Away with the Opies

Where’s the time going…

It’s been a dreary wet Sunday in Cornwall and so what best to do, we thought, than concentrate on our travelling to do list. Our early optimism about having everything under control soon dissipated when we started adding more to the list than we were ticking off it! As it happens we have huge amounts to do in the 4.5 weeks left before we head off. We need to set our bubbling excitement aside and focus on the tasks at hand. A trip into town to buy merino wool underwear (apparently a serious travelers’ must have) was a good start to that process we thought… So we headed to Truro Cotswold Outdoor – our favourite outdoor apparel store in the area and went about looking for the intended items. Some time later and basket full of unintended items we proceeded to the checkout to come across this…

It was both surreal and exciting seeing leaflets promoting the organisation we’ll soon be working with right there in front of us.

For anyone interested these are the dates/venues of up coming Community Action Nepal lectures by our future ‘boss’ Doug Scott who’ll be talking about of his Everest adventures and voluntary work. Steve and I are catching his London lecture on the 11th before boarding our plane to Kathmandu on the 12th…

Despite our distractions we completed all intended tasks for the day and first impressions from Steve are that his Merino boxers really are the bees knees!

Hi Everyone,

This is it, our first blog post – it’s all starting to feel very real for us now. For those of you who don’t already know, Steve and I are heading to Nepal on the 12th October for a few months of volunteering work with the UK based charity Community Action Nepal. We’ll be living and working in remote mountain communities, helping to re-build buildings and infrastructures devastated by the earthquakes last year. Steve will be putting his plumbing skills to good use and I’ll be helping in schools and health posts.

We’re very excited about the adventures that lie ahead, but have many other emotions attached to what we’re about to embark on. The distance from family and friends is going to be the hardest challenge for us to overcome. Being happiest surrounded by the people we love, living so far from home for such a long time will undoubtedly be tough. The lack of creature comforts such as toilet paper – a doddle!

We’ve started the process of tidying up loose ends – a bigger task than we’d anticipated. We’ve written and re-written copious lists of what we need, what we don’t need – sensible must haves, frivolous maybes. I’ve still to master the art of travelling light – a skill that seems completely beyond me. Steve on the other hand is struggling to fill his bag and that includes his plumbing tools! We’ve updated our passports, checked out insurances (a little tricky and somewhat expensive it turns out for high altitude travel). We’ve chosen our back packs, debated if/what sleeping bags to take, how many socks we need, what vaccinations to have, what medical equipment is necessary and so on. We’re getting there bit by bit and all of sudden it feels just around the corner.

Among our to do’s was a blog, this blog. Although a complete technophobe I’ve taken on the task of putting together something that resembles a working site – eek! I’ve had lots of frustrations finding my way around the web world, but also lots of fun. Name chosen – Away with the Opies, we’re hoping to keep everyone at home updated with what we’re getting up to during our travels (wifi willing!)

We’ve set up JustGiving pages where all donations received go directly to Community Action Nepal. There are also links to CAN so you can check out who we’ll be working with – it’ll give a little insight into what we’ll be doing during our time in Nepal.

Welcome to our adventures.

Kate and Steve x

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