Nine days to go before I depart for the Australian outback. In this blog post, I summarise ten activities I do prior to a trip starting. Preparing for a trans-continental overland travel only involves more preparation than a weekend or work-holiday trip based on the fact that you have to rent out your home and store your furniture.
Planning a route
The same intense preparation is required for the shorter trips.
My trip to the outback has involved hours of planning, route mapping, vehicle checks and equipment lists.
The unique aspect of all preparation is the way different individuals approach the planning phase...
How many times have you heard that a Land Rover owner has changed his or her vehicle and purchased a Toyota? In short, I have now purchased a Toyota after owning eight Land Rovers over the last two decades!
Toyota Land Cruiser Prado 120 Series
Vehicle of choice this time is a 2007 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado D-4D (1KD-FTV).
And it was not based on the fact that Toyota owners are quick to explain the lack of tools needed, the reliability of the vehicle or the fact that they a perception to last forever.
Here's my thoughts on why I moved from Land Rover...
Independent overland travel can be as engaging or remote as the traveler wants it to be. Graham Field, the author of 'In Search of Greener Grass', will engage you in more detail than you thought possible and will takes you on a journey from the UK to Mongolia and finally onto Russia.
Motorbikes are a lifestyle; it’s not just transport, it’s easy to let them become a way of life.
Graham Field's book can certainly be described as the overland life in full. His style of writing - in first person - flows at such a pace that you are left entwined in his thoughts, his conversations and his travels. My mind was buzzing with an overload of information which left me pondering how the author manages to gather and retain all the information! His mind must be buzzing, if mine was buzzing whilst reading the book.
‘Buy time, not equipment’ was one of the single best lines of advice I read during those months.
Have you ever wondered what it's like to travel overland with an overland truck company?
Teresa O'Kane "Safari Jema'
Have you considered the pace of travel? The group dynamics? If considering using an overland truck company to explore Africa, then you need to read Teresa O'Kane's book "Safari Jema".
Recently ATRAVELTHING/magazine published the above map with eleven of the most inspirational overland travel routes. The map was created by author Danny Selwag.
The two trans-Africa routes were of interest to me...
The map has the following description per route:
Trans-Saharan DownThe Trans-Saharan Highway is one of the oldest transnational highways and the most complete. Can however be rough to get through the middle of the Sahara. If you want more, continue from Lagos down to Namibia or even South Africa.
Cairo - Cape TownThe Cairo - Cape Town Highway will take you most of the way, but a little detour to Namibia towards the end might be worth it. Some parts of the road is unpaved, giving a rougher journey. Be prepared with visas and papers for all the border-crossings, as well as local conflicts.
Overall, the map is a good start in highlighting the major overland routes however the descriptions of each route need slight amending. "...rough to get through the middle of the Sahara" is a bit of an underestimate. This route has been closed for decades (unfortunately) but credit is due to the author as this route is certainly one of the most interesting. A few books and blogs detail the transit across the Sahara in detail that leaves one yearning to experience.
The Cairo to Cape Town is by far the most popular route with the least visa issues (compared to West Africa) and can mostly be done on paved roads. The author mentions local conflicts but these hardly affect overlanders.
In 2013, the media focused on "Overland Travel", with various vehicle manufacturers using overland travel to prove new vehicles (i.e. Land Rover / Range Rover) and in the USA, "overland" was a buzzword with plenty of new brands attempting to capitalize on the overland journey rather than the destination.
Google Image Search: Overland Travel Forum
Twitter and Facebook websites boomed with new Followers and Likes, whilst the traditional forums hummed with new users and topics.
"A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users." Wikipedia
Over the last two years I have annually recorded various internet forums, monitoring the user growth, thread count and active posts numbers. You can read the 2011 and 2012 overland forum stats via previous blog posts.
In this post, I summarize the numbers from February 2013 to January 2014.
Do you have any favourite 4x4 TV show? Australia certainly has a fair share of good broadcast quality 4x4 TV series - everything from documentary style reporting, adventure seeking & 4x4 racing!
Two shows I especially enjoy watching are the team from All4Adventure (Jason & Simon) and the TV series hosted and produced by Pat Callinan. Both shows are very different. Jason & Simon (All4Adventure) seek out adventure and remote fishing locations whilst Pat Callinan hosts a show that is more sedate and filled with 4x4 tips, easy locations for average 4x4 adventurer, plus plenty of product advertising for certain brands (sponsors primarily).
Recently Jason & Simon managed to make headlines around the globe as they rolled a vehicle whilst attempting a recovery. Recap on the video which went viral here:
Part 2 was released last week... Jason explains what happened. A very impressive 2nd recovery and certainly not one I would have thought off.
Long may funding be available for 4x4 adventurers to continue to share stories!
Was Land Rover or Toyota the preferred vehicle choice in 2013 for independent trans-Africa overland travel? In this blog post I outlined the preferred vehicle choice for 2013, average travel time in 2013 and a summary of different vehicles used over the last four years.
The Africa Overland Network was formally launched in September 2000 and currently has over 800 independent overland websites listed - this website provides an excellent base for actively monitoring overland trips departing per year.
Over the last decade of independent overland travel, the preferred vehicle has been Land Rover but in 2011, Toyota became the preferred vehicle of choice. In 2012, Land Rover bounced back to claim the number 1 spot. What happened in 2013?
Here are the links to the previous overland website statistics: 2010 | 2011 | 2012
The 2013 Stats...
Land Rover and Toyota once again proved to be the most popular choice for overland travel in Africa (departing in 2013). A total of 53 websites are listed on the website (departure date in 2013), surprisingly the same number for 2012. I acknowledge that I have probably missed a few trips (and websites) as its hard to keep updated and often travelers don't know about The Africa Overland Network.
"Knowing about something, reading about it or seeing pictures of it is not the same as witnessing it."Gone Riding by Dom Giles
Dom Giles
Twitter, and other social media, is a neat way of broadening perspective... I follow a number of overland travelers on Twitter and enjoy reading the various updates and being introduced to other travelers via 'follow' recommendations. A recent follow introduction was adventure motorcycling author Dom Giles. His newly published book "Gone Riding" was launched in the UK in November 2013 and made for the ideal Christmas holiday read. A quick visit to Amazon and a Kindle version was winging its way to my device...
Gone Riding by Dom Giles
Quoting two paragraphs from Dom's book provides a good insight into his travel style, and in turn, how this is translated into his book:
"I’d always been a little suspicious of trips that had definitive start and end points: that whole ‘Alaska to Ushuaia’ or ‘Cape to Cairo’ thing. It might look and sound neat, beautifully packaged and bookended but it seems to be focusing more on the destinations than the journey." - Highlight Loc. 403-5
"The English anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard said: “History is not a succession of events, it is the links between them,” and I think the same can be said about travelling. It shouldn’t be about where you start and where you finish as much as about what happens in between." - Highlight Loc. 405-7
