Road2Recovery logistics
This section of the website is designed to aid those who may come after us and hopefully will make their lives a little easier than our have been in the run up to this trip. Remember these were just our findings at the time and you may find that, on investigation, things have changed a little:
Insurance
We purchased Hercules with six months to go until we left. This meant that during the first year of insurance we would be spending six months of it out of the country. On investigation we could not find a company that could cover us for UK, Europe and the balance of the countries we would visit, so we had to look at separate policies. We found that with most companies in order to get European cover with them you had to have your UK cover with them as well. A number of companies offered a UK/Europe cover but this only allowed for 30 days at a time in Europe so obviously this was not suitable for our needs. We eventually settled for a policy through Suretearm Direct (0870 20 20 230 or www.sureterm.com) who gave us a year fully comprehensive UK cover with unlimited European cover included for Adrian and I for £370. When we cancel the policy at the end of September when we expect to leave Europe we will receive a refund minus a cancellation fee.
For cover for the balance of the countries that we wish to visit we only found one company who could offer us any kind of cover. Campbell Irvine (020 7937 6981) could offer us vehicle damage, fire and theft damage only. This cover is purely for the vehicle only, not the contents, but at least we are covered from our side if we are in an accident or have the car stolen, I guess it is up to us to make sure that the valuable contents are kept as safe as possible by always carrying what we can on our person using our money belts (not sure where the laptop would fit in there). This cover will cost us about £650 for 12 months. For third party cover Campbell Irvine told us that we would be sold this at some of the borders by the border officials, cost would vary but should be no more than $50 a country for which we would be given a piece of paper and the official would probably pocket the money themselves. However we could at least produce an official stamped piece of paper in the event of an accident. Not the most satisfactory solution but the only one on offer it would seem.
Carnet
Phone the RAC Travel Research department
on 01454 208000 and speak to a man
called Paul Gowen. He was a absolute
fountain of knowledge as he has been helping people with Carnets for a number
of years now. One of the main things
that he told us is that you cannot expect to apply for a Carnet at the very
last minute or while on your trip as it does take at least one month to
process.
The ‘Carnet de Passage’ is like a
passport for the car, it is a way of ensuring we do not sell the car in any of
the countries we are going to. If we do
sell it or abandon it we are liable for about 500% the value of the car so I
guess we will be guarding it with our lives.
We are thinking we might sell it in Australia but we must import it
properly into Oz for this to be possible.
There are two ways in which you can
cover your Carnet. One is through a
bank guarantee and the other is through Insurance that the RAC can provide us
with. At present we still need to look
into the bank option but as we can do nothing until we have the vehicle we will
leave it until then. The insurance
route means that we have to pay 10% of the Carnet. So if we were to buy a vehicle for £5000 then our Carnet would be
£25,000 making our insurance payout £2,500.
50% of this insurance payout is refundable when the vehicle returns to
the UK.
Our Carnet is so high because of the
countries that we plan to visit. If we
were to renew it for another year when we are in Australia for instance then
our Carnet would be just 150% the value of the vehicle, so £7,500 so our
insurance would be just £750………a hell of a lot cheaper than the first year.
Buying your vehicle
o Check autotrader.co.uk daily and on a National basis asking it to show at least 200 results.
o Write to second hand dealers for your desired vehicle saying exactly what your requirements are for a vehicle – they might not have anything at the time you write to them but you can be sure if something matching your requirements comes in you will be one of their first calls.
o If you are talking to anyone about your trip make sure they know you are looking to buy whatever your chosen vehicle is, they may know someone, who knows someone etc etc.
o ALWAYS get an RAC check before buying your car. If we hadn’t done this we could have ended up with a right shocker instead of the sound vehicle we have got now.
o If you buying a Land Rover ask when the CAM belt was last changed. These should be done every 30,000 miles and it is a costly job – if it is due to be done you can be fairly sure you are looking at at least £400 to do this.
o Ask what the vehicle has been used for before – you don’t want a vehicle that has been flogged to death off roading.
o Try and get a vehicle that has under 100,000 miles on the clock – the drive to Sydney is at least 25,000 miles so you will be adding at least that before you even think about selling the car. Higher mileage cars are harder to sell.
o Some kind of service history is preferable – you need to know that the car has been looked after before you had it.
o Always insist on driving the car, if they won’t let you (a man selling one of the cars we looked at would not let us drive it even though we asked) then just walk away – they are trying to hide something
o Even if, like us, you really don’t have very much mechanical knowledge, you can look out for things like excess oil leaking from underneath or on the engine
o Stand behind the car and get someone to start it up. It should blow out black smoke for a couple of seconds and then it should calm right down, if it carries on chucking out thick black smoke or the smoke is blue then there is something wrong with the engine. It may not be major but it is a question to ask the RAC person if you have it RAC checked.
