Overland Live - The Blog about Overland Expedition & Adventure Travel

Internet Forums - Love 'em or hate 'em

2012-02-01T21:56:00.000+11:00

The overland and 4x4 world is full of them... love them or hate them, internet forums are here to stay. Regardless if you are an overland enthusiast, a Land Rover or Toyota Fan, there are more forums for you to join and threads to read than time allows. Some are very active, some are dormant so here's the top 19 internet forums...

What makes a successful forum? Timely topics, active users and good moderators.

I took time to actively search out the most popular Overland forums (vehicles & motorbikes), Land Rover specific and Toyota Land Cruiser forums. Here's the list (details below) I generated and the number of registered users per forum, number of threads and posts per thread. Congrats to the Toyota Land Cruiser Forum ih8mud for being the only forum to list active users. Two additional forums are worth mentioning: UK GSer and ExplorOz : Both charge a membership fee.

Internet Forums - Registered Users

Unique Toyota Land Cruiser 79 Series

2012-01-26T20:25:00.003+11:00

I knew that Land Rovers had a tendency to be radically modified until I came across these two Toyota Land Cruiser 79Series.

Toyota Zone, the magazine for Toyota owners in South Africa, published two articles with links to the unique Land Cruisers below... Be sure to click on the photos to read the full articles on the Toyota Zone website:

The Collins Family Land Cruiser Camper

Schalk and Retha Kruger - Six Wheel Land Cruiser

Land Rover Ambulance - A neat alternative!

2012-01-18T20:47:00.001+11:00

Land Rover Defender Ambulance

Overlanding in a warm climate is ideal and offers the benefits of living outside your vehicle but often the overland route is not across the plains of Africa and rather rambling over the Mongolian Plateau. In that scenario, having an overland camper is perfect. When the foul weather rolls in, you can quickly and easily hibernate in the camper away from the rough weather.

I had just returned from my Trans-Africa trip so was in no position to make an offer on this nicely kitted Land Rover Defender Ambulance which I spotted for sale in 2006. I am not sure who the current owner is - if you do know, please get in touch.

Read more »

Thirty Thousand - Film Review

2012-01-15T21:21:00.001+11:00

Why do you travel overland? Is it to claim a title of completing a continent overland? Is it to explore cultures? Or simply to surf uncharted waters along the West coast of Africa?

This is exactly what three Australian surfers did in 2010. Andrew, Richard and Tristan equipped a Toyota Land Cruiser troopy and headed South searching for those uncharted surfing waves along the West coast of Africa. The emphasis of their trip was not the overland travel, rather the surf.

I managed to squeeze into a packed cinema to watch the premier of their film which has been launched on DVD as well. The film is only 50min long but keeps you entertained as the crew head South highlighting a few surfing spots along the West coast. Majority of the film is focused on the surf which will appeal to all surfers, however, it has just enough content of the African continent to keep you watching.

Read more »

Adventure Travel Film Festival - Australia 2012

2012-01-11T19:34:00.001+11:00

The Adventure Travel Film Festival 2012

Exciting news... the Adventure Travel Film Festival, hosting by Austin Vince and Lois Pryce is coming to Australia.
The event dates are Friday 24th February to Sunday 26th February 2012. The event will be held in Bright, VIC.

Be sure to watch the Film Festival preview as it is a sure way to excite you and make you want to attend!

Read more »

Africa Overland Vehicle Choice - 2011 Statistics

2012-01-06T07:34:00.000+11:00

The main focus for the Africa Overland Network is to link past, current and future independent overland websites. As a result, the website has captured journey time, primary route and vehicle choice. It is currently the most updated website dedicated to independent overlanders. As a result, the statistics on vehicle choice and travel time tell an interesting story.

