Who are we?
We are Toby, Lex and Oli from West Sussex in England and of course not forgetting the most important member of the group.........our trusty Toyota LandCruiser HJ60.
Toby and I are both in our mid 30s, we have been together for over 10 years and both love the outdoors and travel. Toby has already done an overland trip to Africa (when he was 20) driving from Sussex to Durban in a Series III Landie with his mate Nick. I went the other way and did Australia and New Zealand but have also done a few African countries. The idea of our overland trip originally came about after our honeymoon where we hired a fully prepared Toyota Hi-lux and drove around South Africa and Mozambique.
Our last trip to Africa was in 2002 when we went to visit our friend Tim who was teaching at an International school in Morogoro, Tanzania and in July Tim & Becca will be coming out to Tanzania to join us for more adventures.
A whole different adventure started for us in February 2003 when Oliver was born and we decided that if we were going to do our overland trip it really had to be before Oli starts school in September.
Oli, who was 4 in Feburary has never been to Africa but is looking forward to his first African adventure in "the big car" and wants to stroke a Leopard and Crocodile........hhmmm could be an interesting trip!!!!
What's the plan?
Our adventure starts on 25 April 2007 when we fly to Windhoek, Namibia. The Cruiser will be shipped from Sussex to Walvis Bay where we will collect her and go on our merry way. Our trip will last for 15 weeks and will take us from Namibia, to Botswana, to Zambia, to Malawi and finally to Tanzania before flying home to blighty in August 2007.
Why are we doing this?
We had been talking about taking a sabbatical since our honeymoon in 2001 and when my father passed away in 2005 it made us realise that life is too short and precious to let it pass you by without living your dreams. We have both been to Africa on numerous occasions but since Oli was born we haven't had the chance to go back and have missed it greatly. We also think it will be a fantastic experience for Oli and for us as a family, so here we are.
We would just like to say a big thankyou to everyone who has helped us get to this stage and helped us to make one of our dreams a reality.
So, let the countdown begin.