Here we goooo

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We have been extremely busy planning all of the fun stuff like hostels on the beach, Nile Cruises, Abseiling, Skydiving, Bungy Jumping, shopping in London etc. We have been so busy that we have forgotten to organise the important things like finances, something to sleep on/in for a month on the safari and some warm clothes for camping in sub zero temps in Germany during Oktoberfest. I don't think this last one is as important as Al does as I am planning on being too pissed to find the tent let alone worry about getting into a sleeping bag rated at -5.

So our weekend has been spent trying to organise some of the boring things we have put off, we headed off to the camping shops and found AL some very sexy long john thermals in a sensual stripey blue colour. Next was the sleeping bag which we decided would be best to get one rated fairly low and were advised that a down fill would compress better for travel. The salesman had us sold on one that was warm and compact but when he went to get one off the shelf the bag looked like it would hold 3 of them. AL and I were both confused and almost in sync questioned the guy accusingly "You said it was a small bag!". He told us that this was a storage bag, when you store them rolled up they lose their fluff and more importantly their warmth rating. Mine was rated -5 when purchased in 2005...it has been rolled up since... Germany sounds like it will be Al all comfy in her thermals snuggled up in a -5 sleeping bag while I am passed out, out the front of the Hoffbrau Tent in Munich.

We also decided to pick up a sleeping Mat, self inflatable seems to be the go. We saw a specials cart in the "Africa" section with some self inflatable sleeping Mats for $40 down from $100, so being on a budget we ran with this. That all sounds good aside from the fact that the mats measure up at 150cm in length. Maybe they assume because you are in Africa your legs will be taken by a lion / croc / hippo / hyena etc...

We threw all of the new gear into the car and headed home to start packing. Yep, to start packing. Once the excitement of shopping for new gear wore off and the boredom of packing came on we pretty much gave up and decided to do some more booking of the fun stuff.


** A quick tip for anyone travelling, go and get yourself a Visa Debit card from NAB. You get no charges from using Visa "plus" ATM's to withdraw cash around the world, they are even in countries like Botswana etc.

We have decided 100% go to Egypt as we are both really excited to head there. Al is convinced we will be OK because apparently I will protect her with my elite weaponry skills. She is basing this on what she witnessed through the week at LaserTag at Strike Bowling in Charlestown. She witnessed the absolute annihilation of her team... without going into too much detail I pretty much f#%ked em up...seriously.

With most things that we can think of now taken care of the next week will be spent washing clothes, packing and saying bye to our friends and family for 6 months...sad face

If you didn't know we are having some farewell drinks at IsoBar on Sunday from about 1pm. Nick will be running in the Sparke Helmore Traithlon from 10am if you feel like getting up a bit earlier than normal on a Sunday. We hope everyone can come and see us off, we are going to miss everyone.

This blog will be our way of keeping everyone up to date on our trip so don't forget to subscribe and you will be emailed when we add another post. Photos will go on Facebook with some of our favourites posted on here to give some context to our ramblings!

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