Yes, our stuff is insured - but not outside the house!

Following a prod from Kathryn about the insurance, we checked with NRMA and sure enough, nothing is covered outside the house. I don't know when this changed, all these little things like cameras and stuff used to be covered wherever you happened to be using them. Just another little thing the insurance companies probably told us, but in the tiniest of print.

But, they are very good about it, for a hefty exchange of cash, you can nominate one of the many categories they have, such as 'Jewellery' and 'Electronics', specify an amount to insure and they give you coverage. How fortunate that we stumbled upon this before it was too late. When you start adding up the value of cameras, laptops, ipods, sat navs and the like, you could be seriously out of pocket if you get an unwelcome visit while you out site-seeing.

Did I say 13 weeks to go...

Hell's bells - now there are only 10 weeks to go, time to get serious about some of these things i guess!

What we have done:

• Changed the dog'n bones to Telstra to get the better coverage 'out there', not to mention a rate pre-paid 15% of whet we were getting from our provider of 19 years. Too bad for them, eh?
• Put a complete new set of top-of-the-line Michelins on the X5 - ouch that hurts
• Had the X5 fully serviced including the chassis and the towbar
• Booked Coober Pedy
• Finished the CD's - then culled the 3300 tracks down to 1200
• Bought a used ipod from ebay and loaded the music to it - 1200 songs, some of which are later than 1969

Don't really know what else to do in the way of preparation for the car and van - we've used it extensively for 2 years and feel comfortable with their performance and reliability - maybe we'll just take off and see how it all hangs together.

Sometimes we are keen and excited to be going, other times we are just a little bit intimidated and apprehensive. The one thing that concerns me is the aspect of personal security and safety on the road. But hey, if you took everything too seriously you'd never leave the house.

Some things we'd like to do before we go:

• Check Insurance on van and car
• Check NRMA coverage - we'll find out if my 43 years Gold membership is actually worth anything outside the metro area
• Check out the cryovac machine - we bought one, just haven't opened the box yet! Last time we went and took a bunch of meat pre cryovacced from the butcher and it was excellent, even the bits we brought back and ate at home.
• Renew the 12 month prepaid on the wireless broadband modem - this is a Telstra unit and proved to be really good everywhere we've been to date - it's also how we'll be updating this blog, so better get it done.
• Get a UHF radio - probably a handheld would be all we need

The clock is ticking!!!!
Cheers, Judy&Brian