A great deal of nothing!
Between the worthwhile sights of Patagonia there is very great deal of nothing. Vast flat pampas plains dotted with estancias/ranches, herds of cattle, roaming horses and the occasional beret-clad gaucho galloping between them. In our last blog-post we rambled on a bit about the marvellous marine and wild-life here, but what else can we say about our travels down eastern Argentina? Continue reading
It’s a loooong way south through Patagonia. From BA to Ushuaia at the bottom of the continent, it’s over 3,000 km in fact, so we won’t be doing it in an afternoon. We’re heading down the eastern side of Argentina, across miles and miles (and miles) of vast, flat pampas land. It is featureless, but strangely all the more beautiful for this. We’re in no hurry and will be taking it slowly, in short hops Continue reading
Street art – BA-style
Those in-the-know casually refer to it as ‘BA’ but until we get to know each other better, we’ll start with the more respectful ‘Buenos Aires’ 🙂 It is another of our ‘Bucket List’ cities that we have wanted to visit for many years. I read the story of Eva Peron some years before it was brought into popular culture by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber and was looking forward to seeing the city’s ‘Evita Landmarks’. But although Eva Peron (arguably after Diego ‘Hand of God’ Maradona) is the world’s most famous Argentinian, there is much more to Buenos Aires than her memory.
On the outskirts of the city we spotted below us from the fly-over, a ‘Museo de las Malvinas’. Hmmm… this could be Continue reading
After over five weeks at sea, we are so excited to get Cuthbert onto dry-land to start the South American adventure. Our priority on arrival in Montevideo is to restock with food, gas and diesel, then to come up with a plan for the next few days. Maybe Gaucho Festival Argentina?
Decision Time!
It’s Thursday and the is Gaucho Festival Argentina is in San Antonio de Areco this weekend. It’s some 700 km away from Montevideo. We would very much like to see the authentic gathering of the regional gauchos and watch them compete their skills, but if we do so we will have to skip Montevideo and go straight to San Antonio. It’s a tough decision, but we decide that Montevideo will still be there next year when we come north again. The Gaucho Festival is an annual opportunity and we are unlikely to be able to tie these dates into next year’s itinerary. So the Gauchos Continue reading
Montevideo from Hamburg by cargo ship… Done! Yes, we’ve spent October 2015 on a freight ship Europe to Montevideo. We’re bringing our camper-truck Cuthbert to Uruguay to start our tour of the Americas. No scrubbing of decks, peeling of potatoes or climbing of rigging – we took one of six fare-paying cabins on the Italian Grimaldi freight ship ‘Grande Nigeria’. And in anticipation of the obvious question… we’re doing it because we can, and because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
All aboard the Grande Nigeria to Montevideo!!
So was it such a good idea… over five weeks at sea with minimal facilities and no internet??!! Well… at least we had plenty of time to write all this bog-blurb stuff 🙂 Read on and see what you think. Continue reading
Here it is at last… our home for the next 4-5 weeks! Grimaldi’s Grande Nigeria is on its way into Hamburg tonight and we’re joining it in the morning for our ‘Grand Voyage’ to Montevideo. Hurrah! Much anticipated…. we had to book it a year ago to get one of the few passenger cabins on the cargo ship to sail with Cuthbert! Continue reading
Leaving France and the cheese behind, we hopped over the border into the south of Germany near Freiburg. First to the Bodensee, better known to most Brits as Lake Constance (not sure why we English feel the need to rename places in our own language, when the locals have allocated a perfectly good name already, but let’s not digress…) to visit our German friends Klaus and Jasmine who run a restaurant near Lindau: the Continue reading
Only in France!
