Overland: The Spirit of Adventure on Four Wheels

OVERLAND The spirit of adventure on four wheels

Uyuni

£9.99

The eternal appeal of the world’s largest salt pan

Expedition stories from every continent • World-class vehicle builds in profile The Art of Travel: Prepping your 4x4 • What to take • Being a responsible traveller

PLUS 50 destinations to inspire every overlander Front Cover.indd 1

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SUBARU OUTBACK. BUILT FOR ADVENTURE. READY FOR EVERY TYPE OF TRIP.

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BOOK YOUR TEST DRIVE TODAY SUV CAPABILITY. READY FOR ANYTHING. To find out more visit subaru.co.uk or contact your local Subaru dealer.

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Award-winning features.

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SUBARU OUTBACK fuel economy and CO2 results (WLTP): Combined 33.0mpg, CO2 emissions 193g/km. MPG figures are official EU test figures for comparative purposes & may not reflect real driving results. Fuel consumption achieved in real life conditions & CO2 produced depends on a number of factors including accessories fitted (post-registration), variations in weather, driving styles & vehicle load. Vehicle shown is a Outback 2.5i Field Lineartronic, OTR price of £41,585. Model shown price includes optional special paint finish at £595.

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08/09/2023 12:00

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Getting off the beaten track and visiting parts less travelled is a key attraction when off-roading. And while ‘roughing it’ certainly has some appeal, there are times when a little comfort can make all the difference. Whether you’re planning on getting lost for a couple of days, or heading into more remote regions of the world, you’ll need some warm and convenient shelter. ARB’s range of tents, swags and has an array of options to suit every journey, and is complemented by a variety of optional accessories to make every camping adventure an enjoyable one.

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Contents 102

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NORTH POLE HILUX

The story behind the story from Top Gear’s legendary expedition to reach the North Pole aboard a Toyota Hilux

TORSUS OVERLANDER

An award-winning all-terrain bus is now available as a box-bodied off-roader ready to be converted into the overland motorhome of your dreams

PRODUCTS

Parts, equipment, accessories and more from a bountiful aftermarket

OVERLAND PREP

Feeling like you need to pack everything including the kitchen sink? Read these words of advice from a professional overland tour reader and think again

LONG - RANGE CRUISER

Many people would say the 80-Series Land Cruiser is the best 4x4 of all time. If so, they might well agree that Chris Jerman’s is the actual best 4x4 of all time…

UYUNI

The world’s biggest salt flat is also one of the world’s most iconic destinations for overland travel. But when you get to the wilds of Peru and Bolivia, Uyuni will soon turn out to be just the start

GLOBAL DESTINATIONS

Stuck for inspiration? Of course you’re not.

But our whistle-stop guide to 50 of the best, wildest, strangest and most perfect places for overland travel is sure to get you thinking about your next trip

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Vehicles 114

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From the team that brings you…

4x4

Tel: 01283 742969 Email: enquiries@assignment-media.co.uk Web: www.totaloffroad.co.uk

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68 EXPEDITION AMERICA

It’s almost possible to drive from coast to coast across the USA without ever hitting tarmac. The Trans America Trail was created for bikes – but that didn’t stop a pair of Land Rover Discoverys from taking it on

Editor Alan Kidd Art Editor Samantha D’Souza

On a mission to drive home from the UK, an Indian couple reach the world’s greatest watershed as they pilot their Jeep Cherokee over the mighty Himalayas

Contributors Olly Sack, George Dove, Gary Noskill, Dan Fenn, Paul Looe, Tom Alderney, Bobby Cowling, Barrie Dunbar, Ewan Brogan Kaziyoshi Sasazaki, Marilu Peries, Betty van Breukelen and Gerard van Vliet, Tushar and Pooja Agrawal

84 THE REAL FIRST OVERLAND

More than a century ago, a pioneering team of exporers set out in a convoy of Citroen half-tracks – on a mission to prove that Africa could be crossed by car

Photographers Steve Taylor, Harry Hamm, Mike Trott, Vic Peel, Noel Peries, Jen Bright and Gavin Lowrie

92 TRAVEL WITH CARE

Advertising Sales Tandem Media Tel: 01233 555735 Faye Littlewood-Tribe Tel: 01233 220245 faye@tandemmedia.co.uk

When you’re overlanding, it’s up to you to behave responsibly. Follow a few simple rules and you’ll be not just a traveller but an ambassador for everyone like you

The Anne Beadell Highway sounds like a road. But it’s day after day of sand, brush, corrugations and blistering heat… not to mention the absolute silence and isolation of the Outback. Perfect…

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102 ULTIMATE LAND CRUISER

You can’t get it from a Toyota dealer, but the 75-Series Land Cruiser ‘Troopie’ is an absolute legend of a vehicle. And here’s proof that you can get hold of one here… and turn it into even more of a world-class overland hero than it already was

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Iceland is famous for off-road monsters with tyres the size of your greenhouse. So here’s the story of what happened when a bunch of guys went to take it on aboard a convoy of Freelanders

Distributed by Marketforce; www.marketforce.co.uk

Every effort is made to ensure the contents of Overland are accurate, however Assignment Media Ltd accepts no responsibility for errors or omissions nor the consequences of actions made as a result of these

114 BEST DAD EVER

120 WHICH 4X4 TO BUY?

Ready to get out there and do it? Great… all you need to do now is figure out what kind of 4x4 you’re going to do it in. Which may be more complicated than it appears

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Publisher and Head of Marketing Sarah Moss Email: sarah.moss@assignment-media.co.uk To subscribe to 4x4, or renew a subscription, call 01283 742970. Prices for 12 issues: UK £42 (24 issues £76); Europe Airmail/ROW Surface £54; ROW Airmail £78

108 ALTERNATIVE ICELAND

When you leave the Army and they give you a lump sum, do you sink it into the mortgage? Not if you want to make a lifetime of memories with your kids you don’t, no…

Online Shop: www.toronline.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/totaloffroad www.facebook.com/4x4Mag

78 TIBET

96 INTO THE OUTBACK

www.4x4i.com

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When responding to any advert in Overland, you should make enquiries before sending money or entering into a contract. The publishers take reasonable steps to ensure advertisers’ probity, but will not be liable for loss or damage incurred as a result of responding to adverts Where a photo credit includes the note ‘CC-BY-2.0’ or similar, the image is made available under that Creative Commons licence: details at www.creativecommons.org Overland is published by Assignment Media Ltd, PO Box 8632, Burton on Trent DE14 9PR

© Assignment Media Ltd, 2023

3 15/09/2023 19:04

HAVE AN ICE DAY

Top Gear’s mission to the magnetic North Pole has passed into the realms of TV legend. But what was the true story behind what was, underneath all the jolly japes and on-screen smoke and mirrors, a major off-road undertaking?

Words: Bobby Cowling and Gary Noskill Pictures: Toyota

S

ome of us are old enough to remember the days when Top Gear was about cars. There was a time when the BBC’s phenomenally successful jolly jape show was presented by wise, authoritative figures like William Woolard, Tony

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Mason and Sue Baker – real car people who knew and cared about their subject. In the days before it was even called Top Gear, the broadcasting powerhouse that was Raymond Baxter spent a decade and a half as the BBC’s voice on all things automotive.

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Wisdom and authority are far less easy to consume than exploding caravans and chuckling buffoonery, however. And ever since the day when a young lad called Jeremy Clarkson got his first break on the show, the BBC’s approach to cars has been sliding away from what

Top Gear once was and towards its now very well established format as a sanitised parody of Jackass on four wheels.

That’s the truth about television, of course. And if you get your motoring fix from the small screen and nothing else, you’ll be blissfully

unaware of the real, deep, fascinating stories behind the cars whose role is to be a backdrop to the presenters’ unconvincing banter.

Few of those stories are deeper or more fascinating than that of the Toyota Hilux which, in 2007, featured in Top Gear: Polar Special.

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Above left: Having been built by Arctic Trucks in Reykjavik, the Hiluxes (plus a Land Cruiser support vehicle) were transported to Canada on board a friendly Hercules Above right: The town of Resolute has a population of about 240. As you can see, it’s pretty well named; this is the kind of place where you shoot Polar bears that come too close. Then eat them A 300-mile off-road adventure on the frozen sea among the islands of Nunavut in northern Canada, this finished with the vehicle reaching the location at which the Magnetic North Pole had rested just over a decade previously.

Although the expedition never actually ventured beyond Canadian territory and on to the Polar ice cap,

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it reached a point within about 800 miles of the actual North Pole. This region is a bona fide Arctic desert, with all the challenges such an environment brings – including a Polar bear which started trying to hunt presenter Richard Hammond, who was ‘racing’ his colleagues Clarkson and James May aboard a traditional dog sled.

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‘A weatherman told them they were five weeks too late. The ice would be too thin and in places there would even be open water. If they persisted with the journey, he warned, they would die’ When it comes to preparing vehicles to function in such extreme locations, there’s an acknowledged specialist in the field. Arctic Trucks started life in 1990, when the Toyota importer in Iceland started modifying 4x4s for use on the snow and ice for which the island is known, and has since become an international business with operations around northern Europe and the Middle East – and its headquarters in the UK. And it was Arctic Trucks that Top Gear’s production company partnered with to create a fleet of vehicles suitable for the wilds of Nunavut. The company has extensive experience of building vehicles which can thrive in these situations, as well as in organising expeditions to the world’s most hostile places, but even then it had unanswered questions about taking on this

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challenge. We are, after all, talking about a desolate region at the same sort of latitude as northern Greenland, where average temperatures at the time of year when filming was due to take place are somewhere between –20 and –30°C. ‘The first thing we had to consider was whether it was actually possible to go there in a vehicle,’ said Arctic Trucks’ Emil Grimsson. ‘The second was how to prepare.’ Driving on sea ice was an unknown quantity, too – and those average temperatures were just the beginning. To plan safely, you have to prepare for the worst – which meant being able to operate all the way down to –40°C. That’s going to ask questions of any vehicle – even the famously indefatigable Hilux. This was a time when the previous-generation Mk7 model had not long been introduced,

and Grimsson’s team also found themselves asking whether its common-rail diesel engine would deal with such extreme cold.

The engine in question was Toyota’s 3.0 D-4D unit, which at the time had just been added to the Hilux range. The same engine was also used in the 120-Series Land Cruiser, and one of these was to be part of the expedition line-up alongside not one but two Hiluxes.

The vehicles were prepped in Arctic Trucks’ home facility in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik. In the end, their engines stayed the same, aside from a few minor enhancements such as thicker, more durable coolant hoses. The build team originally believed that it may be necessary to keep the vehicles’ engines running constantly to prevent them from freezing, however with auxiliary heaters to boost coolant temperature, fuel heaters and much larger heavy-duty batteries, they always fired up first time even in the coldest conditions.

For the same reason, the vehicles ran on a blend of P50 diesel, which is designed to remain in liquid form all the way down to –50°C, and a small-quantity of two-stroke oil.

This was contained in twin tanks, which doubled the vehicles’ capacity to 180 litres – an important factor

when they would be expected to travel some 320 miles in soft, energy-sapping terrain.

There were other reasons for doubling up on diesel capacity, too.

‘We used two tanks to enable the fuel to be kept warm at all times,’ says Arctic Trucks’ Hjalti Hjaltsson.

‘Also, it was far safer – in the event

OVERLAND 15/09/2023 12:50

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of sustaining damage to the larger tank, the vehicle would still be able to run.’

Each truck’s engine drew its air through a raised air intake, and once again there was a logical if not immediately obvious answer for this. Normally, snorkels are fitted to protect engines from damage by sucking in water or dust – but in this

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case, lying snow was the big hazard.

An intake that’s clogged up might not end up with a hydraulic engine, but if it can’t get any air past the obstruction it’s not going to do very much running, either.

For driving on glaciers and so on, Arctic Trucks famously builds vehicles on 44” tyres. The rugged ice fields of Nunavut called for a differ-

ent approach, however, with a lower centre of gravity to keep the trucks more stable, and so the Hiluxes wore ‘only’ a 38” fitment.

To allow this, their front diffs were dropped by 50mm and their suspension lifted by 40mm. The front axle line was moved forward by 40mm, too, adding further stability by enlarging their wheelbase, and a full set of heavy-duty protection plates was bolted into place underneath.

To compensate for the gearing effect of running such big tyres, the Hiluxes’ standard diffs were converted to a 4.88:1 ring and pinion.

These were installed along with ARB Air-Lockers which, prior to going on, were specially treated to keep on working in the extreme cold. The studded snow tyres, meanwhile, were mounted on Arctic Trucks’ own unique 15” aluminium rims which

contain two valves, allowing them to be aired up and down at the flick of a switch. The intention was to run the tyres at as little as 4psi – something without which it would be hard to make progress in such hostile terrain.

Despite all this, a key part of the engineering and design brief was to keep the build as uncomplicated as possible. ‘You’re travelling in one of the most remote regions in the world,’ remarked Hjalti. ‘It’s important that if something breaks, you’re able to fix it again.’ Thus the simple leaf-sprung set-up was retained at the back, albeit with slightly more pliant springs, uprated shocks and heavy-duty bump stops.

Visually, meanwhile, the Toyotas still looked a lot like Toyotas. Aside from the obvious bigger tyres, along with the wheelarch extensions

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required to cover them, they gained heavy-duty tubular front bumpers complete with winch cradles. One was fitted with a rear canopy, while the other gained roof bars and cargo boxes fixed into its load bay – and both carried shotguns for use as a last resort in the event of a Polar bear attack.

In addition, each of the vehicles carried a Garmin GPS system, Iridium telephone and VHF two-way radios, as well as an extensive emergency kit including axes, shovels, chainsaws, crowbars and a high-lift jack. That’s in addition to all the equipment and on-board electrical power required by the crew who were going to be filming the expedition.

Finally, after Arctic Trucks had put in about 240 hours’ work on each vehicle, Hjalti said he felt as though

his team had produced ‘the strongest car in the world.’ Following a brisk flight across the Atlantic from Reykjavik to the Inuit settlement of Resolute, they were about to get the chance to prove that right.

Resolute has a population of around 240, which was more or less doubled with the Top Gear entourage rolled in to town. Talking of things being doubled, daytime temperatures of about –25°C felt more like twice as cold as that thanks to the wind chill factor. This in spite of the fact that in April, the region was basking in the glow of 24-hour daylight.

It was at Resolute that the team became fully aware of just how much danger they were going to be in from Polar bears. The town has an annual hunting quota of 15 animals that they are allowed to kill – and as well as being crucial to keeping the area safe, this is also an important source of food.

Later in the expedition, all crew members were required to carry a gun for protection whenever they were away from their vehicle. By this point, they had already all been through a rigorous training session on how and when to open fire.

If this doesn’t illustrate that planning never stops, however far in advance you try to nail it all down, before setting out from Resolute the Arctic Trucks team visited a nearby weather station for the most important kind of knowledge there is – the local kind. Here, a weatherman told

Left: As the journey progressed, the relatively smooth surface of the frozen sea gave way to huge blocks of ice and then, further on, outcrops of rock. When you’re having to dig your way through in a wilderness like this, you know you’re in it for the long haul Right: Isachsen weather station, on Ellef Ringnes Island in the Arctic Ocean, was abandoned in 1978 after having been home to a crew of eight meteorologists for some three decades. Its remains, as well as those of its contents, have been preserved by the extremely cold conditions, as have those of a DC-47 aircraft which crash-landed nearby the year after the site became operational. Just imagine happening across this in the middle of a frozen desert – ‘eerie’ barely begins to describe it

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‘On the way back to Resolute the team filmed the Hiluxes being put through the sort of drifts and jumps that no-one on a real expedition would ever dream of inflicting on their vehicle’ them they were five weeks too late.

The ice would be too thin and in places there would even be open water. If they persisted with the journey, he warned, they would die.

Safe to say this was not what they were hoping to hear. And with a cast

of thousands waiting to go, giving up was definitely not an option.

But you know what they say.

When the going gets tough, the tough get a satellite image showing the depth of the ice across the whole landscape.

With this information, the team could plan a safe route that would steer them clear of areas where the ice could no longer be relied upon to support a loaded Hilux. Still, with no cause anywhere for complacency, they also decided to bring filming

forward by 24 hours. With the annual ice-melt now very much underway, there was no time to waste.

Now, even accounting for the smoke and mirrors of TV production, it should be clear that this was not going to be a walk in the park. Nonetheless, here’s where a multi-million pound filming session differs from a real expedition. Each vehicle was carrying enough food and fuel in reserve to keep its occupants alive for several days should the need arise – but even so, a team on snowmobiles went ahead and set up supply dumps to keep everyone well fed.

One of the vehicles did have Jeremy Clarkson on board, after all…

Another difference between normal expeditions and a TV location shoot is that when you’re chasing the clock to avoid death by plunging through the ice and into the murky depths of the Arctic Ocean, you tend not to stop for an hour at a time just to get 10 seconds’ worth of footage.

But that’s the nature of the beast.

As a consequence, lost time had

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Left: More treasure from Isaschsen. Next time you head up that way, take a trailer Above: When your in-car sat-nav says you’re in the middle of the ocean, you know it’s not an everyday trip to the shops to be made up by putting the foot down – on the smoothest sections of ice, the vehicles were able to bowl along at 60mph, though normally they could only go at less than half this speed.

And then, just over halfway in to the challenge, on the ice north of Helena Island, everything slowed to a crawl. The convoy hit an area strewn with large boulders – and now, any kind of speed was simply not possible.

At least these hazards were visible, though. Emil pointed out that the flatter, faster areas could be even more dangerous – because here, huge blocks of ice could blend into the background due to the

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sheer whiteness of everything. ‘In such conditions it’s better to follow your progress on the GPS and not look out the window at all’ was his observation, which doesn’t sound in any way alarming…

Even at crawling speeds, and even with the Toyotas’ tyres containing so little air, the rocks embedded in the ice were a constant source of punctures. Nonetheless, they were still able to maintain their progress – allowing May and Clarkson to make it to the ‘winning post’, set up near an abandoned weather station, ahead of Hammond’s dog sled.

Cynical though it’s easy to be about such an obviously contrived adventure, especially one with such

an epic budget, the fact is that when the Hilux arrived at the North Pole (as they decided to call it on screen), it was the first vehicle ever to have been driven there. Cast of thousands or not, this was still a real driving challenge.

Not that this prevented the Top Gear presenters and crew from putting on their usual trademark display of entertainingly infantile behaviour.

May and Clarkson were later to get into hot water for being filmed appearing to drink gin and tonic while driving across the ice, and on the way back to Resolute the production team filmed the Hiluxes being put through the sort of drifts and jumps that no-one on a real expedition

would ever dream of inflicting on their vehicle.

Not that this appeared to upset the trucks at all. In fact, one of the two Hiluxes was brought back out a few years later when May used it to film an episode in which he drove it up the slopes of an erupting volcano – and since then, both have become popular on the show circuit.

Back in Resolute, meanwhile, the team went off to pay another visit to the meteorologist who had told them they would die if they tried to reach the pole.

‘I knew you’d do it,’ he told them. ‘I always said so.’ There’s a man who knows his Arctic weather. And who clearly knows his Toyotas, too.

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The Wheels on t

The Torsus Praetorian promises to take expedition travel to another level.

Based on the design of a heavy-duty off-road bus, it combines MAN truck underpinnings with a body that’s ready to be turned into your own personal idea of the perfect overland motor Words: Dan Fenn Pictures: Torsus

I

f you want to see the world, until now there have been two kinds of vehicle in which to do it. One is the traditional motorhome, in all its various forms, from little Volkswagen campers up to monolithic Winnebago-style RVs: the other is a 4x4 that’s been converted into a self-sufficient overland machine.

The big difference between them is of course that a traditional motorhome has to stay on the road. The whole point behind overlanding in a 4x4 is that when the road turns into a track, or runs out altogether, that’s when the good stuff starts.

You might not have the space you get in a Winnebago but you can drive to Timbuktu the hard way, find a corner of the Serengeti to call your own or plant your flag on the Salar de Uyuni then make

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a brew in your pull-out kitchen and sit watching it flutter in the Bolivian breeze.

Until now, those were the options. Until now.

The third way combines the size and construction of an RV with the ruggedness and ability of a 4x4. It’s the work of Torsus, a Czech-based company which recently won a Red Dot design award for the Praetorian – a 35-seat off-road bus designed for getting work crews on and off-site in sectors like mining, quarrying, forestry, oil, gas and so on.

Torsus calls the Praetorian ‘the world’s first heavy-duty 4x4 off-road bus.’ As well as transporting personnel, its high-mobility character, coupled with the ability to move large amounts of people and cargo alike, means it also has applications

in areas like disaster relief. Torsus depicts it as a potential ski bus for resort use, too.

Naturally, the moment we clapped eyes on the Praetorian, we started imagining the overland vehicle you could build out of one. But we weren’t alone in doing so. Torsus also offers the vehicle as an empty shell for customers who want to create their own custom interior – or more likely, given the sort of money it costs, have it done for them by a bespoke builder.

As is normal with these things, the name on the badge may be unfamiliar – but the engineering is tried and trusted. Underneath, it’s all MAN – the chassis, engine, transmission and axles all come from the German giant, so even if Torsus is a new name to you this is a vehicle whose heritage goes

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the Bus

‘This is a high-end way of seeing the world, but it’s also as close to an investment as you’ll ever get. And your kids won’t be thinking about their inheritance when they join you on the sort of adventures you can have in one of these’ back a long way. In other words, you ought to be able to trust it.

The engine is a 6.9litre straight-six diesel with 240bhp and a colossal 682lbf.ft. It drives through a 12-speed MAN / ZF semi-automatic gearbox with tiptronic manual selection and a two-speed MAN transfer case with a locking centre diff.

Beyond this, both axles are beam units,

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At 8450mm long, 3720 tall and 2540 wide, the Praetorian is about the same length as a Defender 90 and 130 combined, and approaching half as wide again as either.

Its body design gives it approach, breakover and departure angles of 32°, 41° and 26° respectively. For scale, the tyres you see in these pictures are 395/85R20s standing at a mighty 46.4” tall

again from MAN, with locking diffs and suspension by parabolic leaf springs. They’re shod with 395/85R20 Michelin XZLs on 20” wheels.

That’s 46.5” tall, to save you doing the maths.

This is the stuff of mighty ground clearance, and Torsus quotes 389mm (about 15.5”) beneath the axles. Approach, breakover and departure angles are 32°, 41° and 26° respectively, and wading depth is given as 700mm.

In addition to its MAN-derived off-road ability, the vehicle is also well specced to last in harsh conditions, with military-grade Line-X coating protecting its bodywork. Inside, its floor is ‘resistant to hard exploitation conditions,’ and in addition to a 15kW air-con system the driver gets conveniences like a pneumatic seat and, it may come as a relief to learn, a rear-view camera.

So we’ve got the makings of a seriously capable off-roader, that’s for sure, and one that’s designed to get you there and back again (we like the fact that Torsus’ pictures of the vehicle show it with an integrated front winch, though its sales material says this is only for recovering other vehicles). It’s hard to visualise the scale of the

thing, however, so here are the figures. Its body is 8450mm long, on a 4200mm wheelbase, and it’s 3720mm tall and 2540mm wide.

That’s about the length of a Defender 130 and a Defender 90 put together, on a wheelbase that’s about a metre longer than the 130’s. It’s coming on for twice the height of either, though, and half as wide again.

So the Gatescarth Pass is out. But the Serengeti and Salar de Uyuni are definitely in – and when you get there, you won’t need to make that brew on a pull-out hob burner, either.

That’s where the other side of the Praetorian’s character comes in. Safe to say it’s got the offroad thing sewn up: now it’s time for it to prove its RV credentials.

Now, we all know that roughing it is part of the appeal for many people. At the same time, though, when you’re going to be spending years of your life on the road, that whole vibe is apt to wear thin a little too quickly for comfort.

When Torsus first debuted the Praetorian in overland spec, it did so with a standard kit list including four berths (among them a full double

bed in the rear cabin), a fitted wet room with sink, toilet and shower and a kitchen area with a fridge, dual hob and microwave oven. In practice, that was really just an illustration of what you can create with one – you could have yours built exactly like that, but it’s up to you.

The typical customer will want all the seating and stowage of a typical on-road RV – as well as wifi and satellite TV and, rather more importantly for those evenings on the African plains, exterior lighting and a pull-out awning. You’d assume that while the kitchen is there when you need it, most days all the cooking will be done on a barbecue.

Things you’re unlikely to need include a roof tent, then – though open stowage options are available up there that would let you fit one. Torsus has also spoken about offering an all-terrain trailer to go with the vehicle, with the same level of durability and capable of being fitted with a bedroom, shower room and kitchenette of its own (think self-propelled granny flat) or of storing things like quad bikes, canoes and so on. We reckon you’d even be able to fit a decent sized car in there, or something like a Suzuki Jimny or Jeep

Above: The interior you’re looking at here is an image of how you could have your Praetorian specced, rather than one you can buy off the shelf. Customers pay around £190,000 for a vehicle in bare-shell form, which is then built to whatever design they want by the specialist of their choice. What you’re looking at here is in fact the off-road trailer which Torsus proposes to offer as an addition to the main vehicle Right: The Praetorian’s main duty is as an off-road crew bus – with a 35-seat capacity, which gives you an idea of how much space there is inside it. Its design won the prestigious Red Dot design award when it first came out

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OVERLAND 15/09/2023 13:27

Wrangler for zipping around the place when the main rig is camped up.

Having said that, the whole point of the vehicle is to give you mobility, so carrying a smaller 4x4 behind you might seem a bit unnecessary. Unless you fancy something like taking a trip to Ice Road Truckers territory by winter in your big bus, then cruising down to Utah with a full-house rock rig behind you for a summer of riding the trails while you live out of your motorhome… which doesn’t exactly sound too much like a bad way to pass the time, does it?

Either way, genuine expedition travel is what the Praetorian is all about. It’s available with fuel tanks giving it a capacity of up to 300 litres – Torsus doesn’t quote a consumption figure, but even at 15mpg that’s more than 1000 miles before you have to break in to your store of jerry cans.

For sure, a vehicle like this will use more fuel than a traditional expedition truck. And of course,

OVERLAND 4pp Torsus Overlander.indd 17

this is a very high-end way of seeing the world.

Torsus quotes from €223,510 for the vehicle with a bare shell of a body for your specialist to turn into a motorhome, so by the time you get on board you’ll be struggling for change out of a quarter of a million quid.

That makes it an instant dead-end for most would-be overlanders; if you dream of buying an old Bedford and converting it into a camper on your driveway, or even basing a full-house expedition project on a brand new Defender or Land Cruiser, this sort of money is in a totally different world.

However something very important to remember is that motorhomes hold their value almost as well as real houses.

Spend that sort of money on a Bentley as a retirement present to yourself, and in three years’ time it will have wiped about a hundred grand off your kids’ inheritance:

put it into an RV instead and it’ll be as close to an investment as you’ll ever get.

You will, in our humble opinion, also get a lot more out of it. And your kids won’t be thinking about their inheritance when they join you on the sort of adventures you can have in one of these.

There are motorhomes, and there are off-road campers, and both are wonderful things. The Praetorian promises to be the best of both worlds – and to be an unrivalled way of exploring the world.

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PRODUCTS

Isuzu partners with ARB to launch kit range for new D-Max ISUZU DEALERS ARE NOW OFFERING A RANGE OF ARB ACCESSORIES AS OFFICIAL EQUIPMENT, after the two companies’ UK importers reached a deal to partner up on enhancing the recently facelifted double-cab. Rather than buying a standard vehicle then sending it off to be modified, dealers participating in the scheme will be able to offer customers the opportunity to buy a brand new truck already fitted with the accessories of their choice.

These accessories cover a wide spectrum of off-road needs, whether they be professional or recreational.

‘Isuzu UK and ARB’s collaboration showcases an impressive assortment of enhancements,’ the manufacturer says, ‘including innovative drawer systems equipped with convenient slide-out kitchens, premium rooftop tents, versatile awnings and top-of-theline camping gear.

‘Additionally, the collection boasts durable roof racks, reliable recovery gear and practical canopies.’ Isuzu adds that the accessories it’s approved ‘have been rigorously tested in real-life conditions to ensure they meet the high standards for quality, safety, and performance set by both Isuzu and ARB.’ ARB’s reputation goes before it in the off-road world, having become known for the ruggedness and quality of its products since its establishment in 1975. ‘With its origins rooted in the Australian Outback,’ says Isuzu, ‘ARB offers a comprehensive range of products including bull bars, winches, suspension systems, roof racks, recovery gear and camping equipment. Trusted by adventurers and off-road enthusiasts, ARB is synonymous with durability, reliability and performance, ensuring that your vehicle is equipped to conquer any terrain and endure the rigours of off-road exploration.’ We ourselves are among the off-road enthusiasts with the company’s kit on one of our vehicles – a D-Max, no less, which boasts ARB’s cheerfully indestructible front and rear bumpers.’

‘This exciting partnership between Isuzu and ARB will allow Isuzu D-Max owners to fully customise their vehicle to suit their needs, whether off-roading or outdoor adventurers,’ said ARB UK’s Matthew McConaghy.

Isuzu UK’s accessories guy Steve Page added: ‘We are excited to partner with ARB UK and provide our customers with a comprehensive range of accessories that will enable them to customise their Isuzu D-Max according to their specific requirements. This partnership allows us to offer a vehicle that can suit any need, whether it’s for work, adventure or lifestyle.

‘Isuzu is committed to providing its customers with the best possible products and services, and this partnership with ARB is just one example of that commitment. With a range of approved accessories now available, Isuzu D-Max owners can look forward to even greater versatility and functionality from their vehicles.’

Want to know more about the ARB range on offer for the D-Max? Your local Isuzu dealership will be your first port of call.

Technical sleeping bag at a size to suit all A COSMIC SLEEP EXPERIENCE might all sound a bit Cheech and Chong. But that’s what US company Therm-a-Rest says you’ll get from its Questar HD sleeping bag.

This, it says here, has ThermaCapture and zoned insulation and is filled with Nikwax Hydrophobic Down. Put all this together and you get a threeseason sleeping bag which will allow you to sleep in the great outdoors even if the temperature is below zero.

It will allow your mate Big Fat Dave to do so too, because it’s available in three sizes. All that leaves you to do is put up with his contented snoring.

Unlike Big Fat Dave, the Questar HD has, it claims, ‘nailed the tricky trifecta’. This is a reference to its combination of weight, price and warmth, apparently.And while we’re on the subjct of price, it’s £210. Not cheap for a sleeping bag – but a bargain for a cosmic sleep experience.

