Africa Overland: What the Hell are we doing here?

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

The DVD can now be found on YouTube:

Ural Sidecar Overland

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

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

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

Book Review: Cape Town to Cairo in a Beach Buggy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links to the book:
Amazon UK kindle

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

A must read: Into Africa by Martin Dugard

"Dr Livingstone, I presume?"

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

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

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

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

Google Earth Land Rover in Morocco

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

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


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