Leading up to 2010, the Land Rover was the preferred vehicle of choice for the overlander. There were a number of reason why Land Rover was the preferred vehicle: Majority of trip started from the North and headed South across Africa. The cost of equipping a Land Rover was generally cheaper in the Northern hemisphere due to the availability of spare parts, overland accessories and certified mechanics.
Toyota was catching up - with the cost of the vehicle, availability of spares and accessories, the landscape was changing... The Toyota Land Cruiser was becoming affordable, and offered an alternative to Land Rover.
You can read all about Land Rover vs Toyota in the 2010 report: Which Overlander?

Big Changes in 2011
This year has been an interesting one... two big highlights have occurred that are worth mentioning.

Read more »

London to Cape Town in 10 Minutes

2012-01-02T18:26:00.000+11:00

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 to the mud of Cameroon and rain forest of Gabon, this video has the lot.

You can down load the GPS track and way points for the entire route at our GPS page

London to Cape Town in 10 Minutes Film

We did a fair bit of off-road driving as well as main roads so the video has a mix of road types for you to see. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did driving it!

Safe travels!

Nick
www.langebaan-sunset.com
Twitter

Importing your 4x4 into South Africa (Duty Free)

2011-12-28T01:14:00.000+11:00

Hi folks, if you are reading this, you are either about to embark on an overland trip, taking part in one or just about to complete one. Either way, if you are a returning South African (like my wife) we want to share our experience of importing our 4x4 (Land Rover) duty free into SA after our London to Cape Town trip 2010/11 Latest news / About us - Langebaan Sunset - Stonehenge UK to Cape Town SA - 2010/11. [This process is likely to be the same for a motorbike or truck traveling on a Carnet]

We offer the following summary / check list for any returning South African citizen that has a foreign registered vehicle and wishes to import it into SA free of duty. There are several things that you need to consider BEFORE you set out as there are some items that need to be addressed in your departing country before you set out on your journey if you want to avoid a lot of hassle when you get to South Africa. Even though there are various guidelines available on this process, things "on the ground" are often different and even our clearing agent in Cape Town had to jump through a few hoops.

Smartphone Apps for Overlanding

2011-12-19T19:13:00.000+11:00

Just about every overlander planning a trip has the use of a smartphone, a tablet or a multimedia device like an iPod Touch. The usefulness of the device does often depend on an internet connection and with data plans available in every country, it is worth taking a phone along that is unlocked and open to any GSM network.

Having a useful app on the phone makes it even more worthwhile... here are a few that I use and have found useful - Road Trip, TapaTalk, Offline Maps and the generic GPS app:

Read more »

The Adventure Travel Film Festival 2012 - Preview

2011-12-13T19:27:00.001+11:00

Hosted by Austin Vince and Lois Pryce, the UK Adventure Travel Film Festival is a must for the 2012 diary.

The Adventure Travel Film Festival

Here's a sneak preview which the team have created to entice us to participate in the 2012 event:

Read more »

Rough Guide to Richard Trillo

2011-12-10T08:38:00.000+11:00

Richard Trillo - Author

Taking a good travel guide book with you on your overland journey is mandatory. A good travel guide book can remind you that there are often remote locations that are easily accessible with your own vehicle and worth the visit.

I recently stumbled across the author of The Rough Guide to West Africa and The Rough Guide to Kenya on the internet. Richard Trillo, author of the two books mentioned above and author of First-Time Africa keeps various blogs and his twitter account active with various updates to his books, and interesting commentary via twitter.

Richard Trillo's Amazon Bio:

I first went to Africa in 1977, with a vague idea that I could hitchhike all the way to Timbuktu from my family home in the New Forest. I left with a friend, with $100 each and a copy of the Michelin map. No guidebooks, no mobile phones, not much sense. We got to the fabled city, and home again, largely by good luck and the kindness of others, having learned what a visa is (a hard lesson when you're already half way across the Sahara and the embassy is in Algiers) and what malaria feels like. Back in the UK I went to university, got a degree in sociology, and later went to London University's School of Oriental & African Studies to do a Master's Degree in East African Ethnography and Linguistics.

