OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
The end of our journey is in sight, so it will soon be time to sell our beloved Landy. Our 1996 Land Rover Defender 110, station wagon model (5 doors), with a 300 TDi engine, has carried us around Africa for around 50,000 kilometres now. It has a cleverly designed interior that is suitable for two people, is equipped…
This is specifically aimed for those buying Land Rover Defenders, but certain points are applicable to other vehicles. It is skewed towards those buying a Defender for an overland expedition, but is applicable to all potential buyers. Top tips: - Buy early, ideally 6-12 months before your trip. This gives you loads of time to get to know your vehicle…
Leon, Nicaragua Where I stayed <divclass=”” style=”padding-bottom:7px”> Hotel Austria Leon (Leon hotels) We have been asked a few times about the vehicle we are driving on this trip along with its equipment. So what follows is not about where we have been recently but is to provide some info on our Land Rover and the stuff in it. VEHICLE Ours…
We drove from the Turkish border to Tekirdag, a slightly grisly port town on the south coast. We arrived late and went in search of food. In a café at one o’clock in the morning we met Tayfur. Tayfur is a French language student studying in Tekirdag who very kindly offered to accommodate all six of us on the floor…
It was with a reluctant parting of eyelids and a woollen head that I surfaced. My slumber had been prematurely interrupted by shouted chants and sounds of a ruckus in the street below. I stumbled woodenly to the open window, squinting in the sharp morning sunlight. At length my eyes focussed on the Thessaloniki magistrate’s court not fifty yards away,…
Two things stood out from our brief visit to Albania, the cars on the road and their drivers. I read somewhere that in Albania 80% of cars are Mercedes. Although this seems ridiculous, our experience told us it couldn’t be far from the truth. This is apparently due to a large scale smuggling operation after the government collapsed in the…
I will have to continue this post as our only remaining Wallace has gone missing. He was last seen bartering with a wizened old man over the purchase of some antiquated padlocks. The price was settled at a bag of gold coin and Bas’ immortal soul. Bas certainly has an eye for a bargain. So with Bas otherwise engaged in…
‘You’ll pretty much just need your flip flops and board shorts Guy’… This was the advice given to me from my brother, Sebastian, prior to joining the three intrepid doctors for the first several months of the trip through Europe and Turkey. For some reason these words have echoed in my mind, in between the shivers and teeth jitters, during…
Hi Folks Been very quite for 1 year – sorry about that. Got the Blog mojo back and thought we would post some pics of some of the things we have done to Dassie the Land Rover. We are going to add some more pics to this post shortly, but the key items are shown in the images below. The…
We left Bratislava across the Danube. I was excited to cross this great river that has always formed one of history’s most significant borders. Looking across the misty banks, I could picture anxious roman legionnaires at the limits of civilisation, surveying the dark, endless unknown from their walls. As we crossed over the space-age soviet bridge, I imagined we were…
Well what is there to say about Prague? I suppose most of what went on in Prague must inevitably stay in Prague. There was our first burglary, brilliant Belgians, pedunk-a-dunk, free beer and two midgets in a cage. The rest is unutterable. Weary, bleary eyed and slightly sheepish we left the capital of Czech and struck out towards Bratislava in…
We packed up and hesitantly started down the road toward Puerto Vallarta first thing in the morning. We had such a good time in Sayulita, that it was difficult to leave, but the road was calling. My check engine light had been giving me some problems since the trip into the jungle the day before. Fortunately, I had brought my…
Our journey to Dover had two key stops: my parents’ house in Somerset and Dan’s father’s house in Maidenhead. Dan and I took our cars up to Somerset and waited for Rich who would drive up once the landy had passed its MOT. We had been frantically dashing around for the past week trying to get everything ready. We still…
About a year ago I posted a poll on the website asking people how far they thought we would get on our journey around Africa. Many replied, about 63 in total, some of whom thought that we wouldn’t even make it out of Europe! As I write this, we’ve been on the road for well over a hundred days, travelled…
Last week Friday we received the Frontrunner Accessories for the Landy and I was like a kid in a toy store. I got to spend the weekend measuring and drilling and bolting stuff on to other stuff. Man heaven. The guys at Frontrunner SA were kind enough to sponsor us with an aluminium sump guard, an aluminium bonnet protector a…
On a recent trip to the Baviaanskloof with two Norwegian overlanders (www.unurban.no) we learnt a few things about ourselves. Naturally there was the mine is bigger, quicker and smarter than yours camping/ vehicle competition, but in true overlander style less is more and he who has set up, sat down and has beer in hand first – wins. Well, we…
On a recent trip to the Baviaanskloof with two Norwegian overlanders (www.unurban.no) we learnt a few things about ourselves. Naturally there was the mine is bigger, quicker and smarter than yours camping/ vehicle competition, but in true overlander style less is more and he who has set up, sat down and has beer in hand first – wins. Well, we…
We are not on our way yet, but our route is now clear: we’ll drive to Italy, take the ferry to Tunisia, and then go through Libya to Egypt. This means that in a few weeks time we hope to travel through the French Rivièra and the Italian boot on our way to Trapani, from where we’ll cross to Tunis…
Well – after 48,361km and now having proper tools, a garage and some spare time, Nick set about doing modifications to Dassie to make her into the 4×4 we wished we had when we started but why make the changes and what did we do……?? Our interior build was rushed and basically shook itself to bits – now used proper…
Happy New Year folks! As part of a look back at our Africa Overland trip, we compiled a 10 minute film that offers an insight into the road conditions you are going to face if you travel the West Coast / Central African route towards South Africa. From the deserts of North Africa and the lush greens of West Africa…
We all knew it would happen, even with all the planning, all the precautions, all the money thrown at it and still the Land Rover breaks down with 3 days to go. Well perhaps that’s not fair, it was running but the turbo, yes it has a turbo, was blowing more oil than air around the engine. I’m not very…
With 2 weeks to go we thought it would be a good idea to start packing. August the 16th, our off date, is fast approaching and with the exception of our visas, injections, Carnet, international driving license, passport photos, tent, a finalised route, ferry ticket and tea bags we’re good to go!…