Celtic Rover is back! I am once again in the intensive pre-trip planning phase of one of my “big trips”, the spreadsheets are out, visas are being researched, and Nelson is being revamped for a big trip. This time to Africa for the classic UK to Cape Town trip …

A week ago I was in Buenos Aries in the last days of my six month trip around South America.  Life has changed a lot for me in just a week, as it has for the majority of people in the world, thanks to the Corona virus.  I am now …

As I write this I am back home in Edinburgh under lockdown and i think it is going to be one of the quietest birthdays of my life, to maximise the safety of the family Lee is with her mother in Aberdeen and I am here with my oldest daughter …

My last stop with Nelson was the Uruguay capital Montevideo, although my main purpose of visiting this city was the great reputation of its port facilities and the ease of its paperwork for sending Nelson home I did have a few days there and the city grew on me very …

Getting to Montevideo was the end of my trip with Nelson so it was time to pack up for the long sea voyage home, normally with the roof rack and the box on the roof Nelson is quite tall, around 256 cm (which is very good to print out and …

Now we have made it into the very last country of the trip Uruguay or properly called the Republic Oriental Del Uruguay as the sign reminded us as we entered, this was the day after our epic trip down the 200km of Playa Cassini and I was happy to be …

There are some parts of South America that just do not feel like South America, usually due to the significant number of immigrants who dominate the population in a small part of the countries, so is the case in the case of the two little towns of Gramado and Canela …

Beach buggy …. Tony and I have been exploring the beaches of Brazil in the last week of the trip before we head to Montevideo and put Nelson in his container home, mostly this has involved splashing around in the sea, wild camping beside beaches in sleepy but friendly towns …

After the excitement of Carnival we were a bit sore legged tired and slightly deaf so an easy day was needed, we headed back across the river to Argentina and decided to tour the abandoned Missionary at San Ignacio.  This turned out to be the nice easy day we needed, …

One of the anticipated highlights of the trip was to see Carnival in South America, however this caused some angst before the trip and I was quite anxious about it ahead of time as often it is the events with a lot of advance anticipation that can disappoint simply because …

After a week of travelling up really flat and unchanging roads we passed Buenos Aries (as we will return for four days at the end of the trip) and headed up the Rio Uruguay so we had the pleasure of long flat roads this time with the occasional forest of …

Today was an exciting day, after days and days of flat scrubland we finally saw a tree on Route 3 !  We were so excited finally something which appears on the horizon and changes shape and size as you approach it ! After that the day just got better and …

One of the great things about this trip has been the surprising variety of the landscape, climate and views in almost every day.  In all the countries so far this has been the most surprising thing and quite different from the roads in Kazakstan or the deserts of Iran where …

What a difference a week can make in Patagonia… The main change is I am now travelling with my friend Tony rather than Lee, so we have dropped into “boy mode” with ambitious days starting with a 7am alarm and packing in as much as possible (and sometimes not managing) …

We left our friends Camille and william rebuilding their engine and headed off to Ushuaia along the grandly titled “route find de le monde” or route to the end of the world, Ushuaia is on the big island of Tierra del Fuego literally fire island but it is very reminiscent …

When we arrived in Puerto Natales we decided to stay at the Yellow Plum Tree camping, this is a nice place, essentially a big back garden but with lovely showers and nice friendly owners.  When we arrived we were the third Land Rover there and had to park in the …

The last big sight on Lee’s part of the South American tour was supposed to be the mighty Torres del Paine mountains before we headed down to the island of Tierra del Fuego and Ushuaia where lee would fly home and Tony will join me for the final leg of …

Now that Nelson is back on the road we are very carefully working our way down to two of the big “sights” of the trip, Fitzroy mountain near Chalten and then the great glacier Moreno near Calafate.  This involves making our way down route 40 which has tow hazards in …

As we started down the Carrera Astral the weather was not cooperating with my plan, this section of the road to the small town of Puyhupui is supposed to be very pretty and the remote hamlet, originally founded by four German families, nestles between massive mountains at the head of …

After our off road adventures in the Atuel Canyon and Hermoso valley we headed back down the mountain to make our way to the Argentine/Chile border with a view to stopping in the wine region of Chile.  That meant working our way out of the Hermoso valley along the steep …

