Top Ten Tuesday - Things We Can't Survive Without

With the minidiots planning to fit everything they need for 17 days into a mini I think the pitstoppers can definitely manage in their Toyota Conquest, with space to spare, well maybe not space to spare but we can cross roof rack off the list of things to buy perhaps...

All this being said I've spent alot of time thinking about what I can't live without on the trip and what the first ten things I'm going to put in my suitcase are and I've narrowed it down to:

1) Headlamp - yes I'm vaguely frightened of the dark and if I'm going to get eaten by a lion in any late-night tent to bathroom rambles I want to at least see it happen to me. Perhaps I also need a little camera attached to the light for when they want real-life footage in my bio-pic.
2) A Kindle - apparently they have 6-8 weeks battery life and I can't survive 8 hours a day in a car without something to read. There will be another blog post (or 10) about what on earth is suitable reading material but that is definitely for another day.
3) Insect repellant - it may be winter, we may be hardy but I can't help it if my blood is sweet and I certainly don't intend to spend 2 weeks scratching at myself. My recent brush with bed bugs has once more brought the reality of insects and their bites to my coddled first world existance.
4)  Sunscreen - I don't deny I long to be nut brown but Lyn's nose peeling (not her fault, the fault of ten hours at the border - yet more content for another posting) has reminded me the perils of sunning one's self. There is of course the great fear of old-before-my-time skin (and there is no space for anti-ageing cream on this trip) and skin cancer. 'Nough said.
5) Passport - fairly obvious but important
6) Cold Hard Cash - I don't think any officials that might need a bit of palm greasing will carry a card swipe machine.
7) Address book with contact numbers written down in pen, on paper. I read recently that you know you're old when you carry a filofax (good thing I don't then) but we best have contact numbers somewhere accessible for the hugely unlikely (but then almost definitely going to happen) situation when not one of our phones is accessible (lost, stolen, not charged) and we really really need to call mum and there's somehow a payphone to hand, or perhaps a kindly stranger with a phone.
8) Headache pills - self explanatory
9) Wheel jack. We may not know anything about cars but we can change a tyre so we should at least be prepared to do that.
10) Duct tape and Swiss Army knife - homage to McGyver - he's gotten out of worse situations than we'll find ourselves in using these two items. Surely we can too, after all we're a scientist, a writer and an organising fundi. There isn't a lot we can't do!