Africa Orbital

2011-12-07T14:41:00.000+11:00

A fantastic photograph from the Africa Orbital team - Western Sahara (Nov 2010)

Back to Broke...

2011-12-04T18:24:00.000+11:00

Oisin Hughes

Combining a travel blog, with good video is a tough job to do when travelling overland. Carrying the equipment on a BMW GS makes it even tougher. For one Irish overlander, Oisin Hughes, his world trip offered a fantastic insight into motorcycle overland travel - his humour, his desire for remote locations and his personality made for a fab reading experience. His video below sums up the experience.

Read more »

Gosh, we are dirty...

2011-12-01T15:28:00.000+11:00

Planning for your Trans-Africa overland adventure often focuses on the largest aspects of the trip, namely, the vehicle, the route options, the equipment, and so the list goes on. Sometimes the attention to the daily detail is missed in the planning and you only start to realize it when you start your trip...

Take for example the daily roads majority of us prefer to travel on: unpaved gravel and sand roads. Fun to drive but they have a fundamental flaw - dust.

Read more »

Africa Overland: What the Hell are we doing here?

2011-11-27T19:48:00.001+11:00

What the hell are we doing here? Might be a question you have asked yourself on your overland adventure...
Authors Murray Gough and Peter Travers turned there late 90's Trans-Africa adventure into a book and video titled "What the hell are we doing here". It's a fun read highlighting one of the last routes from North across Central Africa and into East Africa prior to political turmoil that changed the route South.

The DVD can now be found on YouTube:

Ural Sidecar Overland

2011-11-21T20:06:00.001+11:00

I spotted two Urals Motocycles on the Hume Highway heading from Sydney to Canberra today... prompted me to dig through a few of the archives to find the past and current Trans-Africa trips with an Ural.

The Ural Sidecar is an icon of motorcycles, especially the sidecars. Fully equipped, with a reverse gear and a spare wheel mounted on the sidecar, it looks the part of any overland adventure.

I first encountered an Ural when a Dutch couple, Mullie and Nobile headed North from South Africa.

Read more »

Book Review: Cape Town to Cairo in a Beach Buggy

2011-11-13T08:00:00.000+11:00

Fancy a trip to the beach in a beach buggy? How about an overland trip from Cape Town to Cairo?

In December 2010, Adriaan Rossouw headed North from Cape Town to his ambitious goal of Cairo, and Berlin.

His self-published book, Cape Town to Cairo in a Beach Buggy, was digitally published on March 2011. I was looking forward to reading his story after his brief posting on the internet back in 2010.

I fully recognise that we all have dreams and plans and sometimes those plans don't fully work out. This is just the case for the author and his beach buggy. To title the book, Cape Town to Cairo, and then in the opening paragraph state the destination was not reached left a huge dent in my desire to read the book.

The book turned out to be no more than daily blog entries about his drive through Southern Africa. There are no character references, no history about the land and no interesting stories retold in the book. The author certainly had interesting times with the beach buggy but no elaboration other than the bare minimum. Rather frustrating for the reader as this left me wanting to know more.

Recommendation:
If you are an overlander or a beach buggy fan, you will be left wanting more than this book can offer. Credit does go to the author for publishing his ebook and hopefully this will lead to many other overlanders doing the same.

Links to the book:
Amazon UK kindle

Beach Buggies Overland
One of the first internet reported overland trips in a beach buggy took place a few years ago. Tom drove South from Sweden to South Africa in his red beach buggy and documented the trip in his DVD "Adventuress Wanted".

A must read: Into Africa by Martin Dugard

2011-11-10T20:42:00.001+11:00

"Dr Livingstone, I presume?"

Preparing for your overland trip takes on many forms... vehicle preparation, visa research, talking to other overlanders and of course, reading.

