Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Andrew St. Pierre White Shares the Stories of 4x Overland

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Andrew St. Pierre White Shares the Stories of 4x Overland · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Drill podcast. I'm your
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and for this week's episode, I interview
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Andrew Saint Pierre White at the Overland Expo. Andrew Saint
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Pierre White has been overlanding and driving off highway since
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, and he is known for his incredible
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: books on the subject and his travels around Africa and Australia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Andrew also has a very popular YouTube channel for four
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: x Overland. We had a wide ranging conversation, including some
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: great storytelling from Andrew about his adventures around the world.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So please enjoy my conversation with the famous Andrew Saint
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Pierre White. This content is brought to you by Overland Journal,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: our premium quality print publication. The magazine was founded in
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six with the goal of providing independent
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: equipment and vehicle reviews, along with the the most stunning
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: adventures and photography. We care deeply about the countries and
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: cultures we visit and share our experiences freely with our readers.
• 1:11
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• 1:15
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• 1:21
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  Speaker 1: subscribe directly on our website at Overland Journal dot com.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Well Andrew, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It's such a joy to have You have been a
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: longtime fan of your work. You have traveled around the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: world and you've produced some of the most exceptional, inspiring
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: and well performing content that we've seen in the Overland space.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And We've got lots of questions that we're going to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: dig into. But the thing that I'd like to know,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: because I don't know that a lot of people know it,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is where did you start from? Where did you grow up?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: What was the thing that inspired you to do this?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks for the invitation. I really do appreciate it.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: My backstory is quite an easy one to tell twelve
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: years old. Is my father was a foreign correspondent working
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: in London, so I was born in the UK and
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: he was invited to go to South Africa to be
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: their correspondent there, and being an adventurous type, he decided, well,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: We're going to go for a holiday family holiday, not
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to your normal family holiday destination, but to the Akkavango.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: But the Akavango then it's a wetland in middle of
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: the Kalahari, is not a place where tourists go much.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: At the time, there were only three lodges in the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: entire area. Now they're probably one hundred and twenty. We
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: drove in a Triumph two thousand, which is a low
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: slang English main saloon car, and I remember on the
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: long gravel road that my knees were gradually getting closer
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to my chin as the belly plate of the car
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: was being dented. Sure we arrived in the Akavango, we
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: got on board some dugout canoes and I was it
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: was a cathartic moment because I actually have a recording
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: of me twelve years old, this little voice talking about
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the sunset, talking about the light on the water, talking
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: about the mirror image and the shadows of the trees
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: in the water, and I'm twelve. There's something there if
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I look back at him, the thought, there's the seed,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: there's the kernel of what I do. And that was
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: an incredible place. That is still my favorite place on
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: the entire planet. And that was my love of the
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: outdoors pegged there. Several years later, my father bought a
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Range Rover. We went back to England for a short
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: spell back to South Africa with a Ranger and the
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: range Rover. Then I was serv in ninety seventy four
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: was a unique I mean there were literally eleven in
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: all of Southern Africa. Ours was actually number eleven that
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: was imported. And this was of course a four wheel
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: drive and very capable off road fall drive. My father
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: knew nothing, sure, nothing, but he didn't know enough to well,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: let's put in some Jerry cans because we're not going
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: to have enough fuel. He so knew that much, and
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: some water and a tent and four I was packed
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: in this range up, no roofrack, no fridge, nothing. All
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: of our food was out of a tin can. We
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: went back to the Okavanger, but this time we drove.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: You can't actually drive much in the Okavango, but you
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: can drive around it, and we again experienced it in
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: a four wheel drive and this was just it was.
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  Speaker 2: It changed my life. Obviously, it changed my life. So
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  Speaker 2: when I turned twenty two, I could afford my first
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  Speaker 2: four drive and of course.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: And you're still living in South Africa.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Still living in South Africa. Yes, I left home. I had.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I was a film editor. I was editing TV commercials,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: which it turned out I was quite good at. I
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: won some awards around the worldfare even though there were
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: South African productions, but they were entered into competitions in
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: New York and Cans and things like that, and I
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: won editing awards. I was quite good at it. I
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: loved editing. My passion out of work was expedition travel,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: and so I bought myself a range drover, of course,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: or I would yeah, sure, you know, And I was,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: of course a land drover. File I nothing. I wasn't
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: interested in anything else. It didn't matter. It had to
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: be a land rover.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I it's definitely an affliction, I think.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: No, it absolutely is that. And I built up my
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: own driver and beat the living daylside of it on
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: some extreme expeditions with friends and later with Gwynn, who
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I then married soon after that. We got together and
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: then I took her on an expedition and then she
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: absolutely loved that thing as well, so we had that
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: connection and we just started doing lots and lots of
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: expeditions and in ninety ninety one, we actually left. We
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: literally sold our houses and everything. We just I sold
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: an aeroplane, I sold editing equipment. I just sold everything
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: but my land Rover. Then I was driving a land
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Rover one ten, the predecessor to the Defender. Sure had
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: the V eight three point five V eight and kept that.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: But we then spent one year in the Okavanger running
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: a lodge, and during that year I wrote the book
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  Speaker 2: The Complete Guide for Drive in Southern Africa, and that
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: book remained on sale in South Africa in different editions
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: for twenty four years NonStop from that point.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember, I remember seeing the first copy that
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I noticed of it was trying to remember the name
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of the four drive store that was in Johannesburg. But
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I went in there and I was looking for local
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: guides on four wheeling. And I remember looking at a
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: lot of your books that had lined up. Yes, because
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: that was I think my first trip to Africa was
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: twenty ten something like.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: That, so really even in twenty ten, because I left
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, so twenty ten, yes, there would have
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: been several books of mine, yes, that's right, Yeah, and
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: maps too. Then I started a mapping company, mapping business,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: and the idea was you existing maps didn't help remote
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: travel enough. They were just road maps and most of
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: the tracks were missing. So I thought, okay, no, we're
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: going to do We're going to find areas in southern
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Africa that are remote, difficult to navigate through with standard maps,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: go out there and map them, redraw the maps from
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: scratch with GPS coordinates. Because of course GPS then didn't
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: there weren't maps. They would just give you a letterage longe,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: that's right, okay, So then you could basically look at
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: a map and look an intersection, read the Latin long
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: and on the GPS say yeah, that looks like we're there.
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  Speaker 2: You know, within a few seconds or two. Their accuracy
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  Speaker 2: was about three hundred meters certainly close enough, yes, sure
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  Speaker 2: to make sure that intersection was the one that you
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: thought you were at. So you used it just for reference,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: which is still the way I use a GPS today.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I glance it and say, yeah, I'm where I think
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  Speaker 2: I am. But I'll use a paper map. I can't.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I can't get rid of paper maps.
