Never ending lists
With only 22 days to go until we depart for our year long trip, to say we have lists as long as our arm is an understatement! But man oh man are we excited....
I have never written a blog before so bare with me as I get into the swing of things.
As some of you know we will be embarking on our year long trip through East/Northern Africa taking us from our home country South Africa up through Zim, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia (if it is safe to do so) and then zig zagging back. We hope to be out on the road travelling for the full 2021 year :)
WHO are "we" you ask... We are the Fogg Family - Devlin (husband and father), Katie(me, wife & mother), Sophia (10 year old daughter) and Josh (8 year old son). We uuumed and aaghed about a name for our trip and had some funny ones from "Where the Fogg are we?", to "Follow the Foggs'"... and finally came up with "4ina4x4".... as we are indeed 4 Foggs in our 4x4.
WHY? Its has been a dream of both mine and Dev's for many many years. We both travelled extensively in our youth and Devs trips took him from the North Pole to the South pole (either on foot or by bike/sledge) to Land Rover work in Asia and South America. I back packed by myself through Europe and the middle east in my early 20s and then did some travelling in India and South East Asia. So to say we have the wanderlust bug is an understatement. We love NOTHING better than "hitting the road" on some new adventure! And since having kids we have not stopped exploring from more local KZN trips to further afield - Augrabies and Northen Cape, Botswana, Zambia and Zim, Mozambique. Lets just say that we are the typeof family who as much as we love our home are not often found at home over weekend or holidays :)
But why a massive year long trip..... firstly well why on earth not? I think what pushed us to make the commitment to embark on such an endeavour was lockkdown.... we realised that life is short, our children are the perfect ages to ensure they remember this trip as well as being fully involved in so many aspects - from the planning and research, to the help while we camping... and we know that being on the road travelling really enriches a person and we think this is a gift we will be giving them for life. Plus in 8-10 years time our "little girl" will be at varsity jolling it up and away from home :(
How are we doing this? In our Toyota Hilux Bakkie and our Echo camping trailer (with roof top tent). This will be "home" for the year and thankfully it is an organised space which Dev and I both need. The bakkie has a drawer system and the trailer has drawers for clothes, drawers for food, sections for plates, knives and forks... so it is really organised and the kids know where everything lives (and must be put back!) Dev thankfully is THE most knowledgable car and "stuff" person I know. If he doesn't know something he will research it to the 9th degree. I feel incredibly safe going into the unknown with him and know that any tricky car or other situation we probably will find ourselves in... he will get us out! I couldn't ask for a better person to lead the pack. We have planned for as many "incidents" as we can think of - stuck in mud/sand / filter breaking / medical issues along the way / kids entertainment on the roads, homeschooling on the road, documenting our trip and and and.....
So that is a summary of who we are, where we going , why we going and how we going......
Now onto the lists...... with only 22 days to go till D-Day the excitement levels are HIGH in the Fogg household. We have to pack up our house and put all our stuff into storage, drop our 3 beloved pooches off at their new homes for the year, get yellow fever jabs, last minute dentist visits, see as many friends as possible before we out on the road alone, get xmas stuff sorted, do last minute medicine checklists, photocopy a gazzilion copies of passports, birth certificates, car stuff, insurance stuff.... and keep track of border openings/closings and covid rulings for each border....... but I guess as "stressful" as this planning is and as long as the lists are and as much as Covid is throwing various spanners in the works..... we are so utterly blessed and grateful to have this opportunity to do this kind of trip. And when I am about to spin out in panic I have to gently remind myself that what we are doing IS incredible and in 1 month we will have our feet in the sand and hopefully some ice in our G&T..... so the "mild-panic" for now will all be worth it.
Next blog I am going to discuss one element on this trip that really does take some time to get ones head around..... especially for a girl like me.....clothes packing in a 50x40cm x15cm high box.... THAT IS IT... for 1 year :)
