at Home list, the Things to do for Travel list and numerous lists within these lists. We’ll need to take a Christmas Card list as well, which is really hard to think about in May!
Passports, Visas, Injections, Dentist and Shopping!
The flights are booked, it is halfway through May, so now it is time to start the enjoyable task of getting things sorted and of ticking things off on the lists!
To enter some countries you have to have at least six months unexpired on your passports, so although ours don’t expire until June 2009 (when we’ll be back home in Spain) we might have a problem, so top of the Things to Do for Travel list is “Renew Passports”. For the Things to do at Home list, there are loads of things, from sorting out getting money in to the easy access account to tablets and injections and so on for the dogs as well as ourselves for travelling (like malaria tablets) . Hang on, these are for the Travel list! No, actually, since I have to go to buy them they are also for the To Do at Home list and the To Buy list. Some serious cross-referencing is called for or colour-coding. Yes, I know it is sad but it’s the way I do things.
Jabs, jabs and more jabs! Getting started on a course of injections in Spain is an interesting experience, especially when there are several injections required. I phoned the local surgery to make an appointment. We had our appointment with our doctor who told us that we had to contact a Vaccination centre in Alicante and go there for the jabs. Now, Alicante is 60 kilometres away and when you know that you need three or four visits (and have to work full-time) it isn’t a very good option. Anyway, I phoned the Centre to book an appointment and upon doing so was told that I only needed to go there for some of the jabs and that we could indeed get others at our local Health centre. So, back to the doctors and got the hepatitis A and B, Tetanus and Diphtheria sorted. We now have appointments for all of the rest in Murcia in June and July (this is because Alicante do not have one of the vaccines we need for Indonesia - Japanese Encephalitis). So it was a lot of angst, however, on the plus side, all of these vaccines are free in Spain and there is the added advantage of knowing that we’ll get everything we need. The Spanish take medicine very seriously and err on the side of caution - so we’ll end up with immunity par excellence!
Next on the list was a visit to the dentist. I only needed one tooth sorted and a second booking for hygiene treatment. Hubbie needed a few visits (because he hasn’t been for ages) but there is plenty of time! Our dental practice is called “Smile” and the treatment is first class, so I emerged with a big smile, cleaned and glossed and with the ghastly thought of a dental visit on a remote tropical island a little more remote.
And then there was shopping! We spent hours trying on walking boots and rucksacks. It took a whole Saturday to get these two basic items but they are so important. Rucksacks come in all weights, sizes and adjust to just about fit everybody. It is crucial to get a good and comfortable fit. Ditto for the boots. We opted for very lightweight Swiss mountain boots, made in Spain with soft Alpine leather and Gortex to boot. Great! They are as comfy as trainers. Ok, we know the temperatures are in the upper twenty’s now but our dog-walking has to be undertaken wearing socks and boots, to wear them in - the boots that is and on our feet, the dogs don’t need them!. Now we need to look for a tiny hiking cooker, mosquito nets and a host of other things. Great fun.

4. July 2008

Tuesday 1st July is to be the start of a new life! Retirement (but with no intention of taking it easy)!They say that to travel is better than to arrive. The travelling is truly what this next year is all about. For me, however, the planning and dreaming about the travel is all part of the experience, so it all starts now. We have eight weeks of glorious Spanish summer, to relax and prepare for The Journey as Backpacking Pension Gappers. A new journey begins!

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