0001 The long way home....

I left Queensland in April 2014 planning a one year trip through N, Central, and S America.  Now almost 2 years later, I am still overseas and still travelling !  When I arrived in Montevideo in April 2015, I was still doing OK healthwise, and my trusty mount Troopie seemed to also be reasonably healthy, despite all the dirt roads and mountains she had encountered (and conquered), so the decision was made to carry on for a while.  I thought that if I went home in 2015 I might never get started again - It takes a lot of planning and work !! As a result I shipped from Uruguay over to Europe on the same vessel as my car (an interesting 4 weeks at sea !), and after Janet joined me again at the end of July, we spent 3 months exploring N Europe, which you can read about in my separate blog  http://explorineurope.blogspot.com    During the cold and wet Christmas and New Year, we were fortunate enough to either be able to stay with family and friends, or to house-sit for a while, which made it much more comfortable, and after a great Christmas and New Year, in January 2016 we set off again, this time heading south to Spain and Morocco.  But it was time to make a decision regarding "the next step" - How to get home?


By the end of February Janet felt that, after 8 months on the road, she was "camped out", at least for now. As a non camper I think she did really well lasting that long, especially since the weather in Europe has not been as good as it was in the Americas.  For me, I didn't really want to stay for a further year, and the (foreign registered) car is a hassle to keep (and to insure) in Europe, so it was now time to decide how to get home, and the choices were fairly simple :-
1) Ship the car directly home from UK to Aus.  Too simple and easy !!  Scratch that one as not adventurous enough !
2) Head east through Russia, Mongolia etc.  I would love to do that trip, but I know that paperwork and bureaucracy-wise it would be a nightmare, and to be honest I don't really want to handle all that right now.  And I have already seen a fair bit of Russia, so scratch that option as well.
3) South through Africa to S Africa, then ship home from S Africa.  Interesting, but it is now virtually impossible to travel through the northern parts of Africa safely, so you really have to ship from UK to Namibia and then just drive the bottom part.  And once again there are a lot of hassles bureaucracy-wise, and I have visited S Africa before, so I don't find this option particularly inviting. So scratch this one too.
(By the way, these are purely my personal opinions, and I have no specific issues with any of the countries involved.  I would love to do all these trips, but you just can't do everythng in this life......Next time !)
4) The last option was to go back through America and Canada to Alaska.  I love Alaska, and I would really like to see it at the other end of the season - I have previously only been there in May, and to go in August / September would mean seeing it in a totally different light, and the animals (which are a big part of what makes Alaska so special for me), at a different stage of their summer.   Additionally I have heard many great stories about Iceland, and I thought it might be possible to include that in the route - After all, it is in the middle, between Europe and N America.  So the decision was made - Back through Canada and the USA, and then ship from Seattle back to Aus.  Time to start planning...........

The trouble with Iceland is that, like Alaska and N Canada, it only has a short summer during which it is feasible to travel and camp there in a car.  So to try to do Iceland, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (which I had also heard great things about) and Alaska all in one summer season was always going to be either rushed or difficult - Or both.  Once I started looking, I found that it is also very expensive to ship the car to Iceland and back - There is only one ferry and it is out of Denmark. So in order to get the seasons right in the US and Canada, I decided to scratch Iceland.  Still something I would love to do, but......

Then I started looking at shipping options to the US and Canada out of Europe - And while there are options out of Southampton that would be easier, the Port itself has silly restrictions on gas bottles and fire extinguishers which would make everything a hassle at the other end, while additionally it is containerised only (ie no RoRo) which is more expensive.  So I eventually came back to a RoRo option out of Antwerp and settled on Sea Bridge, who specialize in shipping motorhomes around the world, and have been incredibly helpful right from the first email enquiry. Date-wise, I had a few friends I wanted to see in the UK before I left, and there is no point in arriving in places like Nova Scotia or Newfoundland before May 1st because of the weather - So May 1st became my target eta in Halifax.  

Once this etc was set, it was just a matter of working out everything else in turn.  Car insurance in the USA and Canada (I use Progressive through an agency in Washington State who I have used on all my other trips in the US), and then how to deliver the car.  Sea Bridge ship out of Antwerp, so I have to get the car to them, and then get back to the UK.  After much to-ing and fro-ing on the internet, in order to avoid having to sleep in the car once it is packed, I eventually decided to travel on a car ferry Dover - Dunkirk at 4 am on the 18th April, the day I have to deliver the car to them for an April 22nd sailing date.  After a 2 hour ferry crossing, I can be in Antwerp in a couple of hours, giving me plenty of time to complete all the paperwork required by early afternoon. Having never travelled under the English Channel, I thought a journey on the Eurostar train might be fun, so will travel back to London on that, and then, after crossing from St Pancras to Waterloo, can catch a train down to Effingham that same evening.  It will be a long day, but.........