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OVERLAND 15/09/2023 17:43

PRODUCTS

New light bar from Osram puts out 6000 lumens for just £299

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A LIGHT BAR, the latest new product from Osram’s LEDriving range is, well, a light bar. It’s called the VX1000-CB SM, a name which could refer to an old Vauxhall sports car, citizens’ band radio or high times in a sex dungeon, but what you need to know is mainly that it bangs out enough light for you to see the road up to half a kilometre ahead.

Made up of 35 high-performance Osram LEDs, the VX1000 produces a 6000lm luminous flux in a combination beam designed to deliver both near and far-field illumination. It has a colour temperature of up to 6000K, mimicking daylight as closely as possible to prevent eye fatigue.

The LEDs are housed in an aluminium structure and behind a stable polycarb lens, with IP67 protection against water, dust and impacts. Thermally managed and polarity protected, they have a service life of 5000 hours and promise to be as tough and rugged as they are bright.

Ideal for off-roading, then. And with ECE approval, you can use them on the road too. Osram’s suggested retail price for the VX1000-CB SM is a pleasingly modest £299 – to find out more, get yourself to www.osram.com.

Kampsa Geyser provides an on-board source of warm water GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL can be deeply enjoyable: the clean air, the wonderful views, the peace and stillness. The lack of sanitation and hot water…

Let’s be honest, roughing it is fun for a bit but then you realise you’d really, really like a hot shower… or even just some hot water for washing your hands.

Watching the sun set over the desert is even more enjoyable if you’re not scratching all the time and smelling like a camel’s armpit while drinking warm water that stinks of purifying tabs.

The answer: make space for a Kampa Geyser hot water system. It’s a mobile system that just needs a gas cylinder.

The system uses a 12-volt power socket to pump water for its shower attachment. Otherwise there’s a fold-out tap for you to pour out the hot water, which can be heated to anywhere from 30 to 55 degrees C. Carry handles and a strong carry case make it as practical as it is handy.

The Kampa Geyser retails for £155 and is available from APB Trading – they’re at www.expedition-equipment.com.

OVERLAND Magbook Products.indd 19

Stand-up space for the back of Land Rover Defender 110s

ALU-CAB’S POP-UP ROOF KIT for the Land Rover Defender 110 provides extra protection and freedom while you’re travelling – and gives you some additional space in which to stand up when you’re doing whatever it is you need to do on board.

The whole thing comes as one structure, so you don’t use your own roof panel. This means if you want to sell the vehicle you can easily restore it to original condition while taking your roof tent with you for the next one. There’s always a next one. The new roof only adds 18cm to the vehicle’s height, too.

When you’re making camp, you do need to pop outside for a few seconds just to flip the roof up. If you’re in lion country and this causes you concern, time it for when someone else has gone off for a call of nature in the dark. Once back inside, you’re safe, as you can get to the sleeping compartment above you from within the vehicle.

The sleeping area is made of tough, rip-stop waterproof canvas, and it’s all insulated. There are even two lights up there for reading, as well as four other LEDs. As an added bonus, you can flip up the sleeping base – allowing you to stand virtually upright in your vehicle. This means that, after your romantic torch-lit dinner, you can get undressed with your usual feline grace instead of being bent double like a caveman with a problem.

These conversions aren’t cheap – think £7495’s worth of not cheap.

But that money gets you a really well made bit of kit from a company with a strong reputation for quality. The kit is available from Tuff-Trek, which can also look after the fitting for you – as well as kitting it out with an extensive collection of useful accessories. Check them out at www. tuff-trek.com.

19 15/09/2023 17:43

PRODUCTS

Heavy-duty clutch for current Toyota Hilux Price: £280 plus VAT Available from: lofclutches.com THE LATEST ADDITION TO LOF CLUTCHES’ POWERSPEC RANGE brings the current Toyota Hilux into the ever-increasing fold of vehicles the company caters for. Suitable for models from 2015 onwards with the 2.4 and 2.8 diesel engines alike, it’s designed specifically for those which regularly tow or carry heavy loads.

Given the popularity of diesel tuning on pick-ups, LOF says this heavy-duty clutch is also ideal for Hiluxes whose engines have been breathed on – as indeed it will be for those given a hard life off-road.

A clamp load of 40% over the original means more reliable engine braking in extreme conditions, too, and this is achieved without any noticeable extra weight in the pedal.

The 275mm diameter, 21-tooth clutch comes supplied as a full kit with everything you need for fitting it, including LOF’s own alignment tool.

It’s backed by a two-year manufacturer’s warranty.

Rear brake kits for pre-Td5 era Land Rover Defender 110s Price: £95-£188 plus VAT From: lofclutches.com LOF CLUTCHES NOW STOCKS A RANGE of rear brake kits for pre-1998 Land Rover Defender 110s. These are available in both ROADspec and POWERspec form.

Designed for road-going vehicles, LOF’s ROADspec brakes are made to OEM specifications and promise the same quality and tolerances as Land Rover’s own Genuine parts. Featuring OE-quality pads with organic friction material, they come with a fitting kit including all the necessary fasteners, pins and anti-rattle shims.

POWERspec brakes kick things up a notch for use on modified Defenders and those that lead a heavy life. Once again made to OEM spec, they add performance organic/ceramic pads and dimpled and grooved discs with a black phosphate finish for corrosion resistance and removal of debris and heat. The pads are uncoated for minimal bedding in and have chamfered edges to reduce noise.

Lanoguard rust treatment promises to be user-friendly, eco-friendly and winter-friendly PROTECTING YOUR VEHICLE FROM THE ELEMENTS is one of those subjects that’s never far from the mind of any overland traveller.

Or at least it might be, but if so it won’t be for long.

Few things, after all, are an investment the way your truck is. It’s your car and it’s your home. And like all investments, you need to look after it.

Hence Lanoguard. This is a DIY rustproofing product for your vehicle’s underbody, and it promises to be user-friendly, easy to apply and, rather topically, perfect for application in cold weather.

‘Our products come with everything you need to care for your whole underbody and chassis,’ says Lanoguard, ‘giving lasting, effective protection against the elements.’

The product’s formula is designed to work by hermetically sealing the surface it’s applied to. Lanoguard says this will ‘displace moisture and oxygen and stop rust dead,’ and that it ‘protects against all salt, acid and alkaline corrosion with a simple barrier coat which stays in place through jet washing, road spray and heat.’ It promises to do the same for bimetallic corrosion, too, which is a particularly big deal if you own a Land Rover of a certain age.

Sure enough, Lanoguard says its products are ‘a great solution for keeping old and new Land Rover chassis well maintained and rust-free.’

They’re natural and non-toxic, too, which is good news for all sorts of reasons, and they’re made by a small family company right here in Britain.

They’re also ‘trusted by thousands of Land Rover owners across the UK.’ We’re fairly sure the same products would work just as well on some-

20 Magbook Products.indd 20

thing that didn’t start its life in Solihull, but over to you on that one. In the meantime, a visit to www.lanoguard.co.uk will be the opening salvo in your quest for a corrosion-free life on the road.

OVERLAND 15/09/2023 17:43

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21 15/09/2023 15:34

PRODUCTS

Freewheeling hubs for trucks that take the classic approach to travel FREEWHEELING HUBS ARE A FAMILIAR SIGHT on Land Rovers of a certain age. The originals are not immune to wear, however – hence these replacement items from AVM, which recently became available through Britpart.

Britpart offers these for the Series I, II, IIA and III. ‘AVM freewheeling hubs serve as a robust, reliable, and superior substitute for the hubs originally installed on your vehicle,’ the company says. ‘They’re utilised to either connect or disconnect the front driveshaft assembly on part-time 4WD vehicles.

They are also very useful in the event that you break a front drive shaft on a Series vehicle. Simply disengage the front hubs, put your transfer box back in the 2WD position and you can then drive home.’ Maybe not if home is 8000 miles away at the time, but you get the idea.

The hubs are designed with an inner drive member which is installed on to the driveshaft’s output splines. Surrounding this is an outer drive member, which is linked to the roadwheel, with a clutch to separate the two. The familiar control knob on the exterior of the hub operates the clutch by engaging or disengaging slanted grooves cut within it. When you twist the knob from ‘4x2’ to ‘4x4’, the operation of the clutch causing the inner and outer drive members to lock together.

Even with the drivetrain in the 4x4 position, the front wheels will only be driven if the FWHs are engaged. Conversely, with the hubs locked the front wheels will still not be driven if the drivetrain is in 4x2. However the front drive

shafts, diff and prop will continue to be turned by the action of the roadwheels as the vehicle moves. This uses energy, and therefore fuel; by unlocking the hubs, then, the vehicle can operate more efficiently.

It’s extremely unusual to see FWHs on vehicles with full-time four-wheel drive, however Britpart also offers an AVM unit to fit versions of the Defender and Discovery 1 with the 300Tdi engine. ‘(The hubs) can also be retrofitted to permanent 4WD models with stationary hubs to prevent unnecessary differential spinning and the subsequent wear it incurs,’ the company explains.

AVM’s hubs feature a heat-treated steel clutch ring for accurate and reliable torque transmission. Made from materials resistant to corrosion, they promise good positioning of the clutch ring, with fully independent springs to engage and disengage the unit as it operates. In addition, Britpart promises that they will be simple and straightforward to instal.

BOOK REVIEW: CAMEL TROPHY, THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY, BY NICK DIMBLEBY DURING THE 1980S AND 1990S, the Camel Trophy was widely regarded as the ultimate off-road adventure. Having first been held aboard a fleet of Jeep CJ5s built under licence by Ford, it came to be associated with Land Rover – which over the course of almost two decades used it to promote the Defender, Range Rover, Discovery and, finally, the Freelander.

The Trophy was originally conceived as a way of bringing Camel’s cigarette adverts to life. For many years, ‘Camel Guy’ was a macho but clean-cut outdoorsman who would be pictured smoking and driving a Jeep in a wild landscape, and parent company RJ Reynolds Tobacco saw participants as a real-life embodiment of his image.

A range of adventure wear was eventually created as a way of deflecting attention from the Trophy’s connection with tobacco. But young, attractive, clean-cut people driving 4x4s in wild landscapes always remained a key part of its image – the result being that it was one of the most photogenic events in the history of motoring.

Some of those pictures are at the heart of Camel Trophy: The Definitive History, by renowned author and photographer Nick Dimbleby. Already a well known name thanks to his monthly contributions to Land Rover Owner magazine, he was an official photographer on the Trophy during its last four years, from 1996-2000, before becoming one of Land Rover’s regular go-to snappers for brochures and vehicle launches.

Published by Porter Press International, this mighty 336-page hardback publication brooks no argument in its claim to be definitive. Lavishly illustrated and printed on high-quality paper (it weighs almost 2.5kg), you could ‘read’ it from cover to cover without taking in any words at all. But get into the text and it will quickly become apparent that this is no mere picture book – the breadth and depth of the author’s knowledge and research is nothing short of formidable.

In addition to the year-by-year story of each edition of the Trophy, separate chapters go into detail about the people, the vehicles and even the trophies handed out to the winners. Intriguingly, the author also looks in great depth at the selections and infrastructure behind the scenes, as well as the pre-scouting required to create suitable routes for and event which, in its heyday, was a massive international undertaking.

The Camel Trophy was regarded with scepticism in some quarters, as any event rooted in marketing, far less marketing cigarettes, inevitably will. Whatever your view, however, the off-roading was every bit as punishing on people and vehicles alike as the iconic pictures, many of which you’ll find in this book, suggest – and the sheer effort that went into making it happen yields no end of eye-opening stories.

Camel Trophy: The Definitive History is priced at £60, with a limited-run Collector’s Edition at £120 and a Unique Edition at a price to be confirmed. An extraordinary price, perhaps, but this is an extraordinary book; one which means it’s unlikely that anyone else will try to tell the story of the Camel Trophy again.

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OVERLAND 15/09/2023 17:43

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09/02/2023 16:02

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PRODUCTS

Flinders roof tent designed for quick set-up and break-down Price: ca £1500 From: Britpart stockists ARB’S FLINDERS ROOF TENT is designed for quick set-up and pack-up – and has the added practicality of being able to contain all your bedding inside it when it’s folded down.

The tent has a height of just 200mm when packed away, which means less wind drag and better access to trails with low tree cover.

When open, it contains a 2400 x 1400mm sleeping area with five zippered windows and a 50mm high-density foam mattress. It’s made using 300gsm polycotton rip-stop canvas and 420D Oxford polyester fly, and weighs around 56kg, and features include an LED touch lamp and two USB charging points which connect to a 12volt outlet within your vehicle.

Bridgestone Dueler A/T002 promises premium all-terrain performance whatever the weather THE TYPICAL IMAGE OF OVERLAND TRAVEL might involve a heroic 4x4 kicking up tails of dust in a parched dry desert lanscape. But most of the time, you’re going to be on roads – and the biggest challenge you’ll face to your vehicle’s ability to find traction will be from good old fashioned rain.

When your route heads into the mountains, meanwhile, it might be on some sort of unmade trail from a dream. But most likely what you’ll be wrestling with is snow, slush and gnawing cold.

For this, and indeed for every kind of climate our planet has yet devised, Bridgestone has launched the new Dueler All-Terrain A/T002. This is a premium all-terrain tyre which, the company says, ‘enables drivers to equip their 4x4 vehicles to handle all surfaces and weather conditions.’

Developed and manufactured in Europe, the tyre is available in a comprehensive selection of 43 sizes ranging from 15 to 19 inches. We won’t list the whole lot, but the all-important 265/75R16 is in there and so is most of the other good stuff too. Bridgestone says its new all-terrain was designed ‘to enable drivers to handle off-road challenges while keeping them on track on their on-road journeys.’

Helping it do this is an aggressive tread pattern, designed for better adaptation and reaction over different types of ground. This has an innovative hexagonal block shape and pattern architecture, which Bridgestone says will give you excellent traction and braking balance on a variety of surfaces while also being able to bite into mud and snow without getting clogged.

On the road, the tyre promises to grip both in the wet and the dry. This is achieved using a high-silica rubber compound which allows the tyre to grip well even on wet roads – and with 3PMSF markings to go with its M+S rating, it’s fully compliant with winter tyre legislation across Europe. Which means you’ll be able to rely on it outwith the continent, too.

Bridgestone also promises a 40% improvement in wear rate over the previous Dueler A/T001, saying this is achieved through a maximised footprint width, optimised contact patch and increased skid depth.

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‘According to our comprehensive market research, drivers of 4x4 vehicles are looking for freedom and adventure, while also seeking safety and reassurance that they are ready to tackle the road ahead, no matter the weather or terrain,’ explains Bridgestone’s Chief Technical Officer and Chief Operating Officer Emilio Tiberio. ‘With the new Bridgestone Dueler All-Terrain A/T002, we offer all 4x4 drivers – regardless of whether they are looking for adventure, or simply using their vehicle for their daily work – the confidence and control they need to push their vehicles to their full potential in tackling both on-road and off-road conditions.’

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PRODUCTS

HOME OF 4X4 VEHICLES SINCE 1995 LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN! More power and features from revised Thunderpole T-800 THUNDERPOLE HAS UPGRADED ITS POPULAR T-800 CB radio with a host of new features for 2023.

This is built on an upgraded chassis, has an improved circuit board and now offers an additional PA function, allowing you to address outside audiences from vehicles equipped with a suitable PA horn.

As before, the T-800 has AM/FM radio functions and multi-band operation with 80 UK/EU Channels and 8 European bands. It boasts a 4-Watt RF output and comes with auto-squelch, a bright LED display, signal meter and multi-function microphone.

While the T-800 will fit the bill perfectly for professional users, Thunderpole says it was designed ‘with simplicity in mind, so anyone can easily use it.’ It has a large volume knob for easy control and comes with a EU/UK switch to let you to change bands in an instant. It now comes in an enhanced heavy-duty chassis and the revised circuit board includes a new processor, meaning performance and reliability should now be stronger than ever.

In addition to this, the microphone has been completely redesigned in response to customer feedback.

The T-800 now comes with a high-quality electret condenser encased in a larger handset, providing ‘crystal clear audio from the palm of your hand.’

Best of all, perhaps, the T-800 is available on its own or as part of the hugely popular Thunderpole Starter Pack. As well as the radio itself, this includes your choice of antenna, vehicle mount, cable and everything else you need to get started. It’s priced at £69.99 from www.thunderpole.co.uk.

Safety Devices’ G4 Expedition roof rack for Defender 90 now available through Britpart network Price: Ca £1500 Available from: Britpart dealers SAFETY DEVICES’ G4 EXPEDITION ROOF RACK for the Defender 90 is an all-in-one design with no detachable parts. The first thing to say about it, if what you’re planning is a certain kind of expedition, is that it’s not compatible with a roof tent – but the second is that this is because of the wrap-around luggage rail which completely surrounds the rack itself.

Made for the Defender 90 Hard-Top and Station Wagon, the rack’s base is stepped to follow the profile of the vehicle’s roof. Thus it has two ‘floor’ levels, the front one of which looks pretty much perfectly sized to take a bank of jerry cans.

Given the price of diesel, ‘bank’ is pretty much the word, too.

The rack mounts via ten clamps which fix it to the Defender’s roof gutters. For this reason, it’s not usable along with an external roll cage – this in turn makes it ideal on vehicles that are going to be fitted with a snorkel. Features include four spotlight brackets at the front and one at the rear.

Made from heavy-duty steel tube which is grit blasted, zincprimed and finished in black powder coat, the rack weighs 30kg and has a usable loading area of 1.9 x 1.2 metres. Accessories available separately include a twin-height floor in 10mm marine ply and an access ladder which mounts to the rear crossmember and the rack itself.

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PRODUCTS

4x4 Overlander brings Autohome range of roof tents back to UK

I

talian roof tent specialist Autohome has a new importer in the UK. The company, whose tents are offered as OEM accessories by a variety of manufacturers including Mini and Land Rover, is now working with Halifax-based 4x4 Overlander – which offers its products both for sale and for hire.

4x4 Overlander is already a stockist for Maggiolina, so the company knows its tents. It says it receives regular shipments from its suppliers, so any out-of-stock items can be sourced promptly.

Adding Autohome to its repertoire was a no-brainer as this is a roof tent brand whose heritage goes all the way back to 1958. In that time, it has spread into new markets such as the United States, Australia, Japan and South Africa and, it says, become ‘the most famous Italian brand in the world of design

and production of roof tents.’

Today, Autohome offers no less than seven different models of tent, as well; as well as 60 kinds of equipment and a wide range of accessories, allowing you ‘to turn adventure and vacation in freedom into a real lifestyle.’ The company is proud of the fact that its entire range continues to be made 100% in Italy, with no commercial business or production based outside the country. To translate, it hasn’t been lured into saving money by moving its production to that well known land of rubbish knock-offs.

‘We have always been number one,’ says Autohome. ‘Not by chance. Because of our combination of imagination and “Made in Italy” quality. The result is our roof tent – the first, the original and still the biggest seller.

‘Each Autohome tent is the product of our experience and the recommendations of adventure travellers. These two skills together have created the largest range of tents available. A catalogue that is constantly kept up to date to provide you with a tent that is perfect for your needs.’

The company promises that its tents are made using the best materials, with attention to every detail and under a strict quality control regime. To prove the point, they come

with a five-year guarantee to back up their quality certification.

The aforementioned land of factories making rubbish knockoffs ensures that there are cheaper roof tents in the world. But if you ask absolutely anyone who knows about expedition preparation, they’ll tell you that if you’re going to buy one, it’s a classic case of spend it once, spend it right. And they don’t come much more right than this. To find out more, time to pay a visit to www.4x4overlander.com.

ARB Y-strap promises security for your spare wheel Price: ca £28 plus VAT Available from: Britpart dealers ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS THAT SHOULD BE ON YOUR LIST when you’re prepping for overland travel is to equip yourself with a second spare wheel. Which means that the second thing on your list is likely to be to find somewhere to put it.

Your roof rack may well be home to a tent, what with your 4x4 being an overlander. But if it’s not, there’s an obvious answer right there. And to help you make the most of that obvious answer, ARB’s Wheel Y-Strap with Snap Lock Hooks is designed to make securing it as easy as possible.

This was designed with the eye bolt tie-downs on the Aussie company’s BASE Rack in mind, but will also work with other aftermarket eyelets. It features a tether strap and snap lock hooks, which ARB says will keep the wheel in place even in the event of the tyre deflating. This feature improves its ability to retain an unmounted tyre carcass, too.

The strap combines a 32mm ratchet with 32mm and 25mm polyester webbing, with snap lock hook ends which will always stay retained. Its one-metre length means it would take a pretty huge tyre to go beyond its capacity (this is ARB, after all), and its lashing capacity is rated to 500kg.

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EXPEDITIONS CAN TAKE YOU to hot places. But hot places can be dangerous places – the sort where opening a window can mean ending up as prey for the wildlife.

This could be a reference to animals wanting to eat you or hoodlums wanting to burgle you. Both are to be avoided, ideally, but then it’s also nice to be able to breathe.

This is where these Rear Window Security Screens from Series Defender Outfitters come in. They’re made of steel and are black powder-coated, so they’re plenty strong should a leopard want to say hello.

The screens are designed for any pre-2002 Defender Station Wagon .

They’re at www.seriesdefender.com.

OVERLAND 15/09/2023 17:44

Your one-stop rooftent shop

Quality rooftents available to view and buy in our Chichester showroom.

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15/09/2023 11:19 13/09/2023 14:09:16

TO THE END OF THE EARTH Want your 4x4 to take you around the world? Then don’t ask it to carry the weight of the world on its shoulders…

Words: Barrie Dunbar Pictures: Mike Trott, Steve Taylor and Harry Hamm Main picture: Mussi Katz

About the Author Barrie Dunbar runs Active 4x4 Adventures, which specialises in unique, fully catered 4x4 tours including exciting adventure activities at no additional cost. The prices the company quotes are all-inclusive. To find out more about its future itineraries, visit active4x4adventures.com.

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I

t’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it,’ says a very wise old saying. Like most very wise old sayings, it, well, very wise. But when it comes to overlanding, where excess weight is the perennial destroyer and is to be avoided at almost all costs, this good advice is turned on its head.

So, what should you bring on expedition and what should you leave at home? How do you ensure that you are adequately equipped with the right tools and spares, without stressing your suspension and driveline to breaking point?

The answer is to compromise.

But firstly (and more importantly), you need to follow another wise old adage – that prevention is better than cure.

Following this philosophy also makes for a cheaper way to travel, which means you can do it for longer (and, in many cases, actually get out there at all in the first place).

It’s a lot safer, too.

Therefore, the single most important thing you can do to prepare your vehicle for an overland expedition is to ensure that it undergoes a complete and thorough service and inspection, done by an experienced and reputable professional who understands what your vehicle will be required to do.

I can’t stress this point enough.

Overlanding is sometimes referred

Top: Big suspension, big tyres, two spares, steel bumpers, high-lift jack, winch, roof rack, tent, auxiliary fuel stowage… it could all stake a claim for being essential, but every single item adds to your vehicle's weight – and the heavier it becomes, the more likely it is that you'll suffer a disastrous driveline failure at the worst possible time

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Above: Under the bonnet, the engine itself needs to be reliable – and so too do items like the radiator, alternator, starter motor and water and fuel pumps. You should be completely happy with the condition of all the vehicle’s manifolds, drive belts, hoses and battery mounts, too, as well as every single cable and connector it all relies on to work Below: Before you trust your vehicle with your life, get it fully assessed by a professional. Under the body, everything about the steering, brakes, suspension, exhaust, drivetrain and transmission needs to be in tip-top condition – as do all the associated bushes, joints and mounts. On vehicles with automatic gearboxes, a full transmission fluid change is essential – not just because it might be getting old, but because it’s going to be operating in much tougher conditions once your expedition is underway

to as ‘vehicle dependent travel’, and guess what? The thing that depends on your vehicle is your life. If you needed heart surgery, you wouldn’t let your mate do it in his lock-up, would you? Well, in the wilds of Africa your vehicle will be every bit as important as a fully functioning ticker, so do yourself a favour and leave it in the hands of a pro.

As this suggests, preparing for expedition travel is in some ways kind of like carrying out a risk assessment. Obviously, the idea of accessorising your vehicle, planning a route and so on is that it’s meant to be exciting, and that’s all as it should be. But by being aware of the hazards and pitfalls and knowing how you’ll handle them (or, better, avoid them altogether), you’ll be better equipped to enjoy the fun bits free from worry.

What follows, then, could be taken as the aforementioned risk assessment. It’s not claiming to be comprehensive, but it’s based on

experience and aims to anticipate and overcome potential problems you could face. And in doing so, it could serve as a useful checklist to help avoid the unthinkable scenario of a major breakdown when you’re in hostile territory and help is a very long way away:

1

All vehicles have weaknesses, some more than others.

Research the ‘known faults’ for your particular vehicle and rectify them after evaluating recommendations from a variety of experts.

2

The comprehensive service referred to above must include all filters (air, oil and fuel) and all associated oils (engine, gearbox, transfer case and differentials), in addition to the usual consumables that may need replacing.

3

Your service must also incorporate a professional underbody inspection – especially

of the transmission, drivetrain, axles, wheels and brakes, but also of other components including the steering, suspension and exhaust.

The inspection should also take into account associated bushes, mounts, joints and so on.

4

The engine bay needs to be given a thorough evaluation, too. Checks should be made to assess the condition of critical components such as the water pump, radiator, alternator and starter motor, but also the manifold, belts, hoses and battery mounts – whie also considering all associated wiring and connectors in addition to the above.

5

If your vehicle is fitted with an automatic gearbox, you must change the transmission fluid in accordance with the manufacturer’s specification, or alternatively replace it with Castrol Transynd. Those who have ignored this in the past have

found themselves losing all drive, as their torque converter ceases functioning in the presence of overheated, degraded fluid that has lost its viscosity.

6

Fitting good quality mud-terrain or all-terrain tyres is essential and these need to be in a suitable condition, with plenty of life left in them. Retreads are not advised and overlanders should carry a pressure gauge for airing down and a portable compressor for airing up. Low-profile road-biased tyres are not suitable; as a general rule, it’s sensible to fit smaller rims with taller tyres.

7

I think underbody protection is unnecessary. It can add significant weight, putting increased strain on the transmission and drivetrain. It also hides the areas you need to inspect each day. So I would keep things to a minimum, maybe with just a steering guard at most.

Opposite page: A well fitted overlanding installation can be a thing of absolute beauty. Once again, though, it’s only well fitted if every single item is 100% necessary. The same goes for the tools and spares you carry – you simply can’t take everything you need to cover every eventuality, so you need to decide what’s most crucial. You’ll see more of this same vehicle overleafs

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Thick steel is the traditional way of armouring a 4x4 against ground impacts, and it works – but it adds a frightening amount of weight in the process. Aluminium (above right) is a more modern alternative, providing as much strength for a minimal weight penalty, but even then you should only bolt on what you really need. Don’t forget also that underbody protection, by the very nature of what it’s there to do, covers up the areas you need to be checking every day, so if you do want to fit some make sure you use a brand with suitable access holes

8

Carry a basic collection of spare parts and fluids as appropriate for your particular make of vehicle, in addition to the following: hoses, jubilee clips, baling wire, large cable ties, fuses, bulbs, belts, duct tape, WD40, nuts and bolts, tyre valves and the like.

In other words, items which are lightweight and versatile!

9

As with the spares and fluids, crry a reasonable selection of your most commonly used tools.

But remember, weight is the enemy, so keep it minimal. If you’re going to be travelling as part of a group,, discuss this in advance and share the load.

4pp Overand Prep BD.indd 31

At the end of each day, inspect the vehicle’s engine bay and undercarriage, and the condition of the tyre sidewalls. Spotting a problem early makes it much easier, and inevitably cheaper, to rectify.

It’s much safer to be in control of the repair, too, than to wait for it to become critical.

It’s good practice to blow out the air filter after driving in dusty conditions, and check oil and water levels at the same time. Also give the belts a tweak to ensure that they are sitting firm – but never overtighten them.

Inspect the undercarriage and the ground under the vehicle every morning to check for any leaked

oil, water or fluids. If the radiator is needing regular top-ups, that’s not good – it could be a sign of a cracked head.

Finally, try and avoid the temptation to over-prepare your vehicle. Overlanding is not about tackling the most extreme terrain you can find, but about finding the most extreme places and working with the terrain to get you through them. However many modifications might be available, don’t forget that vehicles like the Defender, Patrol, Landcruiser and so on have so much off-road ability in standard form that every day, thousands of them work for the living in exactly the sort of places you want to visit.

So be sparing with the bolt-on goodies. Weight is a killer – and not just in terms of your fuel consumption, but in the increased strain it puts on the whole driveline and transmission. Don’t tamper with any factory-fitted systems either – you do so at your peril and you may find yourself opening a most unwanted can of worms.

Following these steps prior to departure means you’re a great deal more likely to have an adventure to remember – for all the right reasons.

To trot out yet another very wise old saying: “fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’ Now, that one really could have been written with overlanding in mind!

15/09/2023 13:21

LONG-distance LEGEND

R

ightly or wrongly, certain types of 4x4 are associated with certain types of off-roading. The Suzuki Jimny is seen as your classic playday hero. A modded Discovery will probably be used on lanes. Most things built since about 2004 are likely to be found stuck with one wheel on a patch of gravel.

And so on.

The big Land Cruiser 80-Series is famed for being good at everything (apart maybe from fitting through narrow gaps). In particular, though, Toyota’s mighty masterpiece is associated with long-range expedition travel.

We’ve featured a good few 80s in this magazine. Some have been heavily lifted in a bid for playday supremacy, but most have been expedition prepped to a greater or lesser degree.

Chris Jerman’s is definitely all about overlanding

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– and if you’ve ever seen a Land Cruiser with such a professional level of build, that’s probably because it was built by professionals.

‘I bought a Land Cruiser, drove it into a field to see what it would do, found a deep mud hole, got stuck, had fun getting out and the rest is history,’ is Chris’ admirably blunt account of how he found his way into the off-road game. He’s a regular at events run by Trans-Pennine Off-Road Events and Spondon and District Off-Road Club, though several Land Cruisers later he doesn’t tend to go in as hard any more.

‘I find all the mud a bit much after all this time. So now I’m running a clean vehicle but marshalling for the club so that others can have their fun.’ Good man.

Several Land Cruisers later? Yes. ‘They’ve all been Land Cruisers, other than when I bought a

Kia Sorento by mistake. That won’t happen again.’

