Oops – forgot my doctors appointment at 9am this morning – suffered complete brain fade and didn’t remember until we were nearly ready to head in to town to do some more gear shopping.

I’ve been on an accelerated course of Hepatitis-B immunisations in preparation for our trip. Normally you have one injection up front, a second injection in one month and then your third in 6 months. Given that we are going away within that time – they put me on an accelerated course of 0 days, 7 days, and 21 days up front, which is good enough before I leave, and I’ll get a fourth jab in 6 months. Today was supposed to be my 3rd (21 day) injection. Fortunately, they managed to fit me in later in the afternoon.

On our first trip to the doctor they gave me my first Hep-B jab and one for Typhoid, which only lasts 3 years. I’m already up to date on Polio, Hep-A and Tetanus, and we don’t need Yellow Fever vaccinations for where we are going (we’ll be in the south of South America). Leanne had a single jab for Typhiod and Hep-A (combined) and I think she’s up to date (she’ll need another Hep-A booster in 6 months).

We went in to town first to get some more gear shopping done before my appointment, this time the goal was to get a pack for Leanne. We had already looked at packs in a few different stores and had come to the conclusion that the One Planet packs were the best fit for both of us. After trying a couple of different packs in Trek & Travel (and going down the road to Snow Gum to see if they had any of the smaller Longreach packs we could try for size – they didn’t), Leanne settled on the 60L One Planet Tom Thumb. It felt the best to her, and looked like the best fit. It was also a lot cheaper than the Longreach pack!

I decided to buy the Polartec fleece that I had been looking at in Mountain Design. The decision was made easier by the fact that my sister sent us a Mountain Design gift voucher for Christmas which turned out to be exactly enough to cover the cost of the fleece (it was on special!). I just hope it will be cold enough to wear – I can’t normally wear fleeces, I just get too hot … but I kept reminding myself that I would have appreciated one during our trip to the Grand Canyon a couple of years back when it was -6 degrees celcius in the daytime!

We got back in time for my appointment, and then I went to the post office to collect a parcel that arrived from the US – it was my long johns that I had ordered from REI. I took a guess on the sizes, got three pair including two lightweight, and one mid-weight fleece. My pants aren’t that thick, so I think I might be cold down south – especially if it is windy. Hopefully my long johns will keep me warm while still allowing me some mobility (and not over-heating!).

Walked over to Chatswood this evening to look at some more gear – my goal was to get a waterproof jacket and Polartec fleece.

I had previously found a jacket that fit me in Columbia (and a variation on that jacket at Mountain Design), but I found a better fitting Mountain Hard Wear jacket with better features at Paddy Pallin in Chatswood for around the same price. It actually turned out to be cheaper with the sale on at the moment, so I bought the jacket along with another pair of Ex-Officio boxers and Leanne found a pair of The North Face pants that suited her.

I looked at fleeces, found a nice fitting one in Columbia that wasn’t Polartec and I wasn’t sure it would be warm enough, so I kept looking and found another in Mountain Design. I wasn’t convinced, so I decided not to buy it – would wait until tomorrow when we go into town to look at the larger stores there.

Got another order from GoGoGear.com.au delivered today – more bits and pieces like travel sheets, packing cubes, luggage locks, compressible travel pillows and more.

Like with my previous entry, I won’t describe everything in detail now, I’ll talk about them while on our trip once we’ve had a chance to use them. I’ll review each item and rate its usefulness to us – identify whether we really needed to spend the money on all this stuff.

Leanne’s new 3rd generation iPod Nano arrived today. We’ve been looking at buying a new iPod for her for a while – I originally bought her a 2nd generation iPod with dock connector, but it now suffers from poor battery life (this was a problem with early iPods) and has been relegated to being permanently connected to our stereo system – it works really well as a CD player replacement (all our CDs have been ripped to high quality MP3s and then put into storage!).

The new Nano only holds 8GB, but most of our CD collection consists of my music, a lot of which Leanne doesn’t particularly like (especially all the Jarre and Vangelis etc). I’ll just get Leanne to choose which albums she wants – I’m sure it will be less than 8GB worth.

The important stuff will be her learning Spanish CDs – she’ll want to do some revision while we’re away in South America!

Spent another wet and humid Sunday in Adventure Alley – Kent Street Sydney. I’ve not enjoyed running around trying on shoes, clothes and packs during this really humid weather we’ve had over the past few weeks. Many of the stores don’t have good air conditioning (or none at all) and are generally pretty unpleasant. When it usually rains late in the afternoon it doesn’t bring relief – just makes it more sticky!

I finally decided on some hiking boots. After weeks of trying on pretty much everything in every store – I found a pair of boots that fit my wide feet, and are comfortable. I ended up with the Hi-Tec V-Lite Fasthike Mid WP – a mid-cut waterproof boot that was comfortable straight away – always a good sign for boots. I don’t normally like mid-cut boots, I find them uncomfortable around the ankles. These boots were surprisingly comfortable, with both comfortable ankle support and very little slippage (which usually don’t go together).

There was only one small problem – I was finding that they cut into the back of my leg above the ankle – very unpleasant. I spent quite a bit of time playing with the way I had done them up to see if I could get them stop the pain – that’s one good thing about spending all this time trying on shoes and boots – I’ve learned quite a bit about various techniques you can use to tie boots and the effect they each have on the fit and feel of the boot. Anyway, I was able to find a technique that worked, so the decision was made. I think the entire staff at Paddy Pallins cheered – we have almost become part of the family after spending nearly every Sunday in the store over the past few weeks.

After heading in to QVB and the Myer Centre food court for some lunch, we walked back down to Trek & Travel to try some travel packs. I had previously tried the 80L long One Planet Longreach pack and liked the Exact Fit harness. I wanted to try something a bit smaller, since I was sure 80L was overkill.

I had tested our size requirements by collecting all the gear and clothes I thought I would take (with substitutions for items we hadn’t yet bought) and put them all into one of our Samsonite bags – which I measured at close to 50L. It was a comfortable fit, so I figured 60L was probably sufficient for our needs.

I first tried the 60L One Planet Tom Thumb pack with the Mini Plus harness, but couldn’t get it to fit comfortably. So I tried the 70L medium One Planet Longreach – but it was too short in the body (my physio has commented on my unusually long spine). So it was back to the 80L long version of the Longreach.

The girl in the store left me alone with the fitting instructions in front of the mirror (so I could find the straps with the pack on my back!) and I spent some time working through the steps to get a correct fitting. It was a useful exercise – I now have a much better understanding of the complexity of harness fitting, and of the flexibility of the One Planet Exact Fit harness! I was able to get it to a very comfortable fit – even with a sleeping bag (for bulk at the bottom) and two 7kg tents (for weight) added to the pack.

I’ll write some more about the pack once I’ve had experience packing it and traveling with it – 80L is more than we’ll need, but it has compression straps to take up any slack. It also has an expansion gusset to give it even more room – but I’m not sure if the 80L includes that hidden space or if it is actually extra! Either way – we now have plenty of room for souvenirs (something I’ve been trying to avoid !!!)