At the last minute, I have been planning a trip back into the Sahara. This time into Tunisia. I would have liked to extend the trip into Algeria, but Tunisia doesn't need any visas, whereas Algeria is between a month to three months to process theirs. My original plan was to wait until later in the year and go on my bike, but between the ongoing poor weather, really short daylight hours and some work related issues, I now have some free time between January & March, so it seemed a good idea to head somewhere warm and avoid all the rain/ice/high winds etc that are becoming more common in Britain these days.
The route started out as a bike trip, so I included some of the French, Croatian, Bosnia and Hungarian Trans European Trail routes in it. I also have been wanting to explore Sardinia and Sicily for awhile now, so as they are en-route, I've included potential GPX routes to the collection and see whether I get there. Now its a 4 wheel trip, I'll change the plan accordingly and stop off to see a mate in Italy at some point as well as drive along the Amalfi Coast and explore southern Italy a bit.
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After a lot of soul searching and no small amount of horror at getting so cold again, I decided to go in the Landy this time. Apart from avoiding the obvious things I faced on my last trip, sub zero temperatures, heavy rain & snow etc, I have not done an overland trip in a 4x4 for a long time and never in this particular truck. The last one was through northern Mongolia in a Toyota, so why not have a little extra comfort and bear the extra expense to test out a few thoughts and theories.
I've owned my TD5 Defender, (2000) for around eight years now. Its been my main work vehicle and as such has done a lot of things that have helped me get a good sound knowledge of its quirks plus its strengths and weaknesses. I looked at and costed out all the fancy things that can be done to Defenders to make them 'Overland Trucks', but a mix of having the mindset that too fancy equals 'stolen' and also the last minute nature of this trip stopped me from spending thousands on it. So, its pretty standard and basic inside. I have added some sticky back foam to the panels to decrease the vibration, I've added some navigation specific bits to the cab and some very specific bits of kit for traversing a desert. Mostly though, its going to have a full range of spares of wearable parts, several necessary fluids and some basic recovery equipment.
For me personally, there is a small camp kitchen, camping chair, two burner stove with a large gas bottle and my own things such as clothes, toiletries books etc.
The inspiration for this trip came recently from a book I read about crossing the Algerian desert by Tom Sheppard called 'Quiet for a Tuesday'. He has spent a fair bit of time exploring many parts of the Sahara and alongside Chris Scott is probably one of the most knowledgeable people about living in such an environment. Tom has driven multiple vehicles across the Sahara, but more lately he drives a Mercedes G Wagon van version. The idea of keeping the vehicle light weight and simple came from his ideology.
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I've managed to source some paper based maps for Tunisia, they mainly consist of standard road maps. I did find an online resource which has digitised the old colonial maps from the French Military. So I have saved each one into a file and have added them to my tablet to view as I go.
Technology seems to be moving backwards at the moment though. I can't put a shortcut onto the tablet for the map image folder and my Garmin GPS units all seem to be having screen failure issues. Garmin component quality seems to be dying out since they have tried to compete with the mobile phone manufacturers and their app based software. So I've added in a heavy duty phone as a nav tool to cover the need for back up reliability. Especially after the abject technology failure on the last Morocco trip! I've also included all my camera equipment, so I can play with taking pics again like I did for the Antarctic. We'll see whether any turn out nice!
It's now about two days before I plan to leave the UK. Today is the final day to be able to service the Landy, so once its daylight and the heavy frost has retreated a bit, that'll be me for the day. I also need to change the worn out Radius Arm bushes, which is currently making the truck feel like its floating when I go around a bend. I'll change all the fluids today and filters, then once the headlight beam deflectors and the traction boards arrive today or tomorrow, that's me set to go.
