The calm before the storm

A couple of days in Brisbane has allowed us to wind down from all of the preparations for this journey. We're resting quite a lot, knowing that things will get very busy once we reach Thailand.

Mr Krisakorn Sukavejvorakit, on behalf of Tuenjai Deetes, has put together a comprehensive 3 week itinerary for us. We arrive in Bangkok on the evening of 11 February. The next day (Karen's birthday!) we will spend in Bangkok before travelling to the Chumphon Cabana eco resort. Some very positive initiatives have been implemented at Chumphon Cabana, including on site water treatment, organic recycling and perhaps most importantly a community development focus. We only have two nights there before heading back to Bangkok and then up to Chiang Rai in the far north of Thailand. We have six days in Chiang Rai and will be visiting the Hill Area Development Foundation (HADF, founded by Tuenjai Deetes) and other initiatives. After Chiang Rai we have two days in Chiang Mai before heading back to Bangkok. Our last week will be spent in the central area of Thailand including our last 3 days at the old city of Ayutaya.

Communication is going to be more of a challenge from now on, with reliance on a dial up global roaming connection through our laptop. However, we will be doing our best to send something for the blog each day.

A little note on how you might help us. We have been very fortunate to have support and assistance in Thailand. This is not guaranteed in all places that we are visiting. If you think you can help in any way please send us a message.

Times on the blog are in NZ time which at present is Current Time Zone offset: GMT/UTC + 13:00 due to our +1:00 hour day light saving. (Michael)

A great story

This is so neat!

While sitting on the plane from NPE to AKL this morning I sat behind a family and felt positive vibes from them (even at 7 am) and wondered what they had been/would be up to (returning home to Auckland from a few days in the Bay visiting friends? - Or taking their kids to the big city for the first days at uni ?). It was too early to ask and I forgot about it becoming busy with my day ahead. So what a surprise to get my question answered and see all of you in the paper that night and read about your exciting expedition; a family on a mission indeed! (we hardly ever read the HB Today but we found one on the drive way this evening so it must have been delivered for a reason !)

I ended up on your web site
(http://www.earthlimited.org/about.html) and I read your thoughts, vision and your attitude to life with great interest.

Positive thinking is indeed the key to better people and hopefully a better world. And indeed each person can make a difference. The "I'm Okay - Your'e Okay" attitude is oh so important and also to convey this positive attitude to life to the people around you including ones children.

Gavin received this email, on Thursday evening, on arrival in Brisbane. (Michael)

Queensland water

We're in Brisbane now with my sister Jill and brother-in-law Nick. Nick has already been talking about the severe water crisis here, which some experts are apparently linking to climate change. The reservoirs that supply Brisbane are down to about 20% of their capacity and dropping. According to Nick water is the No. 1 political issue in SE Queensland now.

At the household level Jill & Nick have installed a water tank to gather rainwater from their garage roof for the garden and have significantly cut water consumption. Apparently there has been about a 40% reduction in water use by households but the reservoirs are still falling.

Brisbane

We have had an enjoyable time in Brisbane city, we traveled in on the new bus only road system, which has encouraged more people to use buses, it was great to see such good initiatives from a major city. The girls cooled off at the inner city 'beach'/pools. The inner city with lots of people, views and food smells - getting us used to what we will be going to in a couple of days - flying to Thailand on the 11th.

birthday boy

"Happy Birthday from Jill and Nick."

Family goes global to make doco

This link may die in due course. The article is published in today's edition of Hawke's Bay Today. I quote only the first sentence and direct you to the article. We are trying to establish how much of the article we can quote here.

Hastings Doctor Gavin Kenny is so passionate about climate change that he decided to buy a camera and 100 one-hour film tapes, pack up his belongings, and take his family on a five-month trip around the world to make a documentary. read more

A quick chat with Karen

In Brisbane now, great flight, all well - girls sleeping - Gavs sleeping so beta go rest 2 - great to chat, its all worth it on gmail, a good move Michael, hope 2 chat again b4 leave Auz, will try to send photo.

