Ollie Jogled
Firstly thanks to all our friends who sponsored us on the Jogle. We now have raised over £5000. :)
This blog has been nearly 3 months in coming, which is how long it has taken me (Ollie) to get over the emotional trauma of not completing my Jogle. Serious! Although it sounds way too melodramatic, the thought of writing a blog since then has made my head spin. But today, on this wet and windy afternoon I am back with a vengeance. Damnit, a bit of flu and flooding is not enough to hold me down. Especially as I have now sobered up a little!
So, let me put the Jogle to bed. It was gutting not to finish it, and certainly there were some feelings of shame and embarrassment. After all I had asked people to put their faith in me, pay up to VSO before I set off, and then had to admit that I could not complete it. But, after time had allowed sober reflection (yes and some drunken reflection too) I realised that I had at least aimed high, given it a good shot, raised money for a good cause, and finally, enjoyed myself. It was worth it. Honest! Phew ... that's all out of the way, now onto our news.
Click on the photo above to see more photos from this folly, and see he Jogle Blog for more details of the ride.
Out with the Potje in with the Cobb
Our regular readers will know that we can't resist a good bit of kit, and those damn naughty capitalist companies keep on producing it, so we keep on buying it! Our latest dalliance with equipping ourselves has once again involved us buying something to replace a piece of equipment we have already bought. Soon after we bought Dino we realised that we couldn't possibly be considered serious overlanders without a potje or Dutch oven (not that sort of Dutch oven fellas!). So two Christmases ago Jenny was lucky enough to receive a brand new potje. Since then we have had fun cooking various stews and breads with it, but have realised that to use it we will need a full on camp fire. Because this is not necessarily practical all the time, we have been on the look out for a replacement. Then at Billing Land Rover festival we were finally swayed by a Cobb - although we didn't buy there. I created an auto alert on ebay, and after about 3 months one appeared with a buy it now price of £55 - over half the new price.
So what's so good about the Cobb I hear you ask? Well, its basic function is a BBQ and it works damn fine in that incarnation. It is designed to be extremely economical on fuel, and you can have a full barbecue with about 6 charcoal briquettes. This bit of cookery magic is achieved by keeping the fat from the meat away from the briquettes, and allowing them to burn at a slower, more even temperature. And it bloody well works. But the toy in the cracker is that you can also use the Cobb as an oven, Crazy as it sounds you can roast a chicken in under two hours, with 10 bits of charcoal. Madness. Now obviously with Jenny not being a meat eater yet, this wasn't a big selling point, but, the fact that you can cook pizza on it was! Mix your own dough, add some vegetables and cheese, and hey presto, it's pizza o'clock! Damn yeh.
The other life changing purchase we have brought from ebay is some damn fine vinyl water carriers. These are Swiss Army produced, hard wearing, 20l collapsible water carriers. They weigh next to nothing and take up little room. Ideal for storing away, ready for your next big desert crossing. In case the link has gone dead above, search for Wassersack on ebay and you should find them. Unfortunately they come from Germany, and the cost of postage is as much as the wassersack, but we believe worth it. The choice it yours.
Dino
As usual it is two steps forward one step back with Dino. I think although we are both very glad we bought Dino, if we started again we would do it totally differently, and in fact, occasionally we flirt with the idea of buying another vehicle, and selling Dino off to the long grass. We bought Dino very soon after deciding to become overlanders, and I think this ensured that we followed through with our dream, rather than letting it disappear off to the field of forgotten dreams. But this meant we were very green, . and didn't really know what we wanted. But to tell the truth we still don't know, as it varies from day to day, depending on which websites I've been reading. The two main departures from our current set up that we sometimes ponder are either a bigger, live inside truck, or perhaps an overland trailer. It really is too late now for us to go with either of these, but perhaps, once we reach Australia, if we decide to go on from there, then we may change approach.
As some may remember I managed to twist Dino's bumper when learning some vital off road skills (listening to Jenny), and it was eventually realised that our bumper was a fake! Who'd have thought it? Luckily we managed to find a replacement on the HUBB, and as part of our epic Jogle journey, picked it up in Manchester. Upon arrival in Cornwall we managed to fit the new bumper, at the same time fixing the clutch on the winch that had been broken all this time. No job is now too big for us! Well as long as it involved bolting and unbolting. Luckily that is generally the case of Landies!
So that was a step forward, the major step back currently is our batteries. In the summer we suddenly found Dino with his batteries drained with no reasonable explanation why. Ever since then we have found they hold their power for less and less time. We are not sure if it is something to do with the split charge set up, or maybe some of the wiring we have done. or maybe the batteries are just dying? Both batteries are less than two years old, so should be good. At the moment we have no explanation, but are thinking of asking our friendly auto-electrician to come round and help.
Finally I have saved the best news for last. Even since buying Dino we have tried to make our future life as comfortable as possible, including our sleeping arrangements. Originally the tent leaked, which we fixed with some water proofing, but since then the noise and smell (!!) has been too much for Jenny. Whilst our tent was perfectly usable I refused to replace it, but Jenny was cleverer than that. She had spotted amongst our overlanding friends a new breed of tent that was slowly coming to the fore, the MyWay. So without waiting for my permission Jenny began the process of negotiation with the very nice fella who distributes MyWay in the UK, Paul. And hence we are now the proud owners of a MyWay roof tent, which is sitting pretty on top of Dino. Because we haven't properly tested the new tent, I won't give it a big write up on this blog, but briefly, the main benefits are that it is light, more breathable and more intelligently designed than the first generation of roof tents that are prevalent amongst overlanders. We really do believe that in the next 10 years that if MyWay hasn't taken over the market, their designs will be incorporated in all the other makes. But, until we have tested it properly we won't be able to say, so we are hoping to test it out over the Christmas period. Yikes! One thing we can say is that fitting it is as easy as pie - 4 clasps tighten around the roofrack and it's job done. It took us 5 minutes and would work with any roofrack so if we do replace the rack (again!) it won't be a mission.
OK - well lots more to tell you all, but am running out of time now, before I have to get back to shirt ironing and the mundanity (!!) of normal life. Hopefully it won't be so long until my next blog update. Love and Peace to you all.
Ollie and Jenny