We happen to think there’s not much wrong with the Kia Sorento, actually. Unless of course what you really wanted was a Toyota Land Cruiser, in which case you should buy a Toyota Land Cruiser. Which, as you ought to be able to tell from these photos, is what Chris did to remedy the situation.

Actually, he bought two. Not at the same time, but he describes the first as ‘a practice that set me up for the real deal’.

In case you’re wondering, the real deal is the one in the pictures. Chris says he bought it from an old boy in Newark, but he doesn’t know much of its history prior to that – other perhaps than that it didn’t really have any.

It didn’t stay that way for long. ‘I just got stuck straight in the day it arrived. I’d done lots of

OVERLAND 15/09/2023 12:59

The 80-Series Toyota Land Cruiser is said by many to be the best 4x4 ever made. Maybe that’s why so many of those you see being modified are prepped for long-range overlanding. Chris Jerman’s is a case in point – and it’s one of the most beautifully turned out expedition trucks you’ll ever see Words: Paul Looe Pictures: Harry Hamm

It’s never possible to capture the beauty of a drop slide’s operation with a still picture, but when you see the position of the Waeco CF40 fridge/ freezer here you can imagine the way it’s had to travel from its home position. The custom unit it rides on is like poetry in motion.

And when the fridge is stowed, the catch can be released on the drawer beneath it… and out comes the larder planning to make sure I got it right first time, and it’s all gone genuinely well. Two years later, it was finished. And my knees hurt.’

Worth it, we’re sure you’ll agree. A few aching joints is nothing compared to the aching heart and bleeding wallet a project can leave you with, not least when the vehicle you create is little more than a pain in the neck (other body parts are available), so the planning paid off.

Makes you ache with longing, doesn’t it? The rear of the Land Cruiser is fitted with an Outback Import drawer system, and every last scrap of space from top to bottom is used for stowage. The extension you see here is home to Chris’ kitchen, in the shape of an efficient two-ring gas hob

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Above left: Toyota’s 1HJD-T 4.2-litre 24-valve engine is one of the best diesels ever made. It’s strong as an ox, supremely reliable and torquey enough to pull a house down at tickover. People don’t mess with these engines – and why would you, when they’re so good in standard form? Chris has left his well alone, making mods only to a few associated systems: the alternator has been upgraded, and the started motor changed for a 12-volt unit to suit a new electrical system which keeps the cranking and domestic batteries separate using a National Luna split-charge system. Also under the bonnet are additional cabling and air hose, a bracket for the fuel filter and an ARB twin compressor feeding a Viair two-gallon tank, as well as pipework feeding the system that provides hot and cold running water Above right: Up top, a James Baroud Explorer hardshell roof rent is sufficiently well specced to be able to boast of having internal power and light. The roof tent sits on a custom extended-length rack from Patriot, which is also home to a Foxwing 270-degree awning with sides Let’s just say that again. The planning paid off. Hint: Do planning – it pays off. Something else that pays off is doing all the work yourself.

There’s no end to the reasons for this – it’s fun, it’s rewarding, you learn stuff, it saves thousands of pounds, you get to know your truck inside out and, of course, you’ve got no-one to blame but yourself if it goes pear-shaped on you.

Not that that has happened to Chris. When he describes his workshop as being equipped with mig, plasma, lathe and vertical milling machine, as opposed to just the usual box of sockets and a sodding great hammer, you can be pretty sure that the truck’s going to have been done right.

And poking around it pretty much confirms that yes, this is a good ‘un. So many of the modified vehicles you see have electrics that look like a rat’s nest, but here it’s all supremely neat and tidy. It goes without saying that Chris has used the right cables and wires around the

vehicle, but over and above that there’s no slack, no unnecessary coils floating around, and it’s all clipped beautifully in place rather than being held down by gravity or shoved under a carpet.

In particular, the installation of a CTEK intelligent battery management system behind the rear seats looks like it could have come straight out of a commercial airliner, it’s that good. This is connected to a rear Optima YellowTop, which is kept topped up from a solar panel while running all the vehicle’s domestic systems.

To make space for this, Chris converted the truck from its factory spec 24-volt starter to a 12-volt unit. The set-up runs a National Luna split-charge system, and there’s an upgraded 120amp alternator to help it keep on top of the many demands placed in it. Again, the installation is a thing of beauty.

Likewise, the use of space in the back of the vehicle is immaculate, as is the operation of the

custom drop slide that carries a Waeco CF40 fridge-freezer. Next to it are a sink and shower unit running hot and cold water fed by a Kenlowe pump under the bonnet.

All this is revealed once the spare wheel is swung away on a custom mount, which itself sits on a rear bumper Chris made himself. The whole boot is a study in packaging – there’s not a scrap of usable space that isn’t working for its living, and once the vehicle is set up for the night it opens out into a fully equipped camp kitchen.

You’d expect nothing less after two years in the hands of a man who clearly knows exactly what he’s doing, of course. But this Cruiser really is something special, by anyone’s standards.

And it’s not all just about the domestic side, either. You don’t get a vehicle of this age without having to do a bit of remedial work, and the original engine is now mated to the gearbox from a later HDJ100-Series Land Cruiser.

The spare wheel and high-lift jack carrier is notable because Chris made it himself. It mounts upon a rear bumper which is also notable… because Chris made it himself, too. He’s not scared of spending money on the right stuff, though: an ARB winch bumper, home to a ComeUp 9.5 wound with 11mm Dyneema rope, proves the point

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OVERLAND 15/09/2023 12:59

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Above left: If you’re a sucker for a neat installation, this will make you go weak at the knees. The offside rear seat folds forward to reveal a CTEK intelligent battery management system, and stored behind it is a solar panel which comes out to keep the batteries charged when the truck’s parked up for the night Above right: Mains electricity comes from a Waeco 600-watt pure sine wave inverter, and exterior lighting is controlled by dimmer switches. Up top in this picture is what looks like it might be a shower head, which is because… it’s a shower head. Using a heat exchanger fed from an under-bonnet Kenlowe circulation pump, this is a Land Cruiser with hot and cold running water Right: The Cruiser is held up on an EFS 4” lift. And it really is held up, too, because this was specified to deal with a typical running weight of +500kg Likewise, Chris replaced the 3.9:1 diffs for 4.1:1 units to compensate for the 315/75R16 Cooper Discoverer STTs the truck now wears. Hardly an extreme choice of tyre in terms of size, that, but you’ll have worked out by now that he’s not one for making do. No surprise then that the bigger tyres are stopped by uprated brakes, and that the +4” suspension lift was specified not just to hike the vehicle’s height but to cope with an additional 500kg in weight too.

Truth to tell, you don’t see many badly modded 80-Series Land Cruisers doing the rounds. That’s mainly because even two decades on, they’re still worth so much money that the bash-it-with-

a-hammer brigade would sooner buy an old Jimny or Discovery, while the bash-it-with-a-stick brethren are more likely to find an MOT-failed Cherokee or Trooper that they can demolish in a quarry prior to weighing it in.

That’s one end of the off-road game for you.

And relevant though it may be, it’s at the opposite end to what you see here. Chris has build himself a Land Cruiser fit to go round the world with absolute ease – a 4x4 in which age is simply irrelevant and distance is a thing to be enjoyed, not feared. It’s why Toyota made them the way they are – and why the 80-Series will forever remain a legend.

Left: Even if you don’t have stuff to store, this Black Ops cargo net from Rock’n’Road is worth having just for how damn sexy it looks. It’s not obvious at first glance, but as well as the net itself there’s a bottom blanket sitting flush to the bonnet; the hooks attaching it are coated, too, so the vehicle’s paintwork shouldn’t suffer at all

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THE BEST-LAID PLANS…

You can plan your overland travels all you want – but the bits you remember best will be Words: Tom Alderney Pictures: Jenny Bright and Gavin Lowrie

W

hen you set out to see the world on an off-road expedition, it stands to reason that there’ll be particular bits you’re most looking forward to. But the reality of it can sometimes turn out different.

Anticipation is a funny thing.

You can let it build up to the point where, when whatever it is you’re anticipating finally happens, it can hardly help but be an anticlimax.

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those that happen spontaneously

Above: The train cemetery in Uyuni is almost as iconic as the Salar (main picture) – if not quite as expansively huge Below left: The Rainbow Mountains of Ausangate are aptly named, because not only are the painted in multi-coloured stripes, they’re up in the sky. Driving at this altitude is a proper low-box job

If there was a book called How to Get Through Adolescence For Boys, you’d find this under ‘Virginity Loss.’

And it can be the same with the bits of your travels you’re most looking forward to.

If you’re heading through Africa, the Great Rift Valley is sure to be on your A-list. Being dragged in to a bedouin’s tent for tea, or visiting an old guy in a back-street garage who checks your tyre pressures

OVERLAND 6pp Uyuni Ruby.indd 39

by whacking them with an iron bar and gets them all right to within 1psi – these are the things that just happen, and they’re where the magic comes from.

If you were planning a trip through South America, Peru would most likely be a must-do. More than Colombia, for most people.

But for Jenny Bright and Gavin Lowrie, Columbia set the bar very, very high. It was the first port of

call on a global expedition aboard Ruby, their Land Rover 110 and self-propelled home on wheels, and they were blown away by the nation’s landscapes, culture and, in particular, the welcome they received from its people.

By the time they crossed the border into Peru, they had also visited Ecuador and taken an excursion to the Galapagos Islands.

So the land of Macchu Picchu had a lot to live up to.

It had just under a month in which to impress the couple. And it started very well.

‘Our top place was the Cordillera Blanca Mountains and the wonderful Laguna Parón, the largest lake in the range,’ says Jen. ‘We had a spectacular drive to reach Laguna Parón, with the dirt road leading to it consisting of multiple hairpin turns and heading through an enormous canyon with thousand metre high granite walls.

‘The Laguna sits at 4200 metres above sea level and it was simply breathtaking. The colour of the water was a turquoise blue and the surrounding mountains were like something out of a film. In fact, one of the mountains, Artesonraju, is the mountain depicted in the Paramount Pictures logo!’

An ideal spot for a bit of wild camping, then. That’s another of those magic moments you tend not to anticipate when you’re planning a trip. You might talk airily of finding

the perfect camping spot every night, or waft on about sleeping under the stars, but when it happens it just, well, happens.

But many other parts of Peru are capable of filling an art gallery in a heartbeat, too. The Paracas National Reserve, for example.

Encapsulating a vast coastal desert, with hues of sand capable of depositing a pack of Crayola’s brightest firmly in the shade, this beautiful expanse is true 4x4 territory. ‘We had a great time driving all over the desert,’ comments Gav. ‘It stretched as far as the eye could see and we set up our wild camp overlooking a red, sandy beach with crashing waves.’

Another of those perfect moments you can’t really plan.

Following a boat tour around the Islas Ballestas, which are home to pelicans, sea lions and Peruvian boobies, and a visit to the Paracas Candelabro, a vast geoglyph carved into the rock rising from the coast overlooking Pisco Bay, Jen and Gav pointed Ruby towards Chauchilla – an ancient necropolis near the city of Nazca.

‘Chauchilla Cemetery is an eerily compelling place,’ says Jen, ‘notable for its open-pit graves where the bodies of the dead still sit where they were positioned centuries ago. Some remain complete skeletons, wrapped in shrouds, and all the skulls face east as Nazca tradition dictates.

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The Lagunas route is a serious bit of overlanding, with trails that need a good vehicle and a driver who knows what they're doing. The rewards are there for all to see, however – this is Laguna Blanco, one of several eye-poppingly beautiful mountain lakes along the way ‘It was a fascinating, if not slightly macabre place to set up camp.

Although we got an excellent night’s sleep because there was no one to disturb us – only the mummies in their graves nearby!’

Next up were the Rainbow Mountains of Ausangate, which are famous for their stunning stripy colours. This is low-range territory, with proper off-roading to be done as you climb into the peaks before negotiating valleys inhabited by herds of alpacas beneath the snowcapped peaks.

It all sounds like a fabulous tour of Peru. Except, wait… what about

Machu Picchu itself? This is of course one of the world’s most famous attractions for globetrotting travellers, and it was high on Jen and Gav’s list when they set off. But they couldn’t get there – something to do with strikes, which sounds a bit baffling but however it panned out, it wasn’t happening.

So the only thing for it was to keep going en route to Bolivia, the next destination on the itinerary.

As Jen and Gav left Peru after four weeks, how did it compared with Colombia and Ecuador?

‘To be honest, we preferred the previous countries,’ admits Gav.

‘The North of Peru was a vast expanse of desert and there was a lot of rubbish around. It also felt less welcoming and friendly than Colombia, although that was only our perception and the people were still great. It also felt like there was a lot more history in Peru, with all of the Inca and pre-Inca sites.’

So Peru was good. But Colombia was still the undefeated champ in their affections as the couple headed for Bolivia.

By now, with a good few months’ travelling under their belts, Jen and Gav had realised that trying to see absolutely everything isn’t the

best way to go about planning your time. Pick out your top priorities, slow down a touch and enjoy the experience.

‘We were happy to have a vehicle with four-wheel drive,’ says Jen, ‘but one that was a bit smaller than some of the huge trucks we had been seeing, as it meant we could access the narrower, winding mountain roads.

‘I think the only change we would have made at this point would be to have had the option of sleeping inside Ruby on occasion, as it restricted us in cities to having to find hostels or campgrounds on the

Below: Mountain biking on the Death Road. No, we don’t know how it got its name either Right: On the subject of death, Cuachilla Cemetery is about as spooky an attraction as they come. Dating from the Nazca era, it’s populated by mummies like this – which have been sat there

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Plaza de las Banderas (‘Flag Square’) is a colourful feature in the vastness of the Salar de Uyuni. If you’re a bit of a vexillologist (weren’t expecting us to say THAT, were you?), you’ll no doubt recognise several of these. But that there to the left, visible just above the Defender’s bonnet… that would be the flag of Yorkshire. Jen and Gav were pretty proud to have added this to the collection, as you would be

outskirts. Plus, if the weather was bad we could not live or sleep inside, so had to call upon the awning on occasion.’

Jen and Gav’s itinerary gave them a month or so in Bolivia, just as it had in Peru. Their research suggested that they were going to find it a more deprived country than those they had travelled through previously, that good-quality diesel

OVERLAND 6pp Uyuni Ruby.indd 41

would be harder to come by – and that they would likely see more regular roadblocks.

Sounds promising. But once again, it’s when you’re least expecting it that the good stuff happens. ‘We spent a few days in La Paz, which stands at an altitude of 3650 metres,’ recalls Jen. ‘And we really enjoyed ourselves.’

‘It gave us the opportunity to sort our vehicle insurance for the rest of the South American leg of our trip. But we also took in an excellent city tour and mountain biked down Death Road – our favourite highlight!

‘Death Road was once named the world’s most dangerous road.

We went with an excellent company called Extreme Downhill, and the bikes were in very good condition – with great brakes!’

These definitely got tested a few times, but having said that Jen turned out to be a bit of a daredevil on two wheels. She also forgot which side of the road she was meant to be on at one point, which was a little alarming for the Bolivian motorist coming the other way, and there was a scary moment when a couple of vultures swept across their path, almost sending

them down the hillside the wrong way – but it was all worth it for the glorious scenery during the 44-kilometre ride.

It was certainly a relief at the end, though. As was finally being able to get out of La Paz – not because there’s anything wrong with the place, but because they hit one of the many roadblocks they’d been warned about. Happily, after a polite discussion with the local rozzers, Ruby was pointed down a small off-road route that got her where she needed to be. When we say small, it was actually thirty miles or so!

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Creeping back on to the hard salt crust after a bit of an incident involving gravity. When you get stuck on the Salar de Uyuni, you get really stuck. And really photographed, too, it would appear

From here, Ruby’s destination was Salar de Uyuni – a truly iconic destination in the overlanding world. The world’s largest salt flat, this covers nearly 11,000 square kilometres – it’s a truly vast landscape whose thick crust of white salt is punctuated here and there by the occasional cactuscovered rock island.

‘We drove to a small place called Coqueza, on the north and quieter side of the Salar,’ says Jen. ‘It was a stunning environment with a colourful volcano behind it and the

6pp Uyuni Ruby.indd 42

salt flats stretching out for miles in front of it.

‘There was also a small lagoon before the salt flats where flamingos grazed. This was our wild camp spot for the night – and again, we loved being able to camp in such a beautiful place.’

Driving on the salt flats themselves, where you can cruise along with nothing on the horizon for mile after mile, is a thoroughly surreal experience. Jen and Gav even stopped at the Palacio de Sal (salt hotel), which sounds like an

ideal resting place for the ‘seasoned’ traveller. Sorry…

‘We spent some time in the small town of Uyuni, where we met other overlanders who would journey with us on the off-road Lagunas route into Northern Chile,’ explains Gav. ‘But first, a few more nights

of wild camping on the Salar were needed – including an overnight stop at the train cemetery!’ As if this isn’t enough of a man-made marvel in such an astonishing natural landscape, there’s also a marker for the Dakar Rally – which since relocating from North Africa

15/09/2023 13:17

Recognise this? Artesonraju is the mountain you've seen depicted with a ring of stars around it at the start of every Paramount Pictures movie you've ever watched Above right: As camp sites go, they don’t get much better than this. Wild camping is one of the pleasures of overlanding – once you’re settled into it, happening upon the perfect spot makes for the perfect moment. See also below… has passed through the area on a regular basis.

From here, Jen and Gav’s journey took them via the challenging Lagunas route. ‘This is a 260-mile trail,’ says Gav, ‘and we would spend four nights completing it before reaching Laguna Colorado, a shallow salt lake where the water appears red due to the sediment and pigmentation of the algae. The mass population of flamingos also added to the vibrancy on display!’

The combination of off-road driving and stunning views is something you can read about in all the world’s guidebooks, and it would

OVERLAND 6pp Uyuni Ruby.indd 43

be reason enough to look forward to any part of your journey. But once again, it was special because of what cropped up without any planning – the other overlanders who joined Jen, Gav and Ruby in tackling the route.

After Laguna Colorado came Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde – you can see how the route got its name! Beyond this, Jen, Gav and Ruby headed to Aduana, at an altitude of 5000 metres, ready for the crossing into Chile.

‘We’d spent more time at altitude in Bolivia and as a result it had been on the cooler side,’ says Jen. ‘The

days were bright and sunny and the nights very cold, while the terrain was beautiful and the salt flats and Lagunas route were like nothing we had seen before.’

The delegation of duties was working well at this point, too – as it must if an expedition is to go smoothly. Jen and Gav both shared driving time, though Gav did take the lion’s share seeing as Jen was in charge of international relations…

And when she wasn’t working her charm on the local police, she would handle the campsite pot washing once Gav had put on his nightly cooking masterclass. We’re not sure

which of them was telling the story at this point…

What’s clear is that while Peru was great, but not quite as enchanting as Colombia, Bolivia was truly memorable. Missing out on Macchu Picchu was a downer in the former nation, but between its many geographical wonders and man-made squeaky-bum moments, Jen and Gav had an absolute ball in Bolivia. Yes, there are bits on any expedition that you most look forward to, and yes the Salar de Uyuni would surely be among them.

But it’s when you least expect it that the magic really happens…

43 15/09/2023 13:17

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ON THE ROAD 50 OVERLAND DESTINATIONS TO DREAM OF This wonderful world of ours is packed full of beautiful, historical, fascinating, scary and just downright weird places to visit. Every one of them offers the sort of experience that makes expedition travel so very special – and together, they make an overwhelming case for leaving life behind and getting out there in your 4x4 to explore the planet.

This article highlights fifty of the best and most precious destinations, from specific features and legendary trails to entire regions and nations – all of them adventures to make you double down on your determination to build that overland vehicle you’ve been promising yourself and finally get on the road!

46 21pp 50 Destinations.indd 46

Main pic: Davies Plain Track, by Bryce Walker @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0 Above, clockwise from left: 4WD and termite mound, by Steve @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0 Off Road, by Jonah Bettio @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0 Nick Taylor @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0 From Sary Tash to Osh, Kyrgyzstan, by Ninara @ flickr.com CC BY 2.0

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Kaokoland A landscape from a dream. Wildlife rarely seen by human eyes. A tribal population barely touched by modernity. And you can only get there by 4x4.

Kaokoland, a mountainous region in north-west Namibia, is overland adventure personified.

We’re talking about an area twice the size of Wales – with about the same population as Stowmarket. The majority are Himbas, a nomadic tribe whose ochre body paint is instantly r ecognisable and who have come to be part of the travel experience.

The perfect moment on many an expedition has come with the descent of Van Zyl’s Pass, which drops out of the sky to the ancient glacial valley of Marienfluss. It’s so steep and rocky that you can’t drive back up again afterwards and have to take the easy route out. In this case, ‘easy’ means two days of boulders.

Main pic: Sergio Conti @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0

Pic (right): Himba Tribe, Kamanjab, Namibia, by yeowatzup @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0 Pic (below right): Himba Tribe: Mud Huts, by whatleydude @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0 Pic (below far right): Himba im Kaokoland, by Michael Hübner @ flickr.com, CC BY-ND 2.0

Canning Stock Route More than 1100 miles of rocks, dunes and corrugations in the Great Sandy Desert. That’s the Canning, a cattle route established more than a century ago which today makes a strong claim to being the world’s greatest off-road adventure.

To make it in any way practicable as a drove road, the Canning is basically a track linking a series of wells. These were created with scant regard for the Aboriginal people who lived in the area for aeons before Alfred Canning turned up to survey the route, whose water supply was gobbled up by the 48 wells his team created.

To make the story even more sordid, having treated their Aboriginal hosts so shabbily the modern Australians hardly used the Canning Stock Route at all. It had fallen into disrepair within a couple of decades – and though it was reopened in 1928, it saw less than one droving run a year prior to its abandonment as a commercial route in 1959.

That would have been that, but then along came four-wheel drive. Today, the Canning is widely considered to be one of the world’s greatest off-road adventures, and people travel to Australia specifically to experience it.

However well equipped your 4x4 might be, those original wells (at least the ones still in good repair) are still crucial to keeping you supplied with water on what will typically be a two to three week mission to conquer the Canning. With a sum total of two communities along the route where fuel is available, it takes a lot of planning – and even more grit.

It’s a place to lose yourself and find yourself, and to experience a whole new oneness with nature.

Whether for this reason, or for your first shower and hotel bed after finally reaching civilisation, the Canning is heaven on earth.

Pics: Betty van Breukelen and Gerard van Vliet

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Botswana’s Salt Pans In eastern Botswana, covering an area the size of Wales, lie the salt pans. Flooded annually with salt water washed out of the surrounding bush, they are the fall guys of the Kalahari. Without them, little could survive throughout this huge semi-desert – and within them, little can survive at all. Except, that is, for expedition drivers (4x4s were made for this), and for the elephants, ostriches, jackals and oryx who scrape a living here.

These are true wastelands: arid, treacherous and unforgiving, but liberating in their brilliant light and unlimited space. Crossing the pans is undoubtedly a true 4x4 adventure, and one which carries a real risk of failure.

Break through the crust and there’s a world of digging ahead of you, not to mention a world of relief when you make it out the other side. If you make it out the other side.

Pic: Kubu Island, Botswana, 3/2013, by Tomas Forgac @ flickr.com

Tigray A stunning landscape of towering mountains and tablelands, Tigray is the northernmost province of Ethiopia. As is normal in the country, its main roads are good – but get away from them and you’ll be navigating your way around on much rougher, bumpier trails.

The obvious attraction of this region is its jaw-dropping scenery, but Tigray’s human landscape is equally noteworthy. In particular, it’s known for its churches, hewn from single blocks of solid rock yet styled in a manner reminiscent of the classical school of European architecture. These are often located in hard-to-reach places – the Debre Damo monastery, for example, can only be accessed by climbing a 75-foot rope up a sheer cliff.

Pics: Tigray, Ethiopia, by Rod Waddington @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0

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Trans-America Trail Envy time. In America, it’s still possible to do something without everyone else trying to ban it. That’s why Sam Correro has been able to map out a 5000-mile route across the USA which, using a mixture of farm and forestry tracks and high mountain passes, takes you from coast to coast with the minimum possible amount of tarmac.

Using only routes with legal public access, the trail visits Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Oregon, with alternative start points adding North Carolina and New York to the list. The entire trail took some 12 years to fully research; it won’t take quite as long to complete in your 4x4, but seldom was there more of a journey to savour.

Pic: Land Rover MENA CC BY 2.0

Atlas Mountains

The Silk Road These days, the Silk Road is more of a concept than an strictly defined route. It linked Turkey with the Han-dynasty capital of Xian, but like most ancient roads it split into several different paths along the way through what is now north-west China.

Much of the track itself has been buried beneath ever-shifting desert sands down the centuries, but fragments have survived and remain as they were a thousand years ago. The result is that following the Silk Road is an inexact art, with a wide variety of potential routes.

These could include a transit through Syria and Iraq, which is a lot less appealing an idea than it once was. Instead, you’d be more likely to drop down to meet the Silk Road from the north and pick it up on its way through Uzbekistan – though if you want to follow it into China, you’ll need to jump through all sorts of bureaucratic hoops before being allowed to do so.

Morocco is the classic overland destination for European 4x4 drivers seeking adventures beyond their own borders. It’s easy to see the country as a cliché, but it’s nothing of the sort – it’s just that anywhere this close to home with such a stunning combination of desert and mountain landscapes is always going to be a honeypot destination.

Anyway, the Atlas Mountains certainly don’t feel like a cliché when you’re driving in them. Instead, they feel like a rugged, spectacular version of heaven. Glorious, semi-arid scenery and magnificent stony trails see to that – and those trails, like the mountains themselves, seem to go on and on forever.

There’s no end of options for discovering Morocco on a guided tour, though the off-road excursions offered to everyday holidaymakers can involve little more than being crammed into the back of an old Land Cruiser being driven at warp speed by a local ‘guide’ on a mission to beat his mates in some sort of race. Far better to go there in your own truck, whether as part of a commercial tour or on your own.

Either way, the Atlas Mountains are epic.

Pic (inset above): Off Roading in the High Atlas Mountains by jonl1973 @ flickr.com, CC-BY-SA Pic (below): Rouge / Vert / Blanc by dyonis @ flickr.com, CC-BY-2.0

The Silk Roadies, by lensnmatter @ flickr. com, CC BY 2.0

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Le Gois Sitting in the Atlantic Ocean, about three miles off the coast of France, the island of Noirmoutier is reached by a shiny new bridge – or, if you’re feeling advenurous, an old tidal causeway across the sand flats.

When the tide is out, the sea is nowhere to be seen – and Le Gois is no more than a stony, part-paved route between the oyster beds. But because the surrounding sand is so flat, when the tide comes in it comes in fast – and the road quickly disappears beneath a sheet of water.

Pluck up the courage to drive Le Gois after the water has started to cover it, and it’s basically the world’s longest ford. A ford in which you’ll feel the tide tugging at your wheels, too. It takes time to become too deep for 4x4s, but you want to be well clear of it by then – there are refuges every few hundred yards for if it all goes wrong, but while these might save your hide you still won’t feel very triumphant as you watch your pride and joy disappear beneath billions of gallons of salt water.

Sakteng The Himalayan mountain kingdom of Bhutan is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Not just for its landscape, but for the way it’s run – its rulers drive modest zero-emission electric cars and there’s a rule in place that at least 60% of its land must always be under forests.

When it comes to electricity, however, the village of Sakteng, high up in the eastern part of the country, didn’t even have any until less than ten years ago.

What it did have, however, was Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary – possibly the only one of its kind created to protect a species which, as far as zoological science is concerned, isn’t real.

That’s because this is the home of the yeti. Ask anyone up here, and they’ll tell you with complete certainty that it exists, even if they’ve never seen it.

They’ll warn you that it’s bad luck to come face to face with one, too (kind of like with lions and grizzly bears, then…)

The good news is that driving to Sakteng is all the adventure you could ever ask for. The same can be said for the whole of Bhutan, actually – not least because of the journey you’ll already have made to get there. There’s a world of paperwork to get through first – but it’ll be very well worth it.

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Nordkapp The Northernmost point in mainland Europe sits bleakly at the very top of Norway. It’s tarmac all the way, making it a simple but gloriously scenic drive – though there are a few areas where you can take alternative routes on long gravel trails. During the winter, at any rate, everything changes as plunging temperatures, snow-bound roads and raging blizzards turn the whole region into a place where a well equipped 4x4 is absolutely essential. Battle your way though and the reward will be a unique perspective on an experience most others only ever see in much more benign conditions.

Pics: Arctic Heroes Challenge

Carpathian Mountains Almost from the moment the Iron Curtain was pulled back, enterprising Brits were setting out to open up Romania in 4x4s.

It’s well known for its tolerance towards convoys of off-roaders exploring the many unsurfaced trails that make up much of the road network in its extensive countryside, especially up high amid the lush scenery of the Carpathians – where, so long as you’re considerate about it, you can travel for days without a wheel touching tarmac. Hard to believe it exists, really – far less that it’s only a couple of days’ drive from home.

Pic: Marcin Burzynski

Darvaza Gas Crater A huge hole in the ground with fire belching out of it non-stop, Darvaza Gas Crater is known among locals as ‘the Mouth of Hell.’ How this fearsome thing was formed is shrouded in mystery, but conventional wisdom has it that engineers were drilling for oil in the desert of Turkmenistan when the ground collapsed. Geologists found that poisonous gas was escaping from the crater that had been formed – so to prevent it from drifting towards Darvaza village, they set it on fire. It was expected to die out within a couple of weeks, but half a century later it’s still burning ferociously.

You can walk right up to the edge of the crater, but first you need to get there – it’s in a part of the Karakum Desert accessed only by rough, stony trails. Perfect for visiting on a 4x4 expedition, or on one of the adventure tours that take it in. There’s even an area near the rim that’s used as a camp site – though how easy it might be to sleep, when it sounds like there’s a jet engine running next to your tent, is another matter.

Pics © Kalpak Travel

Pyrenees A firm favourite on the tag-along tour trail, the Pyrenees range straddles much of the border between France and Spain – and is criss-crossed by a network of unmade mountain roads dishing up a menu of breathtaking scenery and at times technical driving. There are western and eastern regions, each with its own distinct character, and in addition you can become one of the few people to have overlanded their way into the micro-state of Andorra.

Many people use a trip to the Pyrenees as a sort of dry run for a bigger expedition, and if you’re planning to spend a prolonged period travelling in your vehicle they do indeed make an ideal place to figure out which elements of your prepations you’ve got right and which you need to think about some more. They deserve to be seen as a great deal more than just a testing ground, though – this is a magnificent destinaton in its own right, and the fact that it’s only a day or two’s drive from the south of Britain certainly shouldn’t detract from that.

