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Tuesday17th July 2007 - Shaking Up the Shake Down
What Did We Learn
Well after almost three weeks in Portugal we learnt a lot of great lessons, which we will try and list below:
1. Fridge - We had the wrong fridge. A fridge is a massive benefit on a long trip, and having the right fridge is all important. Do not be tempted to buy one of the cheaper (£150 rather than £450) versions of the 4x4 fridges. You need a compressor fridge for such a trip, both Waeco and Engel make these, and they draw very little power out of your battery and can perhaps last 5 days or over. Ours lasts less than a night. We were tempted by the cheap option, and will now have to fork out again.
2. When doing a shake down trip always take a notebook to record what you need to fix. We ended up with 44 different things to fix/buy/remove, and are now slowly moving though them. One note here is I bought a small pocket size notebook from John Lewis, with a pencil down the spine and a leather cover. I left this out in the persistent rain and it was fine. Worth the £7 that I nearly didn't pay.
3. Carry spare fuel if you can. Even better don't run out of fuel, but we did. Know you kilometers/litre, and never get below quarter of a tank. Even better half. we were lucky, and started Dino with no problems.
4. GPS - Navigating with a laptop wired up to a GPS mouse is possible, but not really practical. A good back up options, but not necessarily what you first choice would be. Whereas a PDA is a shear joy to use, assuming you spend the money on some decent kit.
5. When navigating by GPS make sure you know the route before you set off, just in case you loose your GPS device signal or have a failure. Obviously have a map as well. We found ourselves not actually knowing where the GPS was taking us, and then lost the the signal in the Pyrenees. We coped, but it taught us a good lesson.
6. We got Jenny's brother to cut a hole in our dog-guard, that could be padlocked, which allowed us easy access to the back whilst we were driving. This worked a treat.
7. When going to bed, giddy though wine and sunshine, remember a storm could be on its way. Put your valuables somewhere dry. We got caught out after a scorching hot day, with clear blue skies with a HUGE thunder and lightening storm. We were again lucky.
8. Have a locking up the vehicle routine, and include in this a check on the lights.
9. We found that we could put up and take down the tent and awning in 5 minutes. We were previously a bit reticent to brake up camp once we had set it up at first. This was stupid and the more we did it the more we realised it should not hold us back. make sure (especially your awning) you can do this quickly.
10. Test all you equipment before going. We found out spare water containers leaked when called upon.
Webstuff
OK - that's it for now with regards to lessons learnt. There are a couple of others things I should mention. There are a couple of blogs worth reading. Firstly our mate Paul, who is nearing to the end of his trip, through Africa on a bike. His blog is certainly a bit more exciting than this one!
Also Andy and Karen who are about to set off on a similar trip to ours - for real! Andy has been giving me lots of Advice and I look forward to meeting them in person just before they leave.
Finally we have added a reviews page to our website. we aim to review kit, and places, Jenny being in charge of the campsites reviews, as she has some strong views with how they should be.
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Last
Updated
August 11, 2008->
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