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  Speaker 1: I think they're just they're just a wonder to use.
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  Speaker 1: And I find that the advantage of them as well
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  Speaker 1: is that you stay paying attention. If you focus entirely
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  Speaker 1: on the GPS people, they don't you ask them where
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  Speaker 1: they're aut on the map. If you take out a
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: paper map, well, I got to get my GPS, Well
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you should probably know what if that thing stopped working?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And they do.
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  Speaker 2: And that's so and it's so, so so true. If
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  Speaker 2: you are aware all of the time of your location
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  Speaker 2: and the direction in which you're driving, you have this mental, big,
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  Speaker 2: mental picture in your head. If you stare at a
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: tiny little screen, that's all you've got in your head
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: is a tiny little screen. And when it fails. I
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: always say when training I've got you've probably seen my
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Overland Workshop dot com. I have various training courses, and
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: one of them I talk about navigation, and I say,
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  Speaker 2: you've got to keep your head involved with your navigation
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  Speaker 2: and never turn on auto routing when in a remote area,
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  Speaker 2: because the GPS cannot tell the difference between between something
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: that you can do sixty miles an hour on a
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: another that you have to go into low range. It
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: doesn't know the difference.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Sure, and plenty of tourists around the world have gotten
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: in trouble with that, especially in Australia. I mean the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: number of the number of Germans that seemed to be
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: dying on a regular basis in the outpack, it's quite terrifying. Terrifying.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The worst one was in fact that they found
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the vehicle to deceased people. One had walked away from
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: the vehicle and the vehicle was engaged in four drive.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: But they hadn't been told that they needed to lock
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: the front hubs because it was an old fashioned type
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: land cruiser with lockable front hubs, and didn't tell them
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and they were in two will drive and they weren't
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: even in particularly deep sand, and them their lives.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've heard that story and I even
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: remember that they all they did was locked the hubs
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and let a little air out of the tires and
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: they drove out.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: That's what they did, literally did exactly that, and they
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: just drove the car straight out.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: That's yeah, it's terrifying. Yeah, So you are still in
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: South Africa now. Around nineteen ninety one, things were starting
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to get fairly intense in Southern Africa? Is that part
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of the reason for going to the Okavanga Delta just
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: to kind of get out of some of that no intensity.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: No, it was just our work had just gone on
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: top of us. It just becomes so we needed that sabbatica.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: We needed that break from that intensity. We were living
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: in Johannesburg very intensive. We just needed a break and
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: still and we wrote a book. When and I wrote
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: a book ten years later, we published it ten years later.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: While we were there, we kept a diary of every
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: single day. Ten years later, Gwinn, who was writing fantasy novels,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: it was really really rather good writer, then took our
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: journal and turned it into a book and we won
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: an award in the UK for that book.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: What's the name of that book.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: It's called Torn Trousers.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, i've seen it, I haven't read.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: It received huge acclaim and it's funny and it's and
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: it's absolute. When we were going through the manuscript, when
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: we were we were laughing at ourselves saying, you cannot
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: make this stuff up. But it is all the only
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: adaptation we did. It's true. It's absolutely true. What Gwinn did.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: She wove it into a story that flows really nicely,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: and that's all she really did. There's some very very
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: funny stories in it and They're absolutely true, and that
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: was still now we think one of the greatest parts
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: of our entire lives. We still look back at it
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: with enormous fondness.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And maybe to help the listener, because so many people
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: admire you and look up to your work, it's always
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: nice to hear when you have those transformative points in
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: your life. What were the things about that year that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you felt was made it so special?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a that's that's an interesting question because I
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: think the one thing that we decided when we came back,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: we said, Okay, we want a family, and there is
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: not a place where you have to bring up You
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: can bring up a family with any kind of normality.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: So we went back into city life and I continued
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: doing film editing, and then the book was published a
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: year after we returned the four Drive book. It was
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: so successful that we then did another. We thended a
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: third which was commissioned by a big published another secondary,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: big publishing organization, and we realized we could make a
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: living out of this. But we made a decision how
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: are we going to live our lives? And there was
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: one simple rule. None of us were going to accept
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: that we needed to commute We were not going to
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: spend half an hour in the morning and half an
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: hour in the evening in a car in the traffic
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: to commute. So whatever we did, that was the rule.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And it might seem simplistic, but everything was guided around that.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: We wanted to take some of ourselves out of the
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: rat race, which is what had sent us scurrying off
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: to the okavanger to escape. We said, if we come back,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: we can't do the same again. If we do the
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: same again, we'll get the same a result. Do something different.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: So this is the rule, and we started a family.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: We built a house actually was not a not in
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: the city, was kind of in the country, a bit
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: of a drive but and it worked, and I used
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: to travel quite frequently, and we actually went then moved
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: down to Cape Town. Beautiful place to live. Is not
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: my favorite place. Cape Town is a wonderful place.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Beautiful.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: So we lived in Cape Town for it must have
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: been twelve years or so. I haven't visioned recently, but
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: a significant amount of time. And we brought up our
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: kids there and then used Cape Town as our base.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Good four wheel drive industry which was quite small then
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: it's grown since significantly, and I used that as my
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: base and then traveled all over and did some of
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: my longest and most exciting expeditions based from Cape Town.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: It was one publication after the other maps books, and
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: of course I got back into film using my film
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: skills to make South Africa's very first how to Drive
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: a four wheel drive. It's actually it's actually on my channel.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: The whole thing is on four ex Ober and YouTube
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: channel and how to drive four Drive. And I think,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: tell me, if I'm wrong and I ask you a question,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: you'll be the right person to answer this question. I
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: have never seen any you do this. I think I
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: might be the only one, and I might be wrong.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: When teaching people how to drive off road, to talk
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: about the balance, the weight balance, the center of gravity
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: between the front and the back. In other words, if
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a front wheel, let's say front left wheel has dropped
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: into the hole, how do you get traction on that
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: front left wheel? The best way is to lift the
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: rear right wheel. Yeah, transferring weight forward as opposed to
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: trying to stuff stuff under the front. So I talked
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: about weight balances left right, and I had some fantastic
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: examples of I would be driving a Discovery Mark one
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: discovery over some rocks, and we kept slipping out and
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: kept slipping out, and we've kept on doing things, and
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I thought, this is a fantastic teaching moment, and that's
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: what the whole video became. I would go out research
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: them trails, get into some interesting four drive situations. Hey,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: roll camera, this is a great teaching moment, and then
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I would teach it, you know, and it was, it was,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: it was, It was great fun.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Vehicle dynamics are such a fundamental part of what
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: we do, and you really learn them quickly under the
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: higher speed like racing conditions, because you have to be
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: constantly adjusting vehicle dynamics and fast.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: You're doing it at right, very high speed, not climbing
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: out of the vehicle looking at it in the making decision.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's that's those drivers, that's what they do.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: They're constantly if you look, if you watch F one,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: they're all about how do we transfer weight to the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: front under breaking to get the vehicle to turn in?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And all those same dynamics apply off.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Road, Yeah, just in slow motion.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: That's right, thankfully, thankfully, yeahfinitely. That's why I don't race anymore.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I enjoy going more slowly now.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: So you still ride bikes about that?