Pic: Ardent Adventure

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Timbuktu When you get there, it’s one of the most unprepossessing towns in the world. But that doesn’t matter – Timbuktu is a place whose name has come to symbolise the back of beyond, and what more reason could you need for making it the goal of an off-road expedition?

Though it’s down at heel and being retaken by the desert, Timbuktu was once a rich trading hub and centre of learning. Remnants of its history are still to be found, and its population still numbers around 50,000, but the march of time has not been kind and the town has been in a slow decline for many decades.

A tarmac road runs to the edge of town along the north of the river Niger, but the real adventure comes when you approach from the south – via 150 miles of soft sand. There’s nothing much to see or do in Timbuktu, but at least you’ll be able to say you’ve been there. And the journey will be one to remember, whichever route you take.

Pic: Timbuktu Street, by upyernoz @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

Wadi Rum One of the world’s most spectacular deserts, Wadi Rum is a UNESCO World Heritage Site east of Aqaba in southern Jordan. It’s also a very popular location for filming movies – Lawrence of Arabia kicked it all off in 1962, and since then it’s stood in for Mars several times and been the go-to destination for desert scenes in the Star Wars franchise.

It’s not as empty as you might assume, either, with a rich history and culture. It’s home to the Zalabieh Bedouin tribe, who have developed a thriving tourist economy – but if you’re there as an independent traveller, you can get out there and explore the maze of towering, deep red sandstone rock formations that rise up out of the floor of the desert. It’s not a complete free-for-all – 4x4 access is regulated in some places – but playing by the rules is no hardship among such a stunning natural landscape.

Pic: Older Toyota 4x4 – Wadi Rum, by Jorge Láscar @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

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Okavango Delta One of the flattest places on Earth, the Okavango Delta covers some 5800 square miles with no more than a few feet of variance in height. It’s formed by the Okavango River, which flows out of Angola and ends up in the Delta – from which water ultimately evaporates, never reaching the ocean.

What makes the Okavango so special is that every year, in the months following the wet season in Angola, the Delta swells to about three times its normal size. By the time this happens, the dry season has arrived – meaning every animal for hundreds of miles around heads there to find water. Game viewing lodges are common throughout the area, particularly around the areas where lagoons are left when the water recedes, but it’s also a prime location for independent travel.

Main pic: A View of the Delta, by Justin Hall @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0 Pic (right): Steve Jurvetson @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

Sahara ’So you can drive across the Sahara’ is the classic reason for buying a 4x4. Even if it’s the kind you wouldn’t even want to drive across a raised pavement, the point is that it makes you feel like you can take on the world. And the world means the Sahara.

The great desert of northern Africa is possibly the definitive global destination for off-road travel. The landscape is as harsh as they come, and it’s mixed with the sort of exotic locations and civilisations that make expedition travel what it is.

It’s not all sand – depending on how you define its borders, the Sahara will throw all manner of stony ground and rocky landforms in your way too. Some of the dunes you’ll encounter are enormous, though. Cross it from north to south or, if you’re really brave, east to west (thus going against the ‘grain’ of the dunes), and you’ll have completed one of the truly great off-road adventures the world has to offer.

Pic: BudapestBamako@flickr. com, CC BY-SA 2.0

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Inuvik A town of some 3000 inhabitants, Inuvik is not the sort of place you’d normally drive for days to visit, unless perhaps you were on the way to the arts festival it hosts every July. But It’s the getting there that counts.

That’s because Inuvik is at the end of the 450mile Dempster Highway, which has the distinction of being Canada’s only all-weather road across the Arctic Circle. In the summer, it’s a ribbon of gravel crossing endless tracts of hilly tundra: in the winter, it’s a path cleared through a vast blanket of snow.

Winter is the time when crossing the Yukon really turns into an adventure. By summer, for example, you cross the Mackenzie River by ferry: by winter, you drive over it on an ice bridge.

As this suggests, it’s cold up here. Temperatures of -50°C and below are not unknown, and by the end of winter the snow cover has typically built up to a couple of feet. Time it right, though, and you’ll arrive in town in time for the Sunrise Festival, when the sun, er, rises – after an entire month of darkness.

At present, the Dempster Highway is being extended to create an all-weather route to Tuktoyaktuk, a village where it gets even colder than Inuvik. This is the place to come if weird landforms fascinate you, as it’s home to the world’s biggest concentration of pingos – strange conical hills created by ground pressure in areas of permafrost.

Carrying on to Tuktoyaktuk also extends the adventure to a return journey of more than 1000 miles. It might be on a highway, but seldom can a road trip have felt more like an off-road expedition.

Pic: Dowbtown Inuvik, by Mack Male CC BY-SA 2.0

Anne Beadell Highway Don’t let the name fool you. This ‘highway’ is a sandy desert trail stretching some 820 miles from Coober Pedy in South Australia to Laverton in Western Australia – and it’s one of the most hostile roads in the world.

Constructed between 1953 and 1962 to provide access to teams surveying what was at the time a completely unexplored part of the world, the Anne Beadell traverses an environment in which summer temperatures regularly hit 50 degrees. It’s incredibly hard going on man and machine alike – and there are few places in the world where you can be as far away from civilisation.

Despite this, there are attractions along the way. One is the site of the 1953 British atomic bomb tests at Emu Field, where you can still see scorch marks on the ground – as well as signs warning you of residual background radiation. Another is the wreckage of a light aircraft which came down a little way from the track and has been there ever since, and yet another is the Mamungari Conservation Reserve, through which which the trails passes.

These welcome distractions from the unrelenting emptiness of the landscape are ‘reasons’ to do the Anne Beadell – but for any red-blooded adventurer, the highway itself is reason enough. It’s only suitable for well equipped 4x4s with experienced drivers and emergency comms kit that works in the middle of nowhere, and even then you’ll do well to complete it in less than a week.

Anne Beadell, by the way, was the wife of Len Beadell, the celebrated surveyor and all-Aussie hero who created the track as part of a nine-year programme to open up this part of the Red Centre. Noted for his warmth and humour, he added the ‘Highway’ as an ironic joke. These days, it would probably have ended up being called Roady McRoadface.

Pics: Betty van Breukelen and Gerard van Vliet

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Maasai Mara The Maasai Mara is perhaps the world’s best known game reserve. Located in south-western Kenya, near the border with Tanzania and around seventy miles east of Lake Victoria, it’s a vast area of grassland within the Great African Rift Valley.

It’s not about the landscape, though. The Maasai Mara is home to lions, elephants, cheetahs, buffalos, leopards, rhinos, hippos, crocodiles and giraffes – as well of course as wildebeest, whose annual migration is one of the natural wonders of the world.

Every day, safari tours in open-topped Defenders and Land Cruisers take holidaymakers into the heart of the wildlife. With modern technology helping them keep track of the animals, they all end up jostling for the best views – meaning it’s solo overlanders who stand the best chance (or run the greatest risk) of having a genuinely close encounter.

Pic: flightlog@flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

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The Andes The mountain range running up the spine of South America is not as high as the Himalayas, but that’s unlikely to matter to you if your expedition takes you there. With no end of drivable high-level tracks, indeed, the Andes is probably the best place in the world for 4x4 mountaineering.

That’ll be why the Ojos de Salado, on the border between Chile and Argentina, has become the go-to location for teams looking to break the world vehicular altitude record. Not that you need to go to those sort of lengths to get the best from the Andes.

Instead, go looking for the rocky mountain tracks that exist in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and Venezuela – and be ready to immerse yourself in a history that goes back far beyond the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores to the days of the mighty Inca civilisation.

The Andes is also home to the giant Altiplano, the second highest plateau in the world. Ultimately, the whole range stretches to some 4300 miles long and around 300 wide – you could spend the rest of your life exploring the Andes and never get bored.

Pic: Jen Bright and Gav Lowrie

Old Telegraph Track Australia is best known among the world’s off-roaders for its epic trails through the vast Red Centre, which can take a week or more to complete. But the Old Telegraph Track probably trumps them all in terms of the number of vehicles that take it on every year.

The track, which was built in 1885 to let maintenance crews access telegraph line running north from Cairns to the top of the Cape York Peninsula, is more than 200 miles long and includes sections of gravel, mud, sand and rock – plus some epic river crossings. Several of these have campsites next to them, meaning they become a focal point for entertainment as crowds gather to watch vehicles tackling big beasts like Palm Creek, Gunshot Creek and Nolan’s Brook – where it’s not uncommon for floating 4x4s to be manhandled across the water by eager volunteers.

Talking of big beasts, though, a number of these rivers are infested with crocodiles. Another reason to think twice, you might think – yet there are recovery companies in the nearby towns who make a living out of the gung-ho overlanders who turn their trucks into non-runners on an almost daily basis.

There are bypass routes for drivers who don’t want to risk their trucks – and outside of the dry season, these are the only practicable way through. They’re a lot less technical than the Old Telegraph Track itself – but a lot less fun, too, thanks to everpresent corrugations. At any rate, if ever there was a reason for prepping your motor, this would be it. If you’ve come this far, you’ve not come to miss out on the main event, have you?

Pic: NeilsPhotography @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

Mongolia Mongolia is one of the most perfectly unspoilt nations on earth.

You wouldn’t think so to visit the capital, Ulaanbataar, which is an ugly mess of concrete buildings tied up by relentlessly gridlocked streets, but get out into the countryside – and stay away from the corridors of development brought about by the rise of mining – and little about it has changed since the dawn of man.

Many overlanders head for the mountains of the Altay region, as well they might – it’s a dramatic land of soaring snow-capped peaks and lush alpine meadows, reminiscent of Switzerland at its best but with almost no-one else around. Directly south from Ulaanbataar, meanwhile, is the Gobi Desert, a vast sandy expanse where life is still dominated by the nomadic traditions of old. If you only ever go on one expedition in your life, Mongolia has a very strong shout for being the destination you should choose.

Pic: transmongolie-296, by Vaiz Ha @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

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Iceland We could have chosen any one of many dozen landforms, roads and regions in Iceland’s other-worldly interior. Some are indescribably beautiful, some are awe-inspiring, some are accessible only via rough, unmade trails through a barren glacial landscape – and most are all three of those things.

Off-roading is strictly forbidden here, because the landscape is so fragile, but that’s not a problem because Iceland has a vast network of F-roads – unsurfaced routes, restricted only to 4x4s, which are typified by their stony surfaces and, in particular, by never-ending river crossings. These can be very deep and wide – wading tends to be a big joke back home in Britain, but in Iceland it’s a deadly serious part of getting about.

Whether it’s the crystal cascade of Gulfoss or the mesmerising rock formations of Landmannalaugar, Iceland is geography at its most poetic – and overlanding at its most exciting. You can ship your vehicle there, too – it’ll cost a couple of grand, and the cost of living in Iceland is famously high, but what price the experience of a lifetime?

Pic (left): Panneau routier, by genevieveromier @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

Ladakh You don’t need to go looking for off-road routes in the Himalayas. Just follow the roads and it’ll happen naturally – and even if it doesn’t, you won’t care.

Some of the other destinations mentioned in this feature fall within the greater scope of the Himalayan massif, and of course at its highest the range literally peaks at the summit of Everest on the border between China and Nepal. But for overlanders, it’s at perhaps its most perfect further west in the Kashmiri province of Ladakh.

Here, you’ll find some of the world’s highest roads. In fact, the 18,379-foot Khardung La pass, north of regional capital Leh, claims to be the highest of them all. It’s not, however – the Umling La, built in 2017, reaches an astonishing 19,300 feet above sea level. It’s a couple of hundred miles south-east of Leh, which could take several days given the landscape, but if you love mountains you could spend months around here – of the highest dozen roads in the world, all but one are in this general region.

Taking your time would be a good idea, too, as getting acclimatised is critical to avoiding altitude

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sickness. Most of the mountain passes in the area are only open for a few summer months and require permits if you’re not local, which is another reason not to do it at a rush if you want to

do it at all – and of course this is no place to be rushing. Not just for safety, but because Ladakh is a place that truly deserves to be savoured.

Pic: Vyacheslav Argenberg @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

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Portugal It might sound like a cop-out to name the entire country when there are so many regions within it deserving of a special mention, but Portugal has long held a special place in overlanders’ affections. When you get away from the cities and into its mountainous interior, it’s like stepping back in time – much of the Portuguese countryside retains its traditional rural way of life, and the advent of things like cars, TV and broadband hasn’t changed that.

In particular, there are loads of unmade trails which you can explore at leisure, always of course observing the rules of common courtesy but largely untroubled by the red tape that strangles the countryside in so many other parts of Europe. These tracks are, in the main, an everyday means of getting from A to B, though some are distinctly tricky even in a well prepped 4x4.

You’ll need to take special care in forested areas, particularly during the summer months, as wildfires have been a serious problem in recent years. Once again, though, with basic good behaviour you’ll find yourself welcome and free to follow your nose in a way that’s almost unheard of in most of Europe.

Pic: Peter Foggett

Andalucia This beautiful mountainous regious in southern Spain is sparsely populated once you get inland – and an extensive network of unmade tracks makes it ideal for exlopring aboard your 4x4.

The kind of vehicle you can hire on holiday will be more than adequate, even when you start getting into the mountain passes, but for a proper adventure you should travel down here in your own truck – it’ll add a bit to the price of the trip, but you’re unlikely not to agree that it’s worth it.

If the endless stony trails start to wear you out, the elegant city of Granada will refresh your spirits (unless you spot one of the unique black squirrels that live around the Alhambra palace, in which case you might think you’re hallucinating).

Don’t expect to stay relaxed here for long, though – because you’ll have an ever-present view of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada encouraging you to go out and explore some more.

Pic (below): Embalse, Zahara de la Sierra, by Alcaina @ flickr.com, CC BY-ND 2.0

Siberia About 55 times the size of the UK, Siberia is Big Country personified. It’s big, and it’s bad… average temperatures of -25° in winter see to that, and for getting from A to B the terrain redefines the term ‘hostile.’

It also happens to be in Russia, so travelling there might be a little awkward for a while.

Even where there are roads, in the wilds of Siberia you don’t need to expect smooth tarmac. Not that that’s what you want, of course – but after more than 1000 miles of rough gravel on the legendary Road of Bones between Yakutsk and Magadan, you might come to appreciate it.

Some roads in Siberia are only open in winter, when the ground is fully frozen, and remote bridges are always at risk of having been washed away.

A bit of a problem when the nearest detour route can be the equivalent of driving halfway round Europe.

If all that isn’t enough to give you pause, Siberia is home to its very own species of tiger and leopard, as well as three different kinds of bear. Car-jacking is an issue in some areas, too, as of course is the extreme remoteness of the land you’ll be travelling through. Combine this with some of the world’s most determined mosquitoes, and you might wonder why anyone would bother – but one look at the wild scenery and it will all make sense. By the time you get home from Siberia, you’ll definitely be able to call yourself a hardcore overlander.

Pic (top): UAZ-452 Parked in front of Dom 20, Village Kuznetsovo, by carlfbagge@ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0 Pic (below): утоп, by aNiCe@ flickr.com, CC BY-ND 2.0

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Salar de Uyuni The world’s largest salt pan, the Salar de Uyuni is half the size of Wales. Part of the Altiplano in southwest Bolivia, it was formed over tens of thousands of years as a series of lakes dried to form a crust of salt whose thickness ranges from a few inches to several metres.

To make this landscape even more extraordinary, it’s completely surrounded by mountains. And here and there, ancient volcanic peaks poke up like islands through the salt; some even have old buildings on them. Wildlife is predictably scarce, though every November flamingos descend on the area for the breeding season.

In addition to the salt flat itself, Uyuni is also home to a remarkable ‘cemetery’ of abandoned trains which served local mineral mines between 1892 and the mid-1940s. Dozens of hulks lie abandoned on the old lines south-west of the town, which itself lies south-east of the Salar; it’s a haunting and fascinating place to visit, and a strange contrast to the vastness nearby.

Normally, the surface of the Salar is parched. During wet periods, however, flood waters from Lake Titicaca to the north can spill through to cover it to a depth of an inch or two. Because the surface of the salt is so very flat, this doesn’t actually stop you from driving on it – though it does turn it into a mirror for the sky, with no horizon to be seen. As if this astonishing natural wonder wasn’t surreal enough already….

Pic (above): Bolivia 2017, by Kyle Taylor @ fickr.com, CC BY 2.0 Pic (left): Jen Bright and Gav Lowrie

Alaska Alaska is the biggest state in America, and it’s the wildest too. Stick to the main roads and getting from A to B is no great issue – though once you’re striking north towards the Arctic Circle and beyond, even these are more like big dirt tracks than what we’d call roads.

Thus there’s no shortage of opportunities to go off-road in Alaska – in fact, outside the cities, off-road is the norm. All the same, recreational trail riding is definitely a thing, and an extremely serious one it is too. Tracks like the Stampede Trail, north-east of Denali National Park, offer a real challenge to adventure seekers in modified Jeeps who travel to Alaska to battle an unbelievably hostile, not to mention dangerous, combination of terrain, climate and wildlife.

The Stampede Trail was once a road, but nature doesn’t take long to claim back what belongs to it – and the days when it carried regular traffic are long gone. One celebrated relic to be found along the way, until it was removed by Chinook in 2020, was Bus 142, abandoned in the wilderness next to the trail, which gained fame in 1992 when Christopher McCandless took up residence in it in a bid to live off the land… and promptly starved to death.

His story was made into a film, whereupon the bus took on cult status and hopelessly unprepared hikers started trying to reach it – resulting in at least two more deaths and countless rescues.

That’s the sort of landscape you’re talking about in Alaska. It’s remote, and it’s hostile. And there are lots of bears

Pic: Jeep Expedition, by Nolan Williamson @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

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Kalahari The Kalahari is known as a desert, though in reality it’s a mainly semi-arid expanse of savannah.It’ll feel a lot like a desert when you’re in it, at any rate, thanks to its hot, dry climate and the vibrant red sand that’s easily visible through the widespread scrubby undergrowth.

Exploring the Kalahari is definitely on the cards for any overland expedition into southern Africa. Its territory includes parts of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, and it’s home to many of the continent’s best-loved mammals – though cattle fences are starting to take their toll on the landscape and its animals alike, and may also get in the way of your ability to explore at leisure.

Nonetheless, this is a fierce but beautiful land whose unique characteristics make it noticeably different to most deserts. Travel to this part of the world and you’ll most likely point your truck at the nearby Okavango Delta, but the Kalahari is well worth including in your expedition route too.

Pic: Rain in the Kalahari, by Julian Wishahi @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0

Syria Over the last decade, Syria has gone from being a honeypot destination for tourists and overlanders to one of the most dangerous places in the world. In time, it will be rehabilitated and the awful image of a state run by terrorism will fade – though even then, several of its most precious archaeological sites will be gone, bulldozed or dynamited by a regime that waged war on its own culture and history as well as its own people.

Once Syria is fully returned to the overland trail, however, the good news is that amid its parched mountains and sun-baked deserts, you’ll still be able to find many of the ancient forts erected by a succession of civilisations to guard the western origins of the fabled Silk Route.

Palmyra was among the biggest victims of the anarchy that gripped Syria in the wake of the Gulf War, but the tourists will still flock to the Crusader fort of Krak de Chevaliers. Take the road less travelled, however, and seek out the Roman-era walled city of Rasafeh and its cathedral-like underground reservoirs, the brick castle of Qala’at Ja’abar and the twin eighth-century forts at Qasr al’Hayr, and you’ll have the vastness of history all to yourself.

Pic: Le Krak des Chevaliers, by (Ergo) @ flickr.com

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Silverton For a place with a population of 88, Silverton has what must be a record-setting proportion of art galleries per head. It’s also home to the world-famous Silverton Hotel, which has appeared in countless movies and adverts – as well as a weird and wonderful collection of art cars around the place.

The theme continues a few hundred yards down the road from the hotel (by ‘road’ we mean a ribbon of red sand), where you’ll find the Mad Max 2 museum. This is the life’s work of one Adrian Bennett, who loved the movies so much he moved from Bradford to Australia to live the dream.

Silverton is definitely worth a stop-off en route to the desert trails further north, or if your itinerary takes you through Broken Hill. It’s well worth visiting in its own right, too – whether it’s to see the exhibits, browse the art… or just revel in the nuttiness of it all.

Pic: Mad Max Museum, by Chris Fithall @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

Tatooine When the original Star Wars movie was being made, director George Lucas chose Tunisia as a place to build the sets that would become Luke Skywalker’s home planet. He named the planet after the town of Tataouine, though the locations themselves are elsewhere in the area – and very much on the overland trail.

It’s not presented as a tourist attraction – you just head to the right part of the desert and there you are, surrounded by the architecture of 1970s’ sci-fi legend. Not that you’re likely to have it to yourself, though the journey is worth it on its own.

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Todra Gorge Carved into the sandstone rock of the eastern Atlas Mountains by the Todra river, the Todra Gorge is a wonder of the overlanding world. It’s both deep and narrow – no more than about 35 feet across in places, with sheer cliff faces rising on either side of you to a height of around a quarter of a mile.

This would make the Todra well worth visiting even if you had to park up and walk. But what makes it really special is that there’s a rocky track along its base which can be driven in a 4x4. Most of the time, its surface is bone dry, but the river is still there – and there are periods when you might find yourself driving up a fast-flowing stream instead.

Pic (above): Todra Gorge, by Just Booked A Trip @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0 Pic (left): The Todra Gorge, Morocco, by Joni1973 @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0

Dubai When you’re in Dubai, this is the kind of thing that a morning’s drive in the countryside can entail. As the mass of tyre tracks illustrates, plenty of others had already had the same idea when the picture was taken – and as the mass of pylons in the distance illustrates, this isn’t quite the wilderness it first appears.

Nonetheless, when you get away from the city itself, back-country Dubai is still a true desert environment – empty and incredibly harsh. The roads are punctuated by brutal speed bumps designed to prevent them from being used as race tracks, but leave the tarmac behind and you’re in true 4x4 territory – as generations of British ex-pats have discovered to their delight.

Pic: Desert Driving, by Bryn Pinzgauer @ flickr. com, CC BY 2.0

Ngorongoro Crater A vast volcanic caldera in northern Tanzania, the Ngorongoro Crater is a World Heritage Site and a protected conservation area that sees around half a million visitors each year.

Around 100 square miles in size and 2000 feet deep, its peculiar geography makes it particularly rich in wildlife as it’s also partially hemmed in by the walls of the Rift Valley, preventing animals from migrating out of it.

Some of Africa’s best-loved animals, such as cheetahs, are rarely seen in the Crater. But elsewhere in the greater Ngorongoro Conservation Area it’s a different story – and throughout, 4x4s are a common sight as visitors drink in the sights of one of Africa’s purest landscapes.

Pic: Ngorongoro, by Mike @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

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Moab With a population of just over 5000, Moab, Utah is much like any other small town in the arid Midwest. It grew up on agriculture and later became rich on mining – but in more recent times, it has been comprehensively reinvented as a world-famous centre for outdoor activities. These include hiking, climbing and mountain biking – but, whereas in Britain that would be enough for off-roaders to be shot on sight, the local tourist authority positively welcomes 4x4 drivers to visit the town and enjoy the magnificent network of trails in the towering red sandstone mountains surrounding the town.

Some of these are easy, giving everyday 4x4 drivers an opportunity to enjoy their vehicles amid the sensational landscape of the Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. The annual Easter Safari attracts Jeep enthusiasts from throughout the USA and beyond, but Moab is an A1 trail riding destination all year round, with various local companies offering services including vehicle hire and guided tours.

The iconic Lion’s Back is no longer usable, as it was accessed via private land which has now been developed. By and large, however, the Moab trails are classed as public land and can be driven

by anyone with a suitable 4x4.

Enthusiasts come from far and wide to pit their 4x4s against this mighty spread of terrain, some of which is technical to an eye-opening degree. Whatever your level, this is off-road paradise.

Pic (above): Powhusku @ flickr. com, CC BY-SA 2.0 Pic (right): Nick Taylor @ flickr. com, CC BY 2.0

Ruta Maya There have been many Ruta Maya expeditions, no two of which have followed the same route. That’s because the trail through the history of Mayan civilisation in southern Mexico, Guatemala and beyond is a semi-abstract concept dreamt up to try and encourage tourism, rather than a specific route of trade or pilgrimage once followed by ancient civilisations.

The good news is that this means you can go looking for the best trails – and with muddy hillsides, treacherous river crossings and swampy jungles, the choice is limitless. Do build in time to appreciate the Mayan culture though, as well as the awesome scenery of an area where volcanos and rainforests exist side by side.

Pic: Uxmal, by mzagerp @ flickr.com CC BY-ND 2.0

Fraser Island This huge sand island off the east coast of Australia might be crawling with tourists, but that doesn’t stop it being a wonder of the off-road world. You need a 4x4 simply to get about – indeed, no other kind of vehicle is allowed.

For an island, Fraser has more variety than some continents – the landscapes range from coastal cliffs and golden beaches to actual rainforest, and you might spot wild dingos – though you’re probably more likely to come face to face with a huntsman spider. Most of all, though, you’ll spot one Land Cruiser after another.

The real treat, in a place that’s full of them, is 75 Mile Beach – a long, wide strip of smooth sand which you can drive on to your heart’s content. Hire a vehicle at Hervey Bay and take the beach all the way to Champagne Pools – where the tide creates a natural jacuzzi accessible only by 4x4. It doesn’t get better than that.

Pic: Sarah Maia

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Namaqualand

Sani Pass The Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa are spectacular enough at the best of time, but here’s something to conjure with. When you’re driving the six miles of stone and rock, tortured hairpins and sheer drop-offs that make up the Sani Pass, you don’t exist. That’s because the South African frontier is at the bottom of the pass, and it’s not until you reach the top that you enter the kingdom of Lesotho.

In between, alarming gradients mean you need to be in low first whether going up or down, and the surface is constantly being resculpted by rain. The top of the pass is near to Thabana-Ntlenyana, the highest peak in Southern Africa. Better still, it’s also home to the Sani Top Chalet, the ‘highest pub in Africa,’ where a winter visit is likely to augment the list of challenges with knee-deep snow.

Namaqualand is what happens when an arid desert landscape runs headlong into the sea. Extending some 600 miles along the Atlantic coast of Namibia and South Africa, it’s known worldwide for its spring flowers – which, between August and October, turn the landscape into a riot of colour.

A region of Africa that’s known for its flora rather than its fauna might not sound exciting, but by the time you’ve driven this far on an expedition you’ll already have seen plenty of animals. Slow down and marvel at the fact that there are more than 1000 species of flower around you that can’t be found anywhere else in the world – then seek out the many 4x4 trails along the coast and skirting the banks of the Orange Rover, and you’ll see a side of Africa few people ever experience.

Pic: 4x4 Shipwreck Trail, Namaqualand, by flowcomm @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

Main pic: View down into South Africa from top of Sani Pass in Lesotho, by Michael Roger Denne @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0 Pic: Sani Pass going down, by fiverlocker @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0

Wadi Halfa Wadi Halfa is not the sort of place you’d travel for weeks to get to. But it’s a bit of a rite of passage for overlanders travelling through Africa.

A port town on the southern shore of Lake Nasser, it’s kind of the equivalent of Calais. In Sudan.

You have little choice but to take the overnight Lake Nasser ferry – an experience which, many who’ve done it will tell you, is about the most unpleasant you’ll ever have. Then you’ll be stuck in Wadi Halfa for an unknown period of time while you wait for the cargo boat to arrive with your vehicle.

The good news is that you’ll almost certainly make friends with some other overlanders during the experience – and that’s a big part of what expedition travel is all about. And Wadi Halfa itself will feel nicer than the ferry did. Striking out into the Sudanese interior will put a smile on your face, too (the political situation permitting, of course) – not just because you’ve got your truck back, nor indeed because you’re leaving Wadi Halfa behind, but because the country turns out to be far more beautiful, and welcoming, than you might have expected.

Pic: Wadi Halfa (31), by joepyrek @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0

Rub Al’Khali Rub Al’Khali is different to most of the other most famous off-roading centres in the UAE in that you can go there without getting lost in a mass of other 4x4s. It’s known as the Empty Quarter – though it fills up once a year for the annual Liwa Festival, when offroad fanatics from Dubai and beyond gather to take on some of the wildest dunes on the whole of the Arabian Peninsula.

The rest of the time, weekend warriors tend to give it a swerve. It’s further away from civilisation than other dune bashing centres, on the border with Saudi Arabia, and the extremely soft sand of the Liwa Desert means it’s no place for duffers.

If you’re overlanding in the Middle East, however, and you’ve got the skills and the gear for the job, this is the real thing.

Pic: Rub Al’Khali by Robert Haandrikman CC BY 2.0

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Uspallata An unremarkable village in the Andes, Uspallata is nonetheless a fantastic destination for overlanders. That’s because of the glorious mountain scenery surrounding it – and, in particular, the road you take to get there.

Travelling from the sprawling Argentinian city of Mendoza, you follow Ruta 13 – an unsurfaced mountain route which in places narrows to a single ribbon of stone and rock and is definitely only suitable for 4x4s.

Mendoza is the fourth largest city in Argentina, yet the tarmac has run out long before you’ve left its built-up area – and as you get ever further into the mountains, the loose gravel surface gradually becomes rougher and rougher.

From the end of the tarmac, it’s just over 50 miles until you reach Uspallata. By then, you’ll have climbed and climbed and climbed – the track goes through so many hairpins, you’ll lose count – and been spellbound by the parched splendour of the landscape.

Carry on towards the Chilean frontier and you’ll encounter the Andes at their mightiest. And if you visit Las Bovedas, a cluster of old copper kilns near the town, you might spot that the bricks they were built with are stamped with a maker’s mark from, of all places, Stourbridge.

Big landscape, small world.

Pic (above): Uspallata, by Hannah Walker @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0 Pic (below): Moriz Mdz @ flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0

Khan Kentii Two mentions for Mongolia in one article? Yes, and they’re well deserved. This massively remote and little known nation is already considered a pretty unspoilt place by the standards we’re used to – but with the mining industry threatening to overwhelm it, the government has established a network of national parks with extremely strict controls on what can and can’t be done.

Here, hunting and mining are prohibited and even herding and tourism are carefully controlled – which means the march of tarmac, which is driven largely by heavy industry, is missing these areas out. Thus in Khan Kentii, an area coming on for half the size of Belgium, getting around means negotiating endless rough tracks and frequent river crossings, in an area where flooding is common. All the while, you’re surrounded by a never-ending landscape that’s unchanged from the days before history.