Modifications to your car
It is obviously down to personal preference but we have or are getting the following:
o Winch – for those sticky situations were you get stuck
o Snorkel – to protect the engine when driving through deep water or through sand
o Bash plates – these go under the engine at the front of the car and protect if you should for instance run into a tree stump
o Roof rack – for obvious reason and it is also where the roof tent goes
o Roof tent – don’t think we really need to explain that one
o Extra fuel tank – some places do not have a great deal of petrol stations and we will be covering great distances so we need to sure we have enough petrol
o Extra water tank – the jury is still out on this one, we are trying to decide whether to go down this route or just have a lot of jerry cans or water bags
o Security grills on side and back windows and tinting – better safe than sorry
o Alarm and immobiliser – security reasons
o Decent speakers and stereo system – it is a long journey
o Dashboard fan – there is no air conditioning and we need every bit of help we can get staying cool
o Cubby boxes and storage boxes in the back – somewhere to put all the stuff we have to take.
o Material seat covers – Hercules has plastic seats – not the best for bare legs on a boiling hot day
o Facility for some kind of sleeping arrangement in the car – if we don’t feel particularly safe and we cannot find a room in a hotel then we will sleep in the back of Hercules instead of in the roof tent
Recommended reading
o Any Rough Guide or Lonely Planet books for the countries you are visiting (Lonely Planet do Iran and Pakistan, Rough Guide don’t, Lonely Planet also do a book called Istanbul to Katmandu which covers Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Northern India and Nepal and is excellent)
o The Travellers Handbook by Wexus
o Vehicle Dependent Expedition Guide by Tom Sheppard
o Rough Guide – First time around the world
o Caravan Europe 1
o Caravan Europe 2 – both are excellent sources of information about driving through most European countries and good campsites to stay at on your way through
Recommended websites
o www.firstcontact.co.uk - vaccination advice
o
www.embassyworld.co.uk
- UK embassy information for around the world
o
www.rgs.org - Royal
Geographical Society, they have an Expedition Advisory Centre online
o
www.lonelyplanet.com
- general travel advice and publications
o
www.roughguide.com
- general travel advice and publications
o
www.ukpa.gov.uk -
passport office
o
www.driveforlife.ie
- other overlanders
o
www.expedition4x4.com
- other overlanders
o
www.landyman.co.uk
- other overlanders
o
www.ihana.com -
other overlanders
o
www.roamingyak.org
- other overlanders
There really are too many websites to mention here. The best thing to do is to buy a specialist magazine for the type of vehicle you want to purchase and look at adverts for website listings.
Setting up your expedition website and email addresses
1. First think of a name for your website, this is known as a domain name.
2. Check that the name is not already in use. You can do this at www.uk2.net.
3. You need to find a company to host your website known as domain hosting. There are many hosts out there, but we used www.helpwithmy.com due to their competitive rates and their friendly fast and reliable service. Generally your hosts will purchase the domain name on your behalf.
4. If you need email addresses using your domain name, this can be sorted out through you domain hosts.
5. Next is website construction. Luckily I have experience in writing websites, but if you don't, you can either learn. The scripting language used to create basic websites is not that difficult to learn. There are applications that you can use to make your job a lot easier e.g. Dreamweaver of Microsoft Frontpage. Alterntively you can go to a website design company, e.g. www.helpwithmy.com. You can give them the ideas for what you want from your site, and they'll do the rest, creating a professional looking website in no time at all.
6. After this all you've got to do, is to get people to look at your site! Put links at the bottom of emails and plug it when you can!
Restrictions
At the time of writing we could not drive into Burma, would have a great deal of difficulty driving into China (and so have decided not to) and cannot take a right hand drive vehicle into Vietnam. We have concerns about Iran and Pakistan but are holding off making any decisions until nearer the trip.
Injections
If it is a while since you have had to have a lot of injections then you may, like we did, think that you can still get them free from your doctors……wrong. You can’t and they are expensive. Some are still free like tetanus, typhoid and polio from your doctors (not all doctors do these free though) but that is about it. We are having the following injections:
Tetanus & Diphtheria
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B
Meningitis A & C
Polio
Typhoid
Yellow Fever
Japanese B
Rabies
Many of these require up to three injections so prepare to feel like a pin cushion.
The cheapest place we found was a travel clinic in West London called 1st Contact Travel Clinic (0800 039 3073). Their prices are listed below. The only one not listed is Japanese B and that is £35:
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10
years |
£
10 |
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Long
Term |
£
20 - 37 |
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10-20
years |
£
45 |
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10
years |
£
20 |
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1
year |
£
15 |
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3
years |
£
15 |
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10
years |
£
7 |
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1-2
years |
£
15 |
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10
years |
£
7 |
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3
years |
£
20 |
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Long
Term |
£
57 |
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10
years |
£
40 |
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