Only 2 days to go!!!1

Work has kept us so busy that when Mereana said today 'only 2 days to go' I thought - wow, it really is close!  Still lots to do though.  Haven't learned any french yet (apart from j'mapelle Carey, bonjour, bonsoir, au reviour, en der tois, merci, si'l vous plais and of course - watching Roland Garros allez (go) and of course jeu (game)!!!).

I need to sit down tomorrow and work out some phrases and write them down in my book, so that we can get a taxi from the Bordeaux train station to the hotel that we have booked.

We went for our final trial ride on Saturday, nice weather, all loaded up and it all went smoothly (with my new chain!).  Still learning how to use the camera on the GPS.  So when we got to Rangipo and the turn around I tried to take some photos and zoom on it.  Well.... I ended up with lots of photo's of gravel - small gravel and bigger gravel.  When I got back home and looked at the manual, I discovered that there are + and - buttons at the top of the screen to focus and zoom (but I still have the plastic on the screen to protect it until we start the trip in France - and I couldn't see them!  Duh!!!).

I have now downloaded BaseCamp onto my home computer and on to the netbook.  Next project today is to try and book the routes we are taking and work out how to use it all! I put in a request for a route from Tracey and Trevors place in Ealing, London to Bordeaux.  The clever thing told me to jump on a plane and fly!  I am sure that I can get a bit more detail than that if I try....

On Sunday Peter broke down the bikes, added lots of packing and padding and packed them all up into the bike bags.  Managed to fit in water bottles, panniers and other paraphenalia (bike tools etc - cause if we lose the bike bags on the plane, we won't need all that stuff!).  Our other gear is packed in our two fold up blue bags, tons of room left in them.  BUT then we have to carry it all at the other end.  Thank goodness we can leave the bike bags and the travel bags at Jason Souths, so then we have heaps of rooms in our panniers.

Purchased some new dry bags to carry our wet weather gear in on the top of our panniers, so that when it pours with rain, they are easy to get to.  (Also good for storing pate, cheese and yummy french food and wine in too!).

 Found a great website (through Lonely Planet), that we can use to book gites and bed and breakfasts.  www.gites-de-france.com and it comes up in English when you click the little flag on the top left hand corner.  I am hoping that Jason will be able to refer us to a few of his friends.  Greg Batkin said that when he and Jane did their 3 month trip in UK, they used to go to the tourist office before they left the town each day and get them to pre-book the accommodation with a deposit, and then they would know where they were going when they got into town.

I think that is a good plan for us too.  When we were riding in Australia, it became a bit of a hassle each night (mind you it was late May and wintery) to get into the location and then go and find some accommodation.  I suppose the only hassle here will be finding the accommodation, but if we can get the GPS to work properly hopefully that won't be a hassle!

Well, off to play with the GPS and see if I can get a route organised that actually makes sense!  Nope, 1 and a half hours later, I have absolutely no idea how to create a route!!!  I have sent 2 emails to Garmin - only problem is that they can take up to 3 working days to respond..... and we leave in 2......