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I do, yeah, and that and they have weight weight
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: balance is a lot, and it's usually me becoming the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: weight balance moving around on the bike. Yeah.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I edited a book for a bike rider who wrote
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: for South Africa's very first motorcycling book, and actually we
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: actually published it on his behalf. We worked closely together
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and I read it through and I was actually the editor,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: and I thought, I've got to get into something motorcycling.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: I'm just, I just I was captivated. But I was
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: fifty years old, and I thought, you know, And then
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: a friend of mine tried and he came off and
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: he injured himself quite badly. And then there was somebody
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: I knew from from what I think he was worked for,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: mister Bushi, and that actually lost his life also late
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: in life, learning how to and then going on a motorbike,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: and I thought, you know, it's too late.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: And you have all these people in your life, you
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: have your children, and you have your wife.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: And risk is okay, mitigate the risk. It's not bad
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: to take risk. That became okay, that's a stupid risk
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: because you're not you're not twenty five you're not going
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: to learn fast enough to keep yourself safe at fifty
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: years old on how to handle a bike.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: No, that's good advice. And I think you're I think
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: you're raised.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I did. Actually, I'll go and do something else.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't. I don't. I don't have children,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and so I think i'd take more risks because I
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: but if I, if I did have kids, I wouldn't
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: ride a motorcycle. They need you around, Yeah, at all levels,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: at all ages of life. Well, that's interesting to hear
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: about the bike. I didn't know that you had even
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: looked into it. So because you've been such a practitioner
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of the fall drive, so your your books come out,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: your videos come out, and you start to plan these
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: longer trips. So what was your first really long distance
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: overland adventure that you did that comes to mind?
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: That would have been Botswana with friends. We had two
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: range Rovers, both a similar age. Both Mine was a
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: seventy one and his was seventy three. To Botswana, we
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: did the classic Botswana Choby Marimi route that everybody does.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Then it Third Bridge and all that gage.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Actually, my dad and I went to Third Bridge in
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: his range Rover ninety seventy four. That's how that was
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: the first time we ever we had ever been there.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: So but then i'm my vehicle, you know, my trip.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Our trip was then in eighty seven, I think it
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: was eighty six, and we did another one in eighty seven.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: We circumnavigated the Okavango and then crashed. I don't know.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: There's quite a well known story on the Channel. We
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: had a semi head on collision on a bush track
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: with a latoil Land Cruiser. It goes without saying the
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: lan cruiser one. The whole range Rover's bonnet was literally
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: ripped off its hinges. But I rebuilt the front of
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: the range Rover in the bush with parts I had.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: I used to carry a case of wire and epoxy,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: putty and bolts and nuts and little bits of bar
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: threaded bar nuts, you name it. Just a mishmash of stuff.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: By the time I got that car running, no bonnet.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: All the bonnet was gone, front bumper was bent back,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: destroyed wheel room. The battery had been crushed, but I
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: was carrying two batteries, one for a winch, so I
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: used the secondary battery even used my I had quite
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: a heavy hammer underneath the radiator, wadged it in with
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: wire so I could lift the radiator up, and then
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: a stretch that I removed from somewhere else in the
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: range rover to make sure that the radiator didn't fall
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: back and hit the fan. Because it was a steel fan,
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: it would have just chewed a hole in the radiator.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: And we drove it a thousand, a little more than
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: thousand miles all way home and only ever actually stopped once.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Guys at the border post were looking very strangely at
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: this card no bonnet, yeah you know, and they said
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: what happened? I said, oh, your roads are so bad.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: It just fell apart. And the guy actually believed me
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: for a moment.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you wouldn't really want to tell me you
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: had an accident.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Well, actually, the cops came and took some statements. They
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: were very civilized, and we explained to them, and then
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: we just thought, okay, we're going to drive it home
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: and we might get stopped a few times. Let's see
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: what happens. Yeah, and we got all they have called
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: and I called it the strange rover had no front end.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: So at some point you will switch over to vehicles
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: for a minute, because this will be a fun one.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: At some point you transitioned at least partially from your
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: love for land Rovers to a love for toyotas. What
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: was your first Toyota? I guess your first non land
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: rover vehicle.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Then you took I was I was invited to a
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: lot of press events, particularly my toyo to South Africa
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: who had read the book and saw my pubilications and
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: thought we need to get this guy out of his
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: land Rover. And I loved my Defender. It was fantastic.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I still love that car for different reasons that I
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: love other cars, but it was fantastic and it worked very,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: very well for us. The marketing director came and said,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: would you like a long term loan of the land
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Cruiser ninety that was called the Prado. It was the
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: second generation Prado. It was the ninety. It had a
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: three liters Tourbo diesel motor, and he said, would you
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: like to would you like? What would you do? And fantastic?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: And I took it for a run, took it for
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: a month and thought, this is good. This is a
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: good car. It's not going to match the Lander of
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: off road, it easily surpasses it on road. He uses
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: farlest fuel. It's far more comfortable. It doesn't have the payload.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: But then again, my vehicles are light. I never even
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: I was never close to maximum payload on my Landrover,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: even on the heaviest trips. I was really really light,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: so weight wasn't an issue. And I put a rooftop
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: tint on it and did some trips in it, and
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Tota was my friend, and they were very very happy.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Drowned that car was the first time I had actually
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: drowned a car off road. I had been told drive
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: it off road, do your stuff. That's that's the only
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: mandate we have. Just continue doing what you're doing. Take
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: lost pictures of our car. That's it. You can have
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: it for a whole year. And I was driving in
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: very very deep water, very carefully, and I messed it up.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I mean it was my fault completely, And oh, idiot,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: you know you want the kind of thing that you
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: look at other people and say, more on. Okay, we've
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: all heard, We've all had those moments. And then I
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: remember climbing out and the angle fridge that was in
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: the back was floating and it blew a fuse in
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the angle fridge it actually continued working and afterwards, and
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: then I was driving with a friend of mine who
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: was a diesel mechanic, and he actually I knew what
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: to do to clear the motor because as I as
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: it stopped, my hands reached for the ignition, and this
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: little voice said to me, what do you know? Stop?
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And I kind of why am I trying to start it?
