Preparing for Departure

The first week of March was pretty hectic mostly because of the “why do today what you can do tomorrow” mentality that we both seem to have. As it so happens a lot of things were left to the last-minute, or in our case the last week.  We both worked almost every day on small things on the Defender to prepare us for departure.

  • New cubby Box
  • New rubber floor mats
  • Kitchen drawer finalized – I’m too embarrassed to show a picture
  • last-minute painting and touch-ups
  • Uprated intercooler
  • Curtains and thermal matting for the windows
  • New antenna for the radio
  • 12v power supply for the cooler
  • Mattress underliner for the roof tent
  • Mattress for our couch/bed – Thanks Barbara Baindl for the awesome work
  • corrugated sheet metal for the engine bonnet
  • Zarges boxes installed
  • Anti-slip tape on the ladder and roof rack
  • rubberized inserts for the cabinets

After all that was finished we sat back rather pleased with ourselves only to realize we had forgotten something pretty important! We had forgotten to order decals and lettering!  But, you can get just about everything next day delivered if you are willing to pay a little bit more…

Packing day

We spent quite a bit of time thinking about all the things we wanted to take with us, but in the end we only left ourselves one day to pack all of it into the Land Rover, which by the way is not exactly a lot of time.

We may have a lot of storage space,  but we also have a lot of stuff that we want to take with us, and so we made lists of the must have things, lists of the important things and finally lists of the things that would be nice to have along, if there was space left.  I had a feeling that we wouldn’t pack anything on the nice to have list, especially after looking at all the must have and important lists, and also once we had taken everything outside to pack into the Defender it became even more clear that some things, or more correctly a lot of things would have to be left behind.

It did start out rather well but at some point along the way it became painfully clear that we were going to have to cut a few things off the list. We simply aren’t going to be able to do everything that we want to do because we don’t have room for everything.  If it was up to us we would have had all the equipment to go on a multi day bike tour, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, sport climbing, canoeing, backpacking, wilderness camping and last but certainly not least fancy clothes to go out clubbing or something.  Unfortunately the only thing missing to making it all possible is placing an Undetectable Extension Charm on the Defender, but failing that we have to cut back. After packing everything, well almost everything, that would fit we took the time to add our Decals and lettering, which if we do say so ourselves, turned out rather great.

 

“Mañana, Mañana”

After dropping the Landy off at Hamburg harbour we took a detour to visit with the family in Mecklenburg. We had a great little going away party with friends and family.  After our short visit we started working on the last organizational things before our trip including packing up our belongings and putting it in storage, painting and a number of other things.  But instead of starting immediately (you would think we would have learned something from the first week of march) we managed to leave most of the work until the last week which pushed us to our limits.

Anyway…  The apartment is painted, our stuff is in storage and we could enjoy our second going away party with our friends, although we were a bit sad afterwards after all we have a very long trip ahead of us and we don’t know when we will see them again.

4 replies
  1. Dave
    Dave says:

    Just seen your Land Rover in Goose Bay yesterday. Awesome vehicle, and what a journey it must have been so far. All the best and WELCOME to Canada folks.

    • Gary
      Gary says:

      Thanks Dave, check out the Land Rover page, got a few articles on the conversion process. Was quite fun converting it, and quite a bit of work too.

  2. Denise
    Denise says:

    My logo looks great on the Landrover, don’t you think? I’m proud! It will see the world together with you! Take care xxx

    • Gary
      Gary says:

      Yes it looks fantastic!! Thanks again for designing our Logo for us, it looks like it belongs on our Land Rover

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