Bosman’s Bush Telegraph – 7 March 2000

Hi all

Well we finally got it together and packed the Land Rover and are officially on our way! We are a little ashamed to say that "on our way" was only from our flat in Seapoint to the Ambassador hotel a mere two and a half kilometres) where we spent our first night. We decided to treat ourselves, as yesterday was our wedding anniversary. That is the official story anyway - my reluctance to hit the campsites may be closer to the truth!

Packed up and ready to go – leaving 9 Firmount Road	An absolutely exhausted Penny at the Ambassador Hotel after a week of rushing around	Bantry Bay – the view from our hotel room at the Ambassador

The whole packing/moving/saying good-bye thing turned out to be much more difficult than expected and it has taken supreme effort - and some grumbling by our landlord about having outstayed our welcome - to get us to stop procrastinating and actually do it. I certainly hope that the rest of the trip will not be this difficult. We were so pooped after 5 days of packing and moving that we decided that one last night of luxury was called for. We had an excellent dinner and after a good night sleep we are ready to hit the road. I think we can now officially be called "overlanders". Next stop Cape Agulhas.........

Our Land Rover is very heavily laden as we have tried to cater for every eventuality (and my need for luxuries!). It is quite clear that we have taken far too much stuff and we will be stopping at our storeroom on our way out of town to offload some of the unnecessary junk. I fear that my luxury goods will be the first to go. We will also need to perfect our packing system somewhat - it is really cumbersome at the moment and will need to be streamlined if we intend to live out of the Land Rover for 8 months without killing each other!

We packed everything we owned into our Land Rover before leaving Cape Town – only to find that we had far too much stuff! Our first stop on our way out of town was at our storeroom at U-Store-It where we unpacked our Land Rover and left about half the stuff behind.

We have stocked up with all sorts of things that I have never heard of or thought I would ever buy - bully beef, "smash", canned meatballs and viennas to name a few. I even bought Soya mince - something I swore I would never eat. The next few months will be interesting! We have a whole crate of tabard, mosquito coils, citronella candles, larium, fansidar (malaria treatment) and malaria testing kits - in case those nasty little buggers decide to feast on us - and gallons of sunscreen of course, so that we do not look like tanned leather after 8 months in the bush.

We have decided to keep this email address (nevbos@mweb.co.za) as people have been complaining about not being able to get through to Bigfoot and hotmail - at least we know that this address works.

Hope you are all well - we will send an update as soon as we have actually done something!

With love

Penny