"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" as Robbie Burns said.

Our original plan was to be on our way early February, but things conspired against us.

Our first spanner in the works came when the US government changed the rules earlier in the year for getting a visa. The US Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) allows most British Citizen passport holders to visit the US for up to 90 days without a visa, and we had to get authorisation from the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA) before we left home in 2011 for our round-the-world bit.

From the back-end of January 2016 most people who have travelled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia or Yemen since March 2011 no longer qualify for entry under the VWP and existing ESTAs could be cancelled. Since our second trip overland to Cape Town had gone through both Sudan and Syria in March 2011, we were unable to use the easy online application system and had to hurriedly arrange time off work, and get interviewed at the nearest US Embassy in London.

So, up at 3am to get a coach to Victoria, and then stood in a 3-hour queue at the embassy - just as well we were early birds. We were there 2 hours before our interview time, and there was already a queue of around 200 chinese people.

Fortunately the process was well-organised and the lady who interviewed us recognised that we were adventure-travellers with no ulterior motive. We told her about this blog as evidence of our past experiences, showed her the shipping company paperwork for the Land Rover and I also had a letter from my current employer showing they were holding my job open for me on our return. Relief all round when the lady gave us the good news that we would be authorised and would be getting our passports back after a week.

Our tentative route (in blue)

Once we had the passports back we could continue our planning, and Bob could hand in his notice at work. Since our original plans had us leaving in February, we had to re-arrange our route and timings as I had been given 7-months leave from work, and we didn't want to be stuck anywhere in the rainy season.

These plans are still fluid, and we will make the final decision about what direction to take once we're over the Darien Gap and into South America - we can either go clockwise from Colombia into Venezuela or anti-clockwise from Colombia into Ecuador. Problems with the border between Venezuela and Colombia may give us no option, but we’ll deal with that when we get there.

The second spanner in the works was caused by miscommunication and ignorance on our part about the shipping process. There were problems using the possible RoRo service as vehicles have to be completely empty (which ours is not), and the roof-tent was potentially a problem (being too high for the door of a standard container).

All of this meant that Foxtrot (the Land Rover) didn't leave our house for a haulage company in Northampton until March 7th, with the tent being ratchet-strapped on rather than bolted, so that it could easily be removed should the situation arise, which it did!

Both the tent and vehicle are in a container hopefully in New York, and should have docked April 2nd. We have booked flights for a couple of days later giving customs and the shipping company the time to sort things out, and are hoping to re-bolt the tent and leave New York to go north towards our first stop at Niagara Falls. Fingers crossed.