Goodbyes

The boat left Hobart on the Saturday, 20th of October. Sam arrived on the Friday and checked into the hotel where we would spend our last night together for 15 months. Here is the last picture I got of us together. I met her after finishing up at the division ad dropped my gear off too, before heading to a pub to meet a lot of the other expeditioners and introduce Sam to the people I would be spending a lot of time with in the near future. It was a great night, and a fair bit of alcohol was consumed. Eventually we snuck away and had a lovely tea in a Fish Cafe thing (Mures) before retiring for the evening.
The next day I had briefings from early in the morning. I had to run through Hobart to get back to my usual accommodation to pick up all my gear ready for loading onto the boat. I just made it! My Mum and Sam's Mum flew into Hobart on the Saturday morning, sorted out their rooms and headed (with Sam) to the Salamanca markets where I met them around lunchtime. We were all a bit tired and not real keen to do anything in particular so we wandered around the markets for a bit. We had 4 more hours than I had expected as the ship's departure was delayed to 8pm for technical reasons. Eventually we end up at Mures again for tea, which was a lot busier than it had been the previous evening! We barely had time to eat our meals before I had to be back at the boat.
The final goodbyes were hard, but all the girls were very good and I don't think anyone shed a tear on the night except me (just one or two). It was great to leave on such a high note with everyone happy, and great to finally be on my way south!