Visas and stuff

Well, it's been a while since we last posted on this blog (2 months exactly - I just checked), but things have been happening!

The sale of our apartment is going to be finalised on 8 January 2014.  That's the day the title is transferred and when we are no longer property owners (or mortgage-payers) in the Netherlands.  We had intended that day to be the day we left the Netherlands, but something came up!

Yes, after spending over a year umm-ing and ahh-ing over our cat, Ferry, we finally (and REALLY finally) decided that we couldn't bear to leave him behind and therefore he should come to Oz with us. For those in the know, his emigration is more complicated than just about anything else (I thought the car was bad), but it means he needs to hang around in NL for six months, so that he can satisfy the Australian Quarantine Service requirements that (amongst others) he does not have Rabies.  See the photo below, which (as far as I'm concerned) shows a totally healthy cat.  But, hey, we all have to jump through hoops to satisfy bureaucracy.

So, the reason for the delay??  Our cat-sitter, the fabulous Vera, cannot take Ferry into her home until 12 January 2014.  We need to ensure our Ferry is safely ensconced in Vera's apartment in Amsterdam, before we can head out of the Netherlands.  The timing is a bit off (with us being kicked out of our apartment on 8 January), but fortunately our very generous friend John is providing a place for all three of us (Craig and Ferry and me) to call "home" for the days when we are homeless, until we can drop off Ferry with Vera.  Yay John :-)

We've also jumped through (too many) hoops to get our visas done.  Who would have thought it would take so much time and effort (and money).  Incredibly, the Iranian visa was the easiest to get, and the cheapest!!  Now we've got our visas for India and Iran and we are collecting our passports (with visas) from the Pakistani embassy on Friday.  I've never had so much trouble getting visas before ...

Our vaccinations are complete (but Ferry still has a few to go).  The final bits and pieces for the car have been fitted (or will be soon - we got 3 AluTec boxes delivered today, so just need to be fitted to the roofrack).  We took our final trip to the UK at the end of November, and visited Flatdog UK for some extra bits.  We now have the most sophisticated battery monitoring system ever (we have an Oddysey leisure battery and a Varta starter battery).

The removalists are coming in less than 10 days, and that's just scary.  Fortunately we decided some time ago to just take everything (in a 40 foot container), so we don't really need to sort out stuff that's not going (because it is all going).  However, we do need to sort out what's going with us in the car, because once it's been packed by the removalists, we won't be seeing it again for a while.  And considering that what we have in the car once it's packed is what we'll be living on, in and with for who knows how many months, that's concerning. We usually live by the principle of "have credit card, can buy", but this is not 2 weeks or even 4 weeks.  This is months and months.  So we're hoping we won't forget too much stuff!!  And we hope to goodness it will all fit in the car .... yes, that is the big question!

Mirne had her eyes tested (because she wasn't seeing as much as she used to) and found that her eyesight had worsened significantly, so that meant getting new lenses in three pairs of glasses - unexpected expense!  We got our GP to prescribe all prescription drugs for a period of 6 months, so we won't be looking for a GP in Pakistan or Turkey ...  Mirne got her Kindle (thank goodness), so we won't be dragging 100's of hard-copy books with us! Our Carnet de Passage is being collated as we write this, and will soon be couriered (yes, Royal Mail wasn't good enough for RAC UK) our way.  We need to finalise expedition car and expedition travel insurance - hopefully tomorrow.

Craig had the brakes checked on the Beast last week, and during that process found that a crucial part needed replacing because it was failing due to being full of Sahara sand (instead of grease) ... oops!  We may not have made it out of the Netherlands if Rob hadn't caught that one!  Thanks Rob!  Our air conditioner was also given the once-over by a very helpful and friendly airco guy -- the system is now operating at 100% (as opposed to 30% ... oops).  I don't understand that there are still people out there who believe that air-conditioning is a "luxury" -- when you have a big BLACK car, air conditioning is a necessity!

We got the bill from the removalists which seems a lot higher than the original quote ... typical.  When we converted the amount to Australian dollars, the amount was high enough to give Mirne heart palpitations ... I (Mirne) could see our as-yet-unbuilt-house-in-Australia getting smaller and smaller (one less bedroom).   But, yes, moving to the other side of the world is very expensive, and driving to the other side of the world is just as expensive.  Importing a car and a cat into Australia adds more costs still ... sometimes I wonder if it will all be worth it.   Craig tells me it will be :-)

We got some legal documents finalised today, by going to the Australian embassy in the Hague to get our signatures witnessed (for a fee per signature).  So if we get blown up in Pakistan, at least our assets will find a good home :-)  I wonder about Ferry though ... mmm ... must speak with Vera about that!

What else??

The weather here has been deceptively mild.  I'm hoping it will stay that way until we're well away from northern Europe, although we'll be carrying snow-chains in the car anyway, as it is a legal requirement of various countries we'll be driving through.