After the lovely drive down the seven lakes to El Bolson we headed further south on route 40 before turning off on the ripo road of route 71 as this took us down to Les Alercs national park which promised a lovely drive and a few nice walks.  One of …

When we got across into Argentina from LagoPellaga we were a bit wet and slightly stressed by the trip from the border in the rain, it had made us and the road very wet, which in turn made the muddy forest track really slippy for our 3te Land Rover, lee …

When you do a trip like this, even one that got shifted a bit as this one did, you research the climate of the countries to try and hit nice sunny warm weather as much as possible.  Despite what hardy souls will tell you, and I am sometimes one of …

After the New Year celebrations we were ready to hit the road and do some proper “Nelsoning” as much as it is nice to indulge in fancy hotels in both Santiago and in Mendoza we both prefer to be camping in Nelson and exploring some nice roads and pottering along …

After a lovely day on the beach at Constitution we had a long drive south to the Chilean lake district, I was looking forward to the lakes on both sides of the border, as quite a few travellers had recommended them as they drove north and met me on the …

For a week I dropped out of my routine, no longer was I waking to put on the kettle for coffee and get the porridge out of the fridge while I heard the rustle and thumping of Errol, Duncan and Mark in the bed a few inches above my head.  …

So recovered from our bike ride up the hill to Cafayate we braced ourselves for the “big run”down to Santiago, it is a feature of trips such as mine that I do have a very flexible schedule but I also occasionally have specific dates to hit for airport pick up …

We had a nice few days by the Lido in Salta which allowed us to catch up on things after a few weeks of rough travelling over the salt plains and altiplano, it is a reasonably large city by comparison with anywhere we have been for weeks so we enjoyed …

The Puna is the local name for the very high altitude plain that is divided between Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, in fact this area has been the subject of a number of historical wars between these three countries principally for its mineral wealth as nothing much can grow at 4000m …

I was delighted by our day on the Great Salar of Uyuni, it had met all my hopes and aspirations and the sticky bit at the end gave us just enough excitement to make it a grand adventure, a few mph slower or not running low tyre pressures and we …

After the stress of the oil flange falling apart, and the amazing recovery thanks to the mechanics in Arica, we took it easy for a day cruising down the PanAmerican highway rather than heading to the mountains, at each stop I fussed over the car checking for leaks measuring oil …

On these trips of mine I tend to have a new copilot each month or so, for me this is a six month trip and a week here or there does not really matter, for them it is a long and quite expensive holiday when flights are considered, so taking …

Having left Duncan in Cusco I had to get to Arequipa to pick up Mark so that we could begin our journey south to Boliva, Chile and Argentina over the next three weeks before I head home for a break at Christmas.  This part of Peru is the altiplano so …

When we first got to Cusco I was not very impressed as I was having a bit of reverse culture shock.  Having spent a good few days in the desert and in the canyons far away from the majority of the tourists I had gained a solid view of rural …

After our adventures in Lake Titicaca Duncan and I headed to the town of Cusco, which is the gateway to the Sacred Valley of the Incas.  Cuzco is a nice little town just on the edge of being over-run with tourist infrastructure, but clean and tidy, safe and with nice …

After our day running the dunes in Parcas Park and then flying over the Nazca lines we had a choice to make, do we continue on the standard Peru trail to the white city of Arquipa or do we head directly east into the Andes across the less explored terrain …

After our day of adventurous driving across the desert we were due to drop into the tourist groove and check out the Nazca lines in the desert and the ancient Inca Ruins at Puerto Inca on the coast.  As it turned out bouncing around the sky looking at lines and …

I was a little concerned that the next portion of the trip with Duncan would be a little bit too “touristy” or tame, after all the run from Lima to the white city of Arequipa, the lake at Titicaca and then on to Cusco and the top sight of Machu …

It has been an interesting element of my trips that I have had different friends join me on these trips as well as Lee.  In the early days Colin Muir was my first passenger as we ran a half marathon in Belgium and then took the bicycles around the battlefields …

After the surf, desert (and rubbish) of the North Peru coast Errol and I headed up into the mountains, this was to be the best few days of the trip so far for me.  I was prepared better than I had been in Ecuador and had been taking my altitude …

