where our feet are going

It's 6.25 am. I'll start my blog now - and end it later. You won't notice a difference, but I'll know the truth. I'm probably super tired deep down inside, but won't admit it to myself. How else do I go forward with the day?

I'm in the middle of 20 things. Brent's on his way over, my dad is finishing up the taping of my trekking poles, mom is milling around. The apartment is less chaotic to the untrained eye, but I see the heart palpitations and the upcoming forgotten things. But it truly is at that point where you can't think about it anymore.

The packing. I dozed a bit last night so I might have a stronger opinion about it today. It's a pretty daunting task. Two bags, a ton of objects, and no give. You can't eliminate just anything from your gear. Forgive the lack of before and after photographs. It was too much to do all at once. Once we're in Auckland, we'll have to sort through our bags anyway, so we can take a few snapshots then. My bedroom had three rows of items. An Alison pile, a communal gear pile, and a Brent pile. The gear pile almost went from wall to wall. My bag is only 60L, Brent's is 70L. He can carry more, so I'm hoping it all fits. Heh heh.

I didn't sleep well last night - and I do believe because this is what is swirling in my mind.

There were so many things I wanted to tell our readers about. Like the alpine parrot that can shred through your gear with its claws (and they aren't shy about trying apparently), sandflies and leishmaniasis (the narly parasite/disease they spread), one of the wettest places on Earth (the fiords (30 feet of fresh water can be found on the sea water due to the amount of precipitation) - according to National Geographic - my brother and I raided my parents' NG collection); about the UV photos we took a while ago; how we went from no worries in NZ to one very poisonous spider; remembering the flight to Hong Kong when I was younger and the looping music and wondering if they even offer in flight music options anymore; our wills - yup we have em. Time ran out this weekend. I didn't see it coming, but here we are now.

And all I want is one more night, if for nothing more then a good sleep before getting on that 20 + hour plane ride.

Add on top of that the duffle bag we have of 'extra' items and food samples that we are both carrying and shipping ahead of ourselves on this trip. Don't really want to think too much about that one yet. :) We might just spend the first three days in NZ eating it all, so we don't have to think about carrying it. I'll give you the weights later.


11.28am

I'm numb.

Brent's bag, without the trekking poles or airline tote = 54.2lbs (4 lbs overweighted)
Alison's bag, without the trekking poles or airline tote = 48.6lbs (15lbs over what I should carry)
Duffle bag (with food and extra mail ahead items) = 26.4 lbs

Ummmmm - Yeah. We packed, and repacked, took a look at our items and tried to figure out what we could do without. Everything in our bags is there for survival.

In Auckland, we will spend a good part of the second day unpacking everything and reassessing our items and see what we can mail ahead or ship back home. Seems slightly backwards - but we are definitely not in the mood to try packing these bags again.

Huge. They are gi-normous! And now we purge.

We leave for the airport shortly. We have to make a pitstop at my brother's house to store some things for the next few hours, then we're off.


That's it. Pearson International. Terminal 1. 5pm, the story begins.

We will re-write the story once we land and figure out our baggage situation.

Posting of pictures will start once we send the first shipment to Shawna in a few weeks time. I'll give you further details about photo sites then. :)




Land on the 29th. 6am. Full day already. Three nights total.


August 1st, we start walking.



Good bye Canada. See you in a year!!