22 weeks to go

I'd like to use the first part of our blog today, to thank our fantastic logo designer - Jorge Ortiz.  Jorge is responsible for the artwork that adorns the walls of Kinlay House and The Rowan Tree hostels, and he kindly agreed to do up a logo that we could use for the rally.  Jorge designed our logo using photos of Peter and me, and some garbled ideas that I wrote down - I think you'll agree that he did a brilliant job, capturing the likeness of us and blending it with a couple of kiwi'isms - riding the kiwi, and the silver fern on Peter's shirt!  We're both stoked with how our logo turned out, and can't wait to be able to put it on the side of our vehicle!!  Thanks again Jorge - we couldn't have asked for better!

Talking of vehicles, we don't have one yet!  The rules around vehicles, import taxes and preferred makes were released in the last few weeks though, and after looking through all these, we'd like to take a Ford Transit.  So now we have to find a cheap one in good condition.  We'll keep you posted on how our search goes.

We've made a couple of refinements to our planned route, mainly thanks to the ideas from our good friend Richard, who we've invited along for a week or so of our travels.  We've now decided to head into Turkey to visit Gallipolli and Anzac Cove - a place of significance for New Zealanders and Australians alike, and the home of Anzac Day celebrations every April 25th.  I've always had an interest in the World Wars, and an opportunity like this could not be passed up!  The other suggestion, which we thought was a good one, is that instead of heading from Switzerland into Austria, we head down into Italy instead, stopping at Venice, to possibly indulge in a gondola ride through the canals, and then on to Trieste, a less well known New Zealand WWII site.  I'm also considering a drive through Verona in Italy, the setting for Shakespeare's 'Romeo & Juliet' but we're not decided yet.  The only hitch to going through Italy and then on to the Croatian coast, is that we are set on visiting Bled in Slovenia, so it will mean heading north from Italy to Slovenia, and then back down the same route to Croatia - but it's only 150kms or so, not that much of detour in the scheme of things!!  We'll try and update our route map to reflect our more refined route.

Last week, Peter and I met up with a couple of the other Irish Ralliers, at a get-together we organised in Ennis.  We met up for dinner and were able to spend a good few hours tossing ideas around and getting to know each other.  I think we all had a pretty good night - for Peter and I, we thought it made the trip feel more 'real', talking to others that are planning for the same thing, with the same worries!  A big thanks to those people that came down and made the night what it was!

Also last week, Peter, Phill and I went for our first round of vaccinations.  Me being slightly nerdy as I am, went armed with a list of World Health Organisation recommended vaccinations for the countries we were going through.  And seeing as there will be times during the trip where we will not be within reach of medical help - we have to get all the recommended jabs!  The three of us had 4 jabs last Monday, and got blood taken to test for another 2 or 3 that we may need, and we're heading back this Monday for another 3!  My poor arms are going to look like pincushions by the time we're through!  Thankfully none of us have had any adverse reactions.

We've started a small collection of things that we are going to be taking with us on our journey, cookers, pots and pans etc.  We were up in Northern Ireland last week and stumbled across an outlet camping store with a few things on sale, so we managed to pick up a wind up lantern, 2 wind up headlamps (so we don't have to look for batteries!), 2 small thermos's (one for tea for me, and one for milo for Peter!) and a large thermos for soup or the likes.  The cashier was nice enough to take another 10% off our purchases when we mentioned we were doing a charity rally - lovely guy!!  The stationery suppliers for Peter's work have donated a bundle of writing pads and 3 packs of 24 colouring pencils that we can give away on our trip as well!  And we recently received in the post from a friend, a huge NZ flag and a bag of black balloons printed with the NZ silver fern!  We've taken a photo of our supplies so far and will try and put it up in the next day or so!

Lastly, our fundraising minimum target amount looks well in sight, with us now having raised £1085 of our £1500 - a big thanks to all those that have helped out with this, not far to go now!