Plans are now coming together for the next part of my journey, and I have booked my flights from Perth to Nice in the south of France, where I am going to see the Cannes Film Festival. I was very lucky to find just the flight I needed with Qantas, and was able to use the Frequent Flyer points I have collected over the past couple of years, keeping costs down significantly.
I fly out of Perth on the 11th May, just over two weeks away, and arrive in Nice the next day after 33 hours of travel. From there I head straight to Cannes, where I hope I have some accommodation organised, and try to see and experience as much as I can of the festival. I have had a couple of people contact me via the website saying that they may be able to get me a couple of tickets, which would be excellent.
From Cannes I fly to London on 24th May, and head to Cooper’s Hill in Gloucester for the Bank Holiday Monday Cheese Rolling Festival, which will be great fun.
I have a month or so in the UK, where there are several tricky goals to attempt to achieve:
Gather 5 Ian Ushers
Do a Wingwalk
Ride the Wall Of Death
Meet Richard Branson
I had also hoped to fly to Moscow during this time, where two goals could be achieved:-
MIG Flight
Weightlessness Flight
But the MIG flight particularly is horrendously expensive, and several financial factors are conspiring against me!! Firstly, it took a lot longer to sell my house than I anticipated, which meant I had to pour more money than I had expected in to maintain the mortgage. Secondly, when the house did finally sell, it did so for significantly less than I had hoped for originally, due to the current economic climate, which leaves me with a much smaller lump sum to play with. And thirdly, again due to the current harsh financial realities, I did not get the three months of well-paid work in a mine that I had hoped for during my time here in Perth, so have not earned a cent here!!
So I have decided to postpone the Russia trip this time round and conserve my capital, hoping that I can secure a book deal, or Walt Disney decides to go ahead with the “ALife4Sale” movie, or some magnanimous sponsor steps forward, or some other financial miracle occurs, which would allow me to schedule these more expensive goals for around the same time next year.
I am running into other challenges too, which is part of the nature of trying to achieve goals, of course, but it really does feel like two steps forward and one step back at times. I suppose there would be a lot less fun and satisfaction in achieving these things if everything was easy.
One problem I have run into concerns the Bognor Birdman Festival, where people in all sorts of outrageous costumes hurl themselves off the end of the pier. The pier was damaged by fire in 2008, and “due to the demolition of an 18 metre (60 ft) length of the end of Bognor pier, the 2008 Birdman event was cancelled in Bognor, as it was thought that the new water depth of less than 12 feet (3.7 m) at the new end of the pier posed a safety risk to contestants. The 2008 event was eventually held in Worthing, staying in West Sussex. Worthing look set to keep the International Birdman Rally for the next 5 years.” (Ref: Wikipedia)
I contacted Worthing Council, and was directed to their new Birdman website. I had hoped that the event would take place in early or mid July, as in previous years, but was dismayed to find that it is scheduled for 22nd and 23rd August, when I will be climbing mountains in Colorado.
The only way I could make it this year would be to re-schedule the “7 Peaks in 7 Days” trip, and fly back from the States to the UK for the weekend, an expense I can neither justify nor afford. The event is on a little earlier in August next year, but still falls outside of my 100 week period, so it looks like it might be one of my 100 goals that I don’t achieve! Oh dear!