This trip has been marked by the incredible variety of places we have seen and the dramatic changes in climate that occurred as we changed altitude over even half a day by 3000m or more.  In Columbia and Ecuador we went through many small villages and travelled a lot of …

The contrast in climate of South America over small distances continues to both surprise and delight me, as I write this I am listening to Pacific Ocean waves crash down on a beautiful beach in Northern Peru.  The temperature is about 22oC there is a light breeze, no insects and …

After the Jungle we headed to our last city in Ecuador Cuenca or Quenka as the locals pronounce it.  We had a plan to meet some internet friends Pat and Neil Hay there and catch up with tips and tales from the few years they have already spent in South …

One of the themes of our time in Ecuador has been the incredible variation of the country and climate, in earlier posts I covered some of the variety from volcanos to the coffee regions and the changes in temperature that can occur in just one days drive. Our next adventure, …

The amazing variety of Ecuador We already were thinking very highly of Ecuador after encountering the lovely roads in the spectacular scenery of the northern province, the warm German welcome in Finca Sommerwind and the authentic Saturday market in Octavio but we continued to be impressed by the capital city …

After a nice night camped up on the lakeside and a visit to a crazy church perched over a canyon (complete with Holy hydro) we made our way to Eucador our first border crossing of South America. sunset view from our last camp in Colombia A crazy church built to …

Tonight is my last evening in Colombia if all goes according to plan tomorrow and we cross into Ecuador so in 24 days I have managed to get Nelson released from his container ,and driven him across a good portion of this lovely country, survived one pretty big crash, and …

We decided to take the backroads to the little town of Salento from the city of Medellin, what we did not realise is just how much of a difference there would be between the main roads, pretty much smooth tarmac, and the backroads, mostly gravel and sometimes tricky as you …

One of the things I try to do on these trips is to mix in with the local people as much as possible. One of the key principals of that is to travel in a pretty low budget way staying at local wild camps or locally owned campsites and trying …

After camping beside the river overnight we awoke to a sodden campground and a river which had been turned brown by the strong overnight rain (and quite frightening lighting strikes which woke both of us up in the middle of the night). Our normal breakfast of cold porridge and coffee …

We had a lovely time in Bogota but we have some miles to cover so we set off for the mountains and the jungles of Colombia on our two day trip to Medellin. First thing in the morning we braved the intense morning traffic of Bogota to head north to …

When I travel I am often surprised about how wrong my perceptions of a place are based on movies or news reports over many years. Bogota was one such place as my overriding memory of it was as the setting for the movie “Clear and Present Danger” were Harrison Ford …

The community of land rover owners is amazingly strong across the world and in Bogota the heartbeat is strong. As word of my accident spread across my overlanding connections on the internet the local Land Rover club stepped up with offers of support and advice. Within a few hours as …

The amazing helpfulness of strangers on the road, adversity is sometimes the greatest icebreaker. One the way from the dinosaurs footprints to the lovely colonial town of Villa de Leyva I found some great small roads in the mountains with breathtaking views and the occasional driving challenge including a fallen …

Having friends who are travelling ahead of you on a trip like this is a real benefit as you get good recommendations on places to visit. Today I headed to Las Gachas which according to local legend are the ancient footsteps of dinosaurs captured in the rock in a small …

It was delightful to see the mountains come up on the horizon after the long slog across the plains from the beach, after two days I turned off the main road and left the city of Bucaramanga behind as the road climbed out of the plains and into the mountains …

Sometimes when you are planning a trip there is just that one bit of the trip where there seems to be nowhere to break a 12 hour journey into two 6 hour manageable bits. Experience tells me that if google tells me its a 6 hour trip and I leave …

Day 3, country 1, 180km With Nelson safely out of the port, stocked up with groceries and snacks, it was time to head to the beach to get sorted out. When all the stuff that is normally on the roof, is inside the truck, the back is basically full and …

My man in Cartagana, Yair its in there somewhere In the middle of all this was supposed to be Nelson at least that is what Maersk told us, after queuing and waiting for a few hours we met ” the guy” who imports cars. Unfortunately he is scratching his head …

