Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Thérèse-Marie Becker on Completing the Last Overland, Lessons in Leadership, and Finding Adventure

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Thérèse-Marie Becker on Completing the Last Overland, Lessons in Leadership, and Finding Adventure · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: host today, Ashley Jordano, and I am podcasting in remotely
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: from Morocco in my Overland Exploor Vehicles camper and very
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: close to the dunes. I'm very excited for my guest
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: today as ter Marie Becker, and she is joining me
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: from Belgium.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Actually almost it starts with the same letter, but we're
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: in Bulgaria for this time.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: Awesome.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I feel like we've we've talked and you've been in
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: like close to London and then in Belgium and yeah,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: all over the place, which is super fun. So thank
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today for on the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal podcast. I'm really excited to chat with you
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: today on International Women's Day about your travels with the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Last Overland and that expedition and your role and also
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: just your background and history and how it all came
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: to be for you in the industry.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: So welcome, Thank you, Ashley. I'm very happy to be
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: with you. I guess that it's great at two women
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: who travel extensively get to have a chat and share
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: it with the world. Thank you for having me.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Awesome, So tell me a little bit about your background
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: getting into the overland industry. I believe I heard somewhere
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: that you learn to drive on a very specific kind
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of vehicle.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Yes, I did, you heard that right?
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: I learned to drive in the Belgian countryside Indiaden on
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: an ex military truck, so those old trucks that are
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: quite high to the ground and very rustic, I would say,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: And I learned to drive on that.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: And on tractors.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: So that was the very first experience I had with
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: motorized vehicles in the mud, because before that it was.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So was your family Did you live in a in
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a more rural like farm area, or did your parents
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: have an interest in vehicle, old vehicles or how did
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: how did that come to me?
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: So, as you said correctly, I'm originally from Belgium, from
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: the Ardenne. So if you imagine Belgium, it's on the
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: southern part of the country, and the arden is known
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: in the US, for example, for the role it's play
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: during the Second World War. So you have to imagine
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: it's beautiful, green, lush, green areas and hills and you've
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: got beautiful little farms everywhere.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: And I grew up in that environment.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: We always had horses, and we had a couple of
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: cattle as well, a little bit of cattle as well,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: which was really nice. And so it was more out
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: of practicality than appreciation for vehicles that my parents and
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: my grandparents had that kind of vehicles on the property.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: So it was that little green ex army truck was
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: used to move the wood when we were cutting the
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: wood on the property, and the tractors were just to
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: work on the land and be able to take care
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: of the horse stables summer and winter. So my parents
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: never really were into old cars or old vehicles. It
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: was more practicality. Before before looks, I would say.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, those vehicles are very, very functional, and what
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: an interesting way to start learning to drive.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: You know, those mechanics are.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So much simpler than they are now, and just having
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: that basic understanding of how vehicle works is probably really
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: helpful for you.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: I mean it is.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: But the fun thing is that I only learned mechanics
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, So I learned to drive on
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: those vehicles. Because well, when you when you grew up
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: on a farm or on a small, small family farm,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: you always help brands. So everyone has got its own task.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Everyone has good its own things to do on the property,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: and so very quickly.
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: Children learn to drive on those.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Vehicles, whether it was tructors or whether it was cars
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: and trucks or quads. And so what happened is that
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: I learned to drive not really quite tall enough to
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: be able to reach the pedals and the steering wheel.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: On the other hand, I learned the island mechanics out
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: of necessity because when I started to buy land rovers,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: no garage could actually help me out because I was
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: driving at p thirty eight and it's not exactly the
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: most popular vehicle in the in the countryside in the
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: southwest of France.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Got you okay?
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So did you come into driving land rovers out of
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: an interest or was it also out of a necessity
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: like kind of using them as if so.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: The land River's story started before me knowing it was
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: going to start. I my dad always liked jeeps, who
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: controversial for a land rover owner, and so he was
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: always pointing out special vehicles, so that whether there would
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: be Jeeps or Series one or the Belgian the Belgian
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: land River, which is the Minerva, and so he would
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: always point them out and so on. Two occasions I
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: actually had the opportunity to drive a land Rover in
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: off roading situation, in off roading situation, but I had
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: absolutely no no understanding of the of the brand. I
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: didn't know the heritage that came with land Rover, and
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I didn't even know how far back in time the
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: story of land Rover was going. And so long story short,
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: the I found the shape of those vehicles fantastic without
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: actually knowing much about it, because I never really was
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: in t cars. I just thought that it was a
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: practically utilitarian vehicle. And in after the last overland I
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: bought my first land Rover because I had been overlanding
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: in Europe with campers van camper events before, but before
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: the last turbulent, I was already seeing the limit of
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: a proper propulsion vehicle, and so I wanted to move
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: to an off roading vehicle or actually more four wheel
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: drive vehicle. And what happened is that the camper van
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: were really fun.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: I have owned.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Four or five in a very short amount of time
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: because I was driving so much with them and just
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: every single time upgrading or adapting them.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: To my knees. And so.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: In twenty twenty one, I bought the P thirty eight.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: I loved the look of the car, and I was
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: looking for a land rover that would allow me to
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: actually do a lot of driving, both on road and
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: off road. Is on an average every year I drive
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: two hundred thousand kilometers without without expedition, without including expeditions
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: or overlanding or projects on the road. So yeah, it's
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: a bit of a fun one to start with a
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: B thirty eight, as it's considered the least reliable land
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: rover of all time. But it gives your steep learning
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: curves when it comes to mechanics.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Definitely. Wow, that's a lot of driving.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: It is, it is, But Europe is a fantastic places,
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, tell me a little bit more about the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: trips that you were doing in your van prior to
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: your lang robad trips.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: So the van's journeys started because I started to do
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: a lot of climbing. So in I started to climb
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: quite extensively around the age of nineteen yet nineteen twenty
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: years old, and so I would actually start to travel
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: for the sake of climbing. And one of yeah, it's
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: a lot of fun, but one of the problem I
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: was encountering is that as much as I loved climbing
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: and I loved going on to those places, I would
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: always have to book a place to stay at, whether
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: it was a hotel room or a B and B.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: And I find it quite restrictive because either it would
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: take me quite a lot of time in the morning
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: to get to the crack to go climbing, So I
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: would lose one, two or three hours just to get
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: to the crack. That's without taking into accounts the approach
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: march that you would do to go all the way
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: to the rocks, and that's without taking into accounts the
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: amount of time you need to get prepared. Wombed up
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: very quickly. I was losing half of the day just
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: to get to the crack and enjoy my climbing time.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: So I started to think about an option for traveling
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: and lodging and resting and cooking in the same place