Pics: Andy Smith / Emma Smart

Kalmykia When you’re overlanding, everywhere is a destination. Kalmykia is a place you might visit as part of a big trip east – en route to Mongolia or Tibet, for example – but this Russian republic is every bit as noteworthy. You probably haven’t heard of it – but it’s unique, in that it’s the only part of Europe where Buddhism is the dominant religion.

This makes it feel like a natural part of an expedition into the Asian lands beyond – for which it will certainly give you a taste. It has a reputation for being exceptionally welcoming to visitors, too, and its semi-desert landscape is just made for 4x4s – so if you don’t have a year to take out, it’s still very well worth treating as a destination in its own right. Just as soon as Russia is back on the travel map.

Above: Mariusz Reweda / Owona Kozlowiec Left: The Golden Abode of the Buddha Shakyamuni, by Olga Reznik @ flickr.com CC BY 2.0

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The Alps

Karakoram Highway Covering a distance of around 800 miles between Punjab and the Chinese border in Gilgit-Baltistan, the Karakoram Highway is sometimes referred to as the eight wonder of the world. It might be a fully paved trunk road, but no way does that make it boring. It’s a dead end, unless you’ve been through the necessary bureaucratic hoops to be able to take your vehicle into China, but even for the gnarliest overlander it’s a desination in itself.

Aside from being a supremely dramatic, days-long drive, the Karakoram takes you through some of the bleakest but most awe-inspiring mountain landscapes anywhere on Earth. And drama is never far away, either – landslips are common, so it’s not abnormal to find yourself sitting waiting for a work crew to show up with a digger.

Not that this would have been enough to save the village of Attabad in January 2010, when a catastrophic landslide buried it completely – as well as creating a natural dam across the Hunza River which ended up with 16 miles of the Highway disappearing under a massive new lake. It has since been rebuilt, passing through four newly blasted tunnels in the process, but this gives you an idea of the sort of place we’re talking about. It’s beautiful… but seldom has beauty been more savage.

Top: Karakoram Highway, by David Stanley @ flickr. com, CC BY 2.0 Left: Truck caught in a landslide, by Shaun Metcalfe @ flickr. com, CC BY 2.0 Below: Karakoram Highway, by taylorandayumi1 @ flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

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Europe’s highest mountain range straddles a number of national borders, meaning there are parts of it with excellent access to 4x4s – and parts where anything without a tarmac surface can be guaranteed to have a ‘verboten’ sign instead.

It won’t come as any surprise that the latter applies in particular to Switzerland. Time your visit right, however, and there’ll be enough snow on the roads for this not to matter at all. And anyway, just across the border in France there are loads of alpine trails with access to 4x4s.

These take in a wide swathe of the western Alps, including many areas known primarily for skiing, meaning there’s a world of mountainous terrain and high-level meadows to explore.

Pic: Barrie Dunbar / Active 4x4 Adventures

Rubicon Trail Is the Rubicon Trail the most famous off-road route in the world? Well, good luck finding one that beats it…

The Rubicon is a 22-mile ‘road’ west of Lake Tahoe in Northern California, surrounded by the absolutely sensational scenery of the Desolation Wilderness, part of the Eldorado National Forest. This alone is reason not to rush things – not that you can, really.

Still, start early and you could do the whole thing in a day. All 22 miles of it, don’t forget. And 10 of those are smooth gravel that takes no more than about half an hour.

The rest is more or less non-stop rocks. There are vast axle-twisters, deep V-gullies, sharp side-slopes, rough climbs and drops that have you hanging in your harness… much of the time, you’ll be travelling at hours per mile, not the other way round.

The hills really are that steep, the rocks that severe. Few would venture here without big tyres, lifted suspension and at least one difflock; there are more extreme trails in America, but not a lot can touch the Rubicon for the blend it offers of adventure, natural landscapes and tricky, technical driving.

The classic image of Rubicon driving would show a Jeep scaling a jagged rock face with sun-dappled mountains in the background, and much of it is indeed like that. But of course you can tackle it in (or on) any make of off-road vehicle. Americans love their ATVs, but we’d sooner be surrounded by metal aboard a proper 4x4, thanks. If nothing else, that way you’re less likely to get done over by a bear…

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W

ay back in 1984, when Land Rover’s last leaf-sprung Series III models were coming down the production line at Solihull and the birth of the Discovery was still more than half a decade away, a young trail biking enthusiast by the name of Sam Correro had a big idea. The sort of big idea you can only have if you’re from a big country.

Fortunately, Correro hails from one of the biggest of the lot. His home town of Corinth is in the north-eastern corner of Mississippi, right on the border with Tennessee and a few miles west of the Alabama state line. So, as a man who liked to go out and explore the countryside on two wheels, he didn’t half have a big playground.

And that was where his big idea came from.

It was in 1984 that he first started researching the unpaved roads and trails of the USA with the aim of creating a cross-country off-road route. He pored over hundreds of maps, rode thousands of miles and surveyed countless potential routes – until finally, twelve years later, the Trans America Trail was born.

Starting in eastern Tennessee and finishing on Oregon’s Pacific Coast, this was a single route covering around 5000 miles and passing through nine states (as well as various forests, vast tracts of farmland, a desert and the Rocky Mountains). We say ‘was’, because since then it has been modified to include one section taking it to the Pacific in California and others linking it to the Atlantic coast.

These days, the main trail starts in West Virginia, heads west to the Utah-Nevada border then loops north and east again to finish in Wisconsin. An associated Shadow of the Rockies trail runs north through New Mexico and Colorado, linking up with the main route at the southern edge of Wyoming.

Wherever you’re from in the world, these are names that conjure up images of adventure – following in the footsteps of the pioneers as they crossed the heartland through majestic landscapes where bears, coyotes and mountain lions roamed free. If you’re not already dreaming of shipping your truck to the States so you can join the many others who have followed the Trans America Trail from end to end, there’s something the matter with you.

You wouldn’t be the first to do it in a vehicle from Britain, though. That’s

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THE TRAIL

Words: Kaziyoshi Sasazaki Pictures: Land Rover North America because in the summer of 2013, a team of Land Rover Discovery 4s set out on Expedition America – a crossing of the USA using almost no paved roads. Though the expedition had its own unique route, the organisers based the bulk of it on the Trans America Trail. And though this was an official expedition run by Land Rover’s US importer, it wasn’t a stage-managed media show – done without any pre-scouting, it was intended to demonstrate the

vehicles’ capabilities in what was a genuine overland adventure.

The Trail’s website, which Sam Correro still runs himself, describes the going as a mixture of ‘dirt, gravel, forest, farm and brief sections of paved roads.’ That doesn’t sound too challenging, but read on: ‘Depending on the weather and location, riders may face challenges including mud, sand, snow, and rocks among others.’ This was definitely going to be an undertaking and a half…

And what sort of people does Land Rover turn to when it’s faced with an undertaking? That would be its very own Driving Experience instructors, of course – and better still if they also happen to be Camel Trophy veterans.

Step forward Tom Collins. He was one half of the USA team that finished second in the Camel in 1987 – the year when a convoy of Range Rovers achieved the first ever full transit of Madagascar’s

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LESS TRAVELLED Travelling coastto-coast across the USA is universally considered to be one of the world’s most iconic road trips. Thanks to the decades-long efforts of trail bike enthusiast Sam Correro, it’s also an epic off-road adventure – and one that’s not reserved exclusively to those on two wheels.

Yet it was only ten years ago that a trio of Land Rover Discovery 4s from the company’s US importer became the first ever fourwheeled vehicles to take on this extraordinary offroad adventure east coast. It was a proper off-road endeavour back then, with no need for gimmicky special tasks involving snowboards or mountain bikes, and it’s no wonder so many of those who battled through it have gone on to become celebrity figures in Land Rover’s operations around the world.

For Collins, this meant becoming the team manager who oversaw the USA’s 1993 Camel Trophy victory in the jungle of Malaysia. By this time he was also heavily involved in Land

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Rover’s press events and vehicle launches, and in 1989 he created and led the fabled Great Divide Expedition – a 1100-mile transit of the highest peaks in the Rockies which demonstrated the Range Rover’s masterful ability at a time when the vehicle had only been on sale in North America for a couple of years.

With a leader like that at its head, the convoy was in good hands as it set out on its marathon route –

appropriately, starting from the Land Rover Experience centre in Asheville, North Carolina.

The trio of Discoverys in these pictures will look familiar enough to British eyes, but in fact they were quite different to the models we got here. For one thing, they weren’t called Discoverys at all – in North America, the vehicle was marketed as the LR4.

There was a difference under the bonnet, too. Whereas the Disco 4

we got here was powered by a 3.0-litre diesel engine, the LR4 got a version of Land Rover’s 5.0-litre V8 developing 375bhp and 375lbf.ft.

But in other ways, it dished up the same hearty fare; integrated bodyon-frame construction, permanent four-wheel drive, low range, height-adjustable air suspension and locking front and (optionally) rear diffs. As with the UK model, this was backed up by a raft of high-tech traction aids to help get

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With Sam Correro piloting them as they crossed the Deep South, the Discoverys pressed ahead through the sweltering heat and humidity of high summer. The mercury was knocking on for 100 degrees as they crossed the Mississippi (below) – though when your route takes you through Clarksdale, the famous home of the blues, however hot the weather might be everything is still going to be pretty cool over the limited articulation in its all-independent suspension.

It didn’t take long for them to be working for their living, either.

Setting off from Asheville, the convoy was straight on to a series of mountain trails – and into swathes of low cloud. By the time they crossed into Tennessee, the clouds had well and truly opened – turning forest roads into streams and streams into torrents.

All the same, it was here that the unrelenting march of progress

showed itself to have unwelcome side-effects. ‘In Tennessee, the trails are already increasingly being paved,’ explained Collins.

‘Who knows how long it will be before other states do the same with their unsealed roads? This is an expedition with a shrinking environment as its challenge.’

It should also be noted that at the time of this expedition, no record existed of anyone having previously done the whole of the Trans America Trail on four wheels. So the

pioneering spirit was very real, even if the convoy was following a well researched route. Certainly, bikers they encountered along the way were fascinated to see the vehicles as they progressed westward.

None of the Discoverys needed to use their winches, but the weather was a perfect illustration of why a means of recovery was so important. Even on established dirt roads, you never know

what might happen – especially when Mother Nature is doing her best to wash the surface away.

Something else each of the vehicles was carrying was a three-strong crew of drivers and navigators. Everybody wants to be behind the wheel, of course – but in a month of 13-hour days, fatigue is a real issue, so a regular regime of driver changes was essential.

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Further on as the vehicles continued their journey west, they were joined by a particularly special guest – Sam Correro himself. The creator of the Trans America Trail hooked up with the convoy as it passed his home town of Corinth and joined the Land Rovers for a stint aboard his bike as the route crossed the Mississippi and passed through the majestic landscape of the Ozark Mountains.

‘Land Rover Expedition America could not have happened without Sam and his thirty years of research,’ said Collins. ‘It is an honour to have him join us for a few days.’

With the father of the Trail as its honorary leader, the convoy had an almost literal watershed moment as it followed his motorbike along picture-perfect farm tracks leading the route across the Mississippi.

It wasn’t half beautiful, but it also wasn’t half hot. As they crossed into Arkansas, the mercury was tipping 100 degrees – which, combined with the oppressive humidity of high summer in the southern states, meant the crews were very grateful to be travelling in modern, climatecontrolled Land Rovers.

Just a few hours inland from the Gulf of Mexico, this is the most southerly point on the Trans America Trail. The Deep South will

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forever be associated with blues music; there’s a thing called the Mississippi Blues Trail, which is another story altogether, but just prior to crossing the big river the expedition passed through the town of Clarksdale.

This calls itself the ‘Home of the Blues’ and even has its own downtown Walk of Fame to prove the point. Plaques here honour local blues men – including Ike Turner, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. Big hitters, then.

A big hitter from another area of performing art is Morgan Freeman, who part-owns the Ground Zero Blues Bar in Clarksdale. Now, this was an expedition, not a holiday, but sometimes you’ve got to take a moment – and when the man who’s played God, Nelson Mandela and the President of the USA is in town and you’ve got the chance to meet him, you don’t say no.

The team also met renowned blues musician James Johnson, nicknamed ‘Super Chikan’, who’s famous for making his own guitars from jerry cans – just like the ones the Discoverys were carrying. ‘If you give me one, I’ll make you a guitar in time for the end of the trip,’ he offered. It doesn’t matter how precious your jerry cans are when fortune smiles on your like that.

Driving behind Correro, the expedition crossed the Mississippi River in 100-degree heat and oppressive humidity into Arkansas at Helena. This was the most southerly point on the journey, just hours north of the Gulf of Mexico.

But things were to change quickly as the route swung north – and started to climb into the Ozark Plateau.

Covering around 45,000 square miles, the Ozarks stretch from the west bank of the Mississippi to south-eastern Kansas and into the north-eastern corner of Oklahoma.

They cover a good proportion of southern Missouri and extend well into northern Arkansas – which is where Correro stopped for a breather to reflect on the creation of the Trans America Trail during a brief pause in the expedition’s relentless march onwards.

Sitting by a mountain road near the town of Oark (whose name apparently comes from French, as opposed to someone with a broken Z button on his keyboard), Correro reminisced on the early days of his research. ‘I just kept heading west, finding outback roads that linked to other outback roads. I arrived into Oklahoma and then Colorado from my home in Mississippi. At that point, I figured maybe I had a shot at reaching the Pacific.’

With Correro leading the way, the convoy of Land Rovers climbed to 3000 feet above sea level on tight, twisting mountain trails. Progress was slow, as it should be when you’re off-roading, and the days were as long as ever – with early starts meaning the convoy was often sharing the landscape with native wildlife. They spotted deer, turtles and coyotes in the Ozarks, along with a good many bison; the latter were being farmed as cattle, but they still made an impressive sight amid the spectacular scenery.

Dropping down towards Alma, Arkansas, the trail becomes dramatically washed out, requiring no small amount of skill and concentration whether you’re on two wheels or four. Correro inched forward, balancing on his pegs, while the Discoverys picked their way through the rocky axle-twisters with their Terrain Response programmes working overtime.

This was the final part of Correro’s stint at the head of the Expedition America convoy. Turning around in Alma to head back east, he promised the Land Rover team that what they had experienced thus far was no more than a taster – and he certainly wasn’t joking.

With Collins now leading the way at the head of the convoy, the

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In White Oak, Oklahoma, the Trans-America Trail intersects with Route 66. There’s an irony here, in that the unmade tracks the Discoverys were following date from the era of the Gold Rush, while the fabled Mother Road was created a century later – yet it’s the Trail that exists today in a continguous form, whereas Route 66 has largely disappeared under the interstates that replaced it

vehicles’ next challenges involved tackling the southern Midwest, the towering Rockies and the Utah desert – all the while facing ever-changing and often extreme weather. The mercury had climbed above 100 degrees as they crossed the Mississippi: now they were pressing on amid tornado warnings and the threat of lingering snow on the highest trails.

First, they had to polish off another challenge – that of getting past the unending flatness of the Great Plains. A landscape that seems to go on forever, even when you’re zipping across it on the interstate, this takes even longer when you’re doing all of it on gravel trails like the one following the Kansas-Oklahoma border.

‘If it’s not clear already,’ said Collins as they set off from Alma, ‘the next week will show the sheer enormity of this undertaking. The US

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is a big place – never more so than when you are crossing it on dirt!’

In a landscape without many highlights, a notable moment while following the Kansas-Oklahoma border was the Trail’s intersection with Route 66. The famed Mother Road is less than half the length of the Trans America Trail but as they crossed it in White Oak, north-east of Tulsa, the crews could reflect on the history beneath their wheels.

In many ways, the dirt tracks the Discoverys were following resembled the sort of roads the original pioneers took during the Gold Rush of the 19th Century; Route 66, on the other hand, was a symbol of westward migration during the 20th Century.

Now, ironically, Route 66 no longer exists. For much of its length, it has been upgraded and renamed as part of the interstate system, while in other areas the course it once

took is gone forever. In between these extremes, some precious old sections do remain, sometimes signposted as ‘Historic Route 66’, and every so often you’ll strike gold and find a faded old marker painted on the roadway itself, but there’s no denying that these days, it’s incomplete. The tracks that came before it, however, remain much as they were in the days when those Gold Rush pioneers raced west in their covered wagons – the difference being that a couple of

horses have now been replaced by, in the Discoverys’ case, a 375bhp, 5.0-litre V8 engine.

Literally the only modifications to the Discoverys were factory-fit winches, roof racks and skid plates.

‘Doing this in stock vehicles is important,’ said Collins, ‘as it clearly demonstrates the capability of the LR4 that anyone can buy at their local dealership.’ Obviously the LR4 has given way to the Discovery 5 since then (it’s now known as the Discovery in North America too) but

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There was a time when these tracks were used by horse-drawn carriages and nothing else. Progress has changed all that – instead of two horses, the Discos were propelled by the 375bhp of their 5.0-litre V8 engines – but at least the tracks themselves remain

the point remains the same – it’s a premium family SUV, but it’s a real Land Rover too and it comes with serious off-road ability built in.

And this was about to be tested, too. The miles rolled by, and by, and by, as the convoy made its way through the featureless landscape of northern Oklahoma, southern Kansas and north-eastern New Mexico, crossing the famous Santa Fe Trail then entering Colorado – where everything changed. In front of them, the eastern flank of the

Rocky Mountains rose like a wall, the 14,000-foot summit of Pikes Peak looming in the distance as they headed towards what was set to be the biggest challenge of the month’s driving.

And that is indeed how it turned out. After a badly needed rest day in Colorado Springs, the convoy set out again into the mountains – and four days later, no-on could remember how many different highlevel passes they had negotiated. At times, these climbed to more than

12,000 feet – that’s similar in height to the Eiger, or three Ben Nevises on top of each other.

At these altitudes, the passes are normally only free of snow during August. Even then, however, it’s not guaranteed – and with the Rockies having been buffeted by storms during the previous weeks, there was a real danger that the Discoverys would get so far only to find the way ahead blocked.

Having already encountered extreme heat, flooding and massive thunderstorms, it would have been entirely in keeping…

Sure enough, some snow did fall as the vehicles were picking their way over Black Bear Pass.

Thankfully, though, the way ahead was still clear – though that didn’t make it easy. Black Bear is a well kept trail with a surface composed of loose stone, but as you descend from the summit you need to take it very, very steadily to avoid building up momentum. The switchbacks

come thick and fast, and going over the edge would be a one-way trip into oblivion – something that’s thrown sharply into focus by the fact that you’re relying on your vehicle to maintain its poise on what is essentially scree. This is where the Discoverys’ Terrain Response and Hill Descent Control came into their own, allowing the drivers to remain in control and concentrate on placing the vehicles safely away from the lip of the track.

After a high-adrenaline off-road challenge like this, it can be nice to put your wheels back on to tarmac for a while. But there was no such luxury in store here, as the goal of crossing America on unmade roads remained very much intact.

Thus, having reached the midway point in the expedition as they passed through Colorado, the vehicles’ next challenge was to negotiate the track into Utah. In contrast to the epic trails of the Rockies, this simply runs parallel

Every mile brought its own challenge, but it was in the Rockies that the Discoverys really earned their living. At altitudes similar to three Ben Nevises on top of each other, these trails are normally open for one month a year – and even then, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to make it through

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to the interstate, so close that the Discos’ crews could hear the rumble of traffic from within their cabins.

That was easy enough, but while I-70 continues in the same vein the Trail suddenly becomes much less placid. Black Dragon Canyon is one of the most technical parts of the entire route, requiring the vehicles to edge along cautiously with Terrain Response set to Rock Crawl mode.

Rarely getting above walking pace, they continued like this for 14 hours.

In some parts, this section of the trail is overlooked by 1000 year-old cave paintings under the lip of a canyon wall. The crews probably

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weren’t paying much attention to that, though, because the driving was so intense. They were looking out for rattlesnakes, too, which is always sure to focus the mind…

As this suggests, the expedition had moved into a new kind of landscape with an arid climate. The route of the Trans America Trail took the vehicles from Utah into Nevada – where Collins’ team learned that unbeknown to them, they had just had an incredibly lucky escape.

Close to the town of Salina, the crews had watched in awe as an intense storm brewed up. Moving on, what they didn’t know was that

this had gone on to cause a flash flood, turning the trail they were on at the time into a deep, fast-flowing river. Literally two hours after they had passed through, their route had become completely impassable.

A pair of motorcyclists riding the Trail caught up with the Discoverys further along the route and showed the team some pictures they had taken of the flooding. ‘That would have been impossible to cross and we would have lost at least a day, maybe more, waiting it out,’ said Collins. Fortune favours the brave…

Fortune also favours the careful, and as always on an expedition

everyday maintenance is critical. In the fine white dust of the Nevada desert, this means cleaning out your air filters almost every time you stop. The stuff is like talcum powder, its tiny particles capable of getting everywhere.

Now, too, the climate was once again searingly hot, with the temperature back up over 100 degrees. Previously, the teams had had to cope with temperatures like these combined with the crippling humidity of the Mississippi floodplain; this time, the air was dry as the land beneath the Discoverys’ wheels – a land of of sagebrush,

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rattlesnakes and desert tarantulas, so jumping out of your vehicle to get under the bonnet and clean its air filter was not something to be done without caution.

Having stopped along the way back in Mississippi to hob-nob with Morgan Freeman, the team were treated to another distinctly unusual overlanding experience as they passed through the Nevada town of Eureka. Some five hours north of Las Vegas, this was once a Gold Rush boom town with a population of 10,000. It’s declined to more like 600 now, leaving a strange urban landscape in which modern buildings sit alongside classic Wild West architecture – all surrounded by the harsh, parched landscape of the desert.

One of the most notable buildings here is the old Opera House, which has been restored to its former glories but, with no real prospect of drawing an audience, is rarely put to good use. Not that the operagoing experience in a Gold Rush boom town would have been the genteel pastime it is today, but that’s probably just as well. In any case, Land Rover’s event organisers arranged to bring Nicolette, an opera singer from Los Angeles, to Eureka for the day to put on an intimate one-off concert for the town. Unlike quite a lot of performances in the 19th Century, it didn’t end in a riot and no-one got shot.

From here, the convoy passed through the Black Rock Desert, close to where Andy Green piloted Thrust SSC to the first ever supersonic Land Speed Record in 1997. The route nibbled off a few miles from the north-east corner of California before heading into Oregon, the final state in the itinerary – but here, things were to get more dramatic than ever.

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Literally two days from the conclusion of its month-long quest, Expedition America faced a totally unexpected challenge courtesy of wildfires in the forests of Oregon which made this section of the Trans America Trail completely impassable. Completing an offtarmac crossing of the USA on tarmac doesn’t really sound like a very appropriate way to sign off, but it seemed unavoidable – or at least, it would have to lesser men than Tom Collins.

Showing the resourcefulness and determination of a Camel Trophy veteran, Collins set about mapping a new route – with some expert help. ‘We give our thanks to the firefighters in Oregon who provided us with detailed advice on how to drive around the fire zone safely,’ he said. ‘Without their assistance, we

would have not been able to reach our goal.’

With that, the convoy of three Discoverys – dusty, muddy and very nearly singed at the edges, but very much unbowed – rolled out of the woods and arrived at their ultimate destination of Port Orford. The westernmost point on the American mainland, this was a very fitting spot at which to finish the expedition – and the Discoverys had made it there with no mechanical issues and no repairs needed, save for a few flat tyres.

In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, Expedition America was able to claim the honour of having been the first to complete an unpaved crossing

of the USA by 4x4. It certainly demonstrated the Discovery’s overland abilities, bringing both they and the Trans America Trail to a whole new audience.

If the thought of a 5000-mile expedition across the US on almost nothing but unpaved roads, via forests, deserts and mountain ranges, sounds like your idea of heaven – well, you’re certainly not alone. Time to start prepping your vehicle and checking out the cost of shipping, perhaps. It won’t be cheap, but it’ll be the trip of a lifetime – in every sense. And you, like Expedition America itself, will have Sam Correro to thank for it.

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THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

51 days after leaving London, an epic overland trip across the Himalayas culminates in a very happy homecoming Words and pictures: Tushar and Pooja Agarwal

About the Authors

Tushar and Pooja Agarwal set out to travel overland from London to their home in India in 2010. Since then, Tushar has given up his job in IT and become a full-time road-trip traveller, running expeditions for customers through his company Journeys by Road and publishing books on his experiences. And it all started with a completely standard second-generation Jeep Cherokee…

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I

n terms of landscape, driving challenges and otherworldliness, the passage through China and Tibet was clearly the highlight of our trip from London to Delhi. As exhilarating as it could be, though, it was also very tough. The state of the roads made the going incredibly hard, sometimes for hundreds of miles at a stretch, and in Tielongtan, which stands at 15,300 feet above sea level, a sudden attack of altitude sickness left Pooja struggling to breathe as we raced through the night down the promisingly named Death Valley to get to a lower level.

Something else about China that you might find hard to take is that as a foreign national in your own

vehicle, you’re required to have an official ‘guide’ travelling with you at all times. You can make up your own mind about that – but FeiFei, the guide assigned to us for our visit, was a very jovial, helpful, sweet-natured girl in her midtwenties – and when Pooja woke in the middle of the night unable to breathe, she was the one who sourced an oxygen mask from the owner of the lodge we were staying in. Without her, who knows how that story might have ended.

China’s rules and regulations did, however, tie us down when our route took us close to the holy site of Mount Kailash. Located in the south-west of Tibet, near the border with Nepal, this is sacred to

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devotees of several religions. In the Hindu faith, it’s the home of Lord Shiva; no man has ever climbed it but thousands visit every year in pilgrimage, believing that walking the Kailash Parikrama, a 32-mile path around the mountain, will bring good fortune.

Sadly, the Chinese authorities refused us permission to do the Parikrama, on the basis that we were Indian nationals travelling in our own car through sensitive parts of the country. We had been given

a set route which we had to stick to; there was a ten-hour stretch of driving in Aksai Chin where we were forbidden to stop, even for toilet breaks, or take pictures, and in Tibet we weren’t to talk to any monks. We had to register at almost every army post so they could keep tabs on our whereabouts, and when we decided to abandon plans to visit Lhasa and leave China a few days early, mainly because both of us were feeling unwell from the effects of altitude, we were told we had to stay at the

border until our prescribed exit date. When we did get to leave, the army searched almost every item in our luggage and even checked the pictures in our camera.

Before this, though, a highlight of the trip was a visit to Mansarovar Lake. In the shadow of Mount Kailash, this too is holy; the highest body of water in the world, in the Hindu faith it represents purity and anyone who bathes in its waters is cleansed of all sin.

We knew that Lake Mansarovar was a place of pilgrimage, but as we spent the evening camped by its shores we didn’t expect more than a hundred Toyota Land Cruisers full of Indians to show up! They were all from big groups organised by different companies, and the best part was they all had cooks travelling with them – which meant Indian food for us that night! A night we had thought would be very quiet became a big event for us. We met some great people and made new friends, and it was great that so many were interested in Friendicoes, the animal welfare charity we were supporting through our adventure.

Still in Tibet, we drove on to another small town, Zhongba. Once again, the going was extremely hard and stressful – we covered around 150 miles in nine hours of rocks, fords and steep mountains tracks.

From there it was more of the

same en route to Saga; the Chinese government is in the process of extending the tarmac road west from here towards Mansarovar, but for us this was the worst going we had yet faced.

We were told that conditions would improve beyond Saga, though really it wasn’t until we reached Lhatse that we felt we could relax.

We had been living in constant fear of breakdowns on the rough, remote tracks, but this last stretch before we crossed the border into Nepal was a blessed relief.

It has to be said that in spite of all the punishment we gave it through China and Tibet, our Jeep Cherokee remained extremely dependable. All the same, the Toyota Land Cruiser is king here. Aside from a very few others, it’s the only 4x4 you see – and it provides a lifeline between villages and towns, tackling the most treacherous road conditions with ease. At times, we’d be doing less than 10mph over the rough tracks and a Cruiser would, well, cruise by at three times our speed.

Our completely standard Jeep did brilliantly – but we have to be honest and say that the Land Cruiser is the vehicle everyone here picks in order to be prepared for the toughest terrain.

After the emptiness of Tibet, Nepal was our reintroduction into the civilised world. Kathmandu is a

Being informed that the Chinese authorities require you to have an official ‘guide’ in your car at all times when you’re in the country, you’d expect it to be some starched nazi taking delight in telling you all the things you’re not allowed to do. FeiFei wasn’t much like that…

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15/09/2023 13:04

Above left: Mount Kailash is sacred to several religions; to Hindus, it’s the home of Lord Shiva. No-one has ever climbed it, though the 32-mile trek around its base is a powerful form of pilgrimage Above right: Believed to bring purity to those who bathe in it, Lake Mansarovar is another sacred place for Hindus. It looks like it would also bring colds… bustling city full of cars and people, lots of streets with shops, vehicles blowing their horns, traffic jams, pollution… basically, it’s just like any other big metropolitan city.

That probably makes it sound like hell on earth after the wonderful, untouched landscapes through which we had been travelling for the previous week, but it felt great – not least because we were able to check in to a hotel and catch up on some sleep!

Heading west from the Nepali capital, we planned to cross into India at Sunauli border post. The end was in sight, and for us it felt like we were about to arrive home. We were in a great mood, just smiling and enjoying the ride as we got closer and closer to the border.

But then we reached a check post and an officer signalled for us to stop. ‘Maoists have burned two motorcycles ahead. The roads are closed, and so is the border. You cannot go much further.’

What now? Would the border open today or not? Would our British Jeep attract the troublemakers and end up in ashes? Were we facing more days of waiting just to be able to carry on? We kept driving, almost convinced that India was now out of reach.

Our plan was to keep going until we reached the area where the police had actually closed the road, and stay as close by as we could.

Our mood, just now so buoyant, was close to one of despair. Silently, we kept driving.

Then a car ahead of us signalled for us to stop. ‘Oh God. Let them not be the Maoists,’ we whispered. Two guys got out and approached us.

After all these thousands of miles, had it come to this?

‘The border is closed. You cannot go much further. But we can tell you another border from where you can go to India.’ That was a huge relief. We explained what we were doing, and they wanted to help us.

And this is what we had come to love so much about our trip. In a second, everything could change: dynamics, moods, routes, plans, conversations. We were at once the masters of our destiny, and at the mercy of the road.

