|
|
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Vancouver with Kids
We've been reading the guidebooks, and using the web for our research, and are starting to build up a good picture of what's where, and what we want to do. Today I came across a brilliant web site, called FindFamilyFun, which is absolutely brilliant. It's full of fun things to do with the children in Vancouver, and around the city. Everything from free things to do, to days out at theme parks etc. Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Welcome from the web...
Tonight, as I was checking the web statistics for this web site, I found some visitors had found their way to the site thanks to some curious searches. One person, who browsed all over the site, had typed "Road trip from Vancouver to LA" into the MSN Search Engine Good news - The site mentions both Vancouver and LA Bad news - There's nothing about "road trips" on it (except now there is because of this!) Good news - I've made it into the MSN Search Engine Another person searched on Google for "Metpost Problems" and got this web site Good news - The site mentions Metpost, and handily that's hyperlinked to the Metpost website (as it obviously hadn't answered his question, because he was on the third page of search results) Bad news - The Metpost reference is to the incompetence of the To Let sign post erector (and it turns out he used a wooden stake, which explains why he didn't look like Don King afterwards) Good news - I've made it into the Google Search Engine Just goes to show what rubbish search engines can return!
Book it
Finally done it - booked the tickets. We are now the proud owners of tickets to fly around the world (GULP!). Having handed in my notice, put our house up for rent and arranged to take Charlotte from school for a year, it made me nervous that we didn't actually have a flight out of the country organised. But now we do.. Heathrow - Vancouver - 16th July 2003! Vancouver - LA - 13th August LA - Fiji - 18th September Fiji - Sydney - 1st October Sydney - Christchurch - 14th February 2004! Auckland - Singapore - 14th March Singapore - Heathrow - mid-May 2004 And the cost? A whopping £4,500, but still you only live once, and you can't take it with you(I should explain that's an England expression about taking your money beyond the grave, not about how much you can or can't get in a rucksack) So now I can stop worrying about that, and start worrying about the outbreak of SARS in Vancouver, how unfriendly customs can be to get into LA, whether Fiji will really be as nice as people say, what a car might cost in Australia, how to fill a month in New Zealand, and can the kids really hack it in SE Asia without us all going mad. Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Making people jealous
Over the last few weeks, since it was announced at work that I'm leaving to go on our little family trip, I've noticed that I've been getting lots of jealous remarks. Along the lines of "I wish I could do what you're doing". Of course, the obvious answer is "You can". Because, lets face it, if I can give up a nice house, a lovely car, a steady salary, a good career and all of the other stuff, then I guess many of the others that say "I wish I could do what you're doing" could too. Especially as most of them don't have kids, and therefore don't gave to be anywhere near as responsible as us (as grown ups). And I bet some of them are reading this blog, thinking "I wish I could do that". So, come on, what's stopping you? Can't just give up a job? What about the war/SARS/safety/money etc etc etc. If you want to do it you can. Monday, April 07, 2003
The shopping begins
Read back through our travel diaries
This weekend was the first S-Day - Shopping - having looked around London last weekend, and browsed through Ellis Brigham, Snow+Rock, Field & Trek, Blacks, and a few other smaller stores, we had a good idea of the kind of gear we wanted to get first. The key item is of course the rucksack. These are all measured in "Litres" - which is a measure of how much gear you'll get into them. Last time we went travelling (10 years ago, 2 years round the world, and just the 2 of us) we had one pack each - Sarah's was 35L (basically what categorises as a day pack now) and mine was 55L (basically a small rucksack for week long trips). We'd managed to do this through our drive to carry as little as possible, and make do with what we have (something we still do today when we go on holiday - four people, two weeks holiday - one suitcase!). Anyway I digress. We did our research and decided that Sarah will use my 55L pack from last time (needs a good wash!) and I'd get a new 75L pack. Lots of questions, trying etc led us to the Osprey Packs rucksacks. We also looked at sleeping bags. Another Digression: Last time we sold our sleeping bags in Delhi before coming home, to two Israeli's who were heading to Tibet. It was 41C in Delhi, and they were heading up below zero. We knew our bags weren't great at that temperature, but they'd do - the Israeli's were just fixated on getting the cheapest bags possible. They tested the bags by getting in to them, and they thought they we warm enough (should have been - the room was 36C!) and so we parted with two sleeping bags and we got $60. (I bet they were cold in Tibet though!) For sleeping bags we wanted them to be lightweight, pack up small (because there's going to be four of them split between two rucksacks), and be warm enough for summer use (basically, when it's cold we're going to be staying in hostels, so they won't have to cope with mega-cold temperatures). We ended up going for Mountain Equipment Firewalker Ultralites, because they packed down smaller than anything we'd seen (26x18cm) We also considered all of the different shops and decided that we would buy from Ellis Brigham. We were also going to get a pack for Charlotte, so wanted her to come along with us this weekend. We ended up at the Ellis Brigham shop in Milton Keynes, which is in the Xscape building. We'd never been there before - it was a wow for the outdoor stuff - some great clothes shops for outdoor gear, a climbing wall that Charlotte's keen to try, and a of course the SnowDome. In the shop one of the sales assistants did the usual "Can I help you", and off we went - a rucksack for Charlotte, a rucksack for me, a daypack for me (which clips onto the rucksack), Sigg water bottles for the kids and us, 4 sleeping bags, some PacSafe security stuff (to keep the rucksack safe, plus the laptop), Motorola two-way radios (for keeping tabs on the kids when we're out and about, or they're playing around a campsite), LED torches (much, much better than the Maglites we used to use - they seemed to eat batteries too quickly, which meant they were always flat when you wanted them), travel towels (smaller, lighter & quicker drying), etc etc etc. The sales assistant was brilliant - it turned out to be Simon, one of the managers, and he kept up a steady flow of really good advice, gave us loads of options and useful advice from his own experience. We looked at clothes (but didn't buy any), and I also looked at the shoe/boot options (we're all going to have a single pair of shoes + a single pair of flip-flops) because I want something I can comfortably wear all year, and that won't give up on me, and don't look totally like I've just hiked in from the mountains. (No joy - something for the future). In the end we spent 2 1/2 hours there, got some great advice, spent £500 and went away very happy. Top marks to Simon!
|