Oh.  And we moved the rooftent to the back of the car.  Third time moved.  Also final time.

Can't think of anything else at the moment.  Will update blog as and when anything of interest happens.

Introduction - our plans & the Black Beast

Here it is.  Our first post.  And we haven't even left yet!!

It looks like we might finally have a buyer for our apartment.  He is looking for a settlement on 1 February 2014, and, if that's the case, we'll be leaving Amsterdam on that date.

:::

Our plan is to drive our 2001 Land Rover Discovery 2 (the "Black Beast") from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to our destination in South Australia.  The usual response to this is: "mmm .... how??"

Craig's usual response to this question is: "... well, we drive south until we hit the Med, then turn left."

We are going to drive like the blazes from Amsterdam to Turkey (Gallipoli) to avoid as much of the European winter as possible.  Once we're in Turkey, we'll slow down, and become tourists on our way to South Australia - hopefully the weather will be ok, because we'll be sleeping in our rooftent (but I think we'll take thermal underwear, just in case).

Our route is: Amsterdam-(via lots of European countries)-Turkey-Iran-Pakistan-India-Bangladesh-Myanmar-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore-Australia.  This route is flexible to the extent that we can leave for Australia from any country, or skip a country depending on the situation.  Yes, we can skip a country by getting on a boat!!!  And, yes, we can get ourselves and the Black Beast on a boat -- we need to do that to get to Australia eventually.

We already have our import permit to get the Beast into Australia.  What a lot of fuss and bother that was!  They wanted to know just about everything about us, except our shoe size!  Anyway, we have that important piece of paper, well, actually electronic scanned information ...

:::

The Black Beast is a right-hand-drive.  Because ... we always intended to drive it back to Oz, so we had to buy in the UK (here in the Netherlands, and everywhere else on the Continent, it's left-hand-drive).  We bought the Black Beast in October 2009 on Ebay.co.uk.  Yes, we really did.  And even more stupidly, we bought it sight-unseen.  Our only excuse for such irresponsible and inexplicable behaviour is that our third child, Jethro, had died only weeks before, so we weren't in our right states of mind.  Needless to say, the previous owners had not looked after it at all (we found underwear in the car ... yes, really).  So since we purchased it, it's had lots of work done to it.  Probably too much, but then an expedition vehicle can never have too much mechanical maintenance, can it ...

Anyway:  the Black Beast.  It's black, and it's got a half leather interior.  It's a manual (that's a stick-shift to our American friends).  It has air-conditioning (thank goodness), and it has a cd-changer.  It's very comfortable.  Mmm ... what else?

We've added some bits and pieces over the last 4 years: 

1. A used Kaymar rear bumper bar, which we purchased from Karen and Andy (see www.landroveradventure.co.uk) who drove from the UK to Australia in their Discovery, then bought and fitted the bumper, got back to the UK, dismantled the bumper, and sold it to us. We are taking it back to Oz again!!  The bumper bar has a swing-away diesel jerry-can and a swing-away spare wheel.

2. A brand-new front bumper from TP 4x4 in the UK.  We were at the Peterborough Land Rover show recently (September 2013) and couldn't go past this stylish bumper bar.

3. Brand-new underbody protection (diff guards bought and fitted by QT Services, and a Mantec steering guard bought from Flatdog UK).

4. A used Frontrunner roof-rack (and rear ladder) which we bought here in the Netherlands for half the price of a new one.

5. An as-new Hannibal rooftent (tent and jumbo kit) which we also bought here in the Netherlands for about the third of the price of a new rooftent kit.  We bought it from a Dutch couple who used it when they drove from Amsterdam to Capetown, South Africa, in their Toyota.  Thanks to Flatdog UK who kindly provided us with the rooftent mounting kit!!

6. A brand-new leisure battery set up (second battery tray from Devon 4x4, with an Odyssey deep cycle battery and an X-Eng split charge system) to power our as-new Engel fridge (another purchase in the Netherlands, for a bargain price).

7. A used Mobile Storage Systems rear window guard, which we also purchased from Andy and Karen (see no. 1 above) and brand-new Mantec side window guards (2 rear passenger guards and 2 rear load bay guards) supplied and fitted by Flatdog UK.  

8. A brand-new centre diff-lock connection, which Ashcroft Transmissions installed for us.  The Black Beast already had all the bits and pieces fitted in the factory, but we needed Ashcroft to fit the linkages so we can put the diff-lock into use! 

9. A brand-new Mantec load lugger, supplied courtesy of Flat Dog UK (yay!), which is the handiest piece of kit and which has all of Craig's tools in it - easily accessible!

10. An original-equipment cruise control switch, which we bought via Ebay.co.uk, and Craig fitted.  Again, the Black Beast had all the bits and pieces already fitted in the factory, but we need the extra switch to get the cruise control working.  Is very handy when driving long distances ...