Each family member has their own email account to keep in contact with friends and family. We are using Gmail which comes with a Google Account which one signs upto to establish a Google blog -which this is - if more than one of us is online at any one time we can chat from within Gmail - which is how the above message came into being - hence Karen's txt mode. Oh and just in case you were wondering - a full backup of the blog is stored as it is created - you were wondering that weren't you? (Michael)

learning on the job

We've just finished packing. I'm pretty excited to go now, I just want to leave. My friends are all back at school today and I heard that Mr Ryan said I was going away and people were saying like "but Alice isn't going to learn anything". Mr Ryan said "Alice will be learning heaps while she's away". I think that I will be learning heaps of things because it's just going to be a great experience for me and I'm going to study some of the places we're going to, because Mr Ryan wants me to, so I can come back and tell the whole class. Not really anything more to say now. Well bye for now, Ali.

Alice has the honour of offering us our 40th posting on the eve of the big adventure - all the best to the travellers. (Michael)

Hawke's Bay Today

A reporter and photographer from the local paper, Hawke's Bay Today, have also just been here and will probably be running a story in tomorrow's paper. We'll be on our way to Brisbane by then. The final day has flown by. I was hoping to do some final work with the film gear but no time yet, maybe a bit later.

The Logo, the TShirt and...

In the previous post and at the top of the right hand column is our new logo, designed by the family with some great input and final artwork by Margot Macphail from mmdesign. We've had a few T-shirts made up with another version on the back with IMAGINE... under the question Earth Limited?

Love the haircut! (Michael)

The Earth Limited Logo

Almost packed

Almost packed, last minute things to do, all calm and happy, a beaut last day here. Bye to everyone for now, see you in mid July. Thanks to everyone who has helped us to get where we are now. Well, getting up at 5am tomorrow, flying to Auckland, then Brisbane to celebrate birthdays proper, 3 Aquarians, Gav, Ali in Auz, me and Lena in Thailand. I will send photos, xo k

Michael's first 'editorial'

I have written a sort of behind the scenes 'editorial' which is rather large and back-dated it to the first of February - so it doesn't break into the flow of current events. Have a read to find out how you can help us publicise our blog and enhance your blog reading experience as well.

It's happening!

Less than two days before we leave ... no more reunions or birthday parties to organise. Emma is safely in Milan and very excited about being there. We've got our gear in the lounge and are packing away things in our bedrooms along with valuables and breakables, readying the house for the people who will be renting from us for the next 5 months.

It feels like serious focus time now. I've worked incredibly hard since making a clear decision with the family to embark on this journey. It's amazing what has been achieved over the last month and now we're on the edge of leaving. Lena is feeling it, not just packing for a 5 month journey but preparing to leave home.

We're looking at all our gear now, keeping ourselves to the basics with clothes, looking at the equipment etc. and gifts we've bought to share along the way. In the back of my mind I'm also thinking about the really serious side to all of this ... the focus I want to bring to things as soon as we reach Thailand. Am I prepared enough, not just in myself but also to guide Karen, Lena and Alice in supporting me? I believe so.

The interactions I've had with NZ farmers over the last 6 years have given me a lot of confidence that there is a collective voice from farmers everywhere that we all need to be hearing and some very positive stories that we need to be much more aware of. Remember to visit www.earthlimited.org for more background to my work, in case you're new to this site and are not sure what this is all about.

packing

Serious count down

Serious count down, two days left, busy packing packs, cleaning up for new family coming into our place. ( See the two group photos from Karen here - Gavin, and here - Alice ).

Milano images - Gavin December 2005

By way of illustration of a couple of shots of places Emma has mentioned. Above the place where the washer women used to work and below the Duomo (front was being worked on a year ago).

feeling a little tired

Ciao papa, it's so wicked! Today we got up early and went into Milano. Barbara went to work so it was just me and Camille but we saw the Duomo and unfortunately it was being worked on the front but it's stil bella. We found that there are a lot of kinda beggars.. I feel sorry but we kept walking. We then met up with Barbara and she took us to see the old Roman remains. It is so lovely and we saw where the women used to wash their clothes. I think you saw that too. Well the pizza was bene grazie. Staying alone is fine, the language is awesome and I'm really enjoying it! Well that's all for now I am molto stanca so ciao xoxoxoxo

It's time for a few acknowledgements

(as much as I can think of right now)

Firstly a big thankyou to my cousin, Michael Jeans, for his help and support over a long period of time and particularly for getting this blog up and running, as well as taking on the role of editor. Also thanks to Michael for coming down to Hastings and supporting Karen with the Sony DSLR camera we've bought and guiding Karen and the girls with email and other things. It took a lot of pressure off me.