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: without having the hustle of having to book a facility
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: or a hotel room. And that's how the van van
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: id came along. I was absolutely inexperienced in that. So
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: the first car or vehicle I bought was my very
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: first little campra van, which I called Mercatur after the
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: famous traveler, and it was a pusual expert from nineteen
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: ninety eight, and that little pusual expert had traveled over
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: a period of twenty years time two hundred thousand kilometer
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: in probably fifty square kilometer maximum. So when I went
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: to the garage and saw it, it was a beautiful
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: little blue blue pusial expert. I went the next day
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: and cash in hand, bought it off my trusted garage
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: in the southwest of France, brought it back home and
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: immediately ripped the back seats off the vehicle, and I
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: made some sort of bed, which I was super proud of.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Looking back onto it, I'm thinking that it was a
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: cute first attempt to a converted van and had through
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: you know, prior experience into building into moving moving objects,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: and so I did. I had the plan to go
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: to Belgium and then to go to Spain with the
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: little van, and so I make that little bed in
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: the van. I make a foldable table. I've got this huge, chunky,
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: absolutely not practical gas stove with me, and I've got
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: that enormous kettle that can boil two and a half
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: meter of tea if I want to host tea parties
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: in a two square meter.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: Space and I hit off. I get on the road.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: It's a beautiful summer day in the southwest of France,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: is so warm. I drive three hundred kilometer and then
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: there's a giant noise, metallic noise, and my van stops
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: with smoke under the bonnet. No basically, I didn't know
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: back then that it wasn't going to be too bad,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: but I had broke broken the timing belt, so that
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: little van that had never left the area where it
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: was coming from on its first trip, it's three hundred
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: kilometer and directly go to the garage instead of actually
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: going all the way to Belgium, which was another seven
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: hundred kilometers from everywhere.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: So that was my first experience.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Or let's say, adventure when it came to being in
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: contact with mechanics that were a bit more simple than
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: or close to me, I would say then structure mechanics.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: I was altoly terrified because I thought that I had
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: broken my just newly acquired van. Of course I was
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: on the phone crying with my dad. My dad was like, well,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: you've got an insurance, You're fine. Just called the garage
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: and the recovery is going to come and help you out.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Luckily it was just a timing belt problem, but that's
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: that's how it all started, and so I went. When
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: that was fixed, I basically went everywhere in Europe with
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: that little van. It started off in Spain.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: I did a.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Couple of ski season with it in the Alps, so
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I'm saying a couple of ski seasons, but it's actually
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: a couple of months during two ski seasons in the Helps. Obviously,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: van was not insulated. I had no concept of insallation
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: for a vehicle, so it was freezing cold, but a
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: lot of fun. And a year after later, I decided
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: that it was actually too small because I was spending
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: more time on the road in the van, working from
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: physically anywhere to yeah, actually not having enough space in
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: the vehicle. So I sold it to my best friend
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Geraldine because she wanted to have a van, and I
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: bought a bigger vehicle.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Excellent, that's great. What were you doing for work at
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: that time?
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Online still as today, so digital marketing consulting and digital
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: marketing strategy and development. So back then it was a
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: little bit less evolved, i would say, or less developed
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: of a service as it is now, because you're talking about.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: This was ten years ago.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: But yeah, digital marketing and digital marketing consulting. So I
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: would help brands navigate the online space to generate sales
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: or brand awness or all of the above. And I
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: would do that from anywhere I could have an Internet connection,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: which was a lot of fun.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: That freedom to be able to move where you want
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: and obviously climb and work at the same time, fantastic combination.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: It is great. It is great.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: The climb. The climbing was a lot of fun. The
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: fact that I could go to the Crack Climb a
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: couple of hours and then during the rest rest time
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: between climbs get some work done on the laptop and
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: having freedom of thought and free of movement is is
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: a freedom I really wish to everybody.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Your position.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: While you were working on the road, that position that
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: you have, is that what led you into the last
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: overland project.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Well, the last twove land projects came in I believe.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Seven six years after I had started my professional activity,
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: and it started off because a friend of Alex Beskoby
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: happened to be a friend of mine as well. Charlie
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Smith contacted me one day and said, hey, there is
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: this project. I don't know how what if it's going
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: to go through or not, but they actually are needing
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: a person like you on on on on this project.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: And I had no clue what he was talking about.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: He was telling me about this old car and old
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: landrover going from Singapore to London with an old man.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Like the story didn't make much sense when Charlie was
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: telling me about it, but I thought it was crazy
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: enough to be.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: Interesting, and so I don't know.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it was innocent stupidity or just
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: plain motivation, but it was.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: It was a very.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: It was a very fun connection moment because what happened
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: is that Charlie told me that story, asked me if
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: I was interested. I said, yes, why not? Just you know,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: put me in touch with Alex Bescobe and Marcus and
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: you know, let's have a chat and let's see what
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: we can do, because why not. And we had a
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: chat with Alex a couple of days later, I think,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: first a couple of email exchange and then oh, yeah,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: that's actually a good story. And then so after a
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: couple of email exchange, we decided to get on a
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: call to actually get a discussion going meet up because
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I wasn't in London back then, and so the first
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: time I was supposed to meet Marcus and Alex Beska
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Bee on a video call, I had been renovating a
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: bathroom in the southwest of France and I was doing
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: tiling job, well actually detailing job, and it's and I
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: managed to cut my.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Finger really really badly.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: But what happened is that I didn't want to go
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: to the emergency room because I didn't believe it.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: Was that bad.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: My finger was just not hanging from my hand, so
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: it wasn't that bad. And I was also getting really
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: short on time because we were getting closer to the
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: time of the appointment with Alex and Marcus, and so
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: I had wrapped up my finger with some cotton pad
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: that I had around, and I was getting ready for
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: the appointment, and my mother had seen me and she's like,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: are you all right because you look like you were
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: going to fade.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: It was like, yeah, I've got this, no problem.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: So get on the call with Alex and Marcus, and
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: before they can say even anything or hello to me,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: I'm giving a huge disclaimer and I'm saying, look, I
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: know this is totally not professional or it's not actually
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: you know what you were would be expecting as a
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: first call. But I have just got my finger really
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: badly and there's a there's a big possibility of me
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: fainting during this call.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: And that's how we met. That's how we actually met
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: for the first time. Luckily I didn't faint. The call
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: went through, it was it was great fun.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: They are great people to talk to, have a lot
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: of stories to tell, and so the.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Call went on. Decided to have a think about it.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: And eighteen hours later we had agreed on working together.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: So it just took basically one night of sleep and
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: a little bit to decide.