We headed for this other border called Maheshpur and were met at

the Nepalese side by a couple of cops. And they were indeed a couple – husband and wife guarding their country together!

But there was a problem. The inspector told us that this border crossing didn’t have a customs office, meaning we wouldn’t be able to cross into India. When we insisted that we needed to go today, he said we can cross to the Indian side and try for ourselves.

Knowing that home was only a few hundred yards away, how could we not give it a try? Both of us were like little kids, not wanting to accept the truth. So we drove towards the border at Maheshpur.

Bad news. The Indian border guards told us we could go at our own risk, but they couldn’t sign

Left, above: As the authors settled in for a quiet evening’s camping by the lake, groups of pilgrims on organised tours started arriving in their droves – bringing with them a small town of gazebos and, more importantly, caterers Left, below: The Toyota Land Cruiser is king of the road in Tibet.

More than 100 vehicles flocked to Mansarovar during the evening – every single one of them an 80-Series The North Sichuan Hotel is home to pilgrims and adventure tourists alike when they’re visiting Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar. As hotels go, it’s definitely got location on its side, if not architecture

80 4pp Agarwal India.indd 80

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Buddhist prayer flags are a common sight in Tibet, where they’re used to bless the surrounding countryside. On the G318 highway, an altitude marker tells the story – this is four times higher than the highest point in Britain. No wonder Tushar and Pooja both came down with altitude sickness our Jeep into the country – which would make it extremely difficult to ship her back to Britain afterwards.

Down went our spirits again: gloomily, we took a U-turn and headed back into Nepal… to be met by news that that the Sunauli border had been reopened.

And now our spirits bounded back upwards – and kept going.

‘Welcome to India’ said a huge sign at the border post. We were home!

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We headed to Kanpur via Lucknow in a sea of truly appalling traffic. It took some time to get used to the oncoming vehicles on our side of the road, and the endless trucks crawling along in the fast lane, but after an hour or so we settled into the mayhem around us and started enjoying the drive.

And then, almost before we knew it, we were in Delhi. After 1500 litres of petrol, 51 days, 15 countries

and nine time zones, we pulled up at Qutub Minar and turned off our Jeep’s engine.

It’s difficult to express our feelings at that time. The car we set off in from London was here with us in Delhi. It was surreal. Lots of people and reporters had gathered to welcome us – amid all the excitement and euphoria, it took us a while to realise that we had arrived in Delhi in one piece.

We had driven across deserts and over mountains, endured searing heat and bitter cold and seen things we would never had thought existed. We had experienced fear and elation, despair, euphoria and panic, and we had conquered it all from behind the wheel. London to Delhi by road: we did it. And through it all, we did it with our faithful fourwheeled friend.

15/09/2023 13:05

Blazing a trail

The first African expeditions didn’t use Land Rovers, Land Cruisers or even 4x4s at all. Just over a hundred years ago, a team of pioneers from France completed the first Sahara crossing in a convoy of Citroën half-tracks – then returned the following year to complete the job by opening up a land route from Algeria to Madagascar Words: Alan Kidd Pictures: Citroën

T

he history of overland travel is littered with magnificent achievements by pioneers driving Jeeps, Land Rovers, Land Cruisers and many other kinds of 4x4. But perhaps the most significant expeditions ever made used a very different kind of vehicle.

Ask a thousand people to guess at the first car ever to cross the Sahara, for example, and it’s unlikely that even one of them will tell you it was a Citroën. Yet it was the French manufacturer that pioneered the concept of overland travel

84 8pp Croisiere Noire.indd 84

when, on 7 January 1923, a quintet of its Kégresse car-derived half-tracks arrived in Timbuktu following a twenty-day crossing of the great desert from Touggourt in Algeria.

The expedition was led by Georges-Marie Haardt and Louis Audoin-Dubreuil, who during the ten years that followed were to use the vehicles in blazing trails further around the world than anyone had ever thought possible.

Principal among these was what came to be known as the Croisière Noire (‘black cruise’), a hugely ambitious project to create a land link

between France’s African colonies and the island of Madagascar.

The seeds of the expedition were sown almost as soon as Haardt and Audoin-Dubreuil had successfully completed their Sahara crossing between Touggourt and the Malian settlement of Timbuktu – which, of course, still remains a favourite destination among overlanders today, albeit only because of its name. André Citroën, the company’s founder and owner, had been convinced that it was possible to defeat the great desert in twenty days; when Haardt proved him

OVERLAND 15/09/2023 12:45

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Above: Christmas Eve 1924, and the convoy picks its way across swamplands in Chad using makeshift pontoons Left: The teams followed a route across Africa to Kampala, where they split up into four mini-expeditions before reuniting for the final push into Madagascar

right, President Gaston Doumergue suggested that due to Madagascar’s isolation, demonstrating the feasibility of a crosscontinent route linking it to the rest of France’s African interests would be a great strategic coup.

Despite the enthusiasm with which the idea was met, such were the complexities of organising such a mission that it was to be another eighteen months before a convoy of eight Kégresse half-tracks, each fitted with Citroen’s Type B2 four-cylinder engine, set off on a trip that was to cover some 12,500 miles and take eight months to complete.

While Doumergue’s principal aim for the expedition was to reassure French industry that Madagascar was a safe bet, it was much more than simply an exercise in public relations. Haardt

and Audoin-Dubreuil took with them a list of assignments from the Ministry of Colonies and the French Natural History Museum, and the make-up of the team crewing the eight vehicles illustrates the importance attached to it as a means of research.

As well as Haardt and Audoin-Dubreuil themselves, members of the expedition included zoologist and pathologist Dr Eugene Bergonie, geologist Charles Brull, ethnographic artist Alexandre Jacovleff and film-makers Léon Poirier and Georges Specht.

Along with chief navigator Bettembourg and a crew of mechanics led by Maurice Penaud and Maurice Billy, they were to change the way both the continent of Africa and the nature of car travel were viewed.

Starting on 28 October 1924 at Colomb-Bechar, the convoy made its way across the desert via the oases of Beni-Abbes, Adrar, Taourit, Ouallen and Tessalit before reaching Bourem, on the river Niger, on 9 November. But this was just the beginning; next came a long trek through the bush, with never a road nor even a track to be seen, from 19 November to 15 December.

Citroën’s own official record of the trip takes up the story: ‘At Niamey, the expedition was

enthusiastically greeted by some 300 horsemen and dromedary riders, who had come in from all the surrounding regions. At Tessaoua, the Sultan, whose harem numbered a hundred wives, allowed the team to shoot films in an ‘Arabian Nights’ setting. The Lord Barmou, of the ancient Haoussi nobility, had kept up the old customs of the orient; the women bowed down before their lord and master and he had his meals alone, for no-one must see him eat!’

There was, however, another story behind the expedition’s encounter here. Barmou, the Sultan of Tessaoua, had 67 daughters, four or five of whom (no-one could remember) were married to Serki Moussa, the Sultan of Maradi. Léon Poirier, the group’s film-maker, was already imagining the movie he could shoot inside the ‘inner sanctum’ of the harem – but Moussa was reticent about allowing him access.

Finally, another sultan proposed a deal.

Moussa had been given a brand new car as a gift, but it wouldn’t start; if Poirier could repair it, he could visit the women’s quarters. The expedition’s team of technicians examined the vehicle, worked out what was wrong… and discreetly pointed out to Moussa that all he needed to do was turn the key in the ignition…

'The Sultan had 67 daughters, four or five of whom (no-one could remember) were married to the same man'

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OVERLAND 15/09/2023 12:45

Above: Early on in the expedition, the half-tracks make progress across a sandy section of the Sahara. Haardt and Audouin-Dubreuil had already been here before; the previous year, they had used another set of Citroëns to make what was the first ever motorised crossing of the great desert Right: Levy and Perrault aboard their P4T in Niger. This picture shows the layout of the Kégresse half-track system clearly; the rear drive wheel is fixed, while the rest of the unit rides on an articulated bogie Following a break for the festive season at Ford Lamy (now N’Djamena, the capital of Chad), the convoy continued on its way towards Ford Archambault through a region where Islamic religion had failed to penetrate and which was therefore dominated by traditional animistic

Citroën and Kégresse The rubber treads on Citroën’s half-tracks were invented by Adolphe Kégresse, who demonstrated them in the presence of André Citroën himself. The system used articulated bogies fitted to the rear axle; these carried a powered rear wheel, large front idler and four small guide wheels, around which was run a reinforced rubber track.

This spread the vehicle’s tractive effort over a much greater area, as well as minimising ground pressure.

Citroën was much taken by the idea of a vehicle capable of negotiating rough terrain but also travelling at a respectable speed on the road, and production commenced in January 1921. The Kégresse was built until 1937; following this, the system was licensed by the US Army, which used it on more than 41,000 vehicles, mainly M2 and M3 half-tracks, during the Second War.

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beliefs. ‘This is the country of the thickest bush, of sky scraping trees and naked natives,’ relates Citroën’s record. ‘It is the land of “plate-lipped women” and of “panthermen” whose fetishism (animism) led them to indulge in human sacrifice.’

No doubt the explorers from the west felt very sophisticated alongside such cultures, though they demonstrated a crass vulgarity of their own when they paused near the Sudanese border to entertain themselves by killing lions, buffalos, hippopotami, elephants, giraffes and antelopes.

To make matters worse, as well as stalking the animals near water-holes they hunted using the technique of lighting brush fires; the ‘panthermen’ and ‘plate-lipped women’ of Chad might have looked on and wondered who these backward invaders were.

At least Poirier and Specht were busy with their cameras too at this time, bringing back hours of literally ground-breaking film documenting the migration of African elephants. There was an unexpected enemy to be faced, though, in the shape of another kind of wildlife – swarms of bees which were at times so numerous as to force the camera teams to turn back.

Moving on into the Belgian Congo, the convoy was slowed by a series of river crossings. ‘What few bridges there were being quite unsafe,’ says Citroën’s diary, ‘it often proved necessary to

build rafts kept afloat with dug-out canoes and a system of winches with cables stretching from one river bank to the other. On many occasions, a situation which had become critical was restored only thanks to the initiative and courage of the mechanics.’

That’s nothing, however, compared to the work done on the expedition’s behalf by a team of 40,000 Congolese workers co-ordinated by their nation’s Belgian rulers. Aware of the convoy’s impending arrival, the Belgians saw that they could use it to get a road built through the forest by spreading word among the locals that the Citroën team were envoys of the British explorer Henry Stanley, whose expedition of 1874-1877 had done much to open up the African interior.

‘For these people,’ says Citroën’s memoir, ‘Stanley was considered to be nothing less than a prophet, coming to announce a new age.

No wonder they went about the job with such enthusiasm.’ Given the condemnation Stanley received in the British press and parliament for the savage violence with which his team conducted themselves, indiscriminately murdering those who they encountered en route, it’s possible that the Congolese workforce was

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‘It often took an hour to cover half a mile, and the pace then dropped to five miles a day. Every river to be crossed set a fresh problem; some required the assembly of rafts made up of tree trunks and dug-out canoes'

motivated by fear rather than respect, but for Haardt’s convoy the results were what mattered – and almost 450 miles of cleared track through the dense jungle made it possible to breeze through what would otherwise have been one of the toughest parts of the whole route.

Happily, despite the disquieting nature of the relationship between the colonials and their ‘hosts’, the Citroën team was well able to appreciate the esoteric skills of the local culture.

‘In the heart of the virgin forest, the members of the expedition had occasion to appreciate the efficacy of the gudu-gudu, a sort of very bass sounding two-toned gong used as a bush telephone over distances up to fourteen miles or so, from one tribe to another. Its rhythms remain

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a dead secret, known only to the gudugudistes of each village.

‘The mission also came across the pygmies, whose only resource in order to glimpse the sky was to climb to the top of the enormous trees in whose shadow they live stifled. They look like legendary gnomes on account of their short legs; their head is voluminous, and the hue of their skin is a rich coppery red. The natives call them TickTick; they are astonishingly subtle hunters, using bows under two feet long and poisoned arrows.’

The Mangbetou people, too, provided the convoy with a warm welcome. ‘They are a race with a stately mien, fine-drawn joints, small feet and delicate hands,’ notes Citroën’s record. ‘So much did the Europeans and natives sympathise

that one of the tribal chiefs proposed his daughter for wife to one of the expedition’s members… who managed to refuse the offer with sufficient tact not to antagonise anybody.’

This was on the way between Stanleyville (present-day Kisangani) and British East Africa, where the expedition was to split into four groups. Following the Congo-Nile road out of Buta between 23 March and 13 April, the convoy’s progress was slowed by heavy rain.

Less welcome still was the attention of the tsetse fly, a pest which remains a scourge of people and cattle to this day. ‘The only animal completely immune is the elephant,’ noted the travellers, ‘the thickness of its skin being no myth.

These elephants are tamed as they were by the

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Carthaginians of old, and as are Asian elephants, to replace manpower.’

Finally the vehicles reached Kampala, the designated point at which four groups of two would each make their own way to a final rendezvous on Madagascar itself. AudouinDubreuil’s vehicles were to head for Mombasa via Nairobi and the Kilimanjaro region; Bettembourg’s group for Dar-es-Salaam; Haardt’s for Mozambique; and Brull’s for Cape Town. They were to form once more into a single convoy at Majunga, on the west coast of Madagascar, before making their way to the island’s capital Antananarivo for the conclusion of the trip.

Audouin-Dubreuil’s group climbed to 9500 feet and above as it skirted the southern flank of

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Kilimanjaro. As well as the altitude, the vehicles had dense tropical forests and several tricky water crossings to cope with. This was the chief obstacle for Bettembourg, too; these two minigroups met back up in Dar-es-Salaam, after the

second team had built a bridge of 63 yards’ span to get across the Wani River.

‘The English,’ records Citroën, ‘were very appreciative of the sporting feat.’ Brull’s group found this, too, in the most peculiar of

Georges-Marie Haardt A close collaborator with André Citroën, Georges-Marie Haardt made his name by carrying through his mentor’s vision for a motorised crossing of the Sahara. This was completed just over four years after the Kégresse first went into production, and was quickly followed by the Croisière Noire.

Having conquered Africa, his final undertaking was an even more ambitious expedition to open up the Silk Route to cars. Travelling through Asia in a convoy of Kégresse P17s especially modified to cope with the extreme cold, he arrived triumphantly in Beijing on 12 February 1932.

Despite receiving a hero’s welcome, however, Haardt was by now exhausted. Soon after arriving he contracted influenza and, unable to fight, he died in Hong Kong on 15 March.

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Above: Mount Longitudo, in Kenya – the half-tracks’ low ground pressure meant that when power was called for, they were prone to needing extra weight over their back axles Right: The Croisière Noire has remained a celebrated undertaking in the history of the French colonies through which it travelled. This postage stamp was issued in Mali to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Andre Citroën’s birth circumstances; having discovered that the ballast of the railway lines towards Cape Town provided the best kind of road in some areas, they found themselves having an audience with none other than the Prince of Wales.

Brull’s group covered easily the largest amount of ground on this part of the expedition, but it was Haardt who was to encounter the toughest conditions. In particular, the swampy ground around the north shore of Lake Nyasa, which the team encountered during the rainy season, proved taxing even for the Kégresse vehicles.

‘All possible conditions were leagued against the progress of the two half-tracks,’ reported Haardt. ‘Swampy bush through which a way has to be hacked with axe, shovel and machete, only the compass being used to steer; mountainous regions with rain-pitted tracks; bridgeless rivers and rivers whose bridges had been washed away.

‘It often took an hour to cover half a mile, and the pace then dropped to five miles a day. Every river to be crossed set a fresh problem; some required the assembly of rafts made up of tree trunks and dug-out canoes, others the rebuilding of bridges no longer existent.

Sometimes the rivers could be forded, after removing the cars’ magnetoes.’

The team’s progress was constantly being monitored by the British colonials, not least because many had laid bets against its success.

To their mind, Nyasaland was impossible to cross – so there was a heroes’ reception when the Citroëns finally put in to Blantyre.

The route turned east from here to make for the coast, where a ferry would carry the vehicles to Madagascar. Ahead, however, lay another 450 miles through the Dabo, a vast plain of soft, saturated ground and tall grasses. This would

People often don’t realise how much of the Sahara is made of rock rather than sand.

This is early in the expedition, near Adrar in what is now Algeria

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Above: N’Guigmi, Chad; another job for mechanics Billy and Penaud – whose heroism later in the expedition was to save the whole team’s lives when the vehicles were caught in a bush fire Below: July 1925, South Africa; after crossing many rivers by raft, this shallow ford in the Kimberley was a piece of cake for the brace of vehicles led by Charles Brull

have been taxing enough at any time, but in the scorching heat of the African sun the team was suddenly faced with a more terrifying danger than ever: fire.

Perhaps one could say this was nature’s revenge for using such a cruel method of hunting back in Chad. And Haardt already had first-hand experience of how quickly a fire can spread, after a location flare fired by one of the teams on the first expedition across the Sahara had ignited the tinder-dry brush. But nothing compared with this blaze; mechanics Billy and Penaud gritted their teeth against savage burns, pressing on at full speed as the vehicles’ tyres burst and their tracks

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started melting. Ultimately, their bravery was what saved the whole team from perishing so agonisingly close to the end of their quest.

Sailing from Mozambique to Majunga, Haardt’s scarred but unbowed group met up with Bettembourg and Audouin-Dubreuil. Coming from further south, Brull’s team was briefed to land at Tulear while the other six vehicles were following a route around the northern coast of Madagascar.

Finally, on 20 June 1925, all four vehicles were reunited in Antananarivo. The expedition had taken numerous topographical coordinates, shot about 90,000 feet of film, produced more than 300 drawings and 15 books of sketches, taken

over 8000 photographs and collected samples of over 300 mammals, 800 birds and 1500 insects, some of which were up to that time unknown.

Most of all, however, during its 12,500-mile advance across Africa, from north to south and from west to east, the expedition had blazed a new trail for all to see and proved that by hook or by crook, it could be done. Thanks to the Croisière Noire, Africa had been opened up to the automobile – and thanks to the vision of André Citroën and the genius of Adolphe Kégresse, along with the pioneering bravery of Haardt and Audouin-Dubreuil, the era of overland expeditions had begun.

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TRAVELLING WITH A

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CONSCIENCE

You plan for a lot when preparing for an overland expedition.

But something you might not give a lot of thought to are the responsibilities you have when you’re on the road.

Rest assured, when you’re out there seeing the world you still have to be a good citizen…

Words: Marilu Peries Pictures: Noel and Marilu Peries

R

esponsible tourism is essential to our travelling and overlanding philosophy. Not only do we want to have a great time visiting some of the world’s most beautiful places, but we also want to make sure that we’re not making them less beautiful in the process by hurting local communities or the environment along the way. And, wherever possible, we strive to ensure that our impact on local communities and the environment is positive.

We believe that responsible overlanding minimises negative social, economic and environmental impacts, generates economic benefits for locals, and provides opportunities to enhance the wellbeing of local communities.

We take both an idealist and pragmatic approach to responsible overlanding – idealist in that we strive to be as responsible as we can, but pragmatic because we recognise that it won’t always be possible to have the perfect scenario everywhere we travel.

Recycling, for instance, is not yet very widely practiced in many African countries, and it will therefore not be realistic for us to commit to recycling all of our rubbish along the way.

However, we will recycle where we can and praise establishments that are committed to environmental protection.

There is no one way to be a responsible traveller, and we understand that many issues surrounding responsible tourism are controversial. For instance, Noel and I are

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‘Travel globally, spend locally’ sounds like an amazingly obvious approach, but it’s just as amazing how many people do the opposite. There are big corporate outfits in Africa whose version of tourism does real harm; far better to spend your money with street traders and local community businesses so you know you’re assisting the economic well being of real people rather than making fat cats fatter

choosing to volunteer with and raise funds for local charities that we meet along the journey, which is important to us even though ‘voluntourism’ is coming under fire.

Needless to say, we understand that ours is not necessarily the only approach, and there can be many different approaches that are all just as equally responsible.

With that said, these are our five rules of thumb for responsible overlanding:

Travel globally, spend locally The income generated from tourism is essential to the economies of all of the various countries that we intend to travel through, or have travelled through, in Africa.

However, too often money from the tourism sector never reaches local communities, and may actually end up having a negative impact on people and the environment. Sadly, there are countless examples of this throughout Africa – such as the displacement of San (Bushmen) communities in Botswana to make way for tourism development in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), one of the country’s biggest safari parks.

It is important to us that most, if not all, of the money that we spend on our journey benefits local areas, and at the very least does not contribute to any harm.

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For this reason, for instance, with regards to our own personal experiences and adventures in Africa, Noel and I opt not to visit the CKGR and instead prefer to spend our time and money visiting places such as Kubu Island, which is run by a community trust, and buying souvenirs from the Kuru Art Centre where money generated from tourism goes directly to improving the economic well-being of local communities.

Accessorise your vehicle to reduce fuel consumption

Let’s face it – if you want to be self-sufficient on an overland journey, you’re going to need to take a lot of equipment with you in your Land Rover. Which will make it heavy in weight – and therefore, of course, heavy on fuel.

Still, we have found that overlanding and self-catering camping can be an environmentally friendly way of travelling if done strategically.

Noel learned a few hard lessons on his first trip from London to South Africa about the pitfalls of over-packing a vehicle. Imagine consuming one too many bacon sandwiches – not only will you be heavy, slow and cumbersome, but you’ll also require a few more glasses of water to quench that thirst.

For us, the trick is finding a good balance between self-sufficiency and over-packing, especially when it comes to water canisters and

jerry cans, whose weight and bulk can really hinder a vehicle.

Our advice: be mindful of the weight of the kit you intend to carry. And if you don’t need it, don’t bring it!

In southern Africa, for instance, safe sources of drinking water will be available at the vast majority of campsites and the waypoints you’ll visit in between. So at the most, carrying just five litres of water per person is more than adequate in our experience.

Unless you’re planning to go into the desert for a week, don’t bring excessive amounts of water. It’s simple – it’s all about assessing your destination and just taking what you need.

The same principle applies to fuel. If you have enough juice to make it to the next station, or next few stations, then stop at each station along the way to top up your main tank, rather than bothering with the reserve tanks and jerry cans. Yes, it may be a bit tedious to stop every couple of hundred miles, but you’ll get the benefit of a few more miles per gallon for not carrying the additional weight. On the other hand, however, if you’re ever in doubt about the availability of fuel, be safe and not sorry and make sure you’re suitably stocked.

It’s never to early to think things through. You can, for instance, select modifications for your vehicle which don’t add unnecessary bulk, such

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It’s a widely held belief in the west that corruption is the norm among African officials.

People who’ve actually been there can have widely differing opinions, but one thing everyone agrees on is that honest officials like this chap here do exist – and that the other kind are draining their nations’ coffers. Corrupt officials might be unpopular among western overlanders, but the damage they do is felt far more keenly by their own countrymen – and that’s why it’s so important never to pay bribes if you can possibly avoid it

as a lightweight but sturdy aluminum roof rack rather than one made of heavier materials. You can keep up to date with our modifications on Maggie, our 110, on our blog.

Don’t pay bribes, if you can help it

Perhaps one of the biggest urban legends in the west about travelling through Africa is that you have to pay a lot of bribes, for example at border crossings and if you get stopped by the police.

On this point, Noel and I have vastly different opinions and experiences.

During my time living and travelling in southern Africa, I can recount only a very few occasions where I think I may have been asked to pay a bribe or unwittingly did so, but I am not sure. I believe it will be possible for us to travel from South Africa through East Africa without paying a single bribe.

Noel, on the other hand, has had more experience being solicited for bribes, especially on his 2009 trip from London to South Africa.

Naturally, he isn’t so optimistic.

So our experiences differ. But despite this, both Noel and I believe that responsible overlanding requires a no-bribery-wherever-possible attitude!

No matter how you look at it, corruption is a drain on African economies and often diverts funds that could otherwise be spent benefitting the local population, such as through tourism.

We therefore believe that it is super-duper important to avoid engaging in bribery at all costs. Here are some simple tricks for being an anti-bribery warrior: • Never set out thinking that you are going to pay a bribe to accomplish something – this is silly and could actually get you into trouble • Know what fees and taxes are going to be required before you get to the border or office, so you’re not vulnerable to illegal demands for too much money • Speak to officials together, where possible.

It’s easier to bribe an individual than two or more people together

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• Don’t be the easy target. Insist that you’re unwilling to pay. Be confident. Be patient. Keep insisting. Even if it takes hours. If it is a bribe, eventually the official will give up and look for an easier target • Demand a receipt explaining the payment and under which authority it is being demanded. Make sure you ask for full names and positions of the officers. Demand to speak to supervisors. Often this is enough to deter them • If you are in a situation where you are solicited for a bribe, report it! Reporting may not result in anything, but not reporting the matter will only make it as difficult or even more so for future travellers

Take only photos, leave only footprints You may spend 95% of your time camping on expedition, so know how to do it responsibly.

Don’t litter, pollute the environment or endanger wildlife. Okay, so this one might go without saying… but it is definitely easier said than done on an overlanding journey.

Dust off those scouting guidebooks and remember everything you learned in summer camp, because this is the knowledge you will need to get you through an overlanding journey safely and responsibly.

I have an amazing memory of a friend driving through the stunning Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana, jumping out of her Land Rover every half-mile to collect bottles people had thrown

on the side of the road. Perhaps an extreme example, but certainly admirable!

You should at least have a rubbish system in your vehicle and in your camping routine, though, because wild animals are often attracted to trash.

And if you can’t dispose of it responsibly, bring it with you until you can.

Also ensure that you know how to set up and put out campfires safely, and that you know the basics of going to the toilet safely in the bush.

You wouldn’t want to be rear-ended by the horn of a rogue rhinoceros…

Have respect for people and local customs This last tip is a pretty self-explanatory point, but of all our five rules of thumb it is perhaps the most important. If you are committed to having respect for your host communities and environment, then you can definitely call yourself a responsible overlander.

The rules are simple: appreciate where you are, and the local customs and traditions of your host community. Appreciate and respect wildlife.

Always remember that you are a foreigner, and are extremely privileged to be able to travel through foreign countries.

If you abide by this and the other tips, you can have a more enjoyable and culturally rewarding adventure. And more than that, you will make travelling more sustainable and ensure a warmer welcoming path for the future overlanders who follow in your footsteps.

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YOU TAKE THE HIGH WAY

The Anne Beadell Highway is an 823-mile Outback route built for access to the site of an atomic bomb test. The ‘Highway’ part of its name was always meant to be a joke – whether you’ll find it funny when you’re being battered by corrugations is open to doubt but if you love true isolation and the silence of the wilderness, few other places in the world will be able to put as big a smile on your face Words and pictures: Betty van Breukelen and Gerard van Vliet

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D

uring his life, celebrated Australian explorer, artist, author and surveyor Len Beadell was responsible for building some 3700 miles of unsealed roads in the Outback. Almost a quarter of this distance is accounted for by the first road he started work on – the Anne Beadell Highway.

Named by Beadell after his wife, this isn’t a ‘highway’ in the traditional sense. In fact, it’s said that he used the word, here and elsewhere, with the humour for which he was to become known.

Built in five stages between 1953 and 1962, the road is an unsealed ribbon of sand, stone and, often, corrugations which stretches some 823 miles across the Great Victoria Desert from Coober Pedy to Laverton.

The road was originally commissioned in the post-war years to provide access to Emu

Field – which had been identified as a suitable location for British atomic bomb tests. It skirts round to the north of the Woomera military reserve and passes through Aboriginal lands and restricted conservation areas, and it’s cut by both rabbit and dog fences.

Thus you need a lot of permits to drive the Anne Beadell. And even then, it’s apt to be closed when Woomera is in use. But given the right paperwork, and favourable conditions, it can be done in something like five days.

That’s what we set out to do as part of a much bigger expedition around Australia aboard our 100-Series Toyota Land Cruiser camper. And sure enough, our departure was delayed by military operations in Woomera. Someone in Coober Pedy told us the USAF was there testing a new version of the Stealth bomber, which obviously

Top: Whoever wrote this sign definitely doesn't want you to go into the desert without knowing what you're letting yourself in for.

Imagine London to Edinburgh and back, without services, fuel, shops, nothing, and on a rough green lane. In baking heat. That’s Anne Beadell’s legacy to the world…

Below: The Outback is a dry, arid place – the sign above even points out that this is one of the most waterless regions of Australia. So turn up and what happens? It rains, obviously

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Two very different messages from the same corner of the Outback. The original Ground Zero was the site of a British nuclear test in 1953 which was the original reason for the Anne Beadell Highway being built. At the track’s intersection with the Connie Sue Highway, a visitor’s book left by Connie Sue herself, Len and Anne Beadell’s daughter, greets travellers on the roads her father built wasn’t stealthy enough to go unnoticed by Aussie bushmen.

Not to worry, Coober Pedy is a pretty interesting place to hang out – even when it’s raining. This doesn’t happen very often, but it did while we were there. Driving out of town (which doesn’t feel much like a town, because it has less then 2000 inhabitants and a good bit of it is built underground to keep out of the sun), the road was flooded and muddy in places. Add the bizarre landscape, which is pock-marked by thousands of spoil heaps from the opal mining industry which brought people here in the first place, and it doesn’t feel as if you’re about to spend a week in the wilderness.

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We allowed ten days for the journey, but by the time we made camp at the end of day one we suspected we wouldn’t need them all. Our Land Cruiser was purring as we passed through a dog fence and into the Tallaringa Conservation Park before kicking back and enjoying the intense desert silence while tucking into rib-eye steaks done on the campfire.

The next morning was similarly idyllic… until we got underway.

The going was smooth to start with, but then the corrugations started.

And they were savage, violent, throwing us up and down over big, rough waves as we struggled to get above 10mph.

Meeting some drivers coming the other way, we were relieved to hear that though it would get worse before it got better, they had only taken six days to drive from Laverton. To keep up a pace like that in the sort of conditions we were enduring at the time would be impossible, which means the road would improve further on for certain.

A relief!

We stopped for lunch at the Tallaringa Well Plaque, which celebrates Len Beadell’s pioneering work to open up the Outback.

Beyond this, too, we approached Ground Zero – the exact point where the British nuclear test was carried out.

We read that the heat of the detonation turned the desert sand into glass – and also that there would still be radioactive contamination lingering on the ground. Exciting. But we were reassured to think that it couldn’t be really serious, otherwise no way would anyone be allowed anywhere near the place.

