...no entry yesterday but the last two days of preparations have been insanely busy. Yesterday Fenny Bridges Garage came through for us in a big way. They fixed the bust rear differential and made all the other small modifications we needed. They also pointed us in the direction of Penfolds Breakers yard, the finest scrap car yard in Devon. Ali and Simon (who's been helping out in Richard's absence) trawled around a bunch of other scrap yards only to find them rude, ignorant and really uncharitable. Thankfully, they then found Penfolds, who, as luck would have it, had a long-wheel base SJ lying around waiting to be stripped for parts. So now we have a spare radiator, alternator, carburetor, leaf springs, half-shafts, full set of off road tyres and a bunch of other small things that should make our trip a little less uncertain in the mechanics department.
We also had our picture taken for the local papers yesterday. And today we found that the Sidmouth Herald had given us the front page, bless them.
Today we finally loaded everything into the Jeep and filled our rucksacks. Almost everything fits, which is a complete surprise. Tonight we go to bed, tired but satisfied that two days of hard work mean we can head off tomorrow completely prepared...
...after we have picked up Ali's sleeping bag from the ParcelForce depot ("Sorry, we couldn't deliver it because of the heightened security around the new Harry Potter book." What!?) and picked up our anti-malaria drugs...
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