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: That I would get on as a on the road
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: storyteller and digital wizard.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Fantastic.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So if the Overland Journal podcast listeners aren't familiar with
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the story of the Last Overland or I guess the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: First Overland, Yeah, what's a quick I guess kind of
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: summary of those two, then the connection between them absolutely.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: So my understanding is that the first Overland was an
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Oxford Cambridge expedition from London to Singapore. I don't remember
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the year, you might though, as a group of gents
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: from Oxford and Cambridge drove. Those are series one man rovers.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: You were speed on Ashley, you were spot and so
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: it was a there were two series one Land River
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: and the reason why they're called Oxford and Cambridge is
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: because six young men from Oxford and Cambridge decided to
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: ask uh the Rover Company for a sponsorship to basically
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: support them to try and reach the furthest point overland
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: on Earth, leaving from London and so it was in
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: nineteen fifty four and so the team of six gentlemen
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: left London from the Grenadie Pub in the heart of London.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: It's an absolutely fantastic pub with probably the best beef
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Wellington you can eat in London.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: It's yes.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Actually, if any one of you is in London, go
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: to the Grandier Pub and have beef Wellington. And they
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: also have got guinness on top that is actually tasting
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: like guinness. So if you're looking for a treats to
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: go there. And what they did is that they asked
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: the Rover Company for sponsorship partnership basically in to support
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: their expedition. And these six gentlemen had not much of
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: the prior experience of being on the road for a
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: very long time. But they were formidably well organized and
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: you can read all of that in Jim's book The
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: First Overland And they took off in nineteen fifty four
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: and came back, so they managed to reach Singapore, which
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: had ever been achieved before.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: And then they drove back.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: A huge quite a quite a quite a long distance
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: from Singapore. And then Oxford and Cambridge were used for
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: other expeditions and then they actually were well. Cambridge crashed
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: sadly enough on one of the expeditions, so it's never
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: been found. And Oxford was sent to Saint Helena to
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: be a I think it was called some sort of
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: research research vehicle. So it was a vehicle that was
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: used on the island by English scientists to do a
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: ornithology expedition. So they were doing a research researching year
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: in Saint Helena and as a gift to their guide,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: the English researchers decided to give to land rover and
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: one of them was Oxford. That's how it arrived in
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: the middle of the ocean on a small island, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: so that guy actually brought Oxford from Saint Helena to
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Ascension Island where it's remained in his yard for a
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: long time, and he was using the other land rover
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: because it was a bit more new than Oxford. And
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: after that Oxford became a chicken coop and almost got
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: turned into a road. So Oxford is coming from from
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: you know, from from quite a quite a long time.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: She almost she almost disappeared.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like that is such a common story
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: for a lot of these old land rovers. You know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I was this land river has been
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: in a barn for like thirty forty fifty years and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden somebody's found it and you know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: it goes off on another amazing trip.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Or I know that.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Grizzly Torque, the land rover that was driven by the
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: two Canadians. Uh all, I'd be able to believe that
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was around the world.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: They that that vehicle has quite the legacy.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And one of the gentlemen that traveled in it, Robert Bateman,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: as an very famous artist in Canada, and he had
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: painted these scenes from all of the countries that he
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: had visited on the side of the land rover, and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: he ended up redoing all the paintings or refurbishing the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: paintings along the side.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: So I love these.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: These stories of these land rivers coming back to life
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and running and it's just fascinating to me. I love
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: it so but this one in particular, uh has you know,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: lived on an island for a really long time and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: then Alex Bascubee and crew has this idea put together
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the last overland and so.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: What does that like, what does that encompass?
