What I’ve been doing the last weeks/ months to prepare  my trip?

– Organisation of my year long absence at my shops:

Since we agreed it will be possible that I’ll be away for that whole long year I was briefing my shop managers Ilona Sierks and Andrea Höhn for my absence. I’m very proud I do have such engaged and relieable ladys to work with! They seem to grow with their tasks, and are looking forward to that new challenge.

Ilona works with me for 9 years now and takes care at the spot in both ice cream cafés plus in the x-mas shop that everything is running smoothly. She is married to Udo, and has two grown up daughters just in the age of most of all the other young ladys working with me. She knows by family experience how to deal with that agegroup, and how to motivate the team! Udo gives regularly the handyman for everything a man is more useful than the all-women-team :-). Thanks for being present!

Andrea started as a young schoolgirl to work with me almost 21 years ago and is now a mother of two young kids, married to Ingomar. She is organizing the demanding schedule of the two shops plus the x-mas shop and the 30-40 employees mostly via phone and computer from home now. She is the life and soul of the all-woman team and knows where and why to put whom with whom when in which place…

Three other ladys working with me for long time already as first helping hands are Anika Scheer, Andrea Wilke and Claudia Wulf. They are supporting Ilona with the work at the spot as “sub-managers”.

Besides them there is a team of 30-40 attractive young ladys, which I am very happy to work with! Basically they do start at the age of 16 years as schoolgirls and ideally stay for 3-5 seasons during their highschool/ studies. They are a highly motivated, hand-selected and efficient team!

A big thanks you to all of them! Without their support I won’t be able to do what I’m doing.

Besides the “software” of the shop there is plenty of “hardware” to be organized and to be pre-prepared – 2010 tables to be written, buisiness plan to be made, tax advisor, franchise partner and bank manager to be consulted, office to be prepared to be taken over by my managers, and so on…

 – Organisation of my year long absence at my house:

My backyard and my plants need to be taken care of,  my house and the daily mail needs to be frequently checked,  I have to organize insurances, visa, flights, subscriptions, my cars, bills to be paid, the “home” communication must be working, and so on…

 – Map planning and reading trip reports:

My basic mapping equipment consists of organizing the 125 pieces of 1:250.000 topographical maps I got given by Geoscience Australia. You can read a bit how I was doing it on their qajaqunderground sponsor’s website.

Besides the topo map I’m using a GPS loaded with the charts of Australia. This combination worked well on my other trips already.

I was reading all books (basically Paul Caffyn’s “Dreamtime Voyage” and Eric Stiller’s “Keep Australia to your left”) and web-trip reports I could get hold of, marking interesting landing spots and any valuable information on my maps. I tried to make my way through siling directions and coastal pilots, comparing informations with Google Earth and local knowledge about landings. This work is never finished, and will be continiously updated with firsthand infos enroute.

– Organisation of local contacs for my trip:

My Race around Australia.is planned as a solo circumnavigation. This basically means I won’t have a support team drivving along the shore carrying all my gear, but I will be mostly self-sufficient with food and gear.

But who sets the rules?

I might paddle with someone for some days/ weeks (volunteers with endurance and a fast pace are still welcome!) and I will occasionally stay with people along the coast for a good talk, shower and a great meal.

Most important – I will have a base contact in Melbourne,Sydney and Western Australia.

My base contact in Melbourne where I’ll store all my spare gear and sponsored food which needs to be sent out to places along the coast is basically the Victorian sea kayak Club with Peter Treby, replaced occasionally in his holidays by David Golightly.

Peter Treby will host me in Melbourne, and organize all my gear parcels I’ll probably send back and forth. Either an item is lost or worn out and needs to be replaced, or the climate change requires different equipment, or I’m just sick of wearing the same t-shirt for a whole year :-)). He’ll be part of my trip-monitoring team via the SPOT messenger, is helpful with publicity and will organize whatever needs to be organized. Thanks for your valuable help, Peter, and a thanks to the whole Victorian Sea Kayak Club behind him!

The team epic kayaks Australia is based in Sydney. Jaqui and Tony King will do their best to get me the matching kayaks and possible spare parts in time. Any repairs/ replacements/ shipping of the kayaks will be organized by them. They’ll deal for OZ with my promotion t-shirts (coming soon!), and will care as well about all public relations.

