Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Cost for flights

The cost of the flights has now shown up on my credit card. £2615.60 in total which is 2 x Great Escapade base fares plus 4500 miles addon plus South African Airways flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. I don't think that is bad value at all.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Tickets!

I got a couple of e-mails over the last two days. The first was the e-ticket receipt for our South African Airways flight between Johannesburg and Cape Town. The second was from Nicola confirming that our tickets have been issued and she has them at home. I still don't know what the actual total cost of the tickets was because of the tax not being calculated until the time of issue. Even more excited now.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Tickets

Nicola e-mailed me today saying that she had held our last flight, which we have changed to San Francisco to Heathrow rather than LA to Heathrow. It seemed silly to go to San Francisco only to have to go back to LA again. It hasn't really changed anything pricewise as we were already on the maximum extra mileage (4500) that is allowed on the Great Escapade fare. Annoyingly given the amount of time that we had to spend researching the fare, the Great Escapade website has come back online with an easy to use trip planner. I'm still waiting to see exactly how much the fare is going to cost as the taxes can't be calculated until the actual time of booking. Our total mileage should be 32,468.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Onward christian soldiers

Progress report. Gemma handed her notice in today. We told the landlord that we are leaving, and he said, "I heard you were going travelling". Small towns will be the death of me. I suspect Nicola's Mum for letting slip to him.

We should have our final flight in reserve now and ready to book when Nicola gets back to work on Monday. I think our flights will earn us lots of frequent flyer miles (on Virgins scheme), which might mean we can get a freebie of some sort at the end of the trip.

Jabwise we have our Rabies/Japanese B Encephalitis jabs booked at North Sea Medical Centre in Gorleston (urk) over the next month, which will neccessitate a couple of afternoons off work. I have worked out that I should get paid for 10 days of leave after my last day, which will effectively mean that I will be paid for my flight and my first day in South Africa. This is something that appeals to me in a peverse sort of way.

Left to do is sorting out insurance (we have spent many hours trawling the net for the best deal), storage for our stuff (we're thinking Big Yellow in Norwich) , packing the house up (sob) , booking the tickets and buying anything we need for the trip.

We have had the thought that we may try to leave with carry on luggage only. This will mean a fairly large daysack each. Looking back on our time in Australia we took way too much stuff with us, and continued carrying it round with us too. I think I have learned some lessons from that trip. Light is the way to travel. If it is not working out for us having such a small amount of gear we can always just buy bigger bags and more clothes and stuff when we are on the road. I'm not going to be carrying presents and keepsakes around with me either -they're getting mailed home at the earliest opportunity.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Double jab action

This week I had yet another appointment about jabs, this time resulting in actually getting a needle stuck into my arm. Or rather, both arms. They still feel a little bruised. I am now happily protected against Typhoid, Diptheria, Polio, Tetanus and Hepatitis A. I passed on Hepatitis B as it would have cost me £75 and I don't think I am in particular risk of getting it. Still need to arrange another 3 trips to Gorleston for Japanese B Encephalitis and Rabies jabs.