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Well, you're touching on something super interesting because, as you say,
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: it was on this island for such a long time.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: And what we need to mention is how Tim had
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: actually written what is today considered the first Bible of overlanding,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: which is the first overland his book about his journey
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: with his five other friends from London to Singapore. Because
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: his book is more of a adventure how to book
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: done a than a book that you would buy in
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: a train station to read to read in the train,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: because he has packed all these pages with extremely helpful, quirky,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: funny information that today's day are still being used by
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: many of the landers. And so a lot of people
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: have read his book over the years. Because we were
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: talking about that expedition to part to actually happened in
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: nineteen fifty four. Tim Brooks wrote his book in I
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: think that needs to be double check, but it was
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: nineteen fifty six or nineteen fifty seven, and to this
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: day his book has been has been sold. So a
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: lot of people were looking for Oxford, were wanting to
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: one day hopefully recreate this impressive journey that they managed
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: to pull off in nineteen fifty four. And it's actually
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: took a very smart and driven gentlemen as Alex Bescoby
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: to be able to find well find Tim and also
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: be in contact with Adam Bennett, who is actually the
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: man who managed to bring Oxford back. And Adam Bennett
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: is the person who made who actually managed to convince
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: the owner of Oxford to put her in a container
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: and fly her to York. It's crazy when we think
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: about it, because that little Series one has been in
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: her poorest state of existence for many, many years before
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: actually knowing another glory simply because yes, everyone would have
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: loved to see her earlier on the continent or at
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: least in the UK, but no one had the drive
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: of the drive and the NoHo of Adam Bennett to
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: actually bring it back, to get it brought back to
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: the UK and then it took Marcus Islander and alex
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Escovi to put that impressive expedition together. It was one
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: very long year of preparation.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what the length of the last Overlan expedition, like
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: how many how long was that on the road? How
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: many do you know how many days it was because
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: you were on were you on the whole trip or
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a section of the trip?
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: I was on the entire journey, but the time where
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: the team went to Turkmenistan. That's another very interesting quirky
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: story of the last Aveland o Our expedition. Because so
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: the expedition actually lasted, to answer your first question, one
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: hundred and eleven days, over twenty three countries and nineteen
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: thousand kilometers, and so.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: A difficult logistical feat, I would say for Marcus, because
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: he was dealing with local regulation in every single country
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: as you know that you want to drive through their
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: specific regulation, specifically outside of Europe actually whether you need
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: a local insurance or specific accompany accompaniment from local guides.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: So Marcus had to deal with that first, and then
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: the second thing that he had to deal with was
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: a team of people from many different nationalities. Sonat Marcus
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: so Nat which is Tim Slesser grandson, Marcus Aleander and
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Alex Besko bere are or all the three of them
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: are from England. Then you had Leopold who is the
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: director and photograph and filmmaker who is from France. David
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Israeli is from America. We had Larry Leon from Singapore,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: we had doctor Still from Malaysia, and you had me
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: from Belgium. So we are dealing with eight, well five
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: completely different passports with obviously a whole completely different visa
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: situation for every one of us. So heads offt to
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Marcus for organizing all of that. And so what happened
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: is that I actually didn't know I was going to
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: be on the expedition because when I agreed on working
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: with Alex Pescope and Marcus Allander on this project, it
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: was initially decided that I would be working from anywhere
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: I would have a good Internet connection wherever my base
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: wasn't at the time that was the SOTHS to France.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: So I actually.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Learned that I would be on the journey the I
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: think it was about a month before leaving, because I
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: had to pack my bags and go to London for
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: twelve days or ten days, and then I had to
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: be with the team, and then I had to be
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: in Singapore with the team as well for the flag
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: of But I had no clue I was actually going
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: to be on the expedition all the way until the end.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: So when I kissed my parents goodbye, I kissed them goodbye,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: and I asked me when I was going to come back.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: But I was incapable of giving them an answer, which
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: to this day makes me chuckle.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: To be honest, yeah, absolutely, You're like, well, how much
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: do I pack? And what kind of conditions am I
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: going to be? Probably a lot of different weather, big
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: range in temperature, I'm assuming.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I like your practical brain. I like your your practical
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: brain actually because I can hear you've been traveling a lot.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: How many sets of contact ones? Is what I have
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: to brain for this time period that I don't know
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: how to be gone for about my favorite cap stick?
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Like how many favorite chasticks do I need to bring
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: with me? All these important things?
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: Right, they are important things.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: What happened is that I when when you climb a lot,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: and when you decide to travel a lot by road
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: and you never really know when you return date, is
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: you learn to pack what will be of essence based
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: on your habits on the roads or based on your activities.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: So that was actually quite nice that I had a
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: couple of years of experience behind my back regarding that,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: because when you when you go climbing for a couple
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: of days in the mountains and you go camping, you
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: only have got what you can carry with you, and
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: if you haven't packed it, you don't have it. It's
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: as simple as that. And if you've packed it, you
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: need to be able to carry it. So I had
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: been thinking because in markets had told me, look, do
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: your visas for these locations, just in case. So that
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: was when we were in Singapore. I didn't know I
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: had to do my a couple of paperwork for uh well,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: just to be in Singapore. That was the first, the
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: first thing. And they told me just pack for any
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: situation and any weather, which obviously is absolutely not a
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: practical information because any situation, any weather, I was not
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: sure if we were going to encounter a yetti on
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: the road or if we actually were just going to
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: be slipping pina coladas under the tropics. So I packed
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: as practically as I could think, and I had thought
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: if we are going on to be on an expedition
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: and the countries that we are crossing all have got
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: different cultures and approach regarding well regarding women. Because that's
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: another it's not a factor to factor in, is that
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: as women, we can't really travel in a free state
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: of mind, you know, just jumping and running around in
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: a cute flowery dress, because that wouldn't be respectful for
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: many many places.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: In the world.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: So I decided to go for my expedition in uniform,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: which was a of thick cotton tactical trousers because that
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: could do both in very hot weather and in very
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: cold weather. I had seven white cotton t shirt. I
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: had one black dress with me and two technical trousers,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: so one for the warmer climates and one for the
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: colder climates that I had received from a friends and sponsor,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: sund Fox. They are a company based in Turkey who
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: make fantastic technical garment, so sun Fox that actually equiped
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: me with a couple of things, and that was it.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: I would only have my super cold winter sleeping back
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: with me and the items that.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: I've listed there.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Of course, I always had a scarf with me because
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: depending on the countries that we would be in, it
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: would have been of good practice to just you know,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: cover my hair or cover my head.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: The scarf is like that classic item that I feel
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: is so helpful in so many different ways.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: And I've really been enjoying.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Your st now, Yeah, I've been really enjoying on your
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Instagram account, you're reliving the trip a little bit.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: And there was a post about.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Clothing recently, and I so appreciated that because that's something
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I always think about if you're going to all these
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: different places and being in Morocco right now, you know,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: one I wear if it's warm, like really hot, but
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: also I need to kind of cover up, Like what
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: are the best things to wear? So I always loved
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: your your your look on the photos that I saw
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: from that expedition with the you know, the collar button
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: up sure with the belt and pants and the scarf
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: and yeah, very looking cool and expedition. So it was functional,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: you know, and you're.