I also owe a very big thank you to Tom Burstyn ( see http://www.howtosavetheworld.co.nz/ ), cinematographer and very generous guy for guiding myself and Lena in the purchase of a digital video camera, sound gear and all the other bits and pieces we've needed... and then guiding us in using the gear, giving us great ideas, and always positive, constructive feedback on our filming over the last month. We've got a long way to go but Tom has really helped us in the right direction.

For those who are interested we have bought a Sony HVR-Z series camera. For the novice documentary film maker I would totally recommend a visit to Christina Fox's website www.urbanfox.tv where you will find an excellent work book for this camera, and also for other cameras. It is an excellent website.

I want to thank Malcolm Kendall at Panavision in Auckland for his assistance and Kate Wright at Sony Business NZ for being very helpful and accommodating.

Eric Cox at Cox World Travel, Napier also deserves a mention for helping us work out our travel itinerary.

A special thankyou to Karin Muller www.japanlandjourney.com whose earlier trip to Viet Nam inspired me and then in her communications to me said to "go for it" and gave me some very direct, and very valuable, advice. Thankyou Karin.

There are plenty of other people to thank, particularly those friends and friends of friends who are going to help us along the way... We'll acknowledge them as we go. Hopefully you've already seen mention of Tuenjai Deetes in Thailand, a very special person, and followed the link to the Hill Area Development Foundation.

Milan

Hey Dad and Mum its Emma we are at Marina's house. I hope the reunion went well and you are all good. I am good but kinda struggling with the Italian but I will be fine :) I didn't write much from Singapore because I was tired. Last night me and Camille slept for about 15 hours. Today after lunch we are taking the bus to Barbara's flat.

Everything here is so different!! I nearly hopped into the driver's seat yesterday.. the flights were long. I watched "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Departed" and "The Prestige" and quite a few more. Its not as cold as we had expected so thats ok... weeeeee!!!!

The buildings are so amazing! Just like you would see in the movies and we saw a great bride that looked like something from lord of the rings... I found at the airport that nearly everyone looks at you. In New Zealand they just walk past you. Everyone is very friendly the alps are HUGE and look pinkish.

I don't know what else to say except I miss you all and yea have fun packing!! Haha :) :) Gotta go, me and Camille are off on a walk. Well Ciao for now xxxxxxxxxxxx

A note from Michael (editor)

Only two days to go until the crew head for their big adventure. Emma and Camille have arrived safely in Milan ( a bit of a story in itself ) perhaps we will hear more from Emma in due course. Things have been busy down in Hawkes Bay - I spent the weekend, before last, there making sure that our communications happen in a timely fashion and spent time with Karen and the new camera - Karen is going to provide us with many memorable images for the blog - and beyond.

This weekend just past Gavin hosted a reunion of his former university classmates - in a superbly well timed event which was - ( I am looking for a quote here Gavin ) ....

This is new the images include those published on the blog and others which did not quite make it.

As departure time arrives the background conversation we have all been having in setting up the blog and email addresses will become public - on the blog - please feel free to join in by posting comments. Simple comments of encouragement along with questions, observations. - I am the gate keeper and hope to use some of your comments to enliven the conversation about this whole venture. ( please note that email addresses are not captured by this process ).

You will note there is no email address on the blog -this is to circumvent spamming. If you wish to email me as editor or Gavin out there somewhere please backtrack to our respective websites and proceed from there.

Thailand itinerary

We are very grateful to our friend in Thailand, Tuenjai Deetes, founder of the Hill Area Development Foundation and currently a Senator on the National Legislative Council. Tuenjai has had one of her staff, Krisakorn Sukavejvorakit, organise a very comprehensive three weeks for us in Thailand. We feel very humbled by what has been organised with many people offering support to us at minimal expense to ourselves. Mr Sukavejvorakit will meet us in Bangkok, where we will be staying at the Phranakorn-Nornlen hotel After a couple of days there we are heading south for a couple of days to the Chumphon Cabana eco resort where many very positive initiatives have been taken, involving the local community.

Early birthday party for Alice

For Alice: 14 classmates say an early happy birthday/safe travels.

Ali had her party today, with 14 girls from her class (all of the girls except Rosalie were here)... they went to a movie and then came back here to open pressies and then have some food. Ali got some nice pressies... quite a few sets of earings and other things. ( Quoting Gavin in an email to Emma )

Test Picassa album

before