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Many thanks

aaaaagggghhhhh - soooooooooooo excited!!!

Only a week to go!!!! Gary and I had a discussion today about how we can't normally cope with a two week holiday and usually start talking about work after about 10 days.  Are we going to be able to do six weeks without work.  Seriously..... it IS a consideration.  Will we still like each other after six weeks of being together all day every day.  It will be a first run of how retirement might be in the future.

I have a special picture for you on this entry.  As I have been working on the Olympic site for the last few years, our mascots for the trip are Wenlock and Mandeville, our mad Olympic friends.  They are bikers too of course, just in case you were not aware.

Picked up the travel cash today and tomorrow will be all about final packing and making sure all the paperwork is in order.  This coming week is then all about making sure everything is covered for while we are away.  This time next week we will be at Gatwick.

Saying Goodbye

Well the time has come to say goodbye to the bikes.  They were dropped off this morning at James Cargo near Heathrow ready to be put into a shipping container for their journey to Vancouver.

The bikes were inspected and given a pretty clear bill of health.  Staff were really impressed with Garys and couldn't find any damage to note at all which they were surprised about for a two year old bike.  Mine of course has the damage from chucking it down the North Circular a few months ago.

The guys at James Cargo were great and I have no worries about leaving my best friend with them, I'm sure they will look after her.  We were the first from the group to drop our bikes off, but the others are due either today or Monday.  They will then go into a container, uncrated, and onto the CAPLI which is due to sail on 12th June.  Hopefully I will be able to track the ship during its sailing.  Next time we see the bikes will be in Canada sometime around 20th July.  Bon Voyage!!

Thanks to Dad for following us down in the car and giving us a lift home.  Think he enjoyed it really.

Didn't we have a lovely day......

the day we went to Norfolk.  Yes, yet again the North Norfolk coast has given us a great day out riding along winding roads and through wonderful chocolate box villages.  The weather was brilliant and the company was fun, haven't seen Graham, Keith and Val for a long time.  First leg was Waterbeach to Hunstanton.  Following fish and chips, we got back on the bikes to follow the coast road down to Sherringham where we had the best value whippy ice cream ever.  It looked a bit like the blackpool tower and all for only £1,50.... bargain.  We then made our way back through Dereham, Watton, Brandon and Mildenhall.  Using the cruisers now just in case, can't afford any damage to the Tigers as they will be on a boat in two weeks time.

Working down the "To Do" list

Two more things ticked off the "To Do" list this week.  Courtesy of our friends at Wheelfit, the bikes are now top notch and ready to go.  New Tyres, new chain and sprockets, oil change, filter change, brake pads etc.  Anything that can be serviced has been serviced and although the bank balance took another hit, it could have been a lot worse but for Garry and his team. Check out the link at the bottom of the blog because they are really helpful and a fun bunch too.  Will need to take the bikes out at the weekend just to wear the tyres in a little, but other than that they will not see the light of day until they go to catch the boat on 3rd June.

Second item ticked off is the motor insurance needed for a foreigner riding in Canada/America.  This comes from motorcycle express who seem to be the only supplier.  When applying for a quote it all got a bit confusing as the levels of liability cover are different to UK insurance.  You don't just get third party liability for whatever they claim, you have to choose the level of cover you want.  This then becomes the same level of cover for your injuries/damage for the comprehensive bit of the insurance.  It also states that its not compulsory in every state to have insurance and therefore this pays out if you get hit by an uninsured driver.  We are still sitting on the fence a bit as we can't actually put the quote in motion until 16th May but think we are going to err on the side of caution and go with maximum cover.  It just happens that it works out at nearly double our UK annual insurance policy for only 2 months cover.  Not something I think we can scrimp on though.  There better be no questions asked if I need to use it.

Packing Rehearsals

Oh wow! Thought we had better lay out everything that we are taking, just to make sure there is nothing we forget and have a bit of a rehearsal to make sure everything can go into the panniers.  If it can't go in it has to stay behind.

This is the picture of everything, which includes cushion seat pad, camel bak watr supply and small tank bag.  All of these will actually be on the bike and therefore don't count. 

On top of this we have our bike gear which has the inner lining (which on warm days will also have to be in the panniers).  We do have some of those bags that you roll up and get rid of the air which we are hoping will help.  It's a shame we have all those other little essentials like maps, wash kit, medical stuff etc because just look at the tiny pile of clothes (including shoes) that I have for the whole six weeks!!!!  It's a good job I've managed to find some washing powder that comes as little sheets of paper as I'll be washing our smalls each night to keep us in fresh supply.

Upload??

Fingers crossed........

This was taken while pottering around Suffolk this afternoon.  Need to keep video down to less than

100mb or it won't upload.  It still takes a long time but hopefully  this looks OK, tried to compress

the other stuff but it affected the quality far too much.  Will have to just keep the video to short snippets