We consider ourselves experienced travellers but after three years of no overseas travel, we were totally out of practice. Organising for our departure was not helped by having houses with extensive lawns and gardens. Or being owned by three precious cats.... Or by having last minute minor but irritating health issues.... Or by enduring a massive hail storm just a few months before we left, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars damage to our property. 

And as usual, deciding what we needed and then packing for an Arctic journey was an artform; the skills of which seemed to have totally escaped us. "How did we ever pack so much in such small bags?" we groaned. We knew however, that the countries in which we were touring should not be all that cold. Certainly nothing like the extreme climate we had experienced in Arctic Russia; Gulf Stream effects providing a thermal buffer for these countries of such high latitudes. But as we could expect temperatures as low as minus 30C, we had to prepare for the most extreme conditions*.

Actually, when packing for the extreme cold, we don't have a lot of choice. Just one of our snow boots weighs a kilo, taking up a disproportionate amount of space - about one third of our bags, actually. And that is to say nothing of down coats and overcoats, padded outer wear, snow goggles, spikes (micro crampons), balaclavas, thermal mittens and a myriad of bulky assorted cold weather under gear. Cameras and charging mechanisms are yet another issue. And as extreme cold drains batteries alarmingly fast, we needed an oversupply of power banks, spare batteries etc. There were also medications for six weeks.... And then at the last minute we decided that Alan should take hiking poles with him; lethal weapons that poked precariously out of his backpack for the duration of our travels.

Vacuum packing our gear may have helped our space issues, but it certainly didn't help our weight considerations. Using three different luggage scales resulted in three different results for each bag. 

Neighbours and charter boat friends Ros and Roger who were away at the time offered to let us use their super-accurate fish weighing scales. It meant breaking into their house. It didn't help. We then had four different weight readings.... All however, were well under 20 kg.

In the end we decided our only option was to carry our down jackets with us. Surely that would ensure our luggage was well within the weight limits, at least for our coming train journey to Sydney. Well, it did. And then it didn't....

Some time before, our good friends Deb and Ian organised living in our house to look after our three cats while we were away on our trip. And I imagine that to this day, they may have deeply regretted their decision. Our two neurotic young Siamese cats Kazumi and Nitroglycerin are extremely nervous of strangers, and our strong-willed but placid rescue girl Yekaterina just makes sure of their bad behaviour.

On the other hand, Deb and Ian are very fond of our home village of Crowdy Head on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, and we hoped that their house and cat sitting would provide a good opportunity for them to relax and enjoy our lovely coastal surrounds. I'm not sure however, that it did....

On the morning of our departure by train to Sydney, we re-weighed our luggage. And to our relief, all our scales still insisted they were well under 20 kg. And of course, there was nothing at least in my bag that I could do without.....

It was not a great start. A commuter coach was parked at the railway - a sure sign that our train had been cancelled and as happens irritatingly often, we would be travelling by bus to Sydney. Furthermore, the railway was under major re-construction and unbelievably for a country station, it was almost impossible to find the new entrance. It was nearing the luggage check-in deadline and we knew how strict timing was with our rail staff. Fancy being stressed before we had even departed?

The luggage weigh-in however, was the worst stress. "That's 22.7 kg and well over the limit. You will have to unpack your bag and get rid of excess baggage. I'm not picking that up!" snapped the rail attendant as I loaded my bag onto the scales. Surely four lots of scales could not be that inaccurate. And now we had a fifth different weight!

Understanding her concern at lifting our bags, we offered to carry our luggage with us onto the train, a common procedure that is quite legal - but even that was received with a blunt "No you won't. It's overweight and against the rules!" 

As Deb and Ian bade us an uncertain farewell, I must admit they had a rather doubtful look of "Glad it's you and not us".... The good news however, was that the train had not been cancelled, it was on time and we somehow made the luggage check-in. Even if we did have to carry some of the goods with us. At least we were aboard our train and off on yet another adventure.... 

We have undertaken the five and half hour train trip to Sydney on so many occasions, and have described it in so many former blogs that I will omit from including it in this story. It is a beautiful trip however, travelling by the Manning River through the hilly rural hinterlands of the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, then down through the flatlands of Maitland region; and from there heading south and following the stunning coastal inlets of the Central Coast and the Hawkesbury River to Sydney.

I think on this occasion, we barely bothered to look out of the train windows. It was after all raining for most of the trip and anyway, it gave me time to sit back and indulge in reflecting upon on the past rather tumultuous three years since we last travelled overseas.     