The absence of recent contributions to the Blog could well have aroused suspicions that we are sitting idle, squandering the days of the European summer. But on the contrary, dear Watson! The life of the overland traveller allows little time for frivolities; one should not underestimate the level of commitment and determination required to plan overlanding trips and to consume so much delicious fayre (in particular… French cheese!) with good friends over such a short period of time! Continue reading
After a year of operating Cuthbert in Africa we can say (at the risk of inflating his ego 🙂 ) that he really is a great truck and has exceeded our expectations in many respects. But even with Cuthbert’s level of greatness there is always scope for a few ‘technical tweaks’ to add ‘the icing on the cake’. We are now preparing Cuthbert for his next expedition to South America in September. So what’s being done?
Brakes – installing an electro retarder. Like many other Iveco Daily 4×4 users we have spoken to, we have been disappointed with the brakes. The problems are not significant with general driving around flat and low-hilly areas where only minimal braking is required, but the weaknesses become apparent on descents of long, steep mountain roads. So far we have had a couple of ‘hold-your-breath’ moments (in Lichtenstein in the Alps and in Lesotho, Africa), and as we are heading to the Andes later this year, we though we had better get this sorted. If you know or care what an ‘electro-retarder’ is, click here to read more.
Extending the range – extra fuel tank. Cuthbert currently has a total fuel capacity of 240 litres and a range of around 1,600 km/1,000 miles. So far so good. But from our research we’ve discovered two potentially limiting factors in South and Central America: first, between Panama and Mexico there is only very high sulphur diesel available – not good with Cuthbert’s Euro 5 engine. Secondly, due to government bureaucracy, it can be difficult for foreigners to obtain fuel of any quality in Bolivia. With Cuthbert’s new additional fuel tank, he will have a total fuel capacity of 400 litres, giving a range of around 2,630 km/1,630 miles to get us through the ‘trouble spots’ without needing to refuel! Impressive, huh? Click here for the detail on how we squeezed the extra capacity into Cuthbert.
Cooling the fuel. It seems that under certain driving conditions, the diesel in Cuthbert’s tanks can get a bit too toasty. Even the least technical amongst us could hazard a guess that the words ‘over-heating‘ and ‘diesel‘ are an undesirable combination for a vehicle. Click here for the solution sported by the ‘new, improved’ Cuthbert.
Phew! And as if all this isn’t enough excitement… Cuthbert is also sporting a new Multi-voltage Battery Charger (click here for more info) and a Gearbox temperature monitor (click here for a clue as to why…).
Coping with tropical rainy seasons (update April 2018): After finishing South America and heading into our second serious tropical rainy season, we looked back to our 4 months in the Amazon last year and realised that we could have perhaps prepared better for life in Cuthbert in extreme heat, humidty and tropical rainy seasons. Click here for how we upgraded our systems with a new super-roof-fan and a lithium leisure battery upgrade to cope with the impeding rainy season of Central America in 2018.
See Modifications and Repairs for a list of all Cuthbert’s other upgrades that we have fitted.
Europe’s largest overlanding exhibition is the Abenteuer Allrad Show held in Bad Kissingen, Germany over 4 days in June every year. This is where we first came in 2012 to choose a builder for ‘the Truck’ (the vehicle currently known as ‘Cuthbert’). The show has lots of overlanding stuff and, being in Germany, there is naturally also plenty of beer and würst on offer too… so what’s not to like? (click here for link). Continue reading
Cuthbert does Brussels – at the Atomium
Drum roll…. Ta daaah! Finally Cuthbert arrives in Belgium from Port Elizabeth, safe and sound albeit over two weeks late. The ‘Great Africa Chapter’ is now closed and we’re looking forward to three months around Europe before we ship to South America in the autumn.