Personally, I spent hours reading overland guides, country travel guides, overland travel stories and the history of Africa. Here is one recommendation that every overlander should read:

Into Africa by Martin Dugard is the epic adventures of Livingstone and Stanley. The author writes in a gripping way that keeps you entranced about the lives of these two legionary explorers.

I was prompted to reread 'Into Africa' after the 1871 (140 years ago) diary of David Livingstone was republished. This unique work used impressive technology to decrypt his writing due to faded ink and bad handwriting. Read more on the UCLA website: Livingstone's 1971 Field Diary

Google Earth Land Rover in Morocco

2011-11-01T13:03:00.000+11:00

When I spot an interesting looking vehicle, I often wonder who is driving and where they are heading to... This Google Earth image of a lone Land Rover Series II heading South in Morocco prompts me to ask those questions again...

I wonder who was driving, where were driving to and if the Land Rover is still being driven daily...

View Larger Map

Overland Trip Budget Planner

2011-10-26T20:04:00.000+11:00

How do you budget for an overland trip? That's a tricky question to answer and a question that majority of overland trips don't event attempt to answer. Nick from Langebaan Sunset attempted to provide a full years worth of budgeting from his recent UK to SA trip. It is worth visiting his website to get an insight into the costs.

Budgeting and planning is often the most important aspect of any trip, however, the multiple countries and currencies often play havoc on budget planning. Francois, a member of the Overland Forum, kindly created this spreadsheet which allows for multiple countries and currencies to be integrated into a budget. It's a fantastic tool which will be very useful for planning.

Here is the link to the Google Group page and the link to download a copy: Overland Forum - Overland Trip Planner.

Sunset over Zambezi

2011-10-24T20:16:00.000+11:00

July 2005 - Sunset over the Zambezi river

The sunset above was the perfect ending to another day in Africa. Later that evening we clambered aboard a dusty Land Rover and headed out with a few other guests for an evening game drive in the South Luanda park. Shortly after departing the park gates, along a dusty track, an African Spotted Eagle Owl swooped over us.
Our driver slowed the vehicle to a halt before explaining that in his culture, an African Eagle Owl was never a good omen. If he was on his own, he would turn the vehicle around and head back to camp.
We listened in awe as he told the story and started to ponder his thoughts an hour later after not seeing any game. 90min after the Owl had swooped we spotted one lone Hyena. The promised evening game drive turned out to be a taxi ride around a game park.

Perhaps, in hindsight, we should have listened to the omen of the African Eagle Owl and turned the vehicle around...

Overland eBooks

2011-10-22T06:45:00.000+11:00

I must admit that I have a passion for my Amazon Kindle - I read a book, and then very quickly skip onto the next. This little ebook reader is fantastic and a must have for any overland trip as it can contain your whole library. Owning one prompted me to investigate if any overland related ebooks were available:

Here's a list of the books I found (links to Amazon UK). There are not as many as I had hoped, including no ebooks from author Chris Scott (Overland Handbook). Most of the older titles are not available which I would have thought would have been easy to do.

What the hell are we doing here
Malachite: a Journey in Africa
Lonely Planet Africa
Jupiter's Travels
Lois on the Loose
Red Tape and White Knuckles: One Woman's Motorcycle Adventure Through Africa
Running With The Moon: A Boy's Own Adventure - Riding a Motorbike Through Africa
Tuk-Tuk to the Road: Two Girls, Three Wheels, 12,500 Miles

More Kindle Overland Books
Here is a link to additional Kindle Amazon UK books.
Amazon UK Bestsellers in Africa Travel (Kindle)
General Africa Travel

Updated: 26 January 2012
The world of overland digital ebooks is constantly growing which has resulted in this blog post being outdated in a very short period. Keep checking the digital ebook websites for the latest updates. One last thought: be sure to support our fellow overlanders through the purchase of their books...