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: Right it was made. I'm glad that your.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Because I'm assuming you didn't have very much.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: I didn't catch the last part.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: I was gonna. I just said that you guys probably
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: didn't have very much space.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: You're right, we didn't have much space.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: What we had is we we had the instruction of
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: having wonderful bag each and one personal small bag a
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: little bit like how do you call them those airport
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: bags that.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: You can take into care.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Like a carry on.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like a carry on. So the way that I
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: had organized my gear was very simple. I had my
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: own pharmacy with me, so I wanted to make sure
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: that because I was the only the only girl on
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: the trip, I wanted to make sure that I was
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: not imposing on men a element that they would have
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: to make an effort to think about because it doesn't
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: come naturally to them. So I was making sure that
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: I think it was with me. I was making sure
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: that I had basic pharmacy to be able to take
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: care of myself on the road with all the basic
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: problems that women can encounter. And of course we had
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: doctor still on the on the journey with us, and
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: he was a human doctor as much as he was
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: a car doctor, which was great. But I believe that
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: when you are a minority in the group, and I'm
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: not talking about I'm not talking here about gender, but
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I'm really talking about number, you owe it to yourself
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: and to the to the well being of the group,
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: to actually be independent in the taking care of yourself.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: So we had each that the fell bag, I had
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: my pharmacy in it, I had my clothing, and then
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I had in total for the expedition three pair of shoes.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: So I had one formal pair of shoes, which are
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: the black heels that you've seen in probably seen in
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: a couple of the pictures where we were invited to
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: gatherings that were a bit more formal. I had my
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: leather black leather brown expedition shoes, which were good in
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: both cold and warm water. And I had a pair
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: of sandals that were chunkier than your normal cute pair
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: of flip flops to be able to if I don't know,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: you know, when you're driving a car, a crash could happen,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: you need to be able to walk away. So that's
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: the thinking I had in mind, is far items that
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: will be practical even in times of emergency.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Smart, yeah, really smart thinking. What was your experience like
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: being the only woman on that trip.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: Well, I come from a family of.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Three guys and two chicks, so it's I have got.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: Three brothers, so lucky.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Again, I had had some training prior to getting on
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: the last avalanche to be amongst men, and then when
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: you were climbing a lot and doing a lot of
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: outer activities, specifically about ten years ago, there's not many
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: women in the team, So it was not for not
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: wanting to have them on with us in outer activities.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: It's just that it wasn't widespread as it is today, and.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: So it was.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: To be honest, it was easy because there is one
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: thing that we can say very certainly about men is
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: that they have got a great practical thinking which often
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: cuts through the noise, which is.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: Make it makes.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Situations pleasant and easy to live. I believe that for
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: this specific case, everyone was quite good spirit, and the
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: fact that we were with three vehicles and often changing
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: spots was giving us the opportunity to get to know
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: each other and have a good spirit of Camaradri. The
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: other interesting thing to note that before the last avland
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: our team actually had never ever been all the eight
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: of us together. So what happened is that Alex Zka
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: bin New Leopold, David and Marcus. They then learned to
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: know not but all of us together. So Doctor still Larry, Alex, Marcus,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: not Leopold, David and I had Actually the first time
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: ever we were all together was when.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: We were in Singapore a couple of days before departure.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's super interesting. I've been in situations like that too,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: and yeah, it's it's it's kind of yeah, it's like
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: another side of the adventure, right, it is like the
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: how whatever be's like and getting to know everybody's personalities
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: and seeing, yeah it's and being able. Like you were
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: saying to you're traveling and driving and switching around, so
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: you're you kind of have an opportunity to chat with
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: each other and yeah, fun.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: You're so right.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: It's a fun expression the other side of the Avengers
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: because the we were dealing with extremely small amount of
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: space because land Rover is is specific a series one
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: is not exactly spacious, and we were also dealing with
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: a long number of days on the road, So it
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: does require humility and good, good spirited individuals to be
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: able to make it happen for one hundred and eleven
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: days in good conditions on the road, to keep you know,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: to keep keep the the smiles high and and and
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: and the spirits and in good condition because if not careful,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: it is very easy to step on each other's feet,
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: or chose simply because of how of how much proximity
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: there is.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Oh man, Okay, So I saw my first land rover,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: serious Series one land rover last year and it was
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Barbara Toys Pollyanna. So obviously I was incredibly excited. But
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: one of the things that really struck me was how
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: all it was like tiny, and the wall, like you
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: know on the doors, they're so thin. It's just like
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: you and this tiny piece of metal. And then the world, yes,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: and you guys went through some pretty hairy situations in
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: terms of like road safety. How did it feel being
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: in a vehicle that you know, it's almost like being
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: on a motorcycle with a little bit more, a tiny
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: bit more protection.