At the end of our Roof of the World Tour my friend Tony made a lovely book of our travels and gave me a free copy, it is a lovely momento of the trip for me and a great piece of work by Tony In addition to this, and thanks …

I started my trip in Cartagena in Colombia today after a 17 hour long trip from the UK, it was a pretty easy trip apart from the 4am start and I even got to visit Bogota airport as a preview for my pick up of Errol there in 14 days …

..but I do know when I will be back again 19th December 2019 (if all goes to plan). For many years I had to travel back and forward to Asia, specially to Hong Kong, as part of my job. Mostly that was a challenge, due to jet lag and time …

Nelson is on his way ! After been driven the 7 hours to Felixstowe harbour Nelson is on his way loaded into a container organised by Martin at IVSS UK who is also the main admin on the Overland Sphere websites, his day job these days is organising shipping our …

This is just a short update on how the plans for South America are evolving and how the time has been spent since returning from the Roof of the World Tour. So the current Plan is for Nelson to leave the UK in September in a container for Cartegena while …

Outline South America Plan for sharing Approx Date Location Comments       1st June to 21 June Norway loop Proving run for the truck prior to shipping to Columbia 24th June to 18th July Rotterdam – Cartegena Nelson shipping to Columbia 18th July to 6th August Columbia Pick up …

After the excitement of the Roof of the World tour there was in the end a price to pay for days and days of hammering over rough corrugations and running the poor truck at 15,000 feet (not to mention bashing the roof on the exit barrier of a police fortress …

Nelson has made it home after 30844 miles or 50k kms we crossed 30 countries in just 168days – three days ahead of plan as I did not need to stop for work in Germany. Amazingly despite some dramas I got all the visas and crossed all the countries successfully …

Iran continues to have amazing views and roads, so much so that I forget to stop and take pictures, but on the road to the south of Shiraz there is a lovely road overlooking a massive valley so even in my saturated state I did stop to take a picture …

One of the things which has been a pleasant surprise about this trip has been the “fellowship of the road” I was concerned about some sections of the trip as I knew I would be travelling alone and mostly in areas such as Iran and Pakistan where it would be …

After all the excitement of Pakistan it was a relief to reach the safety of Iran, a few months ago I could not have imagined writing that sentence but it is a true reflection both of how I feel and the reality of the situation here. As you can see …

Thank you Pakistan I have just left Pakistan and I am humbled by the generosity and good nature of the people of that country, I missed the fact that there was a big religious holiday in Quetta and turned up stupidly on the day all the government offices closed for …

I have not spend as much time as I should have given the great reports of other travellers, but there is only so much time for this trip before I want to be back in the UK and only so much time I want to spend away from my family …

It is now my second full day in the courtyard of the police HQ in Quetta Pakistan, I am writing this in the shade of my truck with the prospect of two further days stuck here as part of a “security protocol”. I think that they are being a bit …

Today I made the run from Lahore down to Sukkur, I had intended to stop at a place called Multan but I got there at 11.30am so thought I would push on to the next planned stop as the roads were so good and I could get to Sukkur before …

It was still super hot in India and camping spots are hard to come by in Agra, best known for being the location of one of the Red Forts of India and more specially the Taj Mahal, so I hunted around on booking.com for an option and came up trumps …

I have had a lot of problems getting bits and pieces fixed on the Land Rover out here, but the guys in Kathmandu at Land Rovers Overland (find them on iOverlander) did a great job, they are good mechanics but I also had all the necessary spare parts ! So …

Today I set off from Katmandu on the first leg of my solo journey home, at least as far as I have planned its solo until Istanbul when I will pick up my godson Chris for the run to Munich and the Octoberfest.  I was in good spirits having been …

When I was in Turkey on my way home I was surprised to hear from Kingsley Holgate and his partner Sheelagh Antrobus (who seems to do most of the administration work for Kingsley lucky man) he is a very famous overland traveller mostly in Africa but his most recent adventure, …

Kathmandu has been an assault on the senses, first of all we had a horrible journey to get here due to a long and difficult set of road works, nearly hitting a dog that darted in front of us, and getting a bit lost in the twisty roads of the …

