Ah yes, the great C.W. McCall song “Convoy“.

Well I haven’t quite got myself an (LDV) Convoy yet but I certainly have a clearer idea about what I am going to go for. And no, I haven’t got a “thousand screamin’ trucks” in a convoy either – Rubber Ducky anyone?

After my post a few days ago on a good piece of music I have decided to direct you all off to another lovely piece of music, this time a bit more upbeat and comes from my love of Samba, why yes blog readers I am also a talent (lacking) musician – and play with the wonderfully colourful and incredibly noisy Bloco Fogo.

So here is today’s music suggestion – a bit of sunshine direct to your PC or Mac or phone or whatever; Daniella Mercury – Nobre Vagabundo, foot tapping, chair rocking, smile enthusing fun all in 4 minutes. I have now learnt the wonderful skill of embedding videos – tis simple really, so here it is below, click play and listen to it whilst you read if you wish.

I spent most of today dashing about through Kent, Sussex, Essex and London looking for the now elusive LDV Convoy of my dreams (yes – I now dream of hi-roof, long wheel base vans, I’m also single – I make no connection between the two.)

Well I have made a great discovery dearest readers…

This is the discovery that you can actually turn a relatively new and brightly coloured van into a war ravaged wreck in just 4 years.

How? I hear you ask – well the answer is simple, hand it to our dearly beloved Royal Mail. I honestly had no idea that you could seemingly drag a van around on its side and that it would survive, nor did I realise that there were just that many poles, posts and walls to hit – and that they came in so many different shapes and heights, all perfectly moulded into the side of one van! Impressive.

Most LDV Convoys come from fleets, one of the reasons why they are so cheap, there are several major fleets out there and by far the best I have found so far are ex-Anglian Windows vans.

Although the insides of them are a bit tired out they are generally OK and I am hoping that my theory – the one that states that they must have been driven slightly more carefully because they had glass in them – will hold up before, during and after 6000 miles trekking around Europe and Scandinavia.

So I have pretty much settled upon one van in particular… It has the newer Ford Dura-Torque engine in it and is the more reliable than the “banana engined” predecessor.

So there we go readers. This is what I have been up to today. Tomorrow promises a few secret projects and this blog should be available on overlandwannabe.co.uk tomorrow as well thanks to ITSimple.co.uk. Simply awesome!

Also – a bit of an aside, what daily things do you come across that you wish were designed better? My sister has a design project on and needs some inspiration. Comments welcome as always.

Happy Travelling
Overland Si

Insurance, Campervan Conversion, Planning and Budgets!

Short post today folks. I am suffering from information overload at the moment so just trying to grab some “brainspace” and unplug myself from the laptop for an evening!

As is normal here is where I say please leave a comment, even if just to say Hi - it’s nice getting to know you all. I am slowly getting round to replying everyone.

Well I have had a fun day of talking to insurance companies. And actually it has been a lot better than I expected

Bonus points to Nick @ Herts Insurance today for explaining everything simply and giving me loads of advice and options. I’m going to go for 3rd party fire and theft, purely for budget reasons!

Bit of a roundup and scary list below

• I must re-register the van as a campervan, for both insurance and other legal reasons
• The van must be valued at more than £2,000 for it to be insured by Herts Insurance
• Fitting the van with a gas supply is just asking for trouble!
• My brain hurts
• I have only 10 working days left
• I need to sell my current van
• I need to buy the LDV van
• I need to plan some sort of route
• I need to book a ferry crossing
• Also need to plan the layout of the van and “spec” it up
• My brain hurts
• Get travel insurance
• Oh and need to price the conversion of the van as well
• Need to get some writing done, see if I can get some query letters off to publishers
• Get something done for MatadorTravel – they are offering some reasonably articles.
• Budget, Budget, Budget
• Sleep
• Eat
• Stop brain pain

Despite that list I am still remarkebly excited and upbeat. I have just come up against my own biggest flaw – organisation.

To put it into perspective – spare a thought for all those in Australia right now.

Picture below is for the dreamers of us out there, to all travellers, the world over.

From Skiing

Me out – Happy Travelling guys and gals.
Overland Si

Evening all – how are ya?

Well I’ll admit to being extremely lazy and lacklustre over the weekend and you all have permission to kick one up the behind to get meself moving again!

As you may have seen from the short post (late) last night, I have had an issue with my own car, namely that 5th gear has “fallen off” – literally, no word of a lie, the nut came off in the gearbox and off it came. Unfortunately it also jammed. Leading to a death defying dash across the motorway from the fast lane to the hard shoulder. My thanks to the truck drivers who let me get out the way of the traffic quickly and easily.

So after a very long drive in a recovery truck (thanks for the conversation Mike, who should be checking out the blog soon!)I eventually got home and am now looking at a bill for a few hundred. Not what you want just before Christmas.

But I digress from the main point. You guys must be craving a new Overland link by now (hehe) so, without further ado here it is:

http://www.doyoutravel.com/blogs/tourleader/

A blog all about some guy becoming an Overland Driver. Hmmm. Well thats me out of business then. Thanks for reading. Bye…….

(oh alright then I’ll keep going, catch me again tomorrow)

Happy Travellin’
Overland Si