They took everything they wanted, which is why they left me here.

Roll-top Chihuahua-Tex Dry Bag

As our start date draws closer the pile of 'essential' gear seems to be growing like a mushroom in what used to be our spare bedroom and is now a resembles the warehouse of a small Chinese sweatshop.

PU coated nylon fabric, shiny stainless bits and pieces, rope, anchors, dry bags, solar panels, compasses, maps, first aid kits, mozzie repellent … and a dog.

Our two wildly energetic pups have to put up with a lot of our craziness (oh, how they suffer), so much that we believe that they are an entirely new breed, the Adventurehuahua! They have scrambled up all manner of hills, run for miles through the bush and up and down countless sand dunes, they regularly climb cliffs that most agile people dare not attempt, they have swum hundreds of meters of open ocean to save walking around to the next headland, and despite their silent protests, they occasionally don their doggy PFDs to join us for a paddle - sometimes kilometres offshore.

Although they are probably superbly qualified to join us on the Archipallo expedition, we simply cannot find the space in our kayaks for two pint-sized stowaways. I am not certain they would quite understand the risks of swimming in crocodile infested estuaries either.

Despite their undoubtedly tiny brains, these puppies seem to fully comprehend our intentions to lump them on our accommodating family (thank you!!!) for months on end while we flit off around the world. Despite being offered more comfortable bedding than an Arabian prince, Pippy has taken to sleeping in a box of dry bags in the spare room / gear pile, and I am sure she is signalling her desire to find one that fits.

I half expect to be sitting on a sandy cay somewhere up in north QLD, rummaging through my boat only to discover that the dry bag containing the last of our emergency rations has two hungry puppies wriggling about inside it!

I promise, Winnie and Pip, if we could fit you in the boats, we would.

Are we human, or are we camera?

Watching the little screen.

Every now and then the stars align and you find yourself in an incredible situation, like dancing in the pit surrounded by the massive stage at the U2 concert in Sydney this week (oh yeah, I am bragging!).

As amazing as U2’s performance was, the vibe of being surrounded by a full stadium of roaring fans, and the sheer spectacle of the show, what really caught my eye was the number of people living the show through their camera/phone/video/other small recording device.

It seems that for many people the only way to fully appreciate a spectacular moment is to have a record of it in high definition digital. Now, I am as guilty as any of enjoying the freedom of digital photography (I did take this piccie of Bono) but perhaps there is a line between just experiencing and appreciating the moment, or purely recording it.

I don’t suspect I’ll bump into Bono or The Edge in a kayak next year, however I do anticipate experiencing many incredible moments. I’m sure I’ll return with bulging SD cards and hard drives but after seeing the pulsing sea of small digital screens at U2, I think I’ll make sure to balance my camera snapping with just pure memories.

I know photos are important – many of my early childhood memories are thin threads connecting the photos in dusty old family albums. However, to just enjoy and appreciate a precious moment (or a concert) without the need to re-set the shutter speed surely has even more value for the soul.

Going a bit potty!

A kayak is not a camel. It's not a backpack, a MTB, 4WD or shopping trolley. It is a kayak.

In some ways Lain and I would have loved to just decide on this adventure and impulsively begin the journey the very next day - having too much time to think and plan is not always a good thing for us. It is like when you quit a job - you want to hand in your resignation and just walk out the door, not hang around for another two or four weeks pretending to be interested. Let alone waiting for months on end just to get to the start line.

I'll restlessly lie awake till all hours, my mind on auto-pilot, refusing to sleep until the tiniest details of the smallest problems have been examined from every angle. What if this happens? What else could that be used for? How would this work? Is this going to be better than that? With every solution there's a mad scramble to punch a quick note into the phone so my mind can release its grip on it's prize and finally let me rest. Unfortunately my insomnia-driven solutions don't always work.

Our kayaks are actually pretty similar to a camel.  These boats are renowned for having a large volume (or storage space) which means we can pack some luxuries that we wouldn't normally take on a hiking trip. The somewhat weightless nature of our load (I'll eat these words on a mudflat somewhere) mean we'll be able to take much more than a backpack - over 100kg each during some stages. I've seen Nepali sherpas being undoubtedly squashed hauling loads well over 100kg but fortunately there's no need for a fully laden sea kayak at Namche Bazaar.

We are limited though, and your average car camper would gasp in shock and awe at the tiny spaces into which we must jam a year's worth of possessions, food, water, emergency gear, and the huge pile of solutions to midnight problems. "But where do you put the fridge?" Hmmmmmm…… So all of our gear has to meet the criteria - it has to fit, it needs to be functional and not too bulky or heavy.

And it is on this delicate balance that I am stuck. If only I'd spent more time with camels. My conundrum (or is this now just an expensive obsession) is to work out exactly what cookware to take. Yeah, that sounds like it is worth losing sleep over! Well it isn't as easy as it sounds.

While we'll have a multi-fuel stove with us we hope to cook on campfires as often as possible. Most of our meals for the first few months will be dehydrated. We hope to catch fish (BIG fish), regularly bake bread, drink plenty of tea, we are big fans of one-pot meals, but not all the time, and we can't keep leftovers. So multiple pots is good, a big frying pan is good and something capable of baking a steamy fresh loaf is good - all at the same time. We can't simply fill our kayaks with a year's worth of aluminium foil.

I've tried quite a few solutions to this problem and am still no closer to an answer. I really like the spun steel Aussie Camp Oven - it ticks most of the boxes but is just a bit big (it only just fits in the large front hatch). Perhaps combined with a billy we'll have a winner, or perhaps there's still a few sleepless nights for this little black duck.

Anybody have suggestions? Not about insomnia - about cooking pots!