For many people the Annapurna mountains to the north of Pokhara are the main reason for visiting this nice little laid back town, this is trekking central of Nepal and the streets are full of hiking boot clad westerners heading to or from the Annapurna loop treks.  For me the …

After the frenzy of driving in India driving into Nepal really was different.  I guess the population in Nepal is less affluent and less dense but as soon as we crossed the most western border the traffic density dropped by a factor of about ten, you can see below a …

Today we drove from Delhi to Haridwar where the mighty Ganges comes out of the Himalaya mountains, poor Lee had flown out from the UK in a nice BA plane, into the nice new airport and spent a day in the calm peace of the Lutyens bungalow…then we drove out …

After the resting day in Delhi, and then the full immersion into the river fire cermony (not to mention the monsoon) it was time to get back to nature and a driving challenge for Nelson. We set a target to reach the hill fort of Lansdown in the jungle covered …

The Karakorum highway and the highest border crossing in the world will be the subject of this blog once I get time enough to write it properly, for now I have uploaded some of the pictures from that trip and will fill in the story over the next week as …

To cross China as an Overlander, in you own car, is one of the most difficult transits we face in the world.  The reason is that the Chinese Government does not recognise your registration in the UK, does not accept the Carnet, requires you to be with a guide, on …

The Pamir highway was one of the highlights of our trip, it is remote and very high at around 4700M which is a long way up when you are getting up there in just one day in the car from 1600m the day before, normally the recommended ascent to avoid …

As I planned this trip one of the highlights for me was the run down the Wakhan valley, I had read so much about this road, it is a mecca for adventure cyclists and has the romance of hugging the border of Afghanistan for most of its length. In the …

We decided today to bypass the town of Bishkek and instead take a rougher but more scenic road to a little high level lake called Song Kul, We set off from our overnight campsite on a beach on the shore of Issky Kul after a nice swim We made good …

After Almaty we headed south east to Charon Canyon, known as the “Grand Canyon of Kazakhstan” it actually does not have the scale of the grand canyon but it is really pretty and quite dramatic as you can see from the pictures below. In the TV series “the long way …

Today was our first full day in Kyrgyzstan, before I came here I had been told this was the most interesting and pretty country of all the “stans”, which is a tall order after the lake district of Kazakhstan and the Altai region which I have raved about already, but …

Getting back in to Kazakhstan was very easy compared to the Mongolian border we crossed at Semy in a few hours, but this time instead of heading down the diagonal route to Almaty which I had done before, and was painfully full of potholes, we headed to the capital city …

We have moved out of the deep Gobi desert and headed to the little town of Alti on our way up to the Alti mountians and the Russian border, we were lucky that the last small section of the road was smooth fresh tarmac after battling through rough roads and …

After many days in the wilds of Mongolia where the choice of food at the stops was various forms of mutton, we came across the Fairfield Cafe on the way to UB.  Set up by Australians it is an Oasis of decent coffee, great food selection and even carrot cake, …

I had not heard of the Altai region before this trip but it is astoundingly beautiful and the Russian road through it is probably one of the best driving roads I have ever seen. National Geographic list it in their top ten according to the border guard on the Russian …

This evening Tony and I are in the deep Gobi desert, it is amazing to be in a place so remote and silent we have not seen a soul since early afternoon. Mongolia has a tiny population of about 2.5m people in a country which is as wide as central …

Having fixed our oil problem by noon we set off into the desert again in search of the famous sand dunes of Khongoryn Els which were about 100miles away from the town of Dalandzadgad where we had limped to the previous night. Our journey started well with one of those …

We set off from Ulaanbaatar in good spirits, a bit sad to see Lee go back to the UK after such a big adventure together, but Toni and I were eager to explore the Gobi desert which we both had heard so much about. We made good time out of …

(Photos to be added when internet available) For a time in the past, around 12th century, the city of Marv-i-shah Jahan was at least arguably the capital of the civilised world and was a very important city until 1221, at which point the son of Chinggis Khan destroyed it and …

I managed to get to Almaty after a night sleeping on the steppes of Kazakstan as you can see below, this followed my long drive from Uzbekistan and the difficulties of the night time border crossing which I posted about already so it was nice to arrive and know I …

