Saturday 10 Jul 2010 00:03

51 27 09:00 06 43 downgraded from...

via SMS by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

51 27 09:00 06 43 downgraded from iphone to shit nokia for the trip so testing the text blogging again. Launch in a matter of hours. I should be in bed.

This blog post was a first attempt to use my basic Nokia to update the website. The numbers are attempted GPS coordinates - putting them in correct format at the beginning of the SMS message would mean that our position was plotted on a map and only the text would appear as the blog post itself. As you can tell, it took me a while to get the hang of it.

SMS was the only means we had of updating the blog between internet cafes en route, as we had decided against taking a laptop. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it would be top of our list if we do anything similar in the future again.

The reason for my slightly curt & foul mouthed post was alcohol, once again. Friday was spent in a panic - sorting out admin for our absence, tidying the flat, and trying to work out how to pack the van. I shaved my head - partly for hygiene factors (still believing at that point that we'd be wild camping for 90% of the trip), and partly to look more like my passport photo - taken during an ill-advised flirtation with a number one grade cut back in 2001. I didn't want to give the border guards any more excuse to charge me additional 'processing fees' than necessary. It did provide me with an opportunity to try out a mullet haircut, but whilst I thought naively it might make me look more Russian, I didn't have the balls to go through with it.

We had our first reasonably heated exchange during the attempted van packing - we'd not prepared at all and there was no way of getting everything in in a logical, accessible order. Eventually we ended up just sticking everything in a variety of massive cardboard boxes and resolving to 'sort it when we get to Poland'. Thankfully, it was one of the few times we fell out to any extent on the whole trip.

We'd arranged a final couple of beers to send us on our way at the local pub, but time was getting the better of us and as dusk fell I was out in the street desperately trying to apply our sponsor stickers, a map of our route and our all-important logo to the van. An hour late, we rocked up for a final bon voyage with our mates, and were chuffed and embarrassed in equal measure to be applauded, loudly, out of the pub by them, to the bemusement of all the other punters.

We were to be at Woburn Safari Park, the revised launch location, for 10:00 the following morning for a parade through the enclosures and the launch itself, and far too late we went to bed in our flat for a final time, for a few fitful hours' sleep.