Sidetracked Team Supersizes

There´s something I haven´t been telling you.

Something is happening that is both gut-wrenchingly sad and very exciting at the same time.

For the first time in twelve years, James and I had a difference of opinion on a subject that was actually important. From our taste in houses and furniture to finding out we were as crazy as each other, wanting to travel the world in a Landrover, there had been little we had ever had disagreed on.

But then, two and a half years into our dream life, a spanner was thrown into the works and our relationship was sorely tested.

James could not see how we could continue as we were in Henry once we left Africa and started travelling the rest of the world. I was stunned.

Henry has had his moments of unreliability and he takes a lot of maintenance and looking after to keep him running smoothly

James can get very frustrated with problems that come up over and over again and never seem to get fixed, with new parts that only last days and Landrover ´design features´ that make life unnecessarily difficult.

But Henry is a Landrover and this kind of comes with the territory. James tells me he loves Henry despite it all and has the utmost respect for his capabilities both on and off road.

We also agree that he is remarkably comfortable given the space we have to work with

So whilst Henry´s idiosyncrasies played a part in James´ declaration that things needed to change, they were not the main factor.

The main factor came down to space. Space and climate

Henry is the perfect partner for us in Africa. He can go anywhere, do anything. He is small and nimble enough to get through any rough road, small town or large city. And his compact size is no problem at all because a bed, a fridge, a sink and some storage space is all we need when we live outside.

But it seems that the few months of rainy season in Malawi and Tanzania made James think. It was pretty miserable with everything wet all the time. If we stayed on a campsite that had no undercover area it was difficult to cook dinner and sometimes we had to make do with cheese and crackers because we couldn´t light the gas stove in the rain.

Spending the occasional evening sitting inside Henry watching a movie in the cold or rain is fine but day after day it would just become uncomfortable and gloomy. If we went off-grid and needed to depend on our own outside shower and portable toilet it was great in the warm weather but grim in the cold and wet.

As we looked ahead to a time when we would be travelling to other continents and living in colder, wetter climates, James´ unease grew.

At first I just joked with him that he was a wuss and getting old but after a while I started to realise that this was serious.

I was absolutely gutted.

My dream had always been to ´travel the world in a Landrover´ and as I said to James that was a whole sentence, all of it important. And I love Henry – I thought we both did

Yes, James does love Henry but his dream was to travel the world with some sort of basic comfort. Our journey was never supposed to be a mission or a test of resilience. He did not relish India in the monsoon season, the Stans in winter or Argentina in the snow – not when we had no indoors to escape to, not when we could only cook dinner when it was above about 5 degrees and not lashing down with rain.

We had a problem.

Gradually, James tried to introduce the idea of changing Henry for a new vehicle, one which was bigger…

And in which we could therefore realistically plan for cooking, showering and sitting inside on a regular basis. Nothing fancy, just some basic space…

I baulked at the idea. Sell Henry? How could we even think about it? Just the thought brought me close to tears.

And not just that, on a less emotional level, living outdoors in the fresh air, having to work hard just to do the simple things in life like getting into bed, doing the washing up, setting up camp every day – it was bliss to me, it gave my life purpose and meaning. I didn´t want to give it up to live in a box – I could do that by living in a house. Let´s face it, we could have bought the farm in Namibia.

But this problem was not going away and James was getting increasingly down about our future. I realised that we have always been so compatible that we had never had to work through any significant compromise before, always having been more or less on the same page about – well, let´s face it – almost everything.

It broke my heart to think about travelling without Henry but it was breaking my heart even more seeing James so unhappy.

So eventually I suggested that he talked to me about the options. He presented me with a number of ideas – an Iveco, a converted van, a Mercedes UniMog, a Landrover 130 with a box on the back, a Landcruiser with a box on the back. There were others but they have been lost in the fog of my memory.

I started a list of pros, cons and red lines. The conversation went on for many weeks, writing lists as we drove the African roads, talking round and round the options :

• Iveco – too expensive, too full of electronics and ad blue to travel with it outside Europe
• Van – red line. I would not swap an iconic Landrover so full of character and soul for a van
• Landrover 130 – would not solve the maintenance problems and would be a big expense for not a great deal more space
• Landcruiser – I´m a Landrover girl, you will not get me in a Landcruiser! And anyway, again not enough of an increase in space
• UniMog – hmmm…

So, let´s talk about UniMogs

The Landrover is an iconic vehicle, best in its class off road. It has a long history and is much loved.

The UniMog is an iconic vehicle, best in its class off road. It has a long history and is much loved.

I have actually always admired the UniMog and been a tiny bit envious of overlanders who have one. It is a beautiful thing and so capable, it is a vehicle that you can be proud of.

In the end I said to James that if we had to change vehicle, the only thing I would be prepared to consider would be a UniMog.

A compromise was about to be made but I was not finished with my end of the deal.

Henry is the third member of the Sidetracked team, he is the love of my life second only after James. He was going nowhere. We would not be swapping Henry for a UniMog, we would be adding a new member of our family.

Henry was about to have a big brother!

We now had a new problem. We could only drive one vehicle – what were we going to do with Henry? At one point I suggested that I drive Henry around the world and James followed behind in the UniMog (obviously he would be behind as the UniMog would struggle to keep up with Henry in every respect!).

But realistically, we needed Henry to be kept somewhere safe, somewhere where he could stay long term and somewhere that was not going to cost us a fortune.

This problem stayed with us for a long time. He was no longer UK-spec so could not drive on European roads without some major work to pass an MOT – and European insurance costs for Landrovers, even in storage, were eye-watering.

Eventually, two factors in our lives came together. Firstly, I could not give up Henry. Secondly, we both agreed that we were not ready to leave Africa forever – we had made a life here, we felt at home here, it would pull us back time and again as it always had throughout my life.

And when we came back we would need transport and somewhere to stay.

So the final piece of the puzzle dropped into place. Where better to keep our beloved Henry than in our beloved Namibia, waiting patiently for us to return

Namibia had many benefits beyond being the place where we knew we would always be returning. Being a desert country, it is absolutely bone dry so Henry could wait for us without risk of rusting or going moudly. It is also on the west coast of Africa so if we ever did want to ship him back to Europe for some reason we would have no problem utilising our contacts to put him on a boat from Walvis Bay to Southampton, Hamburg or Rotterdam. And if the world ever tilted on its axis and we decided it was in Henry´s best interests for us to sell him, as honorary members of the Landrover Owners of Namibia club, we had a chance of finding a buyer amongst our friends so that we could stay in touch with him afterwards.

But the best thing of all about leaving Henry in Namibia were our friends Kobus and Marissa. With 8,000 hectares of farms, numerous farm buildings and a love not only of Landrovers in general but of Henry in particular, they would be the perfect foster parents for him. And more to the point, they were delighted at the thought of looking after him, not least because it ensured that we would come back and visit on a regular basis

Things were starting to come together. We had a plan and it was one which, whilst I was not thrilled by, I could live with. We only had two small problems left.

Firstly, we needed to find a UniMog to buy.

Secondly, we were in Kenya and Namibia was 5,000km away.

Both of those problems were to become two whole new adventures. Read on as we start a new chapter of our journey…