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: You're an idiot. Now, you really are an idiot if
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: you'd try and start it. So I then climbed out,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: full of water and everything, and we hauled the ninety
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: out this thread of nineties mechanics said no. He showed
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: me how to clear a motor of water, and interestingly enough,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: put it in fifth gear, lift up the one of
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: the back wheels. Okay, put it in with a closed
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: center diff and then rotate the rotate the back. We
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: will buy hand. But we've taken out all of the
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: globe plugs and then to the cylinders had water in them.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: If I had cracked, motor would have bent. So out
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: came all the water. We took out the air cleaner,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: We removed it completely to let it dry, and drove
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: about a kilometer back to the camp. And then next
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: morning refitted the air filter that had dried in the zone,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: and I thought, what a great teaching moment that was.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I would have done something similar, but not that. Well,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: that was really smart because you understood the mechanics and
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: probably had done it before.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: So there you get another advantage of the manual transmission. Indeed,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: if it had been an automatic.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Oh no, it was alter. Yeah, it was a manual.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would have been been a lot more.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: We would have found another you had had to use
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: a startup. And he was saying, it's so much more
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: gental on the engine, just to turn it and turn
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: it and rocket rocket, and eventually it starts turning. You
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: can feel the motor turning, and it's gentle. It's mechanical sympathy.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually watched an interesting video. It was a
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: seventy series and they put it up on a bottle jack.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Starter had failed and they wrapped a recovery strap around
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the wheel, so all the other wheels were on the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: ground and the bunch of guys they ran with the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: strap and spun the wheel and it started the motor. Fantastic.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I've seen people do that on our Sea forty seven,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: the Dakota. Yeah, wrapping a rope around the propeller moss
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: on a Dakota and like six guys one, two, three
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: go cck clock and this great big radial started incredibly.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: You think of the gearing. The boss has only what
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: thirty it's just a foot wide or so, maybe a
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: bit longer, but that's the gearing of this enormous propeller
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: and this and they started it.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Amazing, fantastic. And there's even a really neat story of
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: this sailor, solo sailor and the engine. They lost the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: starter on the engine and he used the main sheet
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: all the mechanical advantage on a sailboat, so we let
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the the mainsail swing with the wind, which went through
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a series of pulleys and started the diesel engine. That fantastic.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I love it. I love it when people figure that,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: yes exactly, and that's I think that's one of the
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: joys of what we do, is that you're constantly solving problems.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: And for some people that's terrifying. I think that they
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: romanticize the idea of overlanding. But when you get out there,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: it's literally it's an adventure, which means things are going wrong. Yeah,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you're constantly overcoming little challenges.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, lots of little ones, hopefully no big ones.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the big ones can happen too, and that's
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that's part of the risk of that. Speaking of that,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: have you have you felt like that there was any
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: any big events that have occurred, you know, like other
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: than the accident with the land cruiser that you felt
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: like you learned a lot from.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Yes. I was in the ninety and I was doing
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: a trip on the place, one of my favorite places,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: called them my Cuddy Cuddy Saltplants. It's very, very broad.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: It's the second biggest salt plan in the world. It's
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: in the middle of Botswana, middle of the Kalahari. And
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: we had tried to get to a place called Kakanya Island,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: and I'd been there once before, knew that the mud
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: conditions could be tricky, and we decided to give it
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a go. And we were on our own and in retrospect,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: not a great idea. Anyway, dropped the tire pressures down
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: headed in a straight line. There was a fence line
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and they hadn't finished the fence line. There were some poles,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: and I remember and that the poles became significant later
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: because The trouble is, are that mud as it clings
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: to the tires. It actually it literally clings to the tires,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: so it wills get bigger and bigger and bigger. Then
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: it's a case of saying to yourself, I wish I
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: hadn't done this, but it's too late now because of
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: our stopped and bellied. So I've got these clops of
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: mud flying past the windscreen, thinking I shouldn't have done this.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: There was some tusst grass, and I thought, I'm going
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: to stick. But if I can stick on the tusset grass,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: I can at least keep air underneath the vehicle and
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: not have this vacuum problem.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Sure, which worked.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I got onto the tusc grass, and the tuscic grass
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: held the vehicle aloft. It got stuck, but at least
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I didn't have this vacuum formed when a vehicle bellies. Sure,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I got out and it was incredibly hot, white surface.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: And I had the day before overdone it a bit
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: with my photography and things, and I had made myself
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: a bottle of rehydrant because I could identify a little
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: bit of a little bit of a dehydration issue and
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: possibly a sunstroke. So I realized that I was in
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: a delicate decision. So when this happened, I thought, you
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: were even more of an idiot now because you're on
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: your own and you probably shouldn't have done this. Now
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: you're stuck. And I said to that my companion, I said,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: we're going to have one try, because as the vehicle stopped,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: how to to the poles? And he knew exactly what
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I was talking about. We needed those poles that were
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: about two hundred meters behind us to put under the
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: vehicle to stop it sinking, because we knew that if
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: it had bellied, we were finished. Yeah, we ran back,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: we got the poles. So by the time with the
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: poles underneath the vehicle, and actually we didn't actually need
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: them to stop the vehicle sinking. We used them as
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: MAX some MAX tracks, no such thing at the time.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: We use them as traction aids. So they did help
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: our recovery. But they're running back and the running forward
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: the heat my condition. I said, Jim, we're going to
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: have one try, and if this doesn't work, we're building
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: a shelter. We've got a shade net. We're going to
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: build a shelter and we're going to sit we're going
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: to sip the water and we're going to wait, and
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: we've got a full moon tonight, and we'll put it
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: out at night. We got it out first try.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And you had a winch on board, or you used We.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Had no winch on board. We had we had a
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: high lift, and which would have been a hell of
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: a lot And that's what we were going to use,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: the high lift and push the vehicle off the lifted
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: shift push and we were going to lift it up
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: and push it on to the poles. But anyway, I
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: won't go into the too much detail in the story,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: but for the fact that when we finally got out,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: because of course we had got some seed netting with
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: our grass net hadn't worked very well and we were overheating,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: not massively, but we were overheating because some grass had
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: got through it and into the radiator. I learned a
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: lot about seed nets then too.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you need those in Australia for sure.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, on the front of the vehicle. It's not the
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: most important one. It's underneath. And that was the mistake
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: we made. Most of the seeds got in from underneath,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: not from freight straight on. So it was a learning
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: moment as well, and I realized that that was you know,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: risk mitigation. If you're going to take a risk, think
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: about it and what how do you get out of this?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Goes pair shaped? What are you going to do? And
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: have a plan in mind. Don't just see the wild
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: blue yonder and say let's go. It could be a
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: bit sticky. It's one hundred and three outside, yeah, you know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: and it was our last day and we had we
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: had less than twenty liters of water for the two
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: of us, so we're also a bit low on water.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: You know, you've got a So that was learning moment again,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: a really important learning moment. That was probably in ninety seven,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: ninety eight, somewhere around there.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then I don't remember the year, but somewhere
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in the early two thousands you were looking to leave
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: South Africa and move I think you moved back, maybe
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to the UK first.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: In twenty thirteen. I moved back to the UK mainly
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: because I had a television show going in South Africa.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Nine years I had not add a series. It was
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: becoming more and more difficult to produce that series because
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: the broadcasters were asking more and more money for us
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: to broadcast it. It's not as if you produce a
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: show and then they will pay you for it. No,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: they will pay you to broadcast it. And it became
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: and tenable, and I spent all my time looking for
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: sponsors and so little time actually making creative content. And
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: I thought, you know, I've got a great body of work.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I could probably get some really good, significant work in
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: the UK, which turned out to be wrong. But the
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: UK mover was good. But in terms of my kids,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the future in South Africa did looked good for them. Economically,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: it was falling apart that the president at the time
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: was a basket case of stealing all the money from
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: the economy, and the country socially and economically was a
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: really difficult place to live, and I thought, I wonder
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: I want something better for my kids. Moved to England
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen and didn't like it at all. I
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: didn't like it at all. I think the weather was
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: the most thing. The weather and the number of people was.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: It got us down from living in Africa and we
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: did kind of say, what on earth have we done?
