Getting into new routines

The voyage has finally begun after 2 years of preparations. Writing this on the morning of day 4 of the voyage, everything is off to a good start. (yes I know, I risk jinxing it....).

No matter how much preparation you do there will always be a bunch of unknowns you cannot prepare for. One of those is the simple matter of creating new daily routines. For example for how early you tend to get up. What is the best location for each item in the van. When and how to get some work done. The process of preparing and cooking food. And a myriad of other details.

None of this is difficult, but developing a routine takes some time and requires some experimentation.

We have already discovered that many items which we thought we had found a good location for in the van did not in reality match the needs we have. And we still havn't, it is work in progress.

As for getting work done, I am usually most productive early in the morning and that does fit very nicely into the travelling routine. Sitting outside in the sun with a cup of coffee getting work done while Lisbet enjoys a longer sleep suits me perfectly.

Our pantry is still a bit of a mess, and is one of the elements we still need to work out in terms of what works best in a daily routine.

Being able to finally say "This is it" and start the van from my home in Ølby was a weird, and very positive, feeling.

It is now 32 years ago I first had the notion that I definitely wanted to travel overland from Denmark down to South Africa. Every time since that time when I have been driving a car south from Denmark to trips in Europe, I have had that feeling of wanting to continue southbound.

Now it is becoming reality, and it is a wonderful feeling.

The first days have mainly been "transport" stages getting down through Germany to get to the Netherlands.

On day 3 I could start another one of my many "projects". On of these is my ambition to visit all of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in the world. This is quite ambitious, and maybe not 100% possible, but it is worth giving a try. Presently there are 1248 UNESCO sites in the world spread on 170 countries with new ones being added each year. Before starting the Syncro Sally Voyage I had visited 433 of them.

Having arrived in the Netherlands I visited 2 new ones: The Wouda Pumping station and the Schokland area both of which are related to the Dutch drive to reclaim massive amounts of otherwise submerged land.

Looking forward to the adventures of the coming days :-)