While I was doing all these bookings, I realised that my car doesn't arrive in Halifax until May 1st, and won't be available for collection until May 3rd, which meant I would have some 10 days or more sitting in the UK with no car.  I was looking at flights from UK to Halifax on the internet and they are in the region of £1200 - ridiculous !!  So then I looked at flights to New York - And sure enough, they are about £450, and on from there to Halifax is about US$150.   So why can't the internet find these flights then instead of quoting me £1200 ??   Crazy.  Then I started thinking about Iceland again - Maybe I could fly via Iceland, and just spend a few days in Iceland without my car, and still be in Halifax in time to meet Troopie when she arrived ?  Long story short, for little difference financially, I can fly via Reykjavik, rent a small VW Caddy camper out of season, and have a week exploring Iceland before flying on to Halifax !   So that is what I have done.

After coming back to the UK on Eurostar on the 18th April, I will hang around to make sure the car ships out OK, and then on the 25th April fly to Reykjavik, have a week in the little rental camper going round the Ring Road of Iceland, and then fly on to New York / Halifax, arriving there on the 2nd May.  Thus I save on the expense of shipping Troopie to Iceland and back, and get a very economical week in Iceland anyway on the way to Nova Scotia !  Problem solved.  

Now it is a question of packing the car up and getting it ready for shipment.  This sounds easy, but in fact it takes a while.  Since it is going RoRo, it is not supposed to have anything inside - As you can imagine, that would be a problem, as it has everything in there just like any motorhome !  So I first had to supply photos and written details of how the car is secured to the shipper, and eventually I was given approval to ship my car "loaded".  However, it then needs to be packed, and that means very little being visible inside, except my toilet and my bicycle which have to be securely fastened in place.  All food has to be removed, gas bottles emptied, and, most importantly, the cab of Troopie has to be totally empty.

Once that is done, I have a metal mesh screen I made up previously that I bolt in place behind the passenger and driver seats, which then ensures that, short of using bolt cutters, no one can access anything in the back of the car.  The side windows are already covered with amplimesh screens (metal security screens) so access would be difficult through them, and finally the back doors are not only locked, but also the twin spare wheels are locked in place behind the back doors, making it hard to get in that way as well.  Finally, if anyone DID access the back, they could barely fit in there because the bike is bolted in place inside, so all the cabinets inside that hold my clothes are impossible to open - And they are individually locked closed as well anyway !   Finally, my pop top is also locked in place with padlocks so no one can get in that way either !  But, as I say, all this takes time - mainly because I keep having to repack when I forget things !

It is also hard because I have another 3 weeks in the UK, so cannot pack away all my clothes yet, while additionally, I have to work out what I need to take to Iceland, and keep that out.  And last but probably the most important, the car has to be pressure cleaned underneath just before I deliver the car to the port, because on arrival in Halifax, if Canadian Customs find any dirt underneath, they might need to impound the car until it is acceptably clean.  So you start to see that "packing the car for RoRo shipment" isn't something that just gets done in 5 minutes.  Throw in the fickle English weather at this time of year, and you possibly lose half your time allowance due to rain !

One find out about all sorts of seemingly crazy legislation while doing the preparation.  I am flying through New York in order to get to Halifax in Canada.  Just in transit, not stopping in New York or America, or even going outside the airport.  But even in transit, I have to obtain their ESTA  visa waiver form - US$14 thank you very much !   Then I find that, starting March 15th, Canada have decided to do a similar thing, so I also have to obtain an eTA from them - Another $7 thank you very much !  However there are some plusses.  If I ship the car directly into the USA, as I did previously, I have to get their EPA approval to bring in a non-compliant car, and I must also promise to remove it from USA + Canada + Mexico (NAFTA) within 12 months or pay a $25,000 fine.  However, if I ship the car into Canada, there are no such restrictions for bona fide tourist vehicles,  and if I then drive over the border into the USA, there is no EPA requirement or time restriction either !  So it will be interesting to see how it all works out !

Other things I am trying to do during my last few days in the UK is find out as much as I can about Iceland / Nova Scotia / Newfoundland.  When you are travelling alone and doing the driving, it is hard to read while you are driving (!!??), and by the time you stop at night, have had a beer, and have cooked a meal, reading Lonely Planet isn't always the most attractive option !  I don't like to over plan, but when you only have a week in Iceland, or limited time in Nova Scotia / Newfoundland, a little investigation to at least work out the best sights to see is worthwhile.  I use a small tablet (mounted on the dashboard) with an off-line mapping programme (maps.me) installed when I drive, and I can mark the locations of main attractions on that in advance.  Then, when I am driving along, when I reach a marked spot on the map, I at least know to stop and read the book for details, or to look for a mountain or glacier or something !  The system has worked very well for the past year or more, so I am using the same system for this trip, and much of my time before I set off will be spent marking the locations of all interesting looking attractions on my tablet maps. 

So those are my plans, and my next entry will be when I drop the car off in Antwerp.