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: And then because my mother is an Australian and I
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: had Australian citizenship, I then applied for residency for the
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: rest of my family, for the three girls, and obviously
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: and we were granted it. A year and a half
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: later we were granted it and we moved to Australia.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: And Australia is fantastically.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Beautiful country and beautiful people.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Fantastic. I cannot, I can't. The politicians are just as
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: a no is anywhere in.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: The world, yes, but every other place.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: But as a country, as a people, as a place
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: to be and as a place to overland. Yeah, it's
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: fantastic place to land.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: There's so much of it. I mean, the just getting
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to Alice Springs, you know, it's it's an adventures get
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: from Britain where you located in north of oh Per Okay,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: got it, Oh I did. I did a wonderful trip
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the last time I was in in Australia. We did
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: all off road along the Great Australian Bight, so we
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: did the whole southern part of the country. And it's
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: very remote there. I mean incredible sand dunes, absolutely brilliant white,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: massive sand dunes along that coastline. Too, very cool, very
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: very nice.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll know that road because in twenty twenty, during
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the Heart of COVID. Of course couldn't leave. I bought this,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: this old Range River and to kind of relive my old.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Pasture was having your midlife crisis.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: In effect, that was my midlife criss. I bought an
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: old range Rover. I went to Melbourne. It was a
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: seventy four thirty five model. It was in reasonable shape.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Spent four days working on it, and then drove it
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: unsupported all the way Acrossustralia along that road. But I
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: didn't go off road. I stayed on road. I was
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: going to be sensible. And then, of course it.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Isn't that called the nulla board the nullyball. So you
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: did the Nullabar Highway, which is I don't think that
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: that's any less dangerous than than the pavement or and
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: then the off road because it's there's nobody out there.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: And then you took those take those side roads down
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: to the fight. The roads go right to the cliffage.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: So I drove the range Rover. And here's an interesting story.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Before I bought the range Rover, I went looking for
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: my original one in South Africa and somebody who's obviously
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: nutty about range rovers had communicated with me and said, well,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I know I know about your car. It was scrapped.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Gave me a date and I have the original builder's
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: plate of my original Range Rover. I thought, that's fantastic.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Will you sell it to me? He said yes, and
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I think it was one hundred pound or whatever, and
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: said I bought it from him. And then on the
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: bight on the nuller ball, Yeah, opened the package. I
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: had not opened the package. I've taken it with me,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: but I had not opened the package. And on the
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: nuller ball with my new Range Drover, new old Range River,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: opened the builder's plate and kind of showed it up
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: and that was my that was my New Range River.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: There was my old my old build, my old builders plated.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Kind of closed the story.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Well, you've had a lot of different vehicles from from
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: all of that experience, what would you say is your
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: top three? The three that you if if someone was
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: to say and they could somehow get any one of
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: these vehicles, what would you recommend? What would be your
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: your top three?
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Uh Land Cruise or sevnty troop Carrier. Because it's like
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: to compact, really strong, proper forward off road, forward drive
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: and being a compact van, you can kind of live
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: in and out of it. So the weather really gets bad,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: you can actually make a meal or certainly get comfortable
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: insider to even chill out inside of it if the
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: weather gets bad. And the Troop is a lovely combination.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: And all these cars you could a good points and
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: bad points. The trip is no exception, but it's got
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: so many good points. The triple is when you buy
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: it from the of the showroom, which is becoming more
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: and more difficult. It's a very basic car. It's very bad,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: and that in a way is nice because you've taken
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: this very basic platform and it's not nice to drive.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Not the ride is awful, but it doesn't cost very
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: much to make the right really quite acceptable. You fix
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: up the interior, do good battery systems and good hot
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: water systems. I'm at this age I need a good shower.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Sure many years ago, don't worry me now if I'm
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: in the bush, I want to shower. But you can
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: now have a good shot, isn't And that so I'm
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: building in these systems to make camping and overlanding comfortable.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: And is that your current vehicles?
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: I actually have two. I have two seventy eggs. I've
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: just boughtn in Africa. So I have my seventy eight
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: V eight in Australia and i've just and as a
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: series running currently on my channel. I took the risk
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: and bought a half a million kilometer land cruiser troop carrier.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: But this one is the one, Age said, the four
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: point two diesel motor. Very simple motor. I can't pull
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: the skin off a rice pudding, as an expression of
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: other people have used. But it's very underpowered, very reliable. Simple.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Paul Marsha and Iron out building it in Cape Town,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: so I went over and we spent seven days working
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: on doing all the mechanicals. He's now doing a build
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: for the interior. So I've got true troop carriers, so
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: I like troop carriers well.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Paul marsh he's one of the most exceptional
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: human beings I have ever met in my life. I mean,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: he is not only incredibly accomplished as an overland traveler
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: several trans Africa trips, and he actually helped us prepare
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the seventy eight series for Antarctica, so she helped us
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: get it lifted in the big tires on it and everything.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Extremely highly qualified individual.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Anything, humble and just incredibly competent.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: He's a great teacher because he's the co teacher on
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Overland Workshop, he's the co presenter. So we both put
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: we came together said we've done so much content teaching people.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: We need to we need to put it a place
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: where everybody can find all of it, and and it's
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: in different courses.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Well, Paul was a great choice for that. Yeah, here's
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: someone that I just genuinely admire, So I'm looking forward
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: to seeing him soon. The seventy eight series was your
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: first choice, which is I think that's a great one.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: What would be your what would be number two?
