Tomorrow we leave Cape Town for Heard Island.

The last 4 days have been a blur. Immediately on arrival in Cape Town it has been a busy period of time pulling last strands of this expedition together.

By the time I arrived the two air beam tents had been erected and were already the subject of much discussion.   They needed cleaning that was very obvious but how and by whom? Thankfully the decision was made to engage a commercial cleaning company. Looking back if we had tried to complete the full pressure wash and interior wipe down they completed for us we would never have achieved our planned departure day and time. As it was out team cleaned every metre of Velcro on the tents to make sure that there was no soil, or worse still seeds attached there.

All of the expedition equipment was emptied from the container that shipped from USA onto the floor a warehouse floor at Victoria wharf.   All of the cases were opened, contents checked and then ordered on the floor in the reverse order required on Heard Island.   Everything is to be reverse loaded to the BraveHeart today.

Final shopping trips have been launched for all sorts of “last minute” requirements –

• Gas cylinders for stoves, heaters and cook tops
• Dehydrated food packs for the field team
• (More) large stakes to anchor the radio antennas
• Personal food items from the local supermarket

And this has been going on to with the backdrop of the Cape Towns public Port area. If you live in NZ , think Viaduct area Auckland, if you are in Australia, think Pyrmont Sydney. My first day in the city was on the day of the Argus bike race, the biggest organised bike race in the world. There are so many people in the area.

And with such a resource near by it has not been an unwelcome effort to “drop tools” and take a coffee or a lunch break at one of the many eatery’s in the area.

So today it’s final preparation, all equipment loads to the Braveheart, we get final details of the immigration requirements that we need to complete tomorrow and then one last walk around the port area that we have come to call “home” for the past 5 days.