You may think that Kazakhstan and Wisconsin seem to have very little in common but you would be wrong in some respects, I happened to live in Eau Claire Wisconsin for a little while and I have very happy memories of the work we did there and the friends I …

You are not in Iran any more my friend I had just begun to get used to the grooved roads, and the wheel eating six inch deep two feet wide random holes in the main road, described in the earlier post, when I had my first wake up call that …

TheA groovy kind of Road The roads in Turkmenistan are very variable, sometimes they are super smooth pristine new highway, Sometimes they have these enormous 6 inch high tarmac ridges that come out of no where and tramline the car or fling you into the air if you hit them …

Today was one of those travel days that you just have to dig through and wait till they are over, mostly. The bit that was good was on the way from Mashhad to the border at Sarakhs with Turkmenistan I found a lovely ridge that stuck out over the desert …

Mr Vali is a 65 springy energetic Iranian man who runs a homestay in Mashhad. A homestay is pretty much as you would expect from the word you go and stay in his house, more accurately his basement, and you get to join his family for tea and chat. I …

The reason that 90 percent of visitors come to Mashhad is not the wild park camping scene, that is something to experience, but not a feature to draw Muslims from all around Iran and abroad to pilgrimage in Mashhad. The draw for them is the holy shrine of Inman Reza, …

After my trek through the desert I had a lovely nights sleep in the cool air of the mountains, the fresh breeze through the side windows in the sleeping area was a welcome relief from the heat of the day. I had followed a tip from my overlander website to …

It is academically interesting that my Iran lonely planet says the desert here is the hottest place on earth, while the same guidebook for Turkmenistan says it is their desert, and I am sure I remember the same claim being made for death Valley in Nevada when I travelled through …

One of the amazing things about my time in Iran has been the incredible warmth and generosity of the people.  Hospitality for travelling strangers a long way from home was a critical part of desert survival in the past, and the Persian culture which is embedded in the deserts has …

Once in my life I lived in the American mid west in Eau Claire Wisconsin, it was -40oC outside but life was well adjusted, the houses all had garages integrated into them and the cars and people stayed warm quite well, one evening after a dinner and a bit too …

I have had a lovely experience in Shiraz, it is a little funny that, in a place which gave its name to a grape and wine type, it is today not possible to buy any wine at all. Not that this matters to me as I do not drink but …

One of the amazing things about Iran is how friendly the people are, there is a real culture here from the past, rooted in the desert history of Islam, that the traveller should be assisted as a matter of honour, not just of the person but the city and the …

Now I am travelling in rural eastern Turkey things are quite different from the atmosphere in the tourist towns, in these places you see all sorts of western clothes and some young ladies have clearly not read the memo on cultural sensitivity ,wandering around in short shorts and light tops, …

I will add photos to the post once I get some more solid wifi Istanbul has got to be one of my favourite cites in the world and I only managed to see about 15 percent of it, probably the most interesting 15 percent however. The old city of Istanbul …

I left Istanbul and headed for the Roman Ruins in Ephesus near a city called Kusadasi, this involved taking a ferry from Istanbul as recommended by some local connections, and then driving for 7 hours or so to the south eastern coastline of Turkey.  As it was my first night …

At then end of our trip through Corsica we came to Dubrovnik, and although very beautiful it was really overrun with Tourists so I was ready to “get away from it all” even though we were still basically in Europe so we left Dubrovnik and headed to Montenegro The next …

I had heard from friends that the Croatian coast was very nice and that has proved to be the case, we had our first night in the very nice town of Rovinj which was a little gem of an old town an easy walk from the campsite and a good …

After three 500km and 7 hr driving days it was a relief to reach the Italian Lakes and the home of my friend Ida and her husband Angelo, Ida was a colleague and had told me Angelo was a Land Rover nut like myself and he would love to see …

  It is strange to start to settle into camp life and the daily routine so I am taking a day out in Frankfurt to sort myself out, get some exercise, and get some of the jobs done on Nelson that just dropped off the list before departure.  Everyone I …

First day of my expedition to Iran, Mongolia and Nepal started with serious challenges like visiting Sainsbury’s supermarket to stock up on provisions and Starbucks for coffee to keep me awake long enough to get me down to Newcastle after an overnight flight from the US.  Strange to be on …