We camped about an hour from the test site, relaxing around the fire in the windless warmth… whereupon it started raining again. Just softly, but it clearly wasn’t going to let up so eventually we retreated into our Land Cruiser’s pop-up tent and fell asleep to the sound of raindrops on the canvas.

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Overlanders tend to be pretty assiduous about keeping their vehicles clean. It’s your home, after all, and you depend on it not to break down for the want of a regular hose-off underneath. But then something like this comes along…

A feature of the sandy terrain here is that when it rains, the road surface is smoothed off.

Not enough to get rid of those corrugations, sadly, but it does allow you to see whether you’re the first to pass that day – which, the following morning, we were. It was dry now, though still grey, but this little part of Anne Beadell was untouched. It was our Toyota that got to draw the first beautiful tyre tracks upon the surface, giving us a moment of satisfaction which was soon shattered as we got closer to Ground Zero and the state of the ground became worse than ever.

The Atomic Site is a vast, barren plain. The map tells you all sorts of interesting things, but in reality there’s nothing to see. It feels exciting nonetheless, but in a chilling sort of way.

There are two obelisks to mark the site, but mainly there are signs telling you not to settle there to live,

nor to kill and eat any kangaroos you happen to see in the vicinity.

Today’s signs are given in pictorial form, too – because the Aboriginal tribespeople who lived here, and still do, might not be able to read.

It made us realise that at the time of the tests, indigenous Australians may have been roaming in the area, knowing nothing of the nuclear danger that had been brought into their midst.

Further on, nature’s beauty took back over. The corrugations started to subside and the blooms of vegetation started to take over the land – desert oaks, acacias and grey-green mulga trees, as well as acre after acre of spinifex.

It’s like driving through a formal garden. Long, red sand dunes started to spring up around us, too, clustered with vegetation and providing another layer of softness to the barren landscape. The trail was much more pleasant again now,

meandering in and out of the curves of the landscape – no longer did it feel like an effort but just a journey to enjoy.

It got better still, too, when we picked up a set of tyre tracks. We had noticed by now that whereas we were content just to pitch up and camp wherever we fancied, Aussie travellers prefer clear locations with more space around them – so we guessed that having spent the night at Emu Junction (we knew that much, because it’s where the tracks started), they’d be heading for a night at Vokes Hill Corner.

Sure enough, when we arrived at Vokes Hill, which is just a T-junction on the Anne Beadell Highway, there it stood – a 70-Series Land Cruiser pulling a strong overlanding trailer behind it.

We spent the evening chatting together around the campfire they had already made, until the rain came back at around ten o’clock to

chase us off to bed. Again. But the following morning, praise be, the sun emerged in all its glory! We had almost forgotten how wonderful that is – and from now on, the landscape was lit up beautifully.

The part of the Great Victoria Desert we were cruising through is marked as ‘woodland’ on the map.

It’s no a dense forest by any means, but with the variety of black desert oaks, many kinds of shrubs and a mixture of spiky spherical pollen and gently welcoming ring spinifex bushes, it does feel surprisingly lush. All was well with the world… until the corrugations came back, and soon the going had gone from easy to exhausting.

We reached a 35-mile stretch of road through a ‘culturally sensitive’ region in which camping is forbidden. Our friends from last night, with whom we had been driving in convoy this morning, decided to stop here for lunch, but

Right: Corrugations. These are the bad guys, and there are sections on the Anne Beadell with enough of them to drive you nuts Below: Just in case you fancied moving in to a featureless, irradiated wasteland next to one of the most desolate roads in the entire world… sorry, but you can’t

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Top left: Outback wifi has really come on in the last few years Above left: You’ll see camels strolling around this landscape as frequently as you’ll see deer in Britain Above right: The wreck of a light aircraft is one of the primary attractions as you travel along the Anne Beadell. It looks more like a heavy landing than a full-on crash; what’s known is that it happened in January 1993 and all those on board survived. The plane remained intact for a while, but in the time that’s passed someone has had its engines away and it’s been shot several times. Because who wouldn’t travel all that way just to shoot at a wrecked plane? The site is a few miles from the highway itself, accessed by a track someone created a couple of years after the crash we wanted to press on so we said our goodbyes and headed for the border with Western Australia. Here, a billboard announced that we were just under a hundred miles from Ilkurlka – the only roadhouse on the Anne Beadell, and our one chance for a shower en route!

For now, though, we continued to do it on our own. Amid beautiful dune pans, we found a great spot to camp, eat, sleep and check over our truck. If anything was ready to work loose, all that bumping would certainly find it – but no, the Toyota had endured yet again.

We gathered wood, cooked and warmed ourselves by the fire. When the sun disappears in the desert, it cools quickly. The sky was clear for the first time in many, many nights.

The moon had not yet risen, and above us was a dome of stars. Life was perfect.

So too was Anne Beadell’s mood from here on. The corrugations had now given way to soft , easily

driven sand with just the occasional washboard – though even these could be skipped over at a good 25mph or so.

Having paused to let a family of camels reunite after being panicked by our arrival and ended up on opposite sides of the track, we upped our pace still further for a section of the track whose surface could best be described as giga waves. Take them fast or take them slow, there’s no middle ground – and we were trying to reach Ilkurlka for lunch, so taking them slow wasn’t really an option.

Again, the Land Cruiser was unperturbed by all this punishment.

And so we rolled in to Ilkurlka unperturbed – to be met by Graham, the manager, his two dogs and precisely no other people. To be fair, this remarkably sleek, modern building has been called the most remote roadhouse in Australia, so perhaps that’s no great surprise.

Having said that,

a week earlier we’d have made the acquaintance of about a hundred Aborigines from the Spinifex Tribe, who camped there on the way to a tribal gathering.

We bought a few odds and ends and paid for our water, showers and wifi. Possibly the most remote wifi in the world? Either way, how on earth did Len Beadell manage to built this road without it…?

By now we were more than halfway to Laverton, and close to reaching one of the most famous landmarks on the Anne Beadell – the wreck of a light aircraft. You take a detour off the track – a sign says it’s ’10km give or take a couple of sand dunes’ and there it is. A crash? An emergency landing?

Either way, it’s not taking off again any time soon.

Having explored the wreckage of the old plane from the Goldfields Air Service, we camped next to it and enjoyed another star dome from horizon to horizon. We were up early

the next morning, cruising smoothly along a beautifully flat section of the highway – through a landscape which had clearly seen a brush fire in recent times We reached the junction with the Connie Sue Highway, another of Len Beadell’s creations, which is named after his daughter. Connie Sue Beadell continues to run an Outback tour company to this day, and she had written the preface in the guest book we found at the intersection.

There can’t be many people with a highway named after them who didn’t have to pay for the privilege one way of the other…

The Anne Beadell shows signs of more frequent use from here on, but it’s still very quiet. We paused at a memorial plate for Anne herself, who died in 2009 (some fourteen years after Len), then took a detour to Yeo Lake Nature Reserve.

Along the track on the way here, a magnificent rock mesa called Bishop Riley’s Pulpit rises up out

‘If anything was ready to work loose, all that bumping would certainly find it – but no, the Toyota had endured yet again’

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of the desert floor. The Toyota got covered in salt and clay mud here, which we weren’t overjoyed about (she’s our home, and we put a lot of effort into keeping her clean), and then we found the remnants of Yeo Farm – now a camp site, where a solo traveller in yet another Toyota came wandering over for a chat and then, a little later, we made friends with another family of camels.

A ‘no trespassing’ sign in the Cosmo Newberry Aboriginal Reserve, which warned of an active search for minerals in the area, held us up for a while. In fact, it convinced us to camp right next to it and sit basking in the evening sun with a drink in one hand and a book in another. Shucks.

After that, it felt less and less like being in the wilderness. A fibre optic cable was being laid next to the

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road, and the search for minerals was indeed up and running. As were we, cruising the last part of the Anne Beadell Highway until finally we rolled into Laverton.

What is there to do in Laverton?

Go to Leonora, mainly. Laverton itself has a museum dedicated to the great explorers of the western Outback, and a ‘deli’ where it would probably have appeared rude not to order a burger, but it’s a sleepy old place. Especially on Sundays, we discovered.

So having spent so much time getting there, we were soon motoring on. Leonora has proper facilities and was therefore ideal for a few days’ on-the-spot rest – as well of course as vehicle maintenance, which in this case meant removing the steering guard for a full inspection of what lay

behind it, as we’d been hearing the occasional noise from down there.

We took a walk through the village – or at least, the 300-metre main road along which it’s huddled.

Here’s a fascinating fact: prior to becoming President of the USA, Herbert Hoover lived and worked in Leonora. So inevitably there’s a White House Hotel, and Hoover’s former home has become the Hoover B&B. A beer in the White House bar was very, very welcome, as you can imagine. Afterwards, we strolled back to spent the night aboard our trusty Toyota.

After a week in the empty, silent company of Anne Beadell, sleeping with street lights around us and road trains rumbling by through the night was something we weren’t used to.

And yet, it was too familiar. Turn back the way we had just come? It was tempting.

No to worry, though, the next part of our itinerary around Australia was already planned. From here, we would be heading towards Darwin – which meant traversing the infamous Canning Stock Route. Our time with Anne Beadell was done – but already, the desert was calling us back…

The authors must be among the best-travelled 4x4 drivers of all time.

Since 2002, they’ve been exploring almost non-stop, aboard a variety of vehicles and on every continent in the world. Their website tells a whole world of tales which will make you yearn to pack your life into your truck and head off in search of adventure – you can find it by visiting www.exploringtheworld.nl

15/09/2023 13:03

A TONIC FOR THE TROOPY Toyota’s HZJ78 Land Cruiser Troop Carrier is a massively popular vehicle with off-road travellers in Australia.

It’s a rarity in the UK, however – so when Bob Seaborn came across one he knew of old, what happened next was written in the stars Words: George Dove Pictures: Harry Hamm

I

’m assuming you’ve come across the phrase ‘they don’t make them like the used to’. Well, when it came to this Toyota Land Cruiser, that’s exactly what Bob Seaborn did.

Specifically, it’s a Land Cruiser HZJ78 Troop Carrier. You can guess by the name what they were made for – and that means they were robust and practical. Produced in this form between 1989 and 2005, they were just that, and the only major updates throughout their 16-year run were a couple of new engines.

Lara, as the vehicle is called, was named by first owner Matt in 2005. It was the chosen vehicle for Matt and Red’s Adventure – a global expedition that spanned 23 months.

Being a Land Cruiser, the Troopy is a very capable vehicle even in showroom form. But initially, it wasn’t kitted out to accommodate the type of long-haul overlanding it had been bought for. The task of readying it for the trip was undertaken by Frogs Island 4x4 – and being a friend of the company, current owner Bob remembers the process well. ’There was just something about it,’ he remembers. ‘I wasn’t directly involved, but I was around the build.

Seeing the transformation of this vehicle was something special.’

At Toyota, the vehicle was born of pragmatic planning tailored towards extreme durability.

On the whole, this meant that the systems and the fabrications used were not extravagant,

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Both axles are original, though the front one was completely rebuilt. Both have also been fitted with ARB Air-Lockers. Many Land Cruisers have standard locking diffs in the rear, and in some cases even up front, but ARB is generally seen as the gold standard – it’s not unknown for people to use them even as an upgrade over a manufacturer’s original fitment.

The vehicle rides on +2” ARB springs all round, with a 140kg constant load rating up front and 800kg at the back. In each case, the springs are controlled by Koni Rally-Raid shocks Left: 1400kg rims running Secondair beadlocks are mounted with 285/75R16 BFGoodrich Mud-Terrains.

If you know your tread patterns, looking at these tyres will tell you something about how long the Land Cruiser spent laid up before Bob put it back on the road minimising the risk of complications. Therefore, in preparation for Matt and Red’s Adventure, most of the modifications made to Lara were to her interior. The massive load space was utilised and the truck was fitted with everything it would need for them to be able to live out of it for the thick end of two years.

After her voyage across the continents, however, Lara’s time on the road came to an end. For a number of years, the Land Cruiser sat stationary, and seemingly forgotten, in a barn.

Bob received a call out of the blue in 2016, and went over to Nene Overland to look at a vehicle he was told would interest him.

‘I sold my Jeep to buy the Troopy,’ he says (and if you read about it in this magazine back when it

was new, you’ll know that was no small matter).

‘As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to buy it. It wasn’t a chance I could pass on. Seeing it, having been there for the build and knowing what it had done, almost brought a tear to my eye.

‘As emotional as it was seeing the Land Cruiser again, however, Bob saw sense in it as well as sentiment. ‘I was buying with my heart because of all the memories I had, but also it made business sense.’

With his business, Compass Adventures, Bob has the good fortune to earn a crust by leading overland expeditions that cover all terrains from the mountainous island of Corsica to the subzero ranges of Norway. This means he needs a dependable workhorse, a capable off-roader with

16,500lb of front-mounted pulling power comes from a Warn 16.5ti remotecontrolled winch sitting on the sort of ARB front bumper that’ll shrug off a direct hit from a kangaroo. This is also home to a pair of Wilderness Orb spotlights and the same company’s Solo light bar, which between them mean you will at least see the kangaroo coming. And vice versa, one would imagine. The ARB bumper is braced by a similarly heavy-duty set of wing bars, which in turn run down into the rock sliders.

These are chequer-plated to prevent any other kind of sliding. The rear bumper is a Kaymar unit with twin swing-away spare wheel carriers and a high-lift jack mount. All very necessary in the wilds, as of course is the bumper itself

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Toyota’s 1HZ 4.2-litre diesel engine is a legend of a thing. But by no means is it all you’re looking at here. While prepping the Land Cruiser for its big trip, the vehicle’s previous owners fitted it with a GTX turbo kit, Provent 200 swirl pot and uprated radiator, as well as Durite fuse boxes, a turbo timer and a 2.5” custom exhaust. Webasto’s Thermo Top C (right) is one of the most common pre-heaters you’ll find on large vehicles – it’s often used on carry space that will just keep on running. In its previous exploits, the Troopy had already proved it was just that. Was. Sitting abandoned for years did no favours for the condition of the Land Cruiser and ensured that Bob had his work cut out preparing it. ’I parked it up and spent time going over everything from front to back. Taking it apart and checking it over, refurbishing or replacing it all.’

But for Bob, the Troopy wasn’t so much a chance to create an incredible vehicle – it was an opportunity to give one a second chance. It was an opportunity that he wasn’t going to miss.

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‘I’d seen what this vehicle became before and I knew what it was capable of. I saw the passion in the project when it was done initially. That’s the key word – passion. Seeing it again brought back so many memories. I wanted it just as it was and was happy to put in the time and tender loving care to bring it back to that.’

The list of things that needed attention is almost as long as that of its components. For instance, the whole electrical system needed re-wiring. That included both the vehicle’s original electrics and those added in the expedition build for the lights, the water pumps and purifier, the

shower unit and the cooker. The list could go on.

The process took months and saw many parts of the vehicle completely rebuilt, inside and out. ’It was all stripped right down. We reworked parts where it was possible, and replaced the parts that weren’t workable. The transmission and the front axle were completely rebuilt and the tents and awnings were replaced as they were all rotten. I even re-plumbed the water systems and when it came to it, about two and a half kilos of sand came out with the interior.’

On the whole, this was a restoration project.

But inevitably, Bob has put in a few new takes to

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The interior of this Land Cruiser is home to as much kit as a house. There’s too much to list, but it’s worth highlighting the fact that there’s enough gear in there for the refurb to require not only a full rewiring job but a re-plumb as well. The kitchen area is a masterpiece of packaging, with everything Bob needs to be fully self-sufficient on long-distance trail rides – there’s even room for the kitchen sink! Well, a tap, at least…

‘I’d jump in this truck and drive anywhere, and I’d trust it to get me there. You’d have to prise it from my dead hands’ Below left: Inside the cabin, Bob has installed a pair of Scheel-mann seats. These are renowned as world-leaders for comfort – and while they don’t half cost, he says they’ve already proved themselves to be worth every penny Below right: When the vehicle was recommissioned after its long lay-off, Bob reworked its dashboard to accommodate all the switchgear, gauges and other equipment he wanted. As always, planning is the key…

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Left, above: Plumbed in to the engine as its source of hot water, the shower unit was sourced from Australia – where the Troopy is a hugely popular choice of vehicle for long-distance overland travel Left, below: In addition to those on the bumper, another five Wilderness Orbs sit on a custom-made Hannibal roof rack with waffle board runners and sliding solar panels. Behind them are a new Hannibal roof tent and spider awning, while beneath these you can see where the rear windows have had steel panels welded in in their place to improve the vehicle’s security

tailor the Troopy to his requirements. A second Scheel-mann seat has been added in the front of the cabin for his wife, and he has rearranged the plethora of switches on the dashboard and put his own tried and trusted navigation system in place. The only other change he made was to replace the springs and shocks with something that was more suited to what the Troopy would be doing in its new life.

Due to its stint laid up in a barn, the Land Cruiser only had 72,000 kilometres on its clock.

But after its meticulous restoration, it has been

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adding to that number with Compass Adventures.

And while it is performing well in its new role, this comes as no surprise for Bob. ‘I saw the vehicle being made and I knew what it was capable of and what it had done,’ Bob recalls. ‘I wasn’t surprised that it rode so well.

‘The Land Cruiser is a thinking man’s overlander. I’ve had several 80-Series Cruisers in the past and this one’s no different. It’s not a rock crawler, but if you choose your route and help it out, it repays you. It’s no speed machine, but it’s a cruiser. Especially since it’s had Dynomat

installed and now you can actually hear what’s on the radio!’

Since it’s restoration, the Troopy has been on various expeditions with Bob, further strengthening his already strong bond with the vehicle. With its first Nordkapp adventure on the horizon, he trusts this truck more than any other he has owned.

‘I’d jump in this truck and drive anywhere tomorrow, and I’d trust it to get me there,’ he concludes. ‘You can’t beat Troopy power. You’d have to prise it from my dead hands.’

15/09/2023 13:16

White-outs and Black Death Iceland is a dream destination for many off-roaders. The trails are longer, the trucks are bigger, the wilds are, well, wilder – and when the world decides to throw a wobbly, you don’t half know about it. Quite simply, it’s a must-see – even if when you get there, the 4x4 waiting for you isn’t quite what you had envisaged…

Story: Ewan Brogan

W

hen my friend Tom moved to Iceland with his work a few years ago, we joked that one day, once he’d got settled and was driving one of those big-foot trucks they have there, I’d go and visit him and we’d drive over a glacier.

Now, I never thought I’d actually do it. See, I’m not a big fan of flying. Actually, it scares the

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Marcus Hansson @ flickr.com, CC-BY-SA

Reykjavik is one of the brightest, most coloiurful capital cities you’ll ever visit. In terms of size, it’s comparable to somewhere like Colchester, Falkirk or Burton on Trent, but with its chic, cosmopolitan vibe it feels more like a miniature version of Barcelona – except with some really cool trucks running around it on 44” tyres, of course…

living daylights out of me – give me a horror RTV section rather than a departure lounge any day.

But I thought I was on safe ground with Tom. He’s not actually interested in off-roading – I dragged him along to a couple of playdays in my Suzuki Samurai back when we were nearneighbours in Swindon, but he confessed that he didn’t really get what it was all about.

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So when I got an email from him titled ‘Offroading in Iceland,’ I thought it was just going to be a link to a video of some Formula Off-Road rollovers or something. But no. ‘A guy I work with is organising a trip out with his mates in their Land Rovers. Want to come along?’

Like everyone who’s into 4x4s, I’d heard about Iceland. The amazing landscape, the endless gravel roads, so many fords you lose count of them… but how could it be worth a three-hour flight? To give you an idea, for me that’s like three hours locked in a box full of spiders.

But fate intervened. That Sunday, I took the Samurai to a playday where I got talking to a couple of lads who’d been to Iceland in their Land Cruiser. Five minutes was all it took, and I was convinced. ‘Best place ever,’ one of them said – before mentioning that he’s also done the Rubicon Trail and Canning Stock Route, and driven halfway across Africa. ‘If you don’t want to fly, just drink a lot of whisky first. It’s not like you’ll be able to afford it in Iceland!’

Well, I took his advice. Which is why I was feeling a little unsteady as I rolled through arrivals at the airport in Reykjavik to be met by a slightly surprised Tom. Unsteady, but I made it. And I’m glad I did.

Not that it was quite what I expected. Iceland, or the off-roading. Reykjavik itself isn’t the small fishing town you might assume – it’s elegant, prosperous and very appealing, with neat, clean, brightly coloured buildings looking splendid in the afternoon sun.

Or was it the morning sun? Or the evening sun?

Or the middle of the night sun? Did I mention that I was visiting in the middle of the summer, when the hours of darkness are more like a few minutes of dusk? It’s unbelievably disconcerting, way more so than you’d think, and it’s not helped by the fact that despite having thought of almost everything, the Icelanders don’t seem to have cottoned on to the idea of blackout blinds.

But they’ve definitely cottoned on to the idea of off-roading. On the way from the airport to

Tom’s house in the Grafarvogur district of the capital, I spotted one heavily modded off-roader after another. Patrols and Land Cruisers were particularly popular, though I saw a Discovery and Hi-Lux as well, all on enormous tyres for coping with snowfields. ‘They’re a bit like that one of yours’ was Tom’s comment, which made me laugh as my 235/85R16s would get lost next to the 44” monsters these trucks run.

Now, all Tom had told me was that we were going off-roading for a couple of days with a bunch of guys in Land Rovers. We’d been invited along by his mate from work, Gylfi, who he thought was in some sort of club with the others.

He’s not vague, is Tom, but he doesn’t know much about the 4x4 game.

Not to worry, I thought, we’re going to be in good hands. They’re masters of this stuff up in Iceland – these guys know how to build trucks, and they know how to use them. I’ve survived the flight, now bring it on!

So Tom and I put our overnight gear in bags, jumped in his BMW and set off to Gylfi’s house on the other side of town. To heighten the sense of anticipation, there was even a bright green Nissan Patrol, all lifted and glacier-prepped, sat on a driveway in his street as we drove off.

I pictured a convoy of massive 110s, plus maybe a Disco or Range Rover, expertly piloted over glaciers and lava fields by the sort of cheerful, polite but unbelievably hard guys the Arctic countries seem to breed, the sort who get kicked out of the SAS for making the instructors look like fairies. So we arrived at Gylfi’s place, and what did we find? Parked outside were… three completely standard Freelanders.

Seriously? We were going to take on the Icelandic interior in these? They weren’t even on off-road tyres, and on top of being standard they were disconcertingly clean and shiny. It was like turning up for a day out with a classic car club.

Were these guys for real?

My reservations were quickly dispelled. Gylfi and his friends were definitely very hard – you’d

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Left: Sometimes you’ll see signs warning you in English that there’s a gravel road ahead.

Other times, they’ll be in Icelandic, which is less handy for lazy Brits but seems to make more sense overall, what with it being Iceland and everything Above: Something that didn’t seem to make any sense at all were the spotter’s bellowed instructions to floor it into a blinding white-out on the edge of a glacier. After twice trying to do what you’re being told, only to discover that there’s another vehicle stopped a few yards in front of you, your trust in the wisdom of the guy shouting at you may start to wane… need to be made of extraordinarily tough stuff to cope with the thermonuclear-strength coffee they were casually knocking back in his kitchen.

I’d been warned not to fall for any macho games involving Icelandic delicacies such as hakari (rotten shark) or svid (a boiled sheep’s head on a plate), but I certainly wasn’t expecting to gag, splutter and choke on my first mouthful of the hot drink the whole country survives on. By ‘hot’ I mean tongue-searingly so, and it was so strong you could stand your spoon up in it. If your spoon didn’t melt first.

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When you’re in a room full of extremely hard strangers, things you don’t want to happen definitely include your mate blabbing that you’re scared of flying. But Tom, bless him, explained that maybe that was why the coffee was making tears run down my face. Delayed reaction, and so on.

I thought that maybe they’d kill me and eat me, but actually the reaction was very civilised.

‘Seeing Iceland will make you happy,’ a chap called Sigurdur assured me. ‘You will be relaxed about it.’ That’s nice, I thought.

‘When we get back,’ he continued, ‘you will meet our friend Svarti Dauthi. He will help you with your problem. Then we take you to the airport and put you on the plane. It will be okay for you.’ Blimey, they even know a hypnotist.

With that now cleared up, Gylfi’s mate Thordur, who seemed to be leading the trip, told me what it was all about. Everyone in Iceland speaks brilliant English, obviously – language was never, ever a problem for me.

‘Iceland is very special, very fragile,’ he explained. ‘So much of our land is wilderness,

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but the ground you walk on, maybe it has only been there a few years. So it is delicate. In many wilderness countries like America and Australia, there are places where you can drive where you like. We may not do that in Iceland. But the roads in the mountains, almost all of them are like your green lanes. Icelandic green lanes… they are not so green!

‘So for us, the Freelander is perfect. We explore our beautiful country, we can spend every day off-road, in rivers, on snow and ice… and then we drive our cars to work. Diesel is expensive. The Freelander is perfect for us.’

So, we’re going trail-riding instead, not glacierbashing. Well, he’s convinced me. I had already seen enough to agree that yes, Iceland sure is beautiful, and I was just as happy to see it from a rough track as the middle of a glacier, if that’s what it took.

Fast forward a day and a half and there I am in the driver’s seat of Gylfi’s Freelander as a giant man-sized shape in Gore-tex screams in the window. ‘GO, GO! GAS, GAS, MORE GAS!’ He’s screaming because a howling, deafening storm is blasting snow into our faces. I can’t see past the end of the bonnet. We’re on a glacier. There’s a crevasse out there somewhere. He wants me to floor it else I’ll get stuck in the gathering snow.

‘DRIVE! GO! A HUNDRED METRES, YOU SEE MY FRIEND IN RED! GO WHERE HE POINTS YOU! DRIVE, NOW! IT’S OKAY! GAS, GAS!’ I look at Gylfi. He shrugs. ‘He works here. You have to trust him.’ Okay, I roll my window up (the silence in the car with the wind shut out is eerie) and floor it. We travel maybe two yards into the white-out, and I stamp on the brakes. There’s another Freelander sitting in front of us.

‘NOOOOO! GAS, GAS! YOU GO!’ He’s back.

‘I can’t see anything. There’s another car in front of us.’ He looks at me like I’m the biggest idiot he’s ever met.

‘OKAY, YOU WAIT.’ He peers into the facehammering blizzard. ‘NOW! GO! GAS, GAS!’

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Bang, down goes the pedal. Up with the clutch.

Leap into the blinding snow, another yard or two.

Stamp on the brakes. The other Freelander is still sitting there.

‘GO, GO, YOU GO!’ ‘There’s another car there. If I do what you tell me, I’m going to crash into it.’ This time, I fancy, said with a hint of menace. Now he’s looking at me like I’m not so much the stupidest person he’s ever met as the stupidest person ever to walk the surface of the earth.

‘I’m not doing it,’ I say, just in case. ‘I’m not going to crash my friend’s car.’

‘OKAY, YOU GO, YOU GO,’ he commands, his voice thick with disgust, and gestures at me to do a U-turn.

I look at Gylfi. ‘Am I missing something? Am I doing something wrong?’

‘No,’ he says very quietly, shaking his head in what I think is bafflement at this lunatic’s attempts to guide us across his glacier. ‘I have

never seen anything like that.’ Behind him in the back seat, Tom has gone the colour of an uncooked dumpling, his eyes the size of small saucers. I’m guessing he hasn’t, either.

We make our way back down over the rocky trail to a rough café which, I think, has something to do with matey’s glacier-bashing operation. It’s hard to know, to be honest. Downhill of it, where we’d come from, visibility was pretty good. But almost immediately beyond it, the mist thickened into the white-out we’d experienced. So here I was sitting looking back at where I’d just been, without any idea of what it actually looked like. It’s a place that’ll forever be etched in my memory – yet if you took me back there and dropped me in exactly the same spot, I wouldn’t know it from Adam.

So we sat in the café (every place in Iceland has a café: in some cases, there’s no actual place but there’s still a café), drinking coffee from a machine which was still absurdly strong but this time not as hot, and waited for the rest

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of the Freelanders to reappear. To my genuine astonishment, one by one they emerged from the seething blizzard without a single trashed bumper or stoved-in tailgate. I still wonder if I was missing the point of what I was meant to do up there, however much Gylfi assured me that I wasn’t.

So there we were, then. Rough tracks, not glaciers, remember? As it turned out, what Thordur hadn’t mentioned was that we were taking an extended trail ride into the mountains to do a guided drive across the Langjokull glacier.

In the event, the lovely clear summer weather he’d been counting on had given way very suddenly to the sort of instant winter conditions Iceland’s very, very good at serving up. He confessed that he’d had a phone call even as we were on the way, saying that the glacier crossing would be impossible, but that the guides would

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set out a short route around the edge to give us a taste of it. Having almost got a taste of Gylfi’s steering wheel up my face, I’d give them a thumbs-up for effort and a resounding vote of thanks (but no thanks).

Langjokull is actually not very far inland from Reykjavik in the greater scheme of things, but it felt as if we’d been driving forever to get there.

The road surfaces in Iceland are excellent, but at times they give way to gravel almost without you noticing – there are big signs, sometimes in English and sometimes saying Malbik Endar (‘tarmac ends’), to warn you when this is about to happen, but the unmade roads are so smooth, too, that it all seems to blend into one.

That’s how it is at times, at least, Further into the outback, the roads become a lot rougher – some have an ‘F’ designation, which means

they’re restricted to 4x4s only. A nice change from in Britain, where the word ‘restricted’ has very different connotations…

The F35 is probably the best known, as it passes close to the famous Gulfoss waterfall, Thingvallavatn lake and Thingvellir national park, but on top of that for us it was an attraction in its own right. Imagine a green lane like Rudland Rigg, but 110 miles long and taking half a day to drive from end to end. Oh, and surrounded by an empty moonscape of bleak, stony plains and brooding volcanic mountain tops. Amazing.

Even a good many of the roads in the mountains which don’t have an ‘F’ in their name are still unsurfaced. You can go on and on for hours at a time, passing junctions signed to places whose names look like they’re written in runes. Icelandic uses several letters with bits

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sticking out of them that look like Olde Englishe and sound like something Beowulf might have shouted after slaying Grendel.

For some off-roaders, the scale and the nature of the tracks might not really appeal. If you love doing it an inch at a time with all diffs locked, or on the end of a winch rope, the relentless pace of it might strike you as monotonous. Off-roading at a steady 30mph is a strange feeling – but I’ve done a lot of RTVs in my time and, though it’s obviously very different to that, the endlessly changing scenery and the sheer ruggedness of the terrain made the experience every bit as special as the bloke in the Land Cruiser back home told me it would be.