It is great to be part of the worldwide-operating Team Epic Kayaks! Thanks to all “epics”!!!

Once arriving at the West Coast, the experienced gun-kayaker Les Allan will be mostly supervising and monitoring my trip with his local knowledge and connections. Good to know him behind me!

The “immobile” shore team besides those three basic cosists of a long continiously growing list (volunteers still wlecome!) of possible shore contact adresses I can ring up when I’m passing by to be hosted for shower, food, internet and resupplying. A big thanks to all the kayaking and non-kayaking people behind thoses adresses! Without them, my trip would be much harder concerning logistics, and maybe too lonely…

Once underway, the word of mouth through the local press/ radio/ TV magically opens doors of even strangers along the way who have heard about my trip and like to be part of it. I am always thankful about these occasions! I hope to meet a bunch of interesting people to share my adventure!

The local safety network based on regular SPOT messages and the “just in case” ACR EPIRB infos directly directed to the RCC Australia needs to be organized as well.

– Organisation of international contacs for my trip:

Three persons are most important for my Race around Australia., although they are not present in Australia:

Karel Vissel will be sending me the necessary weather informations updated twice a day to my satellite phone. Karel did already a great job for my trips around New Zealand and Iceland, as well as for a long list of other big international expeditions. To be honest, without his valuable service for a non-native English speaking person I would have to learn new how, when and where to listen to a blurry or noisy transmission on a (VHF) weather radio – now I just have to *read* the infos – at the time *I* want!

I’ll send him my daily position and a short trip report via sat-phone at night to his e-mail, which he is forwarding to a list of an inner circle of contact persons who need/ want to be informed first-hand.

My trip blog will be updated, based on these informations, by my friend Chris Cunningham/ Sea Kayake Magazine, who will also write some notes on my blog from personal phone calls and will care about an updated trip map and pictures to be published on my blog and in his magazine.

In Sea Kayaker Magazine, he will write in eight upcoming issues (starting January!)  the story “behind” the basic infos coming through the satellite phone. I’ll update him with frequent phone calls and trip notes via voice recorder, (small video) camera and roughly written infos I can post via my PDA once in cell-phone reach.

I’ll write posts by myself as often as I can be online, but I decided not to put pressure on me and NOT be a travelling reporter with long pictured web-updates every night via (possible, but expensive) satellite web-connection, but to be a regularly reporting sports(wo)man using modern technology, but who firsthand likes to reach her goal to get around OZ as fast as possible rather than taking hours to reoprt daily in proper form.

But no worries, I promise you “couch travelling guys” will get your story, in one or another way! – this is part of why we are out there! It is the “applause” for the “adventurous actor” – thanks for following and frequently commenting on my blog! :-))

Derrick Mayoleth as my webmaster will take care that my website will be running smoothly. He was creating and helping me since the beginning of my sea kayaking “career” to run my website!

– Organisation of sponsors for my trip:

How was your sporting life looking like prior to your Race around Australia?

A question easy to be answered: I was creating the “sport” of chasing sponsors. A “sport” which requires hours and hours of office work rather than being out there…but which is very rewarding on the long run.

I love to work with sponsors. Please check all of their sponsor’s websites! Thanks to all of them!

Without them, a big trip and it’s preparation time would be less fun and rewarding, as well as much more expensive considering the huge amount of gear you need for such a year long undertaking,

All sponsors – smaller and bigger ones, “faceless” big companies which I only talked to via e-mail, or personal related kayaking buisiness contacts – all of them reward and acknowledge my efforts with the agreement to work with them.

It’s an efficient giving and taking relationship – but as all relatioships they need to be “pampered” and “fed” – agreements need to be fulfilled via updating logos and websites and write-ups and e-mails and feedbacks and pictures and – last but not least and for sure most pleasant – unpacking, testing and integrating the big pile of given gear and helpful financials.

If you and your company like to be part of my long colorful logo list and the chequered kayak which will be (hopefully not) held together at the end by sponsor stickers only :-)) – there will be a seperate blog entry and website for potential (smaller or bigger) “financial sponsors only” who can jump on the sponsor’s team any time soon – and they will be part of ithe sponsor’s list possibly more or less forever…

Did I forget something?

Well, I do have about 3-4 weeks left to get it done, or to add it to the posting…trip start will be as planned the first days of January!