Expedition Log

Day 1            Wednesday, 11th January 2006

After making final purchases, packing and repacking and weighing I finally arrived at a total baggage weight of 42 kg, well over the 20 kg limit. I believe the maximum number of bags allowable is only three so I strapped two of my caving bags together. At last it was time to go.

I set off with my wife Liz to the airport. At check-in I was told I would have to pay excess baggage. I tried to get extra allowance for sports equipment but Malaysian Airlines don't seem to have a policy for that. I managed to get an extra 7 kilograms allowed as I argued that I would be allowed to take that much on as cabin baggage. I then managed to negotiate the fee down to RM50 (around US$12.

On arrival in Singapore I checked everything into left luggage and caught the number 36 bus into the city. I got off the bus at Raffles and, after a few minutes of orientation, walked to Bencoolen St where I checked in at the Strand Hotel for S$85 per night. After a brief rest I walked down the road to the Sim Lim Tower. This is reckoned to be the best place in Singapore for buying cameras and computers. I spent an hour looking at small compact digital cameras in the first couple of shops and ended up buying a Canon 750 for S$820. My ideal camera would have been the new Canon 5D but, as I had my Canon D1S Mk II with me, I didn't fancy carrying around two SLR's. I did check the price though and was told around S$5000 plus tax.

Back at my hotel I showered and went across the road to a food centre for a quick meal. Outside football was showing on a large screen so, after eating, I sat outside with a beer and watched a match. As I was finishing my beer it started raining, a typical tropical downpour. It didn't look like stopping soon so I made a dash across the road back to the hotel getting soaked to the skin before I was halfway across.

Back in the UK Dave Gill met Jean-Paul Sounier at Manchester Airport when he arrived from Nice at 1.00 pm.

Andy Eavis, Robbie Shone, Dave Nixon, James Alker, Tom Chapman arrived and all seven checked in. All the cargo was accepted free of charge as the check-in staff made the assumption that it was a team of aid volunteers, no doubt due to the Rescue 4 stickers on the plastic drums. Take off was at 6.00 pm to Singapore via Frankfurt.

The Journey to New Britain