In hindsight, COVID had given us an excuse to chill out for a while from travel. Up and until 2020, our life was non-stop travel and as mentioned during the last five years, mostly to Arctic Russia. In some instances, we undertook two huge trips within the one year. They were tough, physically and mentally demanding trips; some of which unwittingly became a bit too adventurous.... Was it time to stop and re-group for a little while? Perhaps.... But then again, we were consumed with an overwhelming drive to do as much "rough" travel as we could while we were still fit and healthy. We always laughed that we would do "vanilla trips around Australia when we became old...." I'm not sure what we thought ages 85 and almost 70 were....

Alan in fact, had suffered from serious heart disease from late 2020 to 2021. He was hospitalised on nine occasions, one of which involved a complex heart procedure. And that didn't include a number of serious haemorraghes, numerous major skin cancer procedures and a foot operation. But selflessly, he suffered all this illness during a period where not only couldn't we travel overseas, we were also locked down from domestic travel. Thankfully, he was well and truly over the worst of these issues prior to our 2023 travel.

And then in early August, one of our beloved cats Mao died, succumbing to kidney failure, the all too familiar-illness-for-Siamese-cats.  

We both had the maximum number of COVID boosters we could, the 5th being just two weeks prior to our departure. And perfect timing for immunity... For peace of mind, we had also splurged out to purchase two doses of COVID anti-viral medication to take with us on our trip; a whopping cost of AUD 2,300 for two doses. 

And then Major House Repairs Before a Not-So-Perfect Storm....

In October 2022, we decided to have our house painted. There was of course, nothing very unusual nor noteworthy about that. Except for the price. It was AUD 60,000 plus... Just the scaffolding for our two story-house was about one third of the cost. And naturally, there was more to spend as we found bits and pieces on our 25 year old house that needed attention, including a full paint job for the roof. We had no choice other than to go ahead. And we were fortunately, very happy with the result.

That is until late in the afternoon of 28th November 2022, when our tiny village of Crowdy Head was hit by a cell of intense, severe hailstorms. Driving back the 70 km from Port Macquarie, we managed to dodge in and out of a vast number of deluges and thankfully arrived home just before a massive hailstorm hit.

In all honesty, it was absolutely fascinating; our entire surrounds covered in a sea of white golf ball-sized hail. I couldn't wait to grab my camera and head outside to take photos.... Not a good idea. Within a few seconds, I was hit in the back of the head by a razor-sharp hail stone; to my horror blood spurting everywhere. Fortunately, it was not a serious injury although as Alan constantly reminded me, it did make an awful mess of our kitchen.... 

But within the space of just twenty minutes the hail had done enormous damage to our house, including our little cottage next door. Every house in our village was damaged in one way or another. Our precious gardens were stripped bare, and our awnings and fly screens were completely shredded. But for a while, the worst damage was hard to see. Sadly, our roofs on both dwellings were irreparably damaged, as were the gutters and much of the paintwork was chipped of its brand new paint. It was heartbreaking. A saving grace however, was that we did not have any water issues inside either house. 

Thankfully, we were covered by insurance but the cost to both properties was monumental, totalling several hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

With just months to go before we left on our trip, our time was very much consumed by associated insurance inspections and paperwork. We were enormously busy getting our gardens ready for going away for six weeks, organising for Deb and Ian to live in our house and look after the cats - and at the very last minute, finding another travel agent for Greenland after our guide literally ditched us from our tour with him. And as we found, finding a travel guide/agent for a two weeks stay in Greenland at such short notice was not an easy task.... At that stage we had no idea of the magnitude of overseas travel following COVID. And as we were to find, tours were rapidly becoming fully booked, as were flights and accommodation. 

In late December, following a long day's work in our gardens, we decided to opt for a takeaway Chinese meal from Harrington, a village about eight kilometers from our home. I should note, we NEVER eat takeaway and even then we were so tired that it was touch and go as to whether we could be bothered. 

Our village of Crowdy Head is actually an ancient island, now joined to the mainland by a permanent narrow isthmus of some eight kilometers of land. Between our village and Harrington is national park, comprising low coastal heath and wetland vegetation. On one side of the road is a swamp and the ocean on the other. There are no settlements at all.  

About one kilometer from the outskirts of Harrington, I noticed what appeared to be a kitten or very young dark grey cat wearing a pale blue over-sized collar, walking along the side of the road. On closer sighting, the cat appeared very distressed, his mouth open and salivating. It was bizarre seeing this obviously lost animal so far from any civilisation.

Of course, being the cat tragic I am, I pulled my car over and called. To my amazement the little cat began to walk gingerly toward me. Unfortunately, a car drove past and the poor creature leapt into the bushes - on the swamp side of the road, that is. I spent at least 20 minutes trying to cajole him, and had him almost coming to me when some kind neighbours pulled their car over to see if I was in any sort of trouble. Well-meaning as they were, it didn't help my cat catching dilemma and eventually, bitten all over by mosquitoes, I gave up. 