Yes, even in a convoy of Freelanders. Thordur was right, actually. Despite my misgivings, the vehicles were perfect for what we did, allowing us to stretch our legs across the smooth gravel roads while at the same time taking the rougher stuff easily in their stride.

I suppose it would all have felt more macho if we’d been driving a bunch of 110s on colossal tyres, but there’s precisely nothing in the route we took that a vehicle like that would have done better. Yes, including the glacier run. Even for those who didn’t back out, would a set of 44” tyres have helped them see better through the driving snow?

Not even a set of the immense blue-tinted spotlights you see on glacier trucks would have done that. (‘Does the blue tint help you see in

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snow?’ I asked a guy at the café on Langjokull.

‘No, it makes no difference,’ he told me. ‘We have them because they look cool.’) Of course, in some conditions the vast tyres, ground clearance, diff locks and crawler gears will help, but for us they’d just have been dead weight.

The Freelanders still looked pretty clean as we rolled back south-west, with not a knock, scrape or even a flat tyre between them. One by one, horns were sounded and lights flashed as the guys peeled off to head for home, then it was just the three of us easing our way back through the residential streets of suburban Reykjavik and on to Gylfi’s house.

Which meant it was time to face my fear. I had managed to convince myself that getting in a plane was worth it to come to Iceland, and I’d been right. But getting in a plane to leave this place behind and go back to work? You don’t need a fear of flying not to want to do that.

But I was holding on to what Sigurdur had said to me about the hypnotist guy who was going

to help me. And sure enough, Svarti Dauthi was waiting there.

In a bottle. Should have known, shouldn’t I? Svarti Dauthi means ‘black death,’ and it’s their name for Brennivin, an 80% firewater made from potatoes that leaves you caring about absolutely nothing beyond just still being alive tomorrow.

So yes, I must confess, it did help. The guys did see me to the airport, and I did make it home.

I’m really quite glad that I’d taken the train to Heathrow, though. And not just because of the black death still addling my brain as I winced my way through customs. After experiencing the magnificent wilderness of the Icelandic interior, who would want to get straight in a car and drive around the M25? Not me. I might not have appreciated having a lunatic screaming at me on a blizzard-swept glacier, but at long last I had lived an off-road dream. And I already wanted to go back.

Next time, though, my Samurai’s coming too.

The perfect excuse to take the ferry instead…

15/09/2023 13:32

Big Daddy

Toby Barnes-Taylor is every kid’s dream dad. When he left the army with a resettlement cheque, he didn’t sink it into the mortgage – he bought a Defender 130 and prepped it for overlanding. From now on, every family holiday is going to be the adventure of a lifetime…

Words: Paul Looe Pictures: Harry Hamm, and supplied by Toby Barnes-Taylor

W

e’ve featured hundreds of modified 4x4s over the years, and every owner has had their own story to tell about how their truck came to be the way it is. We’re pretty sure, however, that Toby Barnes-Taylor is the first who bought himself a Land Rover as the result of a ‘complete life-changing epiphany.’

The story goes back to 2011. Actually, it goes back to 1992, when he first joined the armed forces, and in the intervening years he says he ‘fell in love with Land Rovers’ while serving in places

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like Iraq and Afghanistan. Scroll forward 19 years and he was getting ready for early retirement when, a few months before returning to civvy street, he bumped into an old friend by the name of Woody.

‘He had a Defender 130 which he used to take his family on camping holidays in North Africa,’ Toby explains. ‘In the Easter of 2011 he invited me to go on holiday with him, with two other vehicles as well, all dads and sons. The plan was that the boys would go out for a couple of weeks, then his family would fly out and they

would have two more weeks of adventures with his wife and children.’

And that was when the epiphany happened.

‘I went with my son Joe and it absolutely fundamentally struck me that this was what I wanted to do with my children. The adventures we had, the stories, the sleeping under a million stars in the desert, the freedom… I came back utterly changed.’

With retirement looming, he resolved to use some of his army resettlement pay to buy and prepare a Land Rover of his own. ‘Most people

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would use it to pay some money off on the mortgage,’ he reflects. ‘But I wanted it to give the children a thousand adventures as they were growing up.’

When you’ve only just arrived home from a fortnight’s holiday without your other half, announcing to her that you plan to spend a fortune on a car might be considered a bit of a gamble. But Toby says his wife got the idea from the word go. ‘She thought I was utterly crazy, but immediately understood what I was trying to do.

So I was very pleasantly surprised that she agreed

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with the idea of having adventures, and that the memories our children would take from them would be just as important as the education they receive in school.’

This is a big part of the 130’s appeal for Toby.

‘Hotels are so sanitised and so safe, you could be in Spain or France or Portugal or Turkey…

Wherever you go, the food’s almost the same, the pool’s the same, the children would have no memories of parts of the world.’

By contrast, here’s what the family did in 2012: ‘We took the children into the desert and the

Atlas Mountains. I taught my son how to drive on a dried lake bed. And we just had a thousand adventures. Camping out, playing cards in the evening, sleeping out under the stars and filling their brains with all the things we did for fun.

‘And they’re now learning at school about Rome, so they asked if we can go to Italy this summer and we’re planning that. We’re planning to take them to see the Northern Lights the spring after that, up through Sweden and Norway. I go back to Morocco with a bunch of friends in May next year, when we’ll go straight over the Atlas mountains and into the Sahara.’

The truck that makes it all possible started life as a 130 Double Cab Chassis, which Toby bought new from Roger Young Land Rover in Plymouth.

This particular outfit got his business because as well as being a main dealer, it has a fabrication shop on-site which could build him a bespoke overlanding version of the Quadtec backs it puts on Defenders for utility companies and emergency services.

Prior to that, there was a bit of debate in Toby’s mind about whether he really needed a 130. He knew the Land Rover was also going to be his everyday car, and a 110 would be much less of a handful in traffic. As for parking…

‘But with three children,’ he says, ‘in a 110 I would have had absolutely no space for any luggage, so I would need to load a great deal on the roof. When we went to Morocco, we had 180 litres of liquid on board, and that’s before you get into the weight of the tent and so on.

‘A 110 would be easier to use every day but I didn’t want to unbalance the vehicle, so it had to be the 130. I’d say I’ve compromised on it being an unwieldy vehicle for normal use in town, and it certainly makes parking more difficult, in order to ensure that when we’re doing overland trips, there is no compromise.’

With the shell of the truck now ready to fill with goodies, the story of the build turns into something of a who’s who of the off-road aftermarket. Devon 4x4, Extreme 4x4, First Four, John Craddock, Paddock Spares, Protection and Performance, Trek Overland, OEC… each of these and more played their part as the build was planned over the course of several months, with Toby ripping pages out of off-road magazines to create a catalogue of things he wanted.

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1] It looks standard, but this is a heavyduty bumper. The 50mm tow ball hidden behind the poppy takes a demountable Champion 9500, which can also go on the rear. The tubular A-bar supports two pairs of auxiliary Lightforce Striker lights, which are controlled by OEM auxiliary switches.

The SVX headlight surrounds look more distinctive than ever on a 130 2] Bonnet and wing top protectors in 3mm chequer plate provide plenty of strong, grippy areas to step on. Toby found someone supplying 3D ‘Land Rover’ badging online; we’re guessing he’s one of the first customers they’ve had who asked them to supply an extra ‘E’…

3] A raised air intake is essential in sand, and if a river crossing were to go badly wrong in the middle of nowhere it would be a life saver. This Southdown unit clips neatly to the rollcage and its grille does a fine job of keeping mud splats at bay 4] A cage was one of the main must-have areas of the build, so it won’t surprise you that Protection and Performance got in on the act. The frame behind it, which was built to Toby’s own design, carries a 2.5m Fiamma F35 lightweight side awning and provides a foundation for a demountable 160cm Howling Moon roof tent

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5] Toby describes these as tree sliders, but you can see they’re actually mud catchers 6] Wheels, tyres and suspension were marked out as an area in which to spend whatever it took. That meant 285/75R16 Cooper Discoverer ST Maxx on Pro-Comp Extreme alloys, with Old Man Emu springs and shocks all round. To cope with the extra weight of the rear body, the springs are heavy-duty units with helpers, and the shocks are doubled up

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Taking the advice of his friend Woody, who had already been overlanding for many years, he decided that roll protection and suspension, the latter including wheels and tyres, were the two areas in which he could least afford to cut corners. Look at it that way, and overlanding is no different to comp safari.

And it was a well known name on the safari circuit who supplied the cage, in the shape of Protection and Performance, whose full external unit was fitted by OEC International. The same company also did all the electrical work – and as work goes, that’s a whole lot of it.

Starting the engine continues to be the job of the original primary battery, and it should never struggle to do so as that’s still all it’s there for. An intelligent management system keeps it charged, while also maintaining an Odyssey PC1500 which runs all the vehicle’s auxiliary draws.

These include no less than seven 12-volt sockets, split between the front facia and back body, and a 2kw power inverter supplying a bank of three mains plugs under rear seats. Anderson connectors front and rear can be coupled to

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jump leads, an air compressor or a demountable Champion 9500 winch and, as well as not one but two fridges, further goodies in the cab include a 7” display running a pair of rear-view cameras and a 10” screen for a roof-mounted DVD player.

Putting some juice back in is a 4.5W solar panel, and a 240v external hook-up is installed to remotely power the vehicle through a separate fuse box.

Down below, those wheels and tyres are 285/75R16 Cooper Discoverer ST Maxx fitted on Pro-Comp Extreme alloys. An unusual choice, but width matters more in the desert than on the average British lane, and the sheer amount of metal in the rims demonstrates that when a truck’s this heavy, strength is way more important than unsprung weight.

Holding it all up is a set of Old Man Emu springs, but not just any set. Those at the rear are heavy-duty units, and for obvious reasons they’re backed up by helpers. Similarly, the shocks are twinned on the rear axle, and damping of another kind comes from a Terrafirma Return-to-Centre unit on the steering – no small matter with tyres this wide.

Woody’s advice has proved very sound thus far, with the truck doing exactly what it was meant to on the family’s first expedition. ‘Morocco was the first time we had stayed in it for more than one night, and after three weeks the only thing I was wanting for was an extension to the exhaust pipe so I could run the engine when the car was static to keep the batteries recharged.’ That speaks volumes for the suspension combo (the cage didn’t get tested, happily) – and indeed for the truck itself.

‘It was Woody whose 130 I went in originally, and he made the point that when you’re camping and moving every day, the ease and the speed with which you can set up and disassemble your camp is one of the things you have to think about most. With the 130, the side hatches open up and allow access to the kitchen almost instantly.

We can pull up and be cooking food within 15 minutes of the car coming to a halt, and have the tent set up as well. But if we were in a 110, we’d have to unload everything in order to set it up, then reload and pack it. And that would drive you not to want to move every day, so you don’t explore as much.’

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1] One of the niftiest things you’ll ever see is the Boab drop-slide drawer, as demonstrated opposite by Toby’s son Joe, on which the National Luna 50-litre fridge freezer appears from the kitchen area of the box body. There’s also an 11-litre Engel fridge between the front seats, and three Calor gas bottles carried in the rear are used to fire up a twin-ring gas cooker and portable barbie

2] A unique rear body means unique rear lights. As the vehicle is designed to travel extensively overseas, the reverse and fog lamps are dualled to comply with local laws.

All the lights are LEDs, with clear lenses to blend in with the colour of the body.

Protecting them is a pair of 100mm Cruz ladders, which in turn are accessed by boxsection bumperettes

3] The 180x163cm Quadtech rear box was built to Toby’s own design by Roger Young Land Rover. It has three internal divisions; in addition to the kitchen seen above, these are dedicated to camping luggage and overlanding equipment 4] In full overlanding trim, the 130’s jerry cans carry 120 litres of water and 60 litres of diesel. Had Toby opted for a 110 instead, the need to carry more on a roof rack would have led to all that weight being added to the cage and tent, not to mention the rack itself, at the very top of the vehicle. Keeping it stable is every bit as important as keeping it tidily packed 5] Now we’re getting into the good stuff.

Knowing where your bottle opener is going to be should always be near the top of your priority list, so bolting it on to the back bumper makes complete sense 6] That would be a kit-laden interior, then.

Note the aforementioned fridge nestling between the seats (and doubling up as an armrest, presumably), a reversing camera where the mirror would be, two chequerplated door cards and a bank of four 12-volt sockets on the passenger’s-side facia. These run off the leisure battery, an Odyssey PC1500 unit with intelligent management which ensures the car battery is always fresh for starting the engine 7] If you can count all the cool things you can see here, you know some big numbers.

The Moto Lita steering wheel is distinctly non-standard, for starters, and a battery monitor points to the amount of electrical trickery going on. Toby’s opinion of the Satmap Active 10 GPS on the dash is that it’s worth as much as water, which is saying something in a desert-going 4x4, but the star of the show has got to be the gimballed RAM cup holder. This keeps your drink upright even if the vehicle is on its roof – the only problem being that watching it jive around when you’re off-roading is so entertaining that you have to remember to guard against that actually happening…

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Toby’s son Joe has already learned to drive behind the wheel of the 130 on a dried lake bed in Africa. So demonstrating the way the National Luna fridge rides into position on its Boab drop-slide drawer was (sorry about this) child’s play…

So is it really worth lugging your holiday home around with you all year round, in the form of a 17foot wagon that probably weighs as much as an actual holiday home, just for the sake of a couple of weeks’ adventure every summer? You already know the answer: the experiences Toby’s family have had already, and the promise of a lifetime’s more to come, are all the justification a person could ever need.

Even in pure financial terms, what he’s done with this vehicle makes complete sense in the long term. He expects to keep the Land Rover for at least ten years: assuming that without it, he’d be buying five new family cars in that time and trading each of them in on its second birthday, the truck is his protection against around £50,000’s worth of depreciation.

It makes a whole lot of sense in other ways, too. ‘Each holiday we go on probably costs a quarter of what it would if we were flying and staying in hotels,’ he says. ‘Now we have the car, holidays are far cheaper, so we can go more adventurous places for longer. We can use it for weekends away or anything else we want to

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do, we can explore far wider. And when we visit friends around the UK, we can camp out rather than having to stay in their homes.’

Better still, after ten years of hotel holidays all you’ve got are slightly confused memories.

After ten years of seeing the world in a truck like this, the memories you’ve got are priceless – and there’s a vehicle on your drive that’s still worth a handy sum.

‘If that’s some way of justifying the pain of writing the cheque,’ says Toby when we put that to him, ‘then yes, you’re quite right.’ But this Land Rover isn’t about dull care and commonsense.

It’s about learning, exploring, adventuring, discovering: it’s about making anything possible.

It’s about a lust for life.

And yes, it’s about doing something a little bit crazy. ‘I had that one chance of the retirement money from the army to buy this and set the family on its way,’ admits Toby, and it’s a chance he took hold of with both hands. He’s a man who’s made the most of his good fortune – and you can’t imagine that his family will ever stop thanking him for it.

Behind every great man…

It goes without saying that Toby’s grateful to his wife and kids for getting behind the idea of building a family adventure wagon. Richard and Justin at OEC get a big mention, too, as does Kevin at Nene Overland for all the work that went into the vehicle.

One other very big vote of thanks goes to Satmap, whose Active 10 unit was ‘the only one I tried that performed as a professional GPS.’ Without it, Toby reckons he simply wouldn’t have done everything he wanted to. ‘I’ve said to people before that I rate it as being as valuable as water.’ That’s quite an endorsement in the Sahara.

None of it would ever have happened without Woody, either, and along with some others they’re formed Fudoo – the Foolhardy Useless Desert Overland Outfit. They all go off to Morocco every year for fun and adventures.

Sounds like hell.

53 15/09/2023 13:30

THE BIG QUESTION

What’s the biggest decision you’ve got to make before setting out to see the world in your 4x4? The route you’re going to take sounds like an obvious anwer, but that will be forever changing as you make your way. The vehicle you’re doing it in, on the other hand, is crucial to get right – because once you’re off, you’re stuck with it…

Main pic: Jen Bright and Gavin Lowrie

Land Rover Defender The Defender is still many people’s only choice for overlanding – though despite the dominant presence it continues to hold in the UK, the sort of money you can get for one if you polish it instead means more and more people are thinking twice before using them as expedition trucks. Values skyrocketed when production ended at the start of 2016, and most owners now think about alloy wheels and leather seats rather than roof tents and heavy-duty suspension.

When you consider that a Defender’s identity alone is worth several thousand pounds, you can hardly blame them.

Even so, if you want to use a Defender properly there’s a vast aftermarket in place to help you prepare it for the journey ahead. You can even make them reliable, too… the vast majority have spent their lives being worked hard, abused, neglected, modified and/or hit with spanners by persons unknown, but the aforementioned aftermarket means you can buy a complete wreck and use its identity to build yourself what is basically a new vehicle from scratch. The great thing here is that by doing this, you can tailor it to suit you as you go along – though no way is this a cheap way of getting your hands on the truck of your dreams, especially as you’ll want to use good quality parts that won’t let you down mid-Sahara (or indeed on the way to catch the ferry at Dover).

Land Rover likes to say the Defender has been going since 1948. Taking it at its word, that means we need to include the old Series models here too. These are very basic and simple, compared even to the early 90 and 110, and they remain both incredibly willing and ideal for DIY maintenance. You’d be brave to use one as an expedition truck nowadays, however – though literally nothing else you could drive will beat it for helping you make friends as you travel.

This certainly goes for the new-shape Defender, lovely though it is to drive. It’s capable enough, too, but its reliance on complex electronics won’t sit well with you if you appreciate simplicity in a vehicle. Unlike Series trucks and the original Defender, too, the new model will depreciate while you’re seeing the world in it – whereas those older Land Rovers will come back ready to be rebuilt and sold on for a profit. If, after all the experiences you have on board, you can bear to part with it.

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Toyota Hilux Pick-ups have risen dramatically in their appeal for overland travellers over the last few years, and the Hilux is perhaps the gold standard among them. It’s famed for its indestructibility, of course, but more to the point they’re everywhere in Africa and Asia – meaning parts and expertise are never far away.

This also means you won’t struggle when it comes to equipping a Hilux, with loads of kit available from A-list manufacturers in countries where offroad travel is a way of life. In common with other pick-ups, however, you’ll almost certainly want to lift it suspension and add steel bumpers and bash plates – all of which puts more stress on the drivetrain. Think twice before going taking an overland motor away from standard spec – and pay attention to how many Hiluxes work for their living in the world’s ruggedest terrain without any mods at all.

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Ineos Grenadier The much-vaunted newcomer in the 4x4 market was created with overlanding in mind. Yes, Ineos needs it to appeal to a much wider audience than that if it’s ever to make any money – but the fact remains that the Grenadier exists because of one man who loved going travelling in old-shape Defenders and didn’t like the sound of what Land Rover said it was building to replace it.

Turns out he was right, too. Land Rover was bluntly honest about turning its back on its traditional fans and sure enough, when the new Defender came out it put two fingers up to everyone who thought it should have been more like the old one. It just so happened that one of those people was Britain’s richest man, and he started a company from scratch with the specific intention of doing a proper job of it.

The Grenadier is the result. It’s a traditional off-roader with a ladder chassis, beam axles and low range, and you can get it with all the locking diffs.

That’s not necessary for expedition use, but it illustrates the focused intent of what a vehicle that was developed with the minimum of compromises.

This isn’t just in the overall design but in the details of how it’s made: the chassis is cathodic dipped, wax filled and powder coated (a better process than galvanising it, Ineos reckons) and overall the vehicle only contains about half as many microchips as the average modern SUV. If you know what matters in an expedition vehicle, you’ll understand the importance of this approach to its engineering.

It’s still fairly early days, but the Grenadier is available from new with a range of equipment including off-road and camping kit like winches, raised air intakes, roof racks and awnings. The aftermarket can be relied on to catch up very soon, too – indeed, at least one supplier has already prototyped roof tent and cargo drawer fitments for the vehicle, and that’s certain just to be the beginning.

Beating the Land Rover Defender at what used to be its own game sounds like an open goal for the Grenadier when you consider the difference between what the two companies offer on the new 4x4 market. Its biggest task globally will be to wrest sales from the Toyota Land Cruiser, with pricing in Australia suggesting that here at least, Ineos is trying to undercut the 70-Series by far enough to attract buyers’ attention away from what for so many of them is the default option.

Back home, with prices ranging from £64,500 to £76,000 one similarity between the Grenadier and the Defender is that you probably can’t afford one.

The problem it might have in appealing to UK overlanders is that for that sort of money, you could get an old-shape Defender completely rebuilt and fully equipped to set out on the journey of a lifetime, with plenty left over to pay for fuel, carnets de passage and so on – and you also won’t be travelling in an unknown quantity. There’s no denying, though, that Ineos’ engineers have got the vehicle’s fitness for purpose absolutely spot-on.

Jeep Wrangler The Wrangler never used to be a particularly common sight on the expedition scene. But then in 2007 the JK model came along, with a diesel engine and, crucially, the option of a five-door long-wheelbase version. The vehicle’s rarity in this country means it’s still something of a left-field choice, but these days there’s a dedicated bnd of owners who wouldn’t use anything else for their overland travels.

By and large, they tend to be a bought-not-built set who take their Wranglers on two and three-week overland holidays organised by professional tour leaders. This might put off a certain kind of enthusiast – but despite its Tonka-toy image, the JK and its successor, the current JL, can be built into ideal vehicles for solo travel.

Modifying your Wrangler is almost a badge of honour among Jeep fans, and you see expedition-prepped examples with vast suspension and the tyres to match. This is absolutely fine for a daily driver or weekend warrior that’s also used as a fun toy for short-term expeditions – but as always, for true vehicle-dependent travel the closer you can keep it to factory spec the better.

Resist the temptation and there’ll be little in the way of terrain, anywhere in the world of overland travel, to defeat a standard Wrangler. Whether it’s as practical as some of its less showy rivals is another story, and parts certainly won’t be as easy to come by in the back of beyond. But compared to what it once was, the modern breed of Jeep is more than capable of being accessoriesed into a truck in which to take on the world.

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OVERLAND 15/09/2023 14:43

3D block design and aggressive tread pattern deliver outstanding performance in off-road conditions Extended shoulders provide rim protection Armoured shoulder and wide grooves improve traction during transitions between differing terrains The special pattern design on the shoulder optimises water and mud dispersal Specially developed compound delivers outstanding durability and cutting resistance in hazardous terrain

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Land Rover Discovery The Discovery started out as, in effect, a 100” Defender with more kit and a different body. Then it became a Range Rover for people who put their families before themselves. Finally, it bloomed into the very definition of practicality.

It also bloomed into the very definition of a money pit, becoming ever-more complicated and reliant on electronics as the original model gave way to the Disco 2 and then the independently sprung 3 and 4. With the Discovery 5, low range is no longer standard.

The original model was strongly associated with the Camel Trophy, which is one kind of expedition. Both it and the Disco 2 have been used by overlanders, though not as often as you might expect, while the 3 and 4 are seen occasionally on tag-along overland holidays in places like Morocco and the Pyrenees. None are common ways of seeing the world – but with the 1 and 2 in particular, a diligent rebuild coupled with some sensible upgrades can create an extremely capable overland tool.

In each case, the diesel engine is the one to go for. The Tdi in the D1 is best for DIY maintenance, while the Td5 in the D2 is one of the most reliable things Land Rover has ever made. Elsewhere, common sources of irritation on the Disco 2 include the rear air suspension, ‘active’ anti-roll bars and leaky sunroofs (a vehicle without them is worth more if you can find one), as well as chassis rust and inexplicable electronics. With the D1, your biggest problem will simply be finding one worth having – it was infamous for body rust, particularly in the boot, floors, sills and footwells, and most of those that didn’t simply fall apart have long-since been smashed to pieces at off-road playdays.

In each case, at any rate, the aftermarket has come up with an answer to every question the Discovery asks. If you want to turn one into an overland machine, it can be done – though between the cost of buying one, remedying all the faults it’s sure to have and keeping it alive throughout the process of prepping it and then using it on expedition, no way will it be the cheap alternative to a Defender you might expect.

Nissan Patrol It’s not quite as famous as the Toyota Land Cruiser, but the Patrol has a similar history of popping up wherever there’s a war to be fought, a desert to be crossed or a natural disaster to be mopped up. It’s seldom seen in Britain, which can make for some fairly excruciating parts prices, but if you want a truck that was built to last you can’t do much better.

As with the Land Cruiser, the kit for prepping a Patrol tends only to come from the best parts of the aftermarket. It’s rare, though, and eye-wateringly expensive – as is the vehicle itself, when you finally manage to find one that hasn’t been abused or neglected to death.

Anyway, the Patrol is already stout and capable enough to take you round the world in completely standard form. Equip one for an expedition and you’ll hardly need to modify it at all. But watch out for signs of neglect – missed services in the past can mean engine and axle woes now, and an untreated chassis is apt to rust itself into oblivion. A good low-miler, though (if such a thing even exists any more), can be worth more than it cost new.

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Toyota Land Cruiser There are several very different vehicles, both old and new, to have used the Land Cruiser name. Every single one of them has been used for overland expeditions – and they’ve all been among the best 4x4s ever to have set out to see the world.

The Land Cruiser range can be divided roughly in two. Up top, there are the big ones – as exemplified by the 80-Series from back in the 1990s, which many people will tell you is the best car ever made. It’s eye-poppingly capable with no mods at all; there are places in the world where every car you see is one of these.

The later 100 and 200-Series Cruisers are less popular with off-roaders due to their greater complexity and independent front ends, but both are still massively capable and reliable. There’s a 105-Series model, too, which wasn’t made for the UK but whose no-nonsense spec and front beam axle made it ideal for real work, and also in the realms of the grey import the hefty 70-Series trucks (including the legendary ‘Troopie’) wagon is arguably the most perfect overland vehicle it’s possible to buy. It doesn’t come here officially and costs big money to buy, but seldome could there be a better exampe of the ‘spend it once, spend it right’ principle in action.

Smaller Land Cruisers, which have been sold under the Prado name elsewhere around the world, are scarcely less capable. The 90-Series Colorado is now quite rare, and anything from before that is almost extinct, but the 120-Series from 2002-on is a fantastic vehicle – as is the 150-Series that recently went off sale. None of these will let you down, though they do need to be looked after – both with regular servicing and rust protection, without which their back chassis won’t take long to start getting crusty. A new 250-Series model is on its way very soon and this too will be extremely able, though none of these have the same level of heavy-duty build that makes the Troopie and its kin so legendarily dependable.

For expedition use, any Land Cruiser will be a winning choice – so long as you take care to avoid a neglected or abused one. Equipping it will cost a fair bit, as will whatever remedial work it needs to bring it back up to scratch, but whatever model you go for you can rest assured that wherever you go in the world, the people there will have seen one before – and there’ll be someone close by who can fix it.

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Isuzu D-Max The D-Max has risen quietly through the ranks of the pick-up market since its launch in 2012, and the all-new model that came along just under three years ago already has two overall Pick-Up of the Year awards to its name. This latest D-Max has a locking rear diff as standard on most models, which rights the only real wrong of the previous one – but if you’re not looking to buy new, a good example of its predecessor will be a great basis for an expedition build.

The 2012 D-Max was equipped with a 2.5-litre diesel engine, though this gave way to a 1.9-litre unit midway through the vehicle’s life. The latter may be small but it’s very willing, with plenty of low-down grunt to heave the truck around – even with a load of weighty overland gear on board. Get one from before the new model and you won’t have to mess about putting AdBlue in it, either.

Most recently, Isuzu has done a deal with ARB’s UK importer to offer a range of the Australian company’s camping and overlanding accessories as official equipment. This says much about where the vehicle is going – as indeed is the market as a whole.

Ford Ranger Once a bit of an also-ran in the pick-up market, let alone the 4x4 market overall, the Ranger turned that on its head when the T6 model arrived in 2012. Big, imposing and roomy inside, it has much to commend it as an overland machine – and that’s before you start talking about the 3.2-litre diesel engine that can be tuned for well in excess of its standard 200bhp.

All this and an attractive purchase price helped the Ranger muscle its way to the top of the one-tonne market. But its time truly came when Land Rover stopped making the Defender. Suddenly, well heeled vehicle builders needed something else to invest in – and with supplies of the Jeep Wrangler being incredibly tight in the UK, they turned en masse to the Ranger.

Now, there’s a wealth of equipment available for turning them into expedition trucks. The same is the case with the new model, too,, because Ford worked with the aftermarket to ensure there was a strong supply of equipment ready to bolt to it from day one.

The new Ranger is significantly more expensive than the old one, however. And early examples of the T6 are not without their issues, particularly on examples with the smaller 2.2-litre engine. The 3.2 is the one everybody wants, anyway – and with plenty of guts to haul a heavily laden overland rig, it remains a common sight on adventure tours run by convoy expedition specialists.

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www.osram.co.uk/ledriving-lights

Light is Adventure OSRAM LEDriving® Working and Driving Lights The OSRAM range of intense LED lights are built to step up to the challenge when the going gets tough. Leave the tarmac behind and see clearly what lies ahead of you off the beat track. The LEDriving ® range of robust and stylish spotlights, reversing lights and lightbars can improve near- and far-field vision whilst enhancing driving performance, even under the most extreme conditions.

Don’t let the darkness spoil your next adventure.

© NordExpedition.

Available from Allmakes 4x4 and Terrafirma dealers worldwide.

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24/08/2023 11:25

THE NEW-LOOK ISUZU D -MAX

ARCTIC TRUCKS AT35

WITH MORE CAPABILITY, IN MORE CONDITIONS, AND MORE PRESENCE THAN EVER, THE NEW-LOOK ISUZU D-MAX ARCTIC TRUCKS AT35 IS LIKE NOTHING ELSE ON OR OFF THE ROAD. AND IT KNOWS IT.

VISIT ISUZU.CO.UK TO FIND OUT MORE All fuel consumption and emission values are based on the new WLTP (Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure) test cycle which uses real-world driving data. Official fuel economy for the standard Isuzu D-Max range in MPG (l/100km): Low 25.1–27.6 (10.2–11.2). Mid 31.4–36.4 (7.8–9.0). High 36.0–39.4 (7.2–7.8). Extra-High 29.0–30.8 (9.2–9.7).

Combined 30.7–33.6 (8.4–9.2). CO2 emissions 220–241 g/km.

Visit isuzu.co.uk for full details.

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08/09/2023 11:41