Although I had bought Nelson as a low milage example of the 300tdi which was the base platform I wanted for the trip, and I had carefully checked under the car and the chassis and found it to be a very clean and well waxoiled example I was in for …

  This image is a good start to this post taken outside the visa place that takes care of Pakistan in London.  Getting Visas for the big trip across Asia has been a massive logistical pain in the ass, no two ways about it.  This is a whole new world …

The countdown has started and we are in a frenzy of LOI and visa applications, here is the basic route Cross Europe to Istanbul via Croatia, Macedonia etc Turkey  Iran Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Kazakistan Russia Mongolia for Naadam Russia and Kazakistan again Kyrgistan Tajikistan China Pakistan India Nepal India Pakistan Iran …

The trip to Morroco was the second main shakedown trip before “the big one” and was designed to push Nelson with a broad range of challenges from long motorway runs to river crossings and steep rock tracks.  The trip did all of this and more ! We were in a …

Our first major shakedown trip was a 3300 mile loop around the Baltic Sea, the long way round via Munich due to Gerrys work commitments, the whole trip took four weeks. Initially the long run from Edinburgh to Munich was done in three stages, down to the Ferry from Newcastle …

So we have been on the road now for three weeks and it is time to review some of the systems and design of our camper in real life   Things which are really working well The pop top Alu-cab roof is brilliant, it gives us enough space to stand …

  The city of Riga in Latvia was a excellent overnight stop, the city camping ground was a modest hike to the old town, well enough equipped and had decent fast Wifi, the city itself is very pretty No matter where you go in the world there will still be …

The first big shakedown trip for Nelson is well underway as I write this from Gdansk in Poland after an epic 1300mile trip here.  This was not the original plan but work commitments for me gave me the opportunity to get to Germany a week early and Lee had to …

Unlike the Carlsberg beer advert, troubleshooting my light bar and setting up the new spotlights was not an easy task simply because I was a bit scared of the complexity of the system.  As a reminder Nelson has Three linked batteries Battery management system to monitor voltage, charging and prevent …

Orkney has a special place in our history , it is where  Lee and I got engaged, where she spent many of her holidays as a child and has been a regular location for memorable holidays for us as the kids grew up. So an obvious location for one of our shake …

PACKING LIST FOR NELSON  10 Oct 2016     Inside This trip Packed tick OUTSIDE TRUCK               SIDE OF TRUCK               Sand ladders and padlock       Awning and awning poles       High lift jack …

The next phase of the upgrade of Nelson has been completed thanks to Gemm 4*4 in Fife, the main part of the work was fitting locking differentials and upgraded suspension and then a few minor tweaks to improve power in the engine.  This took about a week and the full …

Nelson is beginning to look the part now that the modifications are nearly complete, still a trip enough package when it is in driving mode, but very comfortable when we stop for a few days with the full awning out giving a bit of a bigger living space and decent …

Having completed the modifications which changed the Defender from a farmers wagon to a Camper van body, in itself a big job mostly done by Coastline Campers.  The next stage is to sort out the running gear to make it robust for the long trips we have planned, in this …

The first phase of the work was intended to make Nelson into a camper so that we could gain experience running around Europe and the UK with the camper set up, but keeping the cost phased by not doing the modifications to the running gear and the engine as this …

The preparation runs continue this time with a trip to Ireland.  The trip started with a run down to Stranrar visiting friends in Dumfries with an overnight stop in a senic layby overlooking the Solway firth to expand my wild camping experience, that worked well but a tip for the …

This is a picture of Nelson our land rover on the day I bought him at a motorway service station on the way to Edinburgh from Barnsley. The first step in the creation of the overland camper was the selection of the right base Land rover. This is a 1996 …

Just back from the shakedown trip to Belgium and Holland. Route for the trip was Edinburgh to Hull to catch the Ferry to Zeebrugge, drive to Antwerp for the Marathon festival and then relocate to Brugge as a base for cycling in Belgium before relocate to Den Haag for cycling …

First proper trip out in Nelson is half way through, a four day trip to the East Neuk of Fife as the first test of the set up for the camper, and a good test it turned out to be. First night saw me arrive in the dusk, with 25mph …