Trip Planning and Preparation

Working in Cape Town meant that we had a long period to prepare and plan for the trip. One of the first steps taken was purchasing the vehicle for the job and the Land Rover Defender was the perfect choice. This is it from when we took it for a day out down to Cape Point.

When it was bought it already came well fitted out for the journey, it's a 2000 model and didn't have a lot of k's on the clock. It's list of extra's included: roof rack (with tent), bull bar, winch, spot lights, 2 spare wheels, snorkel, long range fuel tank, built in water tank, storage system, front and rear diff locks amongst others. It's first long test run was up to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Northern South Africa. Kgalagadi roughly translate as Land of Thirst and seeing as the Landy was a Vehicle of Thirst we decided to give it the nickname of "Kal". It performed very well in the hot conditions and we were very happy with how it went.

Over the last couple of months we have spent time getting a few things updated, fixed and added. This includes an awning attached to the roof rack, a divider that looks like a cage behind the passenger seats to avoid any of our mountain of luggage coming through, jerry can's, gas bottles and whole host of other things that we need for the trip. Some of this can be seen in the first photo album. A big thank you goes out to Mike at "Just Done It" in Hout Bay. He provide us with a huge amount of help and work, and good general advice on what we needed to get done and some good travelling tips.

We've also spent considerable time researching and planning the route to take and it has been changed and updated several times, and we suspect it will change as we go. About a month's accommodation has been booked, as it will be school holidays, Christmas and New Years, and then after that we will be winging it most of the way.

Our leaving date is Friday, November 30, Susan will be picked up from work at lunch time and then we start driving.