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
The Hills are Alive!
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
Did we mention the cheese? (France 2015)
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
Preparing Cuthbert for South America
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.
Beer, Würst & Camper-trucks
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
Back to the Future – in Belgium
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
Hurry up and wait!
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 and Good News
🙁 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!!!)
Cheerio Africa… over & out!
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
Cuthbert in Lesotho
Latest video has now been added to the website: Cuthbert in Lesotho
Tom Sheppard’s VDEG
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
Post-script on Zim
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).