11. A set of 5 original-equipment used steel wheel rims and 5 tyres (4 x General Grabber AT2's and 1 x Michelin all-terrain, which we use as the spare).  We bought them from a Dutch guy who used them on a trip to Iceland.  We probably won't use this set of wheels and tyres for our drive home, but we had the opportunity to buy them for a bargain price just before we went to Morocco (yes, in March/April 2013 we drove our Beast to Barcelona, stuck it on a boat to Tangiers, and then spent 2 weeks driving around Morocco with it - even got to drive across the Sahara).  We had a totally amazing time, and recommend it to all 4x4 fans.  We did the trip with Adrian and Eva from Azoura (www.azoura.co.uk).

12. We have just purchased some new seat-covers for the two front seats.  We've been looking for some decent and affordable seat covers for nearly 4 years now, and we finally found some at the Peterborough show in September 2013.  Check out www.liupholstery.co.uk.  They look fabulous on!

13. An as-new original-equipment dog-guard, which we got for the price of two bottles of NZ red wine (Flaxbourne Merlot and Flaxbourne Pinot - yum)!  A guy near Nijmegen, the Netherlands, wanted to get rid of his D2 dog-guard, and wanted to swap it for a couple of nice bottles of red!  Mirne responded super quick to his advertisement, was successful, and so we drove up to a beautiful part of the Netherlands to score our fab dog-guard!

Photo shows Kaymar rear bumper bar, window guards, Engel fridge, 

Mantec load lugger, Frontrunner roof-rack and Hannibal rooftent.

Some accessories which we have purchased over the last 4 years include our Thetford chemical toilet (always handy to have), a fabulously compact BBQ and our Oztent CR2, which will be our toilet-tent and change-tent.  Also a set of (used) expedition storage boxes which we bought at a Dutch Land Rover Sort-Out in September 2011 for a bargain price (thanks John for the on-the-spot-loan) which will be great for storing all sorts of Land Rover gear and spare parts for our journey.

For navigation we have our Garmin Nuvi as well as a Motorola smart phone GPS (thanks Elwyn), and of course, a complete set of trusty paper maps!!  We've also got a handy cargo luggage net, which we have lugged around Europe and Morocco, but didn't actually use until we were crossing the Sahara in Morocco earlier this year.  We were driving along at speed, and everything (including our fridge) was bouncing all over the place.  Suddenly (!!) we remembered our cargo net, stopped to fit it, and, lo and behold, nothing bounced around any more.  I suspect we'll be using that a lot.  Then, of course, we have the trusty folding shovel, the trusty handsaw, jumper leads, tow rope, emergency kit, air compressor, tyre repair kit, a neat digital dash-cam for recording our trip, a 20 litre water filtration jerry can, and an almost complete tool kit to do any work on the Black Beast required along the way.

Some of the bits and pieces were fitted by professionals in their workshops.  Other bits and pieces were fitted with the help of very kind and long-suffering friends who had access to a drive-way, a work-shop, a garage, tools, and very kindly provided their free labor.  We live in central Amsterdam, in an apartment on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors.  We live on a little one-way street, where it is not even possible to park.  We have rented a garage, where we store our Black Beast, but it is 6 km from our apartment, outside the Amsterdam ring - to get there we either ride our bikes or take public transport.  You can imagine that trying to fit a an enormously heavy rear bumper bar (and many other bits and pieces) is just not possible in our situation.  Thank goodness for generous friends!  (John and Rob - you know who you are -- thanks so very much.)

We were 'forced' to purchase a little (and expensive) part for the Black Beast recently, but it will no doubt be very useful on the trip.  You see, once we put the rooftent on to the roof-rack, the car no longer fit into the garage.  It was too tall, but only by a few centimetres.  So, we purchased a little remote control, which controls the rear air suspension of the Black Beast, and therefore allows us to deflate the rear air suspension, thereby lowering the car, and allowing it to fit into the garage.  I suspect this will be very useful when it comes to parking the Beast for the night, then allowing us to level the car so that the rooftent is level!!

:::

You're probably getting the idea by now ... the Black Beast will be full of stuff, and we haven't even included some necessary basics like CLOTHES!!

Yes, you see, we are leaving Amsterdam and heading back to Oz permanently.  Our apartment will be emptied by professional removers, who will put all our stuff in their storage.  Then, when we get to Oz, and when we have somewhere to receive all our stuff, we contact the movers in the Netherlands, who will put our stuff into a container, and ship it to South Australia.

This means that from the time we leave Amsterdam, until the time we have an address where we can receive our stuff from the movers, we will be homeless and living out of the Black Beast ...  So everything we need for that time needs to be taken along.  For instance, clothes for all seasons will be very useful!

Anyway, who knew that planning for a trip like this would be so (time- and money-) consuming ...