"What are you going to do if you catch him?" our neighbours had asked. A good question. I had no frigg'n idea. We had three cats, two of which were highly strung young Siamese. Goodness only knows what their anti-social reaction would be. More importantly, we were going overseas in less than two months and how would our kind cat sitter friends deal with what would most likely be a diabolical cat social problem?

After picking up our meal, I was plagued with guilt about the lost kitten. Being a bushy area, it was difficult to recount exactly where I saw him but apparently, I guessed fairly well where to stop my car - a miracle for someone with no sense of direction. 

To my astonishment, when I called the cat came out of the bushes and after some 20 minutes of cajoling, he allowed me to pick him up. As I placed him on the front car seat, I prayed that he was micro-chipped, and I would be able to locate his owners. After all, his collar was expensive and he was in very good condition, and quite easy to handle. Also, he was a very pretty and affable little fellow. At the time I thought he may have been a Russian Blue.

To say that Alan was unimpressed when I arrived home with a stray cat as well as the Chinese meal, was an understatement. But he did admit that he would have done the same thing. We are truly hopeless cat lovers. 

The next morning, I was lucky enough to book him in with a local vet who works a few days per week at Harrington. After finding around seven ticks on him the night before, I had dosed him with a tick and worming medication. It was just as well as it was a miracle that he suffered no ill effects. Sadly however, the vet confirmed that he wasn't microchipped, nor did he have any identification on his collar. Nor was he a Russian Blue. They suggested that I place a post in the local community notices - or take him to the Council Pound.  

The Harrington community notices did not accept posts from anyone not residing in their village.... Local caravan park manager Louise*, however was very helpful and agreed to post on the caravan park and local social media page. A few people responded but our newly found feline did not fit any of their lost cats' descriptions.

That evening, our friend Andrea lodged a post in the Taree city community notices. I was not at all hopeful. Although our closest city, Taree is however some 40 kilometers from where I found the little cat. The chances of finding his owner were very slim. Despondently, we knew it was looking like another addition to our family. 

Around 10:00 pm Andrea called me to say that she had been contacted by Nicole*, a kind animal rescue person from Taree who thought that our newly found feline matched the description of a nearby family's lost cat. Nicole had reared the kitten and had re-homed him with this family only some months before. Apparently the little boy whose cat it was, was devastated and the family had been searching for him for days. She sent photos to Andrea who immediately recognised the cat and his pale blue collar. By further coincidence, Nicole just happened to be visiting friends in Harrington that evening and suggested that she call in to see if it was her friends' cat. 

At midnight Nicole arrived at our house. It was an amazing scene of recognition between Nicole and and a very loving kitten. To our immense relief, it was the missing cat, Simba. We later heard that the family was overjoyed at finding him. A real miracle and a huge coincidence of events squashed into just over 24 hours. 

We never found out how this young cat of just five months became stranded in Harrington. He was after all, an inside cat. A story with a happy ending, it was one of life's true mysteries. It certainly gave me a different outlook on takeaway meals....

* Note: Another positive aspect of this amazing story is that I have remained in contact with Louise and Nicole. I am very grateful to such caring and responsible people. 

Reflections of past events kept us well and truly pre-occupied for most of our journey to Sydney. 

We had also laughed about everything - which is usual for our trips - that had broken just before we left home - the garage door, the vacuum cleaner, the floor steam cleaner, Alan's line trimmer and even my electric lawn mower. Not that my mower actually broke down. Rather, it had a renewed crazy lease of life. Its self-propelled adjustment had jammed on full-speed and as it was so close to us leaving and had no time to have it repaired, there was nothing I could do other than operate it on full steam and run behind it. It must have been very funny for on-lookers, but it was not at all amusing for the operator....

We were staying at the Novotel Sydney Airport Hotel which was very conveniently located to Sydney's Kingsford Smith International Airport, and where we would be departing from the next afternoon.  

It was of course, important for us to have a drink before dinner but beforehand, Alan decided for some reason to unpack his toiletries bag. And a good thing he did. The combination travel lock securing his luggage had seized and no matter what we did using the correct combination, nor any other combination, it would not unlock. 

The hotel staff seemed at a loss as what to do. It rather surprised me as I guessed this must happen reasonably often. But fortunately, one the managers who was about to depart for the day, just happened to have a set of bolt cutters handy. It was a surprisingly difficult task which took forever, but at last the lock was cut open. 

It was time for a drink. And of course, no talk of pre-travel karma....