Expedition Cancelled

Unfortunately, we have had to cancel the trip.
We are currently driving back to Melbourne and will probably get home in a few days.

It all fits (what have we forgotten?)

All the gear spread around after fitting it in the kayaks

Big trial pack today! There is a surprising amount of space to spare so we must have forgotten something. Hope not!

There is 30kg added to my kayak & 34kg into Neil's plus the water which will be another 29 litres each. Sounds like a lot of water but the first 4 nights are in dry camps - later on there are more places we can get water. Dehydrating the meals saves a huge amount of space - 6 x 8L bags hold all the meals breakfast (1), lunch (2) & dinner (2 + 1 of extras), plus 3 x 4L bags of on water snacks and fruit leather. Tea & plunger coffee are essential items and are squeezed into the lunch bags. There will also be a bag of fresh food to go with lunch - tomatoes, cheese & avocadoes.

We also saved a bit of space by going with light-weight sleeping bags - it could be argued that you don't really need one in the tropics but we've had the odd cold night in the past and been glad of the single 4 season down bag - it's a bit bulky though so we'll see how these ones go. They are rated to 10 degrees.

Five more sleeps!!

Testing Gear

Raia & Maggie having a chat coming back from Altona

On Sunday we lead the monthly Williamstown club paddle, which is a relatively short trip over to Altona seemingly for the purpose of drinking coffee! The day was clear and the winds almost calm - an unusually glassy sea day for Williamstown!

It was a good opportunity to test some new gear.

We tried out the SPOT tracker in tracking mode and also a new camera mount for my kayak. With the Pentax camera we can do interval photography  - shooting pictures to the front, to one side or back at the kayaker. Finally some evidence that I am actually on an expedition - usually there are few photos of me on trips and very rarely anything close up!

Food preparation

For the last week we have been cooking, dehydrating and packaging meals. Our main meals are based around minced meat, as this is readily dehydrated and is easy to rehydrate, looking much like the original appearance when reconstituted.

We have 22 nights camped out and with a couple of spares, have prepared enough for 24 nights, from 2kg each of minced beef, lamb and chicken. we'll be in towns some nights so there are also opportunities for pub meals / takeaways!

Our house smelled like drying meat for a few days, but the last few days we've been drying vegetables and fruit. Between the pineapple and the coconut on the apricot rollups the house now smells a bit like piña colada!

Breakfast and lunch are easy. Breakfast is porridge, which is packed into portions with dried milk. Lunch is based around vita-wheat biscuits with tuna or salmon packs, but we'll get some fresh food (cheese, tomatoes and avocados) when we get up there. In addition there are packs of nuts, dried fruit and lollies as on-water snacks, plus some packs made up of 'treat' foods like cake mix, pancakes and damper. Everything is laid out on the dining-room table and looks a bit like an advert for a brand of snap-seal plastic bags.

It looks like a lot now, but we carried 3 week's food on our last big trip and it fitted into the kayaks ok.