For anyone following our earlier story, or any new friends who are interested, this is my long delayed update as to what we’ve been up to over the last decade. Crazy it’s been that long.
So to recap, our initial ‘on the road’ story began back in September 2007 when we (Andrew the driver, and Ann the navigator) shipped our 30-year-old Toyota Landcruiser carefully adapted for overlanding by Andrew (an ongoing project which took several years, if interested please see the page on the Toyota which we have left as was for historical purposes!) to Indonesia.
Initially leaving from Sydney we drove to Darwin, where we lived and worked for a year restocking funds. The car was then shipped from Darwin to Surabaya in Indonesia, and we followed on by plane and ferry.
So began an incredible journey covering over 250,000 km and encompassing 15 countries. Highlights included seeing the Taj Mahal, driving the world’s highest driveable road in Leh, Ladekh and exploring the Karakorum Highway in Pakistan. However, on reflection the biggest thrill of all was meeting a huge variety of the world’s people, the vast majority of whom were incredibly welcoming and many of whom have remained part of an international network of friends.
Sadly, our last trip came to a spectacular end (with a bang not a whimper!) when we lost our Toyota in an accident in Oman so we never made it all the way to the UK overland, but we now plan to make the return journey and complete those bits we missed earlier.
After we lost the vehicle (1st July 2012) finding ourselves broke and stranded, we settled in Dubai living and working to recoup funds and managing to fit in some trips in the region.
I should also mention that our biggest adventure of all began in August 2015 when we welcomed our twin daughters Iola and Imogen … greetings travelling companions, welcome to the world of overland travel
Early in 2017 Andrew took a contract building a Superyacht for the Chinese Government for 2 years. Living in a pretty remote part of China with blonde blue eyed twins was certainly an experience but we survived and managed to see a reasonable amount of that fascinating country whilst we were there.
In January 2019 we flew to the UK where we bought…. der der…Louie a 2007 Renault Master Mc Louis Tandy 433…. our current motorhome and home to date.
Whilst it was sad that the poor old Toyota had come to such a grizzly end, being so compact and involving a lot of external living not sure how we’d have managed in Europe (our external shower tent alone would have raised a few eyebrows!) so with 2 new passengers it was definitely time for us to get a bigger vehicle.
Andrew did have plans to build another vehicle from scratch (if space facilities and time had been no object!) but I put my foot down and we bought Louie more or less complete and ready to roll. Wow…. an indoor toilet, shower, and space to eat…. sheer bloody luxury! As it was always our intention to return to Australia overland and take Louie with us we set about adapting him to be ready for off grid camping in both hot and cold temperatures.
Firstly, we fitted an extra water tank giving a 200 litres capacity, as with 4 people to shower, and wash up after we found that however careful we were our water consumption had increased tenfold. We then fitted 180 watt solar panels and 2 x 180-amp hour batteries in order to give a huge supply of power to run the system in its entirety from heater fans, to the lighting. We then fitted a 12-volt air conditioner (a godsend in the Moroccan summer and very necessary for the trip home) and put extra leaves in the rear suspension system to further strengthen it to cope with rough roads. Finally, we introduced a gas low system by Truma which enables us to refill the gas bottles with ease at Autogas pumps. We subsequently discovered that there are now only 4 of these in the whole of Cornwall and the supply is a bit sporadic so keeping it topped up was an ongoing challenge……but that’s another story!
The plan was to take a take a trip around Europe and Morocco back to the UK for Xmas 2019, take a jaunt up to Scotland (seeing a few friends enroute) and then full steam ahead driving back overland to Australia just in time for the girls to start school there in early 2021. All was going swimmingly in March 2020 and we were just heading north to Scotland when COVID hit. Marooned in the UK with diminishing savings Andrew decided to get a job (luckily we’re both dual nationals so this was an option) and we planned to find a place to live and hunker down much as we had in the UAE. The job came along in a remote part of Cornwall, but the house never followed (chronic housing shortage in Cornwall especially post COVID – it’s all 2nd homes and air bnbs) so for over 2 years we have remained living in Louie whilst the girls attended school locally here on the South East coast of Cornwall.
Now, with their 2nd year of school completed, and with all the borders reopened finally it’s time to head back down under, and fulfil the mission we initially set out to do by driving (most of the way) there. We had intended to head back across Russia this time …but…… Putin stopped that
So instead we’re retracing some of our overland steps back over via Europe, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan to India completing the bits we missed after we shipped from Pakistan to Dubai on the trip over. So, for now it’s full steam ahead getting Louie 100% ready to roll, sorting out visas (quite a juggling act this!) and sending ahead by ship some of the belongings we’ve accumulated.
Originally (as our website name gives away) we set out to drive from Australia to the UK where we intended to live, but we were forced to stop off in the middle east and by the time we reached the UK things had changed (my dad had passed away and my mum had moved ahead to Australia to join my sister in Perth) and we were by that time only intending to pass through the UK. I did say to Andrew just prior to the pandemic striking and blowing our trip to smithereens, that I wished the girls had had more time in the UK to get a feel for where they are from…be careful what you wish for eh!!
Not diminishing the disruption this pandemic caused to so many lives, I am really pleased that we got to explore a beautiful part of England so thoroughly. The girls have loved living here and we’ve already had a few tears shed about leaving school and their friends behind, but I have every confidence some of these friendships will endure and that these wonderful memories will survive.
Since Dubai I’m afraid I have let my once regularly updated web diary go to pot…. too busy with first work, and then the kids. I thought I would finally sort this out in Cornwall once we got a house ……so it never happened! Our Lebanon/China Europe Morocco trips over the past few years are documented on my Facebook page (in my maiden name Ann Nuttall) if anyone is interested. I think the world of travel blogging has moved on since I began my own low tech efforts in 2007, but I will do my best as I really want the girls to have a record of this trip which hopefully will keep the travel bug alive in them throughout their lives
So for now we live in chaos and a constant flurry of packing/regrouping and visa applications. Not sure how much time there will be to update on the road, I seem to remember it was very time consuming last time, and that was without children and little real time constraints, but I will do my best to at least post regularly on Facebook. So…..watch this space….