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Number two is the Mesceds Glinda Argon, but specifically the
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: four six one series. Yeah, big difference, I massive, massive difference.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: They're not the same car. They might look similar, they're
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: not the same four six one is the I had two.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: My last one was a NATO spec so it had
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: the taller wheels, it had the taller springs and very
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: very like troopy, very very basic, but it had the
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: front and rear lockers and there's something uncanny about the
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: g Wagon's ability over rough Grant and I loved my
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: I'd get another one tomorrow. I wouldn't use it as
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: an overlander because actually the troop is better lander.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: A little more space.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more space, it's more practical, but the g
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: is fantastic, fantastic.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I used to go the longest, was I know, over
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: twelve years?
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, you did, and I remember when you really enjoyed
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: it when you sold it. I used to sit. I
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: used to arrive at my friend's game farm in the towel.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: It was a five kilometer run from the main road
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: down to the camp on the on the river, but
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: it was rough track and I would literally brace myself
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: in the seat, take a little bit of weight off
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: my bum and hammer it down that road. And the
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: G Wagon would track absolutely brilliantly lightened. You couldn't do
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: that in a trip carrier. You'll be thrown all over
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: the place. The g would just track. It was marvelous.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the breadth of capability in that vehicle is quite
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: quite incredible. All right. So that's number two. What's number three?
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Number three is more difficult because I've got in the
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: back of my mind and if I had to buy,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: if I had to build something.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: What does your heart say? What if you had to
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: buy one with your heart, not your head right now.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Well I did. I bought an old two door Andro
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: that's perfect.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I think that's a great number. Three.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: It's a play thing. There's nothing more than the place,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: so that would be another three, another three.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, those old Rangeovers are just beautiful. I didn't know
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: this until until somewhat recently, but it's the only automobile
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: that's ever been in the louver because of the design
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of that thing was so exceptional and even today it
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: is so such a handsome vehicle to behold. Yeah, they're
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: they're just my favorite. I just I think the old
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: ones are better too. I had a ninety five soft
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Dash and it was it was just at the start
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: of it being so complex that it was pretty much
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: six soft Dash pretty much unusable.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: And I keep it for long because it was getting
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: too complicated.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just too complicated for sure. If someone was to
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: come to you new to overlanding and they they've said, okay,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I've I've I've just purchased a seventy eight series Troopy.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: What are the top three or four or five things
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: that you would recommend that people not so much like
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: as a luxury, but what are the things that people
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: need to get started.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: So I would always say no matter what vehicle, I
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: think it's probably more difficult to answer it saying if
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: it's a troop carrier, because the first thing you might
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: do with a troop carrier is just make it nicer
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: to drive by check on the suspension and putting some
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: decent tires on it. But I like to teach the
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: principle of a least flexible most flexible. So when you
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: just look at a vehicle and you say, okay, even
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: before you buy it, what do I need? And make
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: two lists, most flexible and least flexible. So, for example,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: if you're basically simple example as possible, I have my
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: partner and I have two kids, So what's going to
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: be least flexible? I need four comfortable seats, top of
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: the least flexible list. Everything else has a place on
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: those lists. Well, there's only two of us, but I
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: might want to take a friend, so maybe I'll put
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: a third seat in. Well, is that a really important
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: thing for you? If it's a really important thing to
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: put in the third seat, then put it on the
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: top of the least flexible list. But if it's a
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I would like it, well, then it's going to come
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: further down the list, isn't it so that when you've
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: built the car, you don't look at and say, I
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: really messed up because I forgot about the third person
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: that I was thinking there would be. Not how important
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: is that third person? So you then start saying, I
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: now know what I want because I've given this process
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: of least flexible, most flexible some thought, and I have
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: these lists and it's okay to change them. But the principles,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: those things that stay at the top of least flexible
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: in a vehicle build will stay there and the other
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: things might move about a bit as you go through
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: the build. That makes sense and actually you do that
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: and you'll end up with a car that you wanted.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: And I think that it's also so important, and we
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: do this on the podcast all the time. Is just
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to remind people that there's a difference between needs and wants,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and most of the time you need a lot less
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: than you think. I mean, once you get a good
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: set of tires and a decent recovery kit so you
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: can get yourself unstuck, and a decent little toolkit and
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: some basic spairs and a way to communicate if you
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: get into real bad trouble. You're pretty much ready to go.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: About graduar in the world.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you mentioned tires actually is first thing. Yeah,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: tires just forget it.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Especially seventy eight. The tires they come with, they're almost unusable.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: I drove all the way from Johannesburg down to k
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: tram with these tires and we actually did a little
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: off road drive and the Pride in front of me
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: was actually pulling a trailer, got a light trailer and
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: he was wandering in front of us. No problem. All
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I couldn't get through. I had I had to really
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: drive it really well to get it through, just because
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: of these terrible tires. Yeah.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: So it was the same for us. When we built
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the set of the E seven trucks, I took it
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: out for some baseline testing and I thought that the
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: vehicle was broken. It would not it would not go
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: through the obstacle with the diplocks on it. Everything it
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: was all four tires were just spinning, no no grip.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: No grip at all.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Actually they sell them like that.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think they're just a commercial vehicle. They're
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: just such a basic, a functional, a commercial vehicle.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the one we bought was obviously used by
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: a mine as a may have been an ambulance or something.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure about it.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Anyway, it was not loved, but it was in better condition.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: We thought that it was definitely not.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Loved because and so is Australia. Those two environments are
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: very abusive on vehicles. You know, we find in North
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: America that are our routes are shorter, but they tend
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: to be more technical, but the speeds are much lower.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: So if you drive along a corrugated road at eighty
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: kilometers an hour for a thousand kilometers, that's an enormous
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: amount of abuse on the vehicle. Whereas if you drive,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: you know, ten miles of rock crawling and you're going
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: slow and gentle, it seems to actually be easier on
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: the car.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: It is, I think. So Australia has the most brutal
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: corrogations I've ever found anywhere.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: You could bury you could bury this coffee mug inside
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: of one and not see it.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's astonishing how rough they can be. And then
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: sometimes you get to the point where you know, when
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: you hit corrogations and you say, okay, I've got to
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: find a comfortable speed here because the speed will allow it.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Like planing a boat. Sure you get the wheels to
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: ride over the corrugations. But the trouble is sometimes to
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: get to that speed, the car is being shaken to pieces. Absolutely,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: And then you get to that speed, and sometimes the
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: speed is actually too high. Yeah, you know, it might
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: be seventy five eighty kilometers an hour and you realize
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: this is not the kind of track you really want
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: to do eighty on. So then you slow down and
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: then the car wants to shake itself to pieces. So
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: what do you do ten miles an hour to preserve the.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Car and yourself in any way? In many ways, I mean,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: and the other challenges. You air down low enough where
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: that starts to help, but then the tires start to overheat.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: It's hot in Australia.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: You've got a limit, the mark you let them down.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: You can only go so low.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I always feel the time. I just
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: get out and mantester. Yeah, it's a habit. Feel the
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: time absolutely.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: And they get hot and.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: If they're warmer than a warm coffee mug, they're too hot.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Okay, so let's talk a little bit
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: about filmmaking, because one of the things that I find
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: so impressive about what you do is that most of
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the films that you've produced, these incredible adventures, you have
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: self produced them. You are the presenter, you are the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: expedition leader, you are the cameraman, you are the audio guy,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: you're the dit You handle all of the downloading, the backups,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: and then you also not only edit it, but then
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: you produce it, market it and get it out to
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the world. A lot of people that are listening would
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: probably love to be able to do a better job
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: of capturing their own stories, and now that social media
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: allows for so many people to share their own experiences.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: What are some pieces of advice that you would give
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: to someone trying to self produce. What kind of camera
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: should they consider, how should they capture it? Maybe just
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: a couple pieces of advice because you've become a master
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: at it.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Keep the camera equipment simple, Keep it as simple as
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: you possibly can, all of this fancy gimbal stuff. So
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: you're taking ten minutes to set up for a shot,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: and by the time you've got the shot, the sun's
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: gone down. You know, you're shooting most of your stuff
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: in the last two hours of the day and the
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: first hour or so in the morning, maybe two. Try
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: and keep it there because that's where the light is everything.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Light is everything, okay, yeah, light then location, you know.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: But in terms of storytelling, audio is everything. All my
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: stories are led by the audio track. Is the audio
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: track is the intellectual information? The video is the is
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: the stimulation or the visible stimulation informational stimulation? Ye?
