The preparation

Visas

We are both traveling on our 'green mamba' aka South African passports and will need visas for most countries on our trip.

Visas we will need fro our trip
France	Shengen	Before we leave £55
Germany	Shengen	Before we leave
Austria	Shengen	Before we leave
Hungary	Shengen	Before we leave
Romania	Yes	Before we leave £60
Bulgaria	Yes	Before we leave £46
Turkey	Yes	On arrival $20 each
Syria	Yes	Before we leave £21
Jordan	Yes	On arrival
Egypt	Yes	Before we leave free!
Sudan	Yes	In Cairo $100 each
Ethiopia	Yes	In Cairo
Kenya	No
Tanzania	Yes	On arrival $ 50 each
Mozambique	No
Malawi	No
Zambia	No
Botswana	No
Namibia	No
South Africa	No

 

Insurance

• Travel insurance

We have looked at various options and obtained quotes from many different travel insurance companies.

We decided to go with World wide insurance. They were not the cheapest, but seemed to offer us the most benefits for our money with the least amount of excess to be paid.

• Car insurance

15.11.09

We haven't finalised our car insurance yet. We have been in contact with two 'overland' car insurance companies that have us very different feedback.

We contacted Campell Irvine, and was told they cannot offer us insurance because Zulu is valued under £4000.

We have also contacted Alessie, a Dutch insurance company. They told us that they can only offer us 3rd party insurance because Zulu is too old. They also said that in most African countries, we would need to buy 3rd party insurance at the border, which would mean we are over insured.

We have managed to extend our current car insurance to cover us for Europe, but this will expire one we hit Turkey.

Will keep you posted on this.

The budget

This is a scary one! We have been seriously saving for over 18 months now. I think to date all the preparing has cost pretty much the same as the entire trip will be. Bottom line, this is not a cheap way to travel, but it will be well worth every penny spent.

The preparation costs are a little difficult to disclose as we have been purchasing items for our trip for the past year or so. I have tried to keep track of what we've spent so far, I won't go too much in depth here. You can email me if you're itching for a breakdown.

We are budgeting to spend around £2600 on diesel. We got this figure by researching on other overland websites. Our daily budget is £30 each per day in Europe and about £20 each in Africa. Our goal is obviously to spend as little as possible each day as it means we can travel for longer. Don plans to feed us using his fishing rod :)

The above budget does not include the wedding - that's a whole other kettle of fish. Luckily most of it is paid for already.

Carnet

A Carnet is documentation for Zulu to allow us to temporarily import him into certain countries without having to pay customs duties and taxes. We need a carnet for travelling in the Middle East and Africa. The cost of the carnet is based on the rate of customs duties and taxes in the country visited, multiplied by the value of the car. The most expensive country we will be visiting is Egypt. They require 800% of the value of Zulu, whereas the rest of Africa is only 150%. A carnet can be paid either by cash deposit, a bank guarantee or by insurance indemnity. We have opted for the insurance indemnity as we only have to pay 10% of the carnet amount.

10.12.09 - We received our carnet today, I must admit We are very impressed by the service and efficiency at the RAC. We found out that the chassis number on our vehicle registration forms didn't match the one on the car by one digit. We asked RAC to amend the carnet, they sent us a new one the very next day! The total cost of our carnet was £ 1380.00.

Other essential paperwork

In order to import Zulu into South Africa we have applied for a letter of authority from the NRCS (National regulator for compulsory specifications) and an application to import Zulu from the ITAC (International trade administration commission of South Africa). We would not be able to get Zulu into South Africa without them as our carnet does not cover SA.

I have scanned and copied all our important documents, i.e passports, visas, drivers license, Yellow fever vaccine cards, car license, insurance papers, ID book, birth certificate (needed for the wedding). A copy of all the docs will be hidden in the car, the scans will be emailed to Heather's mum and sister-in-law and saved onto a memory stick as well as emailed to ourselves. I think we'll be covered here.

Medical

• Vaccinations

We will need several vaccinations before we leave. We will start now and have one every few weeks until we leave. Some of the jabs are free on the NHS.

1. Hepatitis and Typhoid (free)
2. Diphtheria, Tetanus and Polio (free)
3. Yellow fever (£40)
4. Malaria tablets

We've had all our shots now and besides the feeling of being lummied in the arm, have had no side effects. We decided to get our malaria tablets from South Africa as it is much cheaper there. Heather's mum is coming over for Christmas and is bringing us a few goodies as well as the tabs. We have decided to take Doxycyclene. We're just going to have to be extra careful not to get sun burnt. We'll start taking the tablets once we hit Egypt.

