The adventure (but not the walking) begins...

(Eliza writes)

Today is moving day!
We had arranged for movers to come to our flat in Grey Lynn, pack up all of our things and put them into storage while we're on the trail. 
A few things are staying with Vaughan's parents (thank you!!) so we'll have easy access to them; and of course we're staying with Vaughan's parents for a bit after we get off the trail in May, until we find our metaphorical feet in society again.

Hurdle 1: sorting our stuff into four groups:
1. Trail gear
2. Things for the next week, until we hit the trail (i.e. my last week of work, Christmas with the whanau)
3. Things we will want for those first few weeks(?) off the trail (i.e. work-appropriate clothes, winter clothes)
4. Things to go into storage

Hurdle 2: the movers showed up with the wrong instructions, not knowing that we'd paid for them to do all of the boxing up (this was simultaneously lazy and sustainable of us). Vaughan is dealing with that as I type this... Can we all just note what an absolute bloody legend Vaughan is, doing pretty much all of the 'life admin' around not just the walk, but moving our things, moving our cat, ending our long-term lease on our flat, even sorting our car WOF!
Evening update: It all got done by the end of the day though, massive props to the two movers that showed up expecting to just load the truck and ended up spending all. day. packing up our stuff. (Back office gave them the wrong work instructions. Poor guys!)
Image: almost all of our earthly belongings tetris-ed into half of a shipping container

I am holed up in an AirBnB in the CBD, so we have a bed after the movers take ours, and a place for me to work since I am still working through to Thursday (Vaughan's official last day at Auckland Council was last Friday!!)

(Image: my workspace for the rest of this week.)
(Since at least one person requested photos of places we're staying :D )

The other thing I want to share with you is a bit of Millennial Nonsense™ that I bought, to add some weight to my pack. But you will all appreciate it, since it will mean you get good updates like this, instead of just a few words typed with fat fingers on my phone screen after a long day of walking. 

(This keyboard weighs less than my phone! It's about the size of an A5 piece of paper; or about an 8 1/2x11" paper folded in half.)

Stay tuned...

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