#1 Goodbye Eleanor - packing the bike

If we were Ewen McGreggor or Charley Boorman, of Long Way Round fame, this part of the trip would involve all our friends and family gathering around, preferably with a bike-themed cake, to bid us farewell on our journey. We would then wave goodbye while wheel-spinning into the distance, and the speedometer would click over the first kilometre of our adventure.

Being located at the bottom of the world means that our journey began somewhat differently as you can see depicted below. 

The week prior to our departure was always going to be a busy one: emptying and cleaning our apartment, last minute purchases, packing etc. On the advice of others Reece was intent on testing out our camping gear. Not quite my preferred way of spending the first week of our unemployment, camping in October.

When even tornado warnings could not persuade him otherwise I was compelled to do something drastic. Two minutes into a netball game on Monday I rolled my ankle which left me hobbling and hopping around (when what I should have been doing is resting). A (painful) blessing in disguise as much more time was needed to pack up the bike for delivery to Jenners Freight Services by Thursday.

I think it was about at this point in time when Reece and my Dad realised that the bike was not going to fit into the crate we sourced from Colemans Suzuki without removal of the front wheel. Fine, no problems, if we can dismantle a wheel we can reinstall it again in Santiago - it is unlikely to be the biggest mechanical challenge we face. Except that apparently this would require a hoist system that we were just not going to have access to. 

You can see in the photo below we built up the crate on one side to account for the issue. According to Jenners it doesn't matter that the crate isn't rectangular, or that we don't have a cardboard box large enough to wrap around it. Jenners means of dealing with this is to simply to cover the crate in more shrink wrap. As shrink wrap appears to be a slightly stickier form of glad wrap I'm not sure what protection it is going to add. We just have to cross our fingers that it arrives safely in Santiago where the first kilometres will be clocked.

Mum, Dad, and Reece busy pushing the trailer while
I do the most important job - photographing the process!