The gear

Heather has been particularly anal about packing the bare minimum. We've had loads of advice ranging from both ends of the spectrum. One side has been to be uber prepared and carry loads of car spares and parts, on the other hand we've been advised to travel as light as possible and not to even carry a spare tyre. We are trying to digest all the advice and make our own decisions - lets hope we get it right. I'm sure there'll be things we'll dump/acquire on the way. Here goes...

All our items are packed in sturdy boxes or have a special place in Zulu. Below is the rough contents of the boxes and of Zulu.

• Toys
  • Video recorder - and a stash of rewritable DVD's
  • Camera
  • Laptop
  • power inverter to charge all of the above

• Easy access

Under the back board we have put items that we'll need daily and can have easy access to:

• Camping chairs (we splashed out here to get really comfy ones)
• Camping table
• Cast iron cooking pot
• First aid kit (see contents list below)
• High lift jack
• strip light

• Recovery kit

We have decided against a winch and have opted to use our High lift jack as our recovery tool. We have purchase all the recovery accessories as we as the attachment for the tyre, should we need to lift the tyre out of the mud etc. All we need now is to get Zulu stuck so we can practice using all this stuff.

• High lift jack
• recovery kit - including straps, shackles, gloves etc
• High lift jack adaptor
• Jack mate - lift on the wheel
• High lift jack rack - this was to attach the highlift to the back of Zulu, but we have since decided to put it in Zulu instead. Don says we can still use it as a jacking point...we'll see

• Kitchen
  • Campingas 2 plate gas cooker
  • KAMPA 45 ltr camping fridge/freezer
  • Cast iron pot
  • Frying pan
  • Army dixie pans
  • Cutlery
  • Various utensils
  • Kettle
  • Collapsible basin
  • Braai tongs
  • Braai grid
  • travel mugs
  • cutting board
  • Kelly kettle - this is soooo cool, it's a kettle that boils water in minutes by lighting a fire in the base.

• Night box
  • Sleeping bags
  • hot water bottle
  • 5 tog down duvet - for camping in Europe this will live in the tent
  • 2 x head lights (aka doos lig)

• Food and supplies

We've decided not to carry too much food from the UK, as we prefer to buy fresh food locally. We have some dried food and a few bits to make some simple meals. We have taken loads of spices and dried herbs to add to the flavour of the meals we prepare. They have all been decanted into small ziplock bags and labeled. Don is a great cook so, we always eat very well when we camp.

We have taken a full set of toiletries etc that should last us for the first few months.

• Fun and entertainment
  • camping shower
  • books
  • chess
  • travel scrabble
  • travel battle ships
  • travel backgammon 
  • hammock
  • maps
  • mozzie net
  • playing cards
  • rope - for the hammock
  • sewing kit
  • fishing rod - Don is keen to catch a Nile Perch on our trip
  • fishing box with lures etc

• Clothes

Packing for winter and summer is not easy. We have really been good about packing the bare minimum and packing clothes that have many uses. The plan is to wear layers during the bitterly cold parts so the same clothes can be worn in the warmer climates - just less of them. We have also sent a bag of new summer clothes that will meet us in Tofo, as our travel gear will be worn through by then!

• 5 x Long sleeve T-shirts
• 8 x Short sleeve T-shirts
• Jeans
• Utility trousers
• 3 pairs shorts
• cozzie
• 3-in-1 jacket with removable fleece liner
• sun hat
• beanie
• hiking socks
• undies
• rain poncho
• 3 x kikoys - to be used as a beach towel, sarong, picnic blanket, table cloth
• giant travel towel

 

• Shoes

• Crocs
• slops
• tekkies (aka trainers :)
• wellington boots
• hiking boots

 

• Fuel and water
  • 5 x 20 ltr jerry cans
  • 2 x 20 ltr water jerry cans
  • 1 x 20 ltr black water can for our shower - we will fill it with water and strap it to the roof to heat up and hopefully will have a warm shower at night

• Tent

This has also been a huge topic of debate between us. We have settled for an Ezee-awn 1.4 x 2.4 rooftop tent. We have bought and fitted the tent. Don worked hard to fit the tent as close to the roof of the car as possible to maintain a low centre of gravity. (lol;)