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: You're still right.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: I often, let's say, very lovingly, called Oxford a little
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: tin books because it's not much more than you have.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: You have those four walls, a tin roof, and then
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: windows that are you're not very solid either, and air
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: and rain and sand and dust seep through every.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Single crack of a land rover.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: We often say amongst land driver owners that if your
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: land rover doesn't leak oil, that means that you have
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: a problem. If it leaks oil, that means that you're good.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: You still have got oil in the engine, so it's perfect.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: We often say that landover owners they don't go fast,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: they go far and have got many friends because we
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: break down a lot, and obviously, because we all break
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: down a lot, we just happen to all open our
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: bonnets all together alongside the road and you know, pick
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: at each other's land rover parts and piece another car together.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: So the land rover is definitely a vehicle that you
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: need to to tame, and you either love them or
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: you hate them. Because, as you're saying, it is often
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: specifically Series one, Series two, Series three, demn Nova as well.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: They're often just a couple of metal sheet panels and
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: an engine that that that's about it. It makes them
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: extremely it makes them extremely practical, it makes them extremely versatile.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: It makes them.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: Almost like I like to call that legos for real men,
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: because you're actually playing with something that you're going to
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: drive after. So it's a lot of fun. We did
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: encounter a couple of situations where we were hanging on
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: to solidly the steering wheel hoping that the steering wheel
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: would stay in place. Obviously, one that comes to mind
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: is when we were in uh in India.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: India is a is a beautiful place.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: I had absolutely no experience with India prior to being
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: on the road with the last ovaland and I have
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: very quickly realized what we mean or what the reputation
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: of Indian roads is that it is chaotic, to say
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: the least. But also it's not that it's fast, it's
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: just that it's dangerous. It's hectic, it's dangerous, but it's
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: a lot of fun. And if you know how to
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: drive and how if you know your vehicle, well you're fine.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: You need to be very alert. But when we had
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: one stretch of or ride in India which was going
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: to be on an expressway, so we all got really
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: excited because we had just been doing quite a lot
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: of countryside roads, so they were the equivalents of tarmac
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: and dirt roads together with giant potholes, a lot of sand,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of dust, was warm, and so we were
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: all very much looking forward to the expressway in India.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: We all very quickly realized that the expressway was absolutely
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: not what we had expected it to be because.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: There is no.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: Concept of lanes in a single direction, so you could
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: be on the left lane and have a truck coming
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: at you opposite direction without you understanding what's even happening,
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: because there is there's enough lanes on each side to
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: actually have on one side, for example, the people who
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: go to the north, and on the other side of
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: people who go.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: To the south. So that was the first thing.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: And then the second thing that we realize is that
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: they in that portion of roads that we have been onto,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: they didn't absolutely didn't like to finish their bridges or
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: put their bridges in the right location. So let me
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: explain myself. We would be on a stretch that would
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: be a couple of kilometers long, and everything would be fine,
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: and then we would encounter a truck in the direct
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: opposite the direction, same lane as us, without lights, without
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: anything but just dust and some sort of speed and
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of weights coming at you in tiny Oxford.
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: And then you would avoid that truck smartly. But there
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: you would have on your right goats crossing the road,
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: and then you would avoid the road the goat. And
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: what's happening is that you have got just a giant
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: hole in the middle of the roads that is the
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: size of a rectangle of six meters long and three
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: meter wide because they put the bridge in the wrong place,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: so you would have to then take a super hard
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: left go on some sort of dirt junction which is
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: not a road you see that people have just been
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: there because that was the only place to drive on,
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: and you would go in the complete opposite lane of
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: where you would be going, but still in the same direction.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was crazy, It was crazy.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: It was fun. I've got fond memories of driving in India, so.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: The difficulty obviously didn't scar you enough, and the danger
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: you still got good memories, which is awesome.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: To be honest.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: The only time I have been scared is when we
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: were when when we had to we were in Nepal
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: and we were on our way to to China, and
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: we were quite tight on time because it's a very
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: strict regulation to get into Tibet and it's a very
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: strict regulation to get into China. So we were quite
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: tight on time. And I remember that they had went
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: everything went well and wrong at the same time, and
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: so at some point we would be on we had
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: to actually reach or hostel for the night. We were
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: one day before border crossing, and things were just not
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: going right, so it got done. The road was becoming
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: more and more muddy and dirty and difficult, so we
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: were not on tarmac.
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: We were on real true mud.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: As you would expected it being in the jungle. And
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: that was the main road, and there had been a
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: quite a lot of rain a couple of days before
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: we had rights, so the road had just turned into
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: a mud bath for kilometers on. And the difficulty was
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: not exactly the mud, but it was the fact that
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: we were with on our right a giant pillar of
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: rocks and mountains, and on our left an enormous, gigantic
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: non existing I don't know how it's called whole. Basically,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: there was no road, There was nothing. It was just
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: a pitfall. So if you would have fallen fallen there,
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have given much of your carcass, basically, And
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: so we would drive and drive and drive, and we
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: were tired, and we arrived on that section of road
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: and it was it was dark, and there were there
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: was actually a lot of traffic, and we had not
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: many centimeters for wheels to be staying on the road,
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: so we were often. I remember I was driving and
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Alex was in the passenger seat, and he was actually
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: guiding me to actually see the side of the road.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: So I was basing myself on his voice and on
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: the very little lights that we were getting from Oxford's lights,
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: because there was yeah, Oxford didn't have any LED light
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: or any specific special hardcore Overlander technology to to be
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: equipped with. And so that that was really a tricky
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: moment because we were exhausted. It was difficult, it was dangerous.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of traffic. There were big trucks,
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: powerful trucks that were coming in the opposite direction. There
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: were motorbikes with badly any lights. That was scary, but
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: still again probably one of my favorite memories because that's
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: the moment that you feel yourself completely alive. You know
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: that you can do it, so you do it and
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: you are super focused. I'm sure you've been in that
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: state of hyper focus before you do an action. You
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: are over the point of exhaustion and everything is actually
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: rolling well. But you know that if you're i don't know,
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: just turning your eyes away to give them a rest
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: just for a quarter of a second, things can go
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: thus really quickly. That was that was really one of
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: the moments where we came at the hostel.
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: We arrived at the hostel and.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: We checked in and basically fold our sleeping bags open
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: and went to sleep. It was it was no, no,
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: no in between.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: You know, it was fun. It was like, my god,
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: we are that are really sleep now?
