The process of getting yourself from one part of the world to another is not terribly complex. Get a plane ticket, pack some bags and off you go. However, airlines are quite fussy about how much you take with you on a plane and don’t want to include all of your possessions in your luggage allowance. To fully move 5,000 miles and across an ocean, you need an alternative. That means loading all of your stuff up in a shipping container, sending it across the ocean and hoping it doesn’t drop off a ship on the way. The first step is having the shipping company come and pack everything up. Our street was not suitable for bringing in a 40’ ISO container so they loaded a couple of trucks up to take everything to their site for transfer to the container.

The smaller trucks came on the first day when the crew showed up with the packing material to get everything packed up ready to go. The second day was the loading and packing any remaining items. The bigger trucks were needed for the loading. They were really efficient about packing the items into the truck to minimise space used. Quite a game of Tetris, I imagine. Then the doors get closed, and a truck drives off with almost all of your belongings in it. Fingers crossed you see it all again!