Nearly screamed this morning - the crate hadn't arrived, so crating is delayed till tomorrow. Luckily the shipping people are being very cool about it all.

I think Easter Island may be out as a stopover place. I spent most of yesterday afternoon at a flight consolidator (considered to the Oz's best) attempting to make some sense out of the schedules. Actually, my proposed itinerary was easy compared with the poor chap next to me who wanted to fly to Vladivostok, then LA, then back to Sydney. Non e possibile.

It transpires that the cheapest way to do Sydney/Easter Is/Santiago is via Israel (8 hours in the transit lounge at Tel Aviv) and takes a total of 35 hours; go figure that one out on a map of the world. The next best route takes in 3 nights in Tahiti and a fair time in the transit lounge at LA. So, as there are 2 flights a week from Santiago to Easter Island anyway it looks easiest although not cheapest to do it
from there.

The next challenge was a flight from here direct to Santiago; well, I say direct, but the shortest route (16 hours) is via Auckland (only one-and-a-half hours in the transit lounge). Leaves here 10:15 on Saturday morning and arrives two hours later - it crosses the dateline so you gain 14 hours, and I'll then be 3 hours behind you instead of 11 hours ahead. For A$300 less I could have had a 35-hour series of flights more or less as above, but I really, really couldn't face that. And the shipper reckons there's a fair chance of the bike being on the same plane, which would be great. The chap at the flight place was extremely helpful, and is not only dropping off my ticket at the campsite for me but has also made sure my ticket is a movable feast - that way if there are any more crating delays I can take a later flight without penalty.

I'm really looking forward to Chile and Argentina; they both sound fantastic places where the superiority of the campsites is in inverse proportion to the state of the roads (especially in Patagonia). Tim Rawson, are you out there? Why are there so many places in Patagonia called Rawson? Any relation? The Welsh towns sound rather fun as well.