Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

Hello! So, what brings you here? Maybe just a series of random mouse clicks, surfing at lunchtime or maybe you're multi-tasking while watching yet another Top Gear re-run (how many times will they show the race through Europe against James in his little plane??). Or maybe, like us, you've been toying with the idea of some kind of overland adventure, and have decided to do a little research, just to see...

We're just your average 30-something couple, been together a while now, no kids, no pets, a couple of typical 9-5's and a mortgage, plus ever-increasing bills. So why bin the lot and head off into deepest, darkest who-knows-where? Perhaps 'Why not?' would be the better question... Its easy to get philiosophical about it all, make it about seeing sights before they get swallowed up by rising sea levels, or experience other cultures before life as we know it ends with the arrival of the pitter patter of tiny feet...(more likely to be a puppy than a baby, but either way, its a spanner in the works!), or stopping off at orphanages to help them with whatever they need. But selfishly, for me its mostly about getting away from it all and seeing what there is to see. There's no fixed agenda, no particalur route plan other than a vague notion which will probably change as we go along, and no time frame to any of it, other than what's dicatated to us by our finances.

Sounding familiar? Or perhaps sounding like a haphazard nightmare??

A word of warning regarding the website - it's only been up a running a little while, and the trip isn't likely to kick off until the last few months of 2008, so some of the pages will be a bit patchy at the moment. It's also my first website, so if anythings broken, please let me know!

A final word about this software too. For all kinds of reasons, which I'll go into in more detail in the 'Prepration' section, this website doesn't allow very big images to be attached to each page. This isn't a problem if you're just adding a graphic to illustrate a point, but if we want to attach a photo simply because its a nice picture, or if we want something to be visibile in lots of detail, that can be a pain. To get around this, all the images in this website will be stored via a website called Photobox, which will allow you to view whole albums of images, as large as you like - you can even buy them, if the urge takes you! So, if you're happy to just see the image as its displayed on the website, then great. If not, click on the image and the Photobox website will open a new window. You don't need to register to view, it's a minor pain, but well worth it in the long run... I won't link all the images to Photobox as this slows down the software, but hover over the images - when the pointer changes from an arrow to the hand, click on the image - the way the photo's are arranged on Photobox, you'll be able to find anything you're after.

APRIL 2009 UPDATE!!! - The UK bit of the trip is almost over! We're currently parked up at Jasons dads in Suffolk, fiddling with a few bits on Moglet, taking out stuff we've lugged around for the last 3000 miles and never used (including a couple of cupboards!). The work will likely take us to the end of April, at which point we'll head south to take a ferry across the channel. The plan at the moment is to take one from Plymouth to Roscoff in Brittany and spend a week or two in northern France, then head south. We've well and truly missed our window of opportunity to go to Morocco this side of summer, inland temperatures are already hitting the 40's in Mali. So, we've decided to definitely not get a job for the summer and will instead be bumming around France until some time in September! My folks live a bit west of Bordeaux so we'll be camped up with them for some of the time, looking after the pennies as well as helping them out with the renovation of a property they're trying to make habitable before the end of the year. We aim to get to my parents some time around mid-May, so I dont imagine there'll be much to report on until maybe the end of April - unless you want lots of prose about me and Jason laying in bed too long, eating takeaways and generally being very lazy!

One other thing I'll be doing over the summer is revamping the website - the current software is too restrictive so I've gone for a bit of an upgrade and will be playing as and when I get the chance. So if anyone has any thoughts or sugestions on what to include/leave out, I'm all ears! The website address will stay the same and I'll even be going through the laborious process of transferring the existing site over to the new one, so nothing will be lost and all historic stuff will remain visible. Wish me luck!