Lagos to London - 1973

2011-10-17T11:52:00.002+11:00

Vehicles, technology, and people have changed across the decades. However, the one familiar trait is the need to use a vehicle, a bit of technology and to travel. In 1973 Brian M left Lagos, Nigeria heading for London, UK. His Land Rover Series II 109 was loaded and packed... the route simply headed North and finally in Algeria and across the Med to Europe.

The photo below is linked to Brian's additional photos he scanned from slides:

Brian M - 1973 Overland

Brian mentioned in an email the reason the bonnet was open:

I do indeed remember why the bonnet was open a lot :-) Most picture opportunities were at stops, first thing in the morning was always a good time. You'll see that from the shadows. We checked fluids, hoses and belts every morning, as well as having a look around the vehicle checking that all was OK.

One picture shows shorter shadows, so was closer to midday. We had two stops for problems, one for a stop due to loss of power. We stripped the carb and found the float bowl was full of sand, due to the wonderful oil bath "air filter" standard in those days :-) A good clean out and all was well again.

The other stop was when the fan cowling fell off, onto the fan. The speed nuts has rusted through ! The Land Rover had spent the previous 14 years working in tropical rain forest for a wildlife documentary company. Still, it gave us a huge fright, as it made a huge racket ! You've never seen anyone de-clutch and switch off as fast as I did ! A great relief to find it was only the cowling making a break for freedom :-) We simply took it off and put it in the back, checking the belts and hoses were undamaged.

It was scary until we saw there was no serious problem, as we were midway between Tamanrasset and In Salah, about 590 miles if my memory of the Michelin map is accurate. A long way to walk if it was a blown engine, which was my first thought as the noise started. Whew :-)

Otherwise, we had no other vehicle problems in about 12000kms (road distance) and 29 days.

Just for interest, the mountainous scenery is mostly on the scenic drive around the Hoggar Mountains, when we had a trip up to the Hermitage near to Tamanrasset.

Camper Trailers... Good Idea?

2011-10-15T02:13:00.000+11:00

Have you realized the benefits of a camper trailer yet? Have you thought about the benefits of keep your vehicle independent of the campsite, free to explore without the hassle of packing the rooftent and kitchen away?

I have pondered the benefits of camper trailers for a number of years and have patiently waited for more Trans-Africa overlanders to adopt the concept - yet only a few have. More in a following blog about overlanders that used camper trailers.

The Camper Trailer market in Australia is huge - every type of trailer is available - from the basic on-road version to fully ruggedized offroad version, complete with independent suspension and brakes.

Here's a slightly different concept (Tvan) that I spotted towed behind a Land Cruiser 80 series, which lead me to YouTube to investigate further:

Personally, I think I am tempted by the concept especially now that 'Toddler J' is on the scene. I need more space for kids toys!

Let me know if you have experienced a camper trailer and what your thoughts were. In the next blog, I will highlight a few trips that used a trailer as part of their overland expedition.

Additional Reading:
Here is a link to a website which used a trailer: http://bit.ly/trailermods

You packed what?

2011-09-29T19:45:00.000+10:00

I was recently reviewing my equipment list I used for my BigSky Adventures Africa overland trip. The list had plenty of items on it which got me thinking about the kit that I should have left behind...

One of the most obscure items I packed, which I only used three times, was a little photo printer. The idea was to take photographs and then print them out for the people we met. The idea was fab however the fact that the printer was stashed deep in the bowels of the Land Rover Defender meant that we only used it on those few occasions when we were camping.

Another obscure item I packed was a traditional three-legged Dutch oven or potjie-kos pot. My idea that I would be able to use it daily to cook with passed us by as we tended to use gas or charcoal for cooking. The gas hob was quick & easy whilst charcoal (when available) was excellent for cooking roasted vegetables or the usual BBQ.

The last item on my list which I thought was pretty useless were two hiking backbacks. Initially we had throught that we would use them to go on various treks, however they proved to be cumbersome to pack due to the straps and size. We used them once...

Here's a link to the original equipment list... Let me know if you think of things that you packed for some obscure reason!