So… where first? After collecting Cuthbert from Zeebrugge docks, we set-off down the road for a quick stopover to see the sights of Brussels. The Belgian capital has plenty of old cobbled streets with beautiful old architecture to wander around, plus the added bonus of some great Continue reading
So after a great few days stop-over with our friends in Dubai on the way back to Europe from Africa, we had a long and frustrating process trying to establish which numpty is to blame for Cuthbert not being loaded onto the scheduled ship. It seems that the Port Elizabeth port staff are probably the lucky winners of this month’s “It’s Friday and I couldn’t give a s*#t” Award. Anyway…Cuthbert is now finally on his way north and the tracker shows he is just passing Dakar, West Africa. Confucius say… “he who waits two more weeks will get nice truck from ship” 🙂
In the meantime, we have used our ‘sitting-around down-time’ wisely, enjoying great food and wine with family and friends. This included some very enjoyable ‘sitting-around down-time’ with Steven and Gilly, who are also in UK on a short break from their round-the-world expedition in their Bocklet truck with their young daughters Alisha and Lucy (see their excellent travel blog at www.overlandingfamily.com ). We have been corresponding with Steve and Gilly for a couple of years by email swapping travel and truck info, so it was great to spend some time with them in person.
Once we get Cuthbert back, we have a bit of euro-touring to do over the summer and some work to do preparing for the next stage of the adventure: Cuthbert Hits South America in September.
Watch this space, and keep all your digits crossed, for Cuthbert’s safe (and uneventful) arrival off the ship from Africa in a couple more weeks!
🙁 Bad news… long delays with Cuthbert’s luxury cruise back to Europe due to extensive incompetence by shipping agents
🙂 Good news… the delay has given us time to put together a small smorgasbord selection of pics from our fab year in Africa. Yehhhhy!
Click here to see the Africa Random Picture Gallery and watch this space for news of Cuthbert’s return to Europe (fingers crossed!!!)
Cuthbert waiting on the dockside, ready to board his ‘luxury cruise’ from Port Elizabeth back to Europe
Finally, after an enjoyable few days in Port Elizabeth catching up with Gavin and Lee and preparing Cuthbert for the voyage, we handed him over to the shipping agent at the port. After a small volume of inevitable bureaucracy, we said our farewell to Cuthbert and were then dropped at the airport for our flight to UK via Johannesburg and Dubai. The end of a terrific adventure 🙂
Thank you Africa, you are a truly amazing place. We’ll be back… one day!
Click here for the full story of South Africa – the Final Leg and click here for our look-back over an amazing year: Africa Highlights
Latest video has now been added to the website: Cuthbert in Lesotho
Readers of the Truck and Kit section of our website will have seen that we carried out some extensive research before choosing our vehicle and embarking on our Africa trip. One of the books that we found most informative and helpful, and which we highly commend to anyone planning overland travel in any kind of vehicle, is Tom Sheppard’s VDEG (‘Vehicle Dependent Expedition Guide’), published by Desert Winds.
Tom is one of the leading explorers and over-landing legends of our time and has accumulated more than 100,000 desert and over-landing miles over the years. His travels such as leading the first coast-to-coast crossing of the Sahara (Atlantic to the Red Sea – for which he gained a Royal Geographical Society award) and his outstanding books on his extensive explorations of Algeria, have both informed us and helped to inspire us for our far less intrepid travels around Africa and beyond.
We are delighted and honoured that Tom has chosen to feature Cuthbert in the new 4th Edition of his VDEG book, together with some extracts from the technical sections of our ‘Tucks’ Truck’ website.
Full details of Tom’s VDEG 4th Edition can be found at: http://www.desertwinds.co.uk/expedition_guide.html
As we leave overlanding Zimbabwe for the second time on this trip, we think it worth reflecting on the whole of our time spent in this controversial but extraordinary country: ‘controversial’ because of the political regime – is it right to come here and tacitly support the odious ‘Mugabe Bandwagon’? Yet ‘extraordinary’ because of the exceptionally friendly and welcoming people, the stunningly beautiful countryside and the wonderful attractions the country has to offer the tourist. Fabulous safari parks, spectacular mountains, intriguing jungle, quirky granite boulder landscapes, ancient caves and rock art, not to mention the world-class Victoria Falls (which incidentally, is far better seen from the Zim side than from Livingstone in Zambia).
