personal

Personal Preparation

Getting ourselves ready for the adventure ahead

As complete novices with this independent overland idea, there's a lot we've needed to get to grips with, and plenty more to learn and look forward to, both before and during the trip itself.

Where do you start?

Heidi had always wanted to somehow travel home down through Africa, but knew that she couldn't do this on her own as a single girl, and was considering the option of possibly joining a group on an Overland truck, although she also felt she would prefer a more independent method of travel.

After cycling around Europe in 1993, I had at one stage considered just carrying on down through Africa, but safety and politics at the time prevented this. So the start of an idea for me came a few years later, after meeting a couple called Vanessa & David and their landy "Chief", who had just completed a drive from London to Cape Town to arrive in Cape Town for the Millenium celebrations.

At the time, career and relationships weren't where they needed to be for me to indulge myself, but years later, after meeting Heidi, we crossed paths with like minded people who were in the early stages of preparing to drive down to Durban/Cape Town and were looking for company. These were Tim & Ciara Korving and Justin & Becky Marshall, who had a similar burning passion for exploring Africa, although they were slightly misguided in their choice of vehicles (joke!). LandCruisers are OK I suppose.

Sadly, although we joined in with the initial planning meetings for the trip, we couldn't afford to join them for the drive in 2005. We had just spent our savings on something more important. Our wedding!! And we still didn't have a Landy ....

That all changed on 21st July 2005, when... thanks to our first eBay experience... we became the proud owners of Duzi2, our lovely Landy.

When you mention to people that you are preparing to drive down through Africa, you get a full spectrum of responses. There are those who excitedly get very envious and mention how much they have dreamed of doing something similar, and still might. There are those who have never actually thought of it, but think it sounds like an exciting adventure, those who say "Why?" and can't see themselves doing it, and there are those whose eyes glaze over at the very mention of discomfort, Africa, risk, Landrovers, etc. ..... and then there are those who have been there, done that and got the stickers and paintings all over their vehicles to prove it.

We were somehow lucky enough to meet a group of this last type at the "London 2 Brighton Landrover Run" in 2005, shortly after having bought our landy. They were very noticeable parked up together, with rooftop tents, stickers, spades, rope coiled around the front bumper or elsewhere, and sand ladders bolted on. We, by comparison, were like a blank canvas.

We had just met Em & Jasper (& Ursula), Peter & Sarah and Justin & Becki. We couldn't get over the enthusiasm, support and generosity of all three couples when they found out our intention of driving down. They started offering us all sorts of gems of advice from their experiences, but it was like drinking water out of a fire hose, a little goes in, but most goes right over your head. This was a fantastic booster for our enthusiasm for the trip, not that we needed much.

We have met up with these lovely people on a number of occasions now, including the Billing Landrover show, Sodbury Sortout and the London2Brighton 2006.

They know SO much. Em and Jas have been especially generous, supportive and inspiring. Jas has even been under Duzi2 with me showing how to regrease all the necessary places, what to look out for, sniffing gearbox oil to see whether it is correct or not, leading me through the minefield of stuff at Sodbury Sortout in Newbury, managing to find an incredible amount of exactly the type of things we will need, advising on what is good and what isn't, and even modifying our ladder for the rooftent, when we found it wasn't long enough. Em in the meantime has been giving Heidi many of the hints and tips for things that girls worry about on trips like ours, and she knows a helluva lot about the mechanical stuff too.