Leaving the UK – the adventure has finally begun!

The full team, with our three very full trolleys! 

I am writing this on a very comfortable Virgin flight from Heathrow to San Francisco; the first leg of our adventure has arrived!  Eloise, George and Jack all have their headphones on, and cannot believe they are allowed unlimited screen time for the ten-hour flight.  We are so excited to have five nights in San Francisco, before we fly to Auckland.  San Francisco is currently home to Angus’ sons, Tim and Marcus, and Tim’s wife Robyn.  Although Angus has visited fairly recently, the children and I haven’t seen them since Christmas 2017, so we’re really looking forward to some good family time together.

Angus and I are absolutely exhausted, and at least half a stone lighter, having spent endless days and nights emptying our house of every last item, distilling our lives down to just the bags we could check in on our flight.  It seems like we have been “leaving soon” forever, with multiple leaving parties and farewells, and we thought that everyone around us would be relieved when the day finally come to wave us off.  But actually, it has been like leaving a job, where you genuinely had not stopped to consider how much everyone valued you until you read it in your leaving card.  We have had this experience multiplied by a thousand in the past couple of weeks.  We have been completely overwhelmed with messages, cards, emails, lunches, dinners, and quite a few unexpected tears, not to mention endless practical support, without which we would never have managed to leave.  In our final hour before departure, multiple dear friends popped in, providing childcare, cups of tea, space in their black bins and trips to the dump.  Thank you all, we are so lucky!

the very full storage unit - no room for the last washing basket
(photo by George)

Miraculously, our storage unit fitted the contents of our house almost exactly.  I have no idea how we will ever manage to unpick the process; there are random golf clubs and waste paper baskets posted into every last nook and cranny amongst the boxes and bags, but at least we don’t have to worry about that for a long time yet!!  Huge thanks to our local friends who, on the final day, responded to our emergency requests to house a mower, a table, an armchair, and various other items. 

We spent our last night at Angus’ parents, where we were completely spoiled with champagne, smoked salmon and a delicious dinner.  We made plans together and tested the technology for regular facetime calls.  There was an unexpectedly long delay from the armchair to the sofa, which was excellent practice for when we are further afield!  It was a tough goodbye this morning, and an early one too.  We drove to Heathrow, where we were met by my sister, Rosie, who had amazingly cycled from Clapham to Heathrow to take our car from us, and pass it to a dealer for sale.  She arrived in her day-glo jacket on her snazzy bike, armed with books and haribos for the children, reporting a great journey until her final approach, where bikes are not allowed to go through the Heathrow road tunnels.  Fortunately, whilst trying to think of a Plan B, she was rescued by a passing taxi who brought her to the terminal.

Rosie met us at Heathrow, having cycled from Clapham

We checked in our six huge bags, all within a very satisfying 0.2kg of the 23kg allowance, which contain almost all of the kit we will need for the next year.  This includes everything from pilot books, tools, charts, lifejackets, fishing gear and EPIRBs to toys, clothes, thermals, sunsuits, teddies, blankets, schoolwork, just-in-case medication and cameras.  We had also completely maxed out on our two-items-each hand luggage allowance; one of up to 10kg plus a smaller rucksack or similar.  In addition, we were carrying a guitar, a flute and Angus’ English harmonica, which we just hoped the airline wouldn’t notice.  None of our bags are wheelie cases, as they will need to squash flat for storage on the boat.  We hadn’t really considered this detail of our planning, and it caused us massive problems once we were asked to leave our trolley behind at security.  There was no way the kids could manage “their” 10kg bags, and it was almost impossible for me and Angus to carry them.  I honestly thought my arms were going to drop off on the way to the gate, and seriously considered asking for a mobility car, but somehow we manned up and managed it, with me dragging a couple of the heaviest bags along the shiny floor…!

The plan from here is some family fun in San Francisco, which includes Angus’ birthday on 3^rd March, and then we fly to Auckland on 5^th March.  There we will get to know our new home, the good ship Victoria.  She will be out of the water for a few weeks, so we are staying in an AirBnB in the south of Auckland, which will be a great opportunity for us to acclimatise and get the home schooling routine underway.  Angus and I will tag team childcare and working on the boat, and as the weather is warm and there’s a beach nearby, I think the kids are going to have a great time.  We’ll be in Auckland for at least a month, probably two, before we head to the north of New Zealand in May, with the aim of sailing to Tonga in mid-May.

We are SO excited to have got this far, buoyed by the support of all our friends and family.  It has been quite a monumental effort, and there are still many lingering bits of admin to sort out, but thank heavens for the modern era of the world wide web!  We finally managed to rent out our house last weekend, which we are hugely relieved about, and we met the new tenants the night before we left home, so it’s lovely to know who will be living in our house.

Signing off now, from up in the air, just west of Hudson Bay in northwest Canada, with 3 hours and 46 minutes of this ten hour flight to go.  I don’t think I’ll splash out on the aeroplane wifi to post it, so it’ll have to wait until we arrive in our San Fran AirBnB later this evening. 

Lots of love from the Victoria Crew – Laura, Angus, Eloise, George and Jack xx

  

Jack George and Eloise post flight at the San Francisco care hire
All completely crazy, having had ten solid hours on their screens..