Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

15th November
Stowmarket, Suffolk
First stop is Jason's dads house. He's kindly let up set up shop for a few days while we get a bit more organised. For the last few weeks both Jason and I have been pretty organised and methodical about getting Moglet filled up, putting heavy things low down, labelling boxes etc. Then the time pinch really started to bite and loading her up became a bit more haphazard - to the point where on the last day at the house we were literally throwing things into the back, filling up the floor space entirely, just trying to get it all in. We know we've massively overloaded her, but the plan now is to spend a few days here rationalising things, getting rid of the 'what were we thinking??' items, along with the duplicates - do we really need six chopping boards??! We also need to run a few errands, take a couple of bags of bits to Jasons sister, run our dive gear to the very helpful Chris and Polly at Christal Seas Scuba in Norwich (plug plug!) so he can pallet it up and freight it to us once we get to South Africa.

The drive here from Newmarket was an education - apart from the fact that Jason and I were both shattered, him just getting over a cold and me just getting one, plus having not gone to bed until 2am the night before and got up four hours later to do more last minute stuff (washing the hallway carpet at mignight is not my idea of fun!), it was interesting to follow behind and see how differently she handled. It's the first time she's been loaded up so much since we bought her, and previously the amount of tilt on the box section was quite alarming to watch, especially on roundabouts. However, a bit of a load seems to work wonders - there's still the inevitable sway, but whereas before she's sway into a corner then sway the other way as you came out, then have another sway or two for good measure while she settled down, this time she was a lot more steady, coming back to centre and staying there pretty much every time. We also wondered how much her speed would be affected by filling her up - generally she happily pootles along at 50mph'ish (tyres are only rated to 50mph anyway, so thats probably a good thing), and slows to around 45mph if there's a bit of a gradient. Seems like Moglet really is happier when she's working a bit and carrying some weight, as there wasn't any noticable difference in her abilities, either in her top speed or how long it took her to get there. Very impressed :-)

PICTURE OF THE INSIDE OF MOGLET, OVERLOADED, TO GO HERE