What we pack for a long trip: Part 1 clothes and consumables

Packing is one of the most difficult parts of our travelling.  Our bikes can be hard to get through the door if we've packed badly and they do take up a lot of space if not weight.  So we do our best to pack light to make life easy for ourselves.

I did a bit of research into travel clothing before we started out last year, and came to the conclusion that merino wool is the technical fibre of the future, as it not only breathes, it also stays clean (except if you eat spaghetti bolognaise!) and doesn't get smelly.

So the clothes I have packed are:
2 merino t-shirts.  I wear my favourite pink one 5 days a week, then it's often due for a wash.  I figure that I've now got the equivalent of 6 years worth of wear out of this t-shirt, when you consider than you (I) would usually wear a t-shirt at home once a week and only in the 6 months of a year that the season is right.

3 merino long sleeve t-shirts (this is probably 2 more than I need, but my favourite from last year is worn out and is now my sleeping shirt)

5 pairs of undies (3 would be fine)
5 pairs of synthetic socks (last year I only had one pair, this is again probably at least 2 too many)
2 pairs of ski socks for cold days
3 silk scarves
1 pair of cycling knicks
1 sleeveless jersey
winter gloves
summer cycling gloves
beanie
thick wool jumper
thick wool jacket (the brown one in every photo of me)
cycling trousers by swrve
cycling shorts also swrve
1 wool multi functional little black dress
wool stockings

1 pair thongs for the shower

1 pair cycling (cleat) shoes

1 pair boots

1 pair light impractical evening shoes to be dumped as I now have purchased some light purple outdoor moccasins

Hmm sounds like a lot, isn't too bad once packed.

Julian has gone more with the synthetic quick dry option, this means that he's got 5 long sleeve t-shirts, which have to be washed all the time, one of which is merino which is saved for wash days / can't be bothered washing days.  Last year I got him 3 pairs of silk boxers, which dry really quickly and like the hand washing.

We hand wash everything in a foldable bucket - finding a machine and waiting around for it is generally not an option for us.  Soap is soap.  I get bulk refill packs of body wash, which also takes care of our clothes nicely, shampoo also works well.  That said I have a separate mini bottle of  dishwashing liquid for the dishes, as the moisturising components of body soap are less desirable on plates.

So far this year we've had 7 days of camping without a shower, funny as last year we had only 3 days in the entire trip without a shower!  For such occasions we have microfibre cloths and the foldable bucket.

I have a Lifeventure micro fibre towel, in giant size which is light, dries quickly and is wide enough to cover me completely (unusual for a trekking towel).
Julian has a Kathmandu towel, which works well as it's waffle pattern, but is bigger and heavier, gets smelly quicker and now we have chopped 2 little pieces off it so we each have our own bath mat..

We have a whole heap of microfibre cloths for washing, cleaning the plane, wiping up spills, using as rags etc.

We keep our food supplies in a purple basket of the style very popular in Scandinavia, this includes clips for sealing open bags, salt and chilli sauce, packs of spaghetti and instant mash, and the ever increasing number of jars of jam.  No idea where they come from!   We try to eat a lot of fresh vegetables, but they are an overhead in terms of weight, going off and space. This year we are trying to carry less.

For remote camping we have an Ortlieb 10L water bladder, you can get a shower attachment for it, but we've survived without.

How do we decide which airfields to fly into? (Or: how did you find us?)

We get asked this question all the time, by the curious and by those wishing to promote traffic to their airfields, so I thought this could be a good place to put in a detailed answer.

The probably less helpful ways we decide are: prior knowledge of tourist hot spots (e.g. Rothenburg ob der Tauber), geographic location - river, sea, lake and mountain locations generally mean either beautiful scenery or often very old town centre, e.g. Albi, Annecy, Skaanes Fagerhult.

Now what you really want to know is which websites do I refer to:

I think the Danish based ultralight market website has the best listing, with links to airfields recommended by other aviators.  There are many other interesting sections on ultralight market's website (trip reports, links to organisations, rules and regulations etc.)  The link provided above is to the Nordic countries listing, there are listings for everywhere else in the world too though.

For Germany I rely on Angela's co-pilot's guide, which is a subjective guide, which is what we want.

For Austria I go with aviator.at

For Switzerland I trust Nelly

And the Hungarian listing (once google translate has done its magic) is a really good tool as well.

For France Alasdair Arthur has done a great job

I have also been known to look at the UNESCO world heritage city listing and then search for the nearest airfields.

I also go on flying forums (Flyer, the German Flyer, the Italian forum) and read trip reports, making notes.  Aerokurier magazine has excellent trip reports as well.

Flight testing finished!

It took a little while due to some silly little things like my having dropped the bundy bushes out of one of the flaps in the test & trim again phase (which meant that it was really hard to land as the flaps are like flying brakes).  And wouldn't you know it that the only bolts I didn't tighten, because I thought they'd be coming out again, were the only bolts that weren't taken out 4 times in the course of testing, grrrr.

Anyway it's all finished now and flying well - apparently our fuselage is very straight (which I would like to take credit for, but can't honestly do so).  Gary who did the flight testing took me out as an observer for one of the flights, & we flew over the Welney bird hide, around Ely cathedral which somehow looks quite different from the air, and up to the Denver lock.  The system of canals around Norfolk is quite amazing, dug out around 1760 by a Dutchman, as before that the land was swampy.  I met a lovely couple on a sourdough bread making course at the Denver Windmill, Dov and Rebecca, who spend 4-5 months each year touring England on their narrowboat and who explained all about the canal system.

I have a couple of lovely photos of the windmill as seen past a barley field with poppies poking out amongst the grain, which I will add at some point I hope.  Apologies if I've gone all Denglish today, I've been working on places to go in Germany.

Plane finished, paperwork finished

Today we finished off our paperwork for the LAA, tomorrow morning Gary, our supervisor will check through everything with us for one last time before we drive it over to Turweston.  The paperwork shows that we have completed all the necessary steps of the build and carried out any modifications required by the LAA, and once the LAA have asssured themselves that they are happy with what we have done we will get a permit to test fly.  With any luck that will only take 1-2 days, then we just have to send off more paperwork to the LAA or CAA (I'm not the pilot or the lead builder, so forgive me some vagueness on this point) and wait for them to come back with the permit to fly.  Fingers crossed it all goes through quickly!

I've decided to add random photos to all my older photoless posts, so here's me on short final at the farm strip where the plane is currently based!