Thread: A QLD 110 in Europe

WOW,
Stunning pictures.

That's awesome thanks for sharing.
Nathan.

What a great adventure.
Had a quick look at some of the photos on your website. Did you just come across other vehicles to travel with to different places along the way, