Family Travel

tears coursed down my face for the fourth time yesterday. I could not and did not want to hold them back for somewhere deep inside me I knew they were part of the healing I needed to part with my family and blacksmith brothers and sister.

The festival closed zesterday and we are all suffering from a lack of sleep. I had anticipated that after everybody had left the campground it would get quieter but I hadnt counted on the French trumpet player whose beer fueled blasts cut the cool quiet night air way into the morning. On the positive side, it kept me awake long enough to get me out of my tent and have one last drink with the Belgian smiths. What a fine group of men they are and we all have parted on the mutual understanding that we are all going to meet again. To all of you who read this blog I thank you from my heart, for it was the generosity of your spirits that has made this one year sojourn in Europe so special. And Patrick, you know.......bedankt voor alles.

So what was the festival like.....umm, well I have forged some new friendships and strengthened some old ones. the quaility of the steelworks exhibited and created within the castle walls were astounding and I have been enormously enriched and inspired. There were too many damn people to enjoy the festival during the midday hours and I estimate thousands rocked up to see the blacksmiths in action and see the works created.

The boys and Lut are now sitting in the middle of the square in Lipnik n. Becvou as we wait for a bus to take us deeper into East Czech. The plan is to reach Roznov tonight and have a look at Czechs largest open air museum of wooden architecture. Our packs are still too damn heavy but some jettisoning has begun.

We are all feeling a little exposed and uncertain.

A quick entry. We arrived in Olomouc zesterday and everzthing is going relatively smoothly except that my pack is too damn heavy and I havent been able to find fuel for the fancy multi-fuel stove. These damn kezboards are a little bit different and buggered if I can understand a word of Czech. Tomorrow we head to the blacksmith festival at Helfstyn castle and then eastwards into Slovakia where I am looking forward to unpacking the tent and breathing in some fresh mountain air.

what a blur! We are almost away. In seven more hours we leave the comforts of Belgium and take a big silver bird to Prague. I am soooo ready to get movin. I weighed in our fully loaded haversacks last night and the results are as follows:

Steve: 23Kg
Lute: 17Kg
Max/Victor:~13Kg

I reckon they are too heavy but theres not too many luxuries. Most of the weight comes from the essentials required to hike and camp (tents, stoves etc) and I am uncertain how much of this is actually going to occur. I have now read that they dont allow free camping in the remaining wilderness areas in Croatia (i think this has someting to do with remnant landmines). Well if jettisoning is required it will be done.

The highlights of the last few days are as follows:

- Replacing my 20yr old Trangia metho burner with a fancy new multifuel model. I havent had time to use it yet but its a nicely designed bit of kit. Unforturtunately they dont recommend you burn unleaded fuel in it due to all the additives.
- Last drinks at the Witzli Poetzli. I hired Dirk, a busker that I met on the local shopping strip to serenade us with his violin and the regular flow of Belgian beers/wine put the 20 or so people who turned up into a merry state.
- Watching our 700kg shipping crate almost fall off the rear of the hired moving van. The hydraulic hoist of the van really wasnt strong enough and sagged as the pallet trolly rolled onto it. This was one of those "oh fuck" moments that fortunately didnt end in disaster thanks to the warehouse fork lift driver.
- Flowing tears and strong emotions as we said final goodbyes to Lutes mum and dad last night. Jos doesnt think this trip is responsible and his final words to me as he walked out the door were "make sure you look after Lute and the boys Steve".

OK gotta move. Our final breakfast in Belgium is about to begin, god I am going to miss the Belgian bakeries which must be the finest in the world.

I knew I was starting to lose it when I realised I had packed nails into one of the cardboard boxes that had already been carefully stacked inside the shipping crate. So, with no other way to nail the crate shut, out came the boxes. Bloody hell, if I had known that it was going to be so much hassle and cost to ship personal goods back into Australia I would have given this away long before we started. In total, it is going to cost us about $1600 to ship 1.4m3 of goods from Antwerp to Melbourne. Half of these costs are the shipping, the rest is the customs/quarantine and port costs in Melbourne. I reckon these costs are about triple what we paid 12 years ago to ship twice as much gear...

Lut has finished work and is tidying up her paperwork. The boys are just hanging out, though they did go to the scuba diving course again last night. The next few days will see me ferrying furniture and goods back to the family and friends who have so kindly lent them to us.

I am looking forward to getting out of the apartment and on the road and have bought a Kerouack, "the Dharma Bums", to fill in the spaces.

"Daaad, that doesn't smell good!" Max tried to broach tactfully as I was cooking the pancakes this morning. I ignored him, after all what would he know! We are emptying the kitchen cupboards and the pancake mix needed to be used. It wasn't until Lute yelled from upstairs "Steeeve, your not cooking them in butter are you?", that I realised that something may have been amiss. Arrgh...another sign that I am not to be the next naked chef.

Anyway, the pallet box is half full and the apartment is almost empty. Our haversacks are sitting in a corner of the spare room and they are almost complete. I have bought a good map of Czech Republic/Slovakia and Croatia and ordered the Lonely Planet Nepalese phrasebook. All of our important travel documents have been scanned and I have put copies of them onto skydrive, which is a free 5GB data storage facility that is offered by MSN (damn it!) and linked with my hotmail accounts. We have decided we wont travel with a mobile phone. The convenience was tempting but the global SIM cards on offer don't work in half the countries we are planning on visiting and I had the feeling that it would compromise the escapist feeling of the trip.

Last night Lute and I rode our bikes to the Museum in the Middleheim park in Antwerp and saw an exhibition by a Belgian artist called Leo Copers. In this exhibition he had quite a few works that used fire as a primary medium and I was very impressed by some of these. What was really good about some of the works was that you could get really close to them, something that the Australian safety Nazis would never allow. My favourite work used a small square pond that had LPG bubbling up from under water which then randomly ignited from a pilot flame near the surface. If you are into sculpture and installation art in a beautiful outdoor setting then the museum is for you. Check it out at http://www.middelheimmuseum.be/

Family training has fallen over. I must get them out tonight.

8 days to Go!