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Yes? Yes? Wow?
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: What would you say it was the hardest part of
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: the expedition.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: That's a very interesting question.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: Mentally, I believe that being four hundred and eleven days
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: on the road and working on the road as well,
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: that would be hard because you are dealing with the unknown.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: So it is more tiring than hard because you are
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: jruggling with h the You basically need to find comfort
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: and discomfort. Luckily, that's something that I find really pleasant.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: But it is definitely a difficult balance. So that was
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: mentally probably the most challenging because one hundred and eleven
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: days is a long day. You are you are to
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: dust and rain and storms and snow in various very
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable position whether you are driving Oxford, whether you're driving
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: Pack the land River Defender one ten that was with us,
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: or you were in the back of Pack or in
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: the back of Oxford with your laptop cramped up against
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: the dometic fridge, trying to type on your laptop whatever
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: needs to happen for the day. So that was a
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: lot of fun. Difficult, but a lot of fun. I
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: would say physically the change of climate. I found that difficult,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: the change of climate because we had we were in
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: Asia to start with, on the warm side of Asia,
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: so tropical climate, and then we would be for two
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: weeks on the plateau in Tibet. I lost at that
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: moment quite a lot of weights because of the elevation,
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: but also because of our The.
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: Food that we were eating every.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: Single day in Tibet were noodles in broth with a
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: little bit of ve.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: So physically that was hard.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: Luckily, a person in good health, who has got a
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: good body composition can go through. That's like a breeze.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: And I would say emotionally, probably the arrival, So the
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: last day of the expedition was probably the toughest because
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: at the moment where the pressure drops. So it's emotionally
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: as long as you are a good spirited individual, that
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: you are very content with yourself in your own mind,
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: and that you're happy to be with other and and
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: that you keep you know you you understand very quickly
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: what each other's boundaries are on the road. It's that
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: is actually quite doable. But for me to challenge was
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: the arrival when the pressure drops. That's when when you
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: realize who and plug done.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a huge change too, coming back from that.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: It is it is we actually slept in the next day,
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: which was a whole new thing.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: After one hundred and eleven day on the road.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really long time to be crashing it
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: out every single day. And I know you guys are
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: filming right yes, eheering, So there's that pressure too.
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: What's beautiful about this is that Leopold has Leopool and
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: David have extensive experience in filming and and and and
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: documenting lives on the go. If I, if I can
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: sit in those terms, meaning that because they are experience
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: in that way of doing it made it so much
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: more easy because they heads their functioning going on. Larry
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: was an experienced traveler as well, so he had his
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: own way of functioning, which made it easy because he
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: had his own rhythm and his own understanding of the road,
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: which was super super helpful. Doctor still had his own
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: ways as well. So the beauty was that we were
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: quite self sufficient. I have extensive experience of working on
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: the road and on the go, so it made it
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: very easy to work together because we all had Each
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: one of us had its role and could embrace it wholeheartedly.
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: Very easily.
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: The only pieces of the puzzle that we needed to
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: figure out quickly was how to how to be together
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: for one hundred and eleven days because they were total strangers.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: We were totally strangers for each other.
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: But in terms of practicalities, I think that our team
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: was quite quite well organized.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Fantastic fantastic staff. What were your takeaways from this expedition,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: like when you got home or thinking about it months afterwards,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: was there anything that you learned or that you've taken
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: forward with you because of the experience.
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: It's an interesting question because I had traveled extensively in
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: Europe on my own or with friends, consistently by roads
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: so very rarely by plane that I had actually never
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: discovered that area of the world.
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: So it was a total first for me. And what's I.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: Thought was beautiful is if you are happy to be
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: finding comfort in discomfort, you can make a lot of
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: things happen because you don't really need much as long
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: as you've got the power of your brain and the
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: power of your heart. Really there is not much that
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: you need to make things happen. So that was one
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: first nice takeaway, to feel it and live it in
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: the flesh. The other thing I thought was.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: Nice is.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: How I learned to be more organized in my head,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: meaning that when you've got because you've got one hundred
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: and eleven days on the road, at some point it's
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: not that you run out of things to talk about
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: with your camerades, but it's more that you are enjoying
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: and taking in the sceneries and taking in the experience
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: for yourself. So we had also moments where everyone was
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: quiet and could think for themselves about you know, the scenery,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: the road, what was happening that they et cetera. And
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: that was enriching. I don't think many people have of
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: the I would call that a luxury of time passing
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: whilst day pass through time with very little task to do,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: so that they actually would have time to think. So
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: that was that was that was very very pleasant to experience.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: And the third thing is that I have never seen
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: a community as dedicated as guide and as ready for
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: action than the land Rover community. My god, you would
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: be at Singapore or in the middle of Kyrgyzstan. You
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: would always have a crazy individual who was crazy enough
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: to have land rover and know about them and even
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: more welcome you and tell you you know that you
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: are welcome to stay with them and they'll fix your
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: car and you're fine. That was gobsmarking be crazily fun
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: and unexpected to live.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: Wo. I love hearing about that.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the land rover community so special. I love my Toyotas,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: but it's it's also a great community.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: But it's not the same.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: But you guys don't break down enough. Actually, right, the
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: thing is, you're not breaking down enough. I mean I'm
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: not wishing you to break down, obviously, but.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: It is right now.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: You're what you are.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: I'm knocking on wood right now as we see.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, I mean in Marocca, you shouldn't find it to
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: find parts for Toyota I believe now.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's all good, it's all good.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: Awesome.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Well, tell me, I have only a couple of questions left.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about the land events that
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: you were hosting. They look really interesting and I wish
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: that I was going to be in the area for them.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: So yeah, give me a little rundown on the events.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: Thank you for bringing them up.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: They are called the land Robes and Campfires, and they
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: are events that I have created because in a bit