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: And I run courses as well on be a Filmmaker
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: dot com. And I do one thing that I.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Could don't mean to interrupt, but is be a Filmmaker
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: dot com is at another one of your properties, okay,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: and you you have stories and information about what we're
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: talking about now, as if people want to find out more,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: there are.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Five courses on storytelling and filmmaking, videography and things like that.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: So for those that are listening be a Filmmaker dot
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Com you'll be able to do it. Yeah, you'll be
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: able to find out more about what we're talking about now.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Great, And I presented and actually at this this overland
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: expo in the past, I've done lessons on it and
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: I we'll say, I'm going to tell you five things
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: five things today. Five things today that you need to know,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: but only you only need to remember too, And it
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter which to you remember when you walk out
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: out here, Just remember at least two of these things. Okay,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I'm going to release, release, reveal all five to you now.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: And they're all exactly the same. Audio is more important
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: than video. They're all exactly the same. If you remember that,
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: you'll be a good storyteller because it's led by the audio.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: It's led by emotion, it's led by yeah, not by
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: not by visuals. Visuals are treats. The audio is the story.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: And you have, first of all, you have a British accent,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: so you know that's Does that help? I think it
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: helps a lot. I think it helps a lot. I
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: think it helps a lot. I mean, I have a
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: face for radio, at least I've got a I've got
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: I do have a voice that projects well. But there
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: is something about a British accent. And then your enthusiasm
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: that comes across in your film to camera, you're so
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: excited about wherever you're at. Thirty years later, you're equally excited,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and I think that that it's infectious. It makes people
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: excited to listen to you.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Here's the rule. If I'm not excited, keep the camera
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: in this box. Well, you've got to be genuinely excited.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: I can't. I'm hopeless at putting on excitement. They excited
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: or I'm not and I'm not interested in the place,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: and the place is boring, well, then it's going to
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: be boring to my viewers as well. If it's boring
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: to me, it's going to be boring to them. It's
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: not about getting content and filling up space in time. Sure,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: it's about telling a story and getting people inspired. And
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: when I'm inspired, as to as easy as anything to
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: inspire somebody else because I'm inspired, So I just point
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: the camera at myself and start rappiting on about something.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Either fill it with some nice images and I get
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: a good story, a reasonable story at the end of it.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: But you have shoots that are I come away from saying,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: you know, that was just absolutely brilliant. It was just
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: a this is why I do this, And you get
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: other times where it was that's okay. Not all are
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: really as good as you know, They're not as good
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: as the best. And I shot something last year called
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: The Friends Crossing the Canning and it was the best
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: work I've done in ten years or more, and.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: That one of your favorite pieces that you've produced.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: So I've crossed the I've crossed the Canning Stock Route,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: which is a route of you think about this. This
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: is a bit difficult for many people to appreciate.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I love this run.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: You've done part of it, you've done the northern part
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Did you do the whole thing?
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, So here's the here's the deal. One thousand miles.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Off road and there's one place to get fuel along
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: the way.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my favorite track. And of course we did it.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: I did it in seventeen for my first our back
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: trip in Australia, which was pretty ambitious. But I took
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Paul with me and you're as in safe handed mechanically,
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: will be built a good vehicle just for that trip.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: And I kept that vehicle for several years. And then
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: I did it with the old range Rover. So the
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: old the old forty five year old range Rover. Somebody said,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: why didn't you take it on the Canning as he
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: said it, I thought, I want to. I want to
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: smash your head in. You've now put this, how can
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: we take this old land Rover on that vehicle. Breaker
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: is this crazy? But you've sown the seed. I can't
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: let it go. And he was one of the chaps
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: that actually came on the trip. I said to him,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: you have to come. This is all your fault and
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: if this goes pear shaped, I'm going to blame you.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: And it was a magnificent trip and the range Rover.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: And here's the funny thing about that whole story. The
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: range Rover did give us some problems, not too many,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: because it's so simple, the vehicle that everybody thought, including ourselves,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: that would sail it. The Highlux gave us endless problems.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: So there's the story. So I do these gratuitous pans
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: of the Highlux is just broken. It's got his back
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: wheels off and there's a break problem. And I pan
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: onto the range Rover, which is sitting with his bonnet clothes,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: happy as a clam, and I play the music of
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: hope and glory, just to stick it to Heine who
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: was driving the Highlas, who was getting more and more
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: ticked off with us because we kept on giving my
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: hard time, but he would play it back to us.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: We lost the range Rover's lights. We had to do
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: some night driving because we lost a lot of time,
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: we decided to do a bit of night driving and
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: the range of the lights, the actual switch disintegrated. It
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: literally the interior just melt. It didn't melt, it just
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: fell apart. So he was so happy when the Range
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: River broke down. And then Rob who was the English
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: guy that was driving the Range River most of the route,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: pointed out that if the ilags hadn't broken down, we
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have needed to driven at night. It's a great story, wonderful.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: So the Canning Stock Route film that you just and
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: is that out for people to watch now?
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: So there are episodes, There are about three episodes on YouTube, okay, okay,
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: but the full series, the full thirteen part series is
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: actually on video on demand on Vimeo. So if you
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: find it on the channel, you'll see links in the
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: description of all the videos and then you can download
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: the And I promise you it's infectious. It gets every
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: episode is a little bitter than a little funnier. And
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: I have I'll get a little tiny little spoiler here.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: The last bit of shooting we did on the last day,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: which was the wrap up. We were the four of
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: us were camped somewhere as was after we got back.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: A month after we got back, we were talking about
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: how great the trip was on what was your best moment,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: what was your best moment? What was your best moment?
