Confidence in the bush with “all” the comforts of home. Let us show you how this Land Rover Defender became our home while traveling Africa searching for people saving wildlife.
I first pictured OVERLANDING in Africa as driving our old 2001 Land Rover Defender through deep sand or muddy impossible Jungle from the Sahara to the Cape.
Actually, Margrit and I spend 80% of our time on tar or gravel. Traveling to magnificent places and meeting people who save wildlife throughout Southern and Eastern Africa.
But there are still a lot of raw places left. So we prepared for hard core!
Self-sufficiency is required for long drives with few resources or weeks exploring remote destinations or worst case 4×4 jaunts.
So, how did we convert a 13 year old Land Rover Defender into our OVERLANDERING Landy!?!
Well, we’ll tell you.
For this and 2 other future posts you will find the Outfitting (Kit) information for our OVERLANDER. The basics for confidence in the bush with “all” of the comforts of home.
The posts will cover: Sleeping and Downtime Gear, Required Vehicle Modifications, and Other Important Gear.
Sleeping and Down Time Gear
This is where we splurged for a over-sized Hauling Moon Stargazer roof top tent with vestibule and awning.
Again we wanted our old fart comforts. These ‘luxury’ accommodations are quick, tough, and comfortable with a queen size bed up top and enough room to cook and work at our chairs and table down below.
Trust me, don’t skimp on camping chairs and there are some pretty unique folding tables around as well.
We spend a lot of amazing time sitting soaking in nature and trying to keep our online helping community informed with our videos and blasting to social media. This requires phones and internet which are challenges left for other posts.
On the road we normally just use the top tent setting up the chairs and table outside as part of the landscape, under the tent overhang, or separate awning.
Quick? It only takes about 10-15 minutes to set up or take down the lot but does require some climbing around on the vehicle.
Easy? Margrit can do 98% by herself but man do we make a great team.
When it is too stormy or there are scary wildlife about we just snuggle in and work for a few hours up in bed.
Minimizing Down Sides
Caravan or 4×4 trailer fanatics always strut, “But to go anywhere you have to pack up the roof top tent and can’t leave anything behind.”
Well, we watch them secure their stuff to leave behind. We are almost always quicker even with a full take down and definitely more secure carrying our stuff with us.
Sometimes we hunker down for a few days or weeks to get caught up. For this we have a separate light tough 9’x14’ ground tent that can be left behind. It also sports a queen size air mattress. We work and cook at our table and chairs inside.
One time we left it up for 5 weeks of terrible weather and traveled daily.
And the best part!!
With all the windows and doors open the roof tent is ideal for clear star gazing and ‘safe’ game viewing. There are even 2 windows in the roof to roll over and view Orion in the middle of the night.
So now that we have the most important stuff covered. We will get to the man stuff next time. ;-})
Enjoy the day and do some good!
Russ Harris
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