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: of a selfful way, it just says that I love
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: good food, I love good people, I love the good campfire,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: I love good whiskey, basically all the beautiful epiccarism of life,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: and I love land rovers. So I had amongst my
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: friends and amongst the people I meet a lot of
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: people who are telling me, oh, this is you know,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: this is so nice. We had this campfire with a
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: couple of friends. I wish that we could do this more.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: And that's how the land rovers and campfire event came along.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: The thinking behind was to allow.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: The discovery of.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: Exceptional things on top of the great atmosphere between people.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: So the concept is simple.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: We have got ten privatized tent people drive with the
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: land Rover. We are welcoming every single land Rover owner,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: whether you have got a beautiful classic range Rover V
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: eight Supercharged Volunteerior with all the accessory that you want,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: or you have a new Defender and you're feeling a
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: bit like a new b in the land Rover community.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: We welcome all of you as long as you can
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: drive to the place. And what's happening is that the Saturday,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: so the Friday people arrive, they have got we we
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: drink together, we cheer together, we welcome everybody, and we
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: if everyone there, tent. And then what's happening is that
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: we have on the Saturday to breakfast all together. It
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: is all all the time, every single time. We use
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: local products and we go for local delicacy. So the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: first edition was set in Belgium, so we had a
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: very very traditional Belgian breakfast.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: Then we hit.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: Off to a private location that is organized to be
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: only accessible and available for us, so outside of the event,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: you cannot visit that place, so you cannot go to
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: that place. And we do a tour. So it's either
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: in the traditional production of a country or it's a
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: beautiful sava.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: After that, we have got.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: A what's this French thing that you've said.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: O is now ho it's the it's didn't know how,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: it's the knowledge of the craft.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, oh yeah, okay, yes, And.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: Then what's happening is that we have lunch altogether with
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: our it's prepared by your chef Geraldine, and then we
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: go for a green laning discovery of the.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: Area that we are in.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: Again it's uh, it's super remote, so you you you
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: wouldn't really find those trails if you were going by yourself.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: We often try to pare that with some explanation of
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: the surrounding so that people know what they're looking at
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: and find it easier to appreciate what they're looking at,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: and it's making it a nicer drive experience. After that,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: it's like, so we come back to the camp, which
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: is on a private property, often on the grounds of castles,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: so we have got agreements with the owners to be
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: in that beautiful environment that is completely it's completely wild.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: It's a forest, so it's not it's not something that
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: has been organized or anything. And we get started with
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: an appetitive and the bar is then open. We don't
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: do any driving anymore. Everyone is relaxing, enjoying cigars, enjoying
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: a good drink. We're preparing the evening meal, which is
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: local meat, butchered meat and also vegetables that are local
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: to the area. All of that with music. We invite
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: people to to bring their instruments depending on where we are.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: We have got a live band that is there, so
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: we all cheer and feast together, and then the next
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: day on the Sunday, we have a beautiful brunch together
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: again local food and then green laning and then we
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: say goodbye to everybody and welcome them for the next one.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: That's absolutely fabulous. Where do they take place this year?
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming in the summer perhaps and when you're so.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: Right, you so, we are going for this north of
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: France in the for the end of the summer. We
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: are still in pointing the dates down because obviously it
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: takes quite a lot of organization and we want to
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: ensure an exceptional experience to our guest. But yes, you
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: can expect for the end of the summer twenty twenty
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: four in the Norse of France a landrovenk fire event.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Love it fantastic, men, all that information actually, anyway I can,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: I can send that to you and.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: It will be.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: On our website Landroverscamfires dot com. Also on my Instagram
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: account still as Marie Becker. So if people are interested,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: they are really welcome to check it out there or
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: if they want to contact you guys and you forward
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: them to meet.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: That's fine as well, fantastic.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, make sure to put those details in the
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: show notes so people can access them. That sounds like
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: an absolutely wonderful event. Yeah, really really really fun. So yeah, yeah,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: we'll put that information in there.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: So my final question of the day for you is
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: what is your favorite book?
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: I love that question.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: Do we need a book that is related to expeditions
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: or do we need a.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: Book that is just any topic?
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: Any topic?
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: Okay, I would recommend any reading by Maurice Herzog. He
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: is an adventurer and a filmmaker, so he's really really
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: really good. Or any book by Albert Mauzier. He's a
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: French explorer and video maker. Actually I would say cinematographer
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: because he's doing a little bit more than just cute videos.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: He is he has been crossing every single continent, whether
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: it's by foot, by kayak, by horseback. So those two
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: are are fantastic authors. And on top of that, I
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: would probably add, well, definitely the first Overlent and the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: last Overlent, because you know, otherwise I wouldn't be fun.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: Of course, Yeah, definitely gotta have to read those those books.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: That's like a very low.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, long list of books to read.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. Great.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: for the podcast today. I really appreciate your time. It's
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: been really fascinating to hear your experience on the last
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: overland expedition and how you came into overlanding. I love
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: the climbing aspect. I did see your It was funny.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: I was googling you before this and I saw this
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: climbing website and I was.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: Like, oh, wow, that is awesome.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: Just so yeah, so I don't it wasn't unexpected I
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: would I wouldn't say it, but kind of, you know.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: I was like, that's cool, that's really well.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's always fun to make the road a
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: little bit more interesting. So the more skills you can
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: add to your to your to your sets, the better it's.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: It always makes it possible to do an activity. You
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: can ski, you go to the mountains and you ski.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: You can climb. You go to the mountains and you climb.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: You can both.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it makes makes life interesting, that's for sure. Fantastic.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you again, and yeah, really appreciate you coming on
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: here and speaking with me on International Women's Day. And yeah,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: good luck with the wonderful Land Rubber events. And well
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: well I'll be looking forward to and excited to see
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: what's next.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me Ashley, it was
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: a pleasure to talk to you.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Same here, same here. Thank you also to the Overland
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Journal podcast listeners for tuning into this week's episode. We
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed it and see you next time.