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: And the rangeerver was parked on the edge of this
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: little hill, little green hill, and this rainbow appeared and
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not kidding it looks like Hollywood production. This massive,
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: double edged rainbow goes all the way over and the
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: rain driver is right in the medal. And as they
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: were talking, I said, that's my end shot. And I
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: actually you can hear me saying that's my in shot.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: And I grabbed the camera and I leave it running
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: and I just pointed at the rain drover with this
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: that was our final shot of the series. How is
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: that for Sarah Liberty? I mean, it was just, you know,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the gods of cinema was saying, yeah, I'm going to
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: give you this song made.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Oh well, So then, what is another series that you
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: think people would really or one that your most favorite.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: I think I still my most favorite is In twenty ten,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: I decided to really live my boyhood dream of finding
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: the source of the Okavango because the Okavanger was the
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: source of my love of of our road and overland
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: and wilderness, and I would go and find its source.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: But its source is in Angola, and I could find
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: no information anywhere about the source of the Akavanger. I
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: knew it was on the Cabango River in Angola, and
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: we would go and find and decided a solo trip
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: across the entire army of desert on my own in
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: my one oh five Lancreuse, which is actually my out
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: of the third my third favorite vehicle. Fantastic, it's the
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: it's the one hundred body with a eighty series chassis.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: What a fantastic combination that is, and so it's such
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: a stain. Absolutely. We then did that and there was
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: a sixty six day expedition and I was joined by
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: people in Angola after I'd done my solo trip through
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: the number and they took us into Angola, which is
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: just mind blowing, just the colors, the textures, that smell,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: It's just beyond anything I'd ever experienced before, and then
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: into Botswana and we followed the Okavango River. And the
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: amazing thing was we followed it from its very very
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: source the highest point in the valley. I took some
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: water from that little pool and decided that I would
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: empty it at the end of the river. Because of
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: course that river never finds the sea, it finds the accavanger,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: but after it finds the aca Ago, it spills out
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: into the Boeti and Nabi rivers. And we felt in
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: that Boteti is the longest of those rivers. And we
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: followed the Boteti until it ended, and it literally stopped
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: in a river bed, but it was moving at probably
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: quarter mile an hour. As this water was trickling, we stopped.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: We jumped out of the car and said, there's the
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: end of the river. Some villagers had come down. They
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: hadn't seen water in that river for twenty five years,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: and they were marveling at the fact that this water
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: has now arrived. Most of the people standing there had
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: never ever they were under younger than twenty five years old,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: and never seen water in that river. So we got filming,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: and I poured the water slightly ahead of the water
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: advancing down the river, and kind of just poured it
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: ahead and watched the two meet, and kind of I
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: made the river a bit longer with this bottle of
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: water that I had captured. That to me I think
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: that moment in Overlanding, that one moment is the kind
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: of culmination of my career. It was a fantastic series.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: It got broadcast in That series got broadcast in a
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: lot of countries. It was probably my best work. That
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: and the canning that I've recently done my best work.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: And what's the name of the signs.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: In Search of the It's in search of the Source
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: of the Okavango. And it's also on Vimeo, vide on
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: demand and if you go onto viby on demand and
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: you type in Anderson po White, you probably find it okay.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: If not again YouTube, you'll find links there.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that I like to ask,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: it's more of a selfish question, is what are some
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: of You've written many books yourself, but what are your
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: top two three books that you have enjoyed in your
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: life on any subject.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: I love audio books and when I'm traveling I gobble
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: them up. Me too, into thin Air that's a good one.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: I've listened to it about four times. I love history,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: but I'm quite selective on my historians. I love war history.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Max Hastings is a favorite of mine. Just finished a
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: book called a Nemesis which was the USA and Japan
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: conflict that ended in forty five. And he's a very
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: even handed historian. You know, he's English, but he doesn't
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: keep rewaving the Union Jack all the time, and you know,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: he seems to be very balanced, and I really like
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: like his work. Other books, I don't have any I
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: don't have any particularly particular favorites, but I because I've
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: collected comedy all my life. One of the best autobiographies
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I've ever read Eric Idol always look on the bright
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: side life. And it's not about Monty Python. It's and
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: it's wonderful. It's a wonderful, wonderful.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: It's a great suggestion.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: And the book that I've just put down now is
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: called Unnatural Causes. I can't remember that this name actually,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: but it's basically a pathologist. He was kind of the
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: top pathologist in the UK and was actually called to
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: as acting British pathologist after the nine to one one tragedy.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: And so his story about people. But it's so well
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: written and it's absolutely captivating. What a job that is.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Oh incredible. Yeah, Well, Andrew, it has been a joy
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: to have you on the podcast. It's so great to
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: see you again. I think the last time that we
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: spent time together was I think it might have been
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: at the Aventer and all read maybe slightly before that
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: was at the Overland Expot at Mormon Lake. That's why
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: I got to I think it.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Was right it was fifteen. I think I had my trooper.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: I drove my tripy from because my triple that I
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: built in South Africa then imported into the UK and
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: then actually sold it there. But before I sold it,
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: actually took it to Aventure. It was so interesting because
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: all of the guys, because that lift lift, that camper conversion,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: I actually designed it. So all the other guys from
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Tom's and Extreme all came around, you know, can we
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: take pictures? And I said, well, I don't know the design,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: go for it and make stuff at home. And it
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: was nice to see that they adapted quite a few
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: of my ideas into their things. It was quite nice
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: to see.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: How do people find out more about you? Let's talk
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: about where they find you on the web on social media.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: So my website is for Xoverland dot com and on
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: there there are several badges, you know, points of you
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: and I and my videos, my courses, all of the
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: things that I do. I also involved in a company
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: called Egon. We've seen myself teamed up with a megatronics engineer.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: We're seeing shortcomings and needs in the electrical fitment parts
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: of far drives and campus and things, so we developed
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: some products there. But that's the best place to find
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: me is forxoverland dot com and they're from there. There
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: are lots of links to all of the many things
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: I do. And of course Instagram is for x Overland
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: understore underscore com is my Instagram channel. Nice which and
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: that's yeah, that's me.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Andrew. It's a pleasure
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: to see you. Hopefully I'll bump into you on another
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: continent soon, maybe in Africa, you never know.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm there next April, okay to take our Africa
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Cruiser on its very first trip. Oh, fantastic planning on
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Malawi and Zambia and Malawi.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: You're planning well. Thank you again, Andrew, and we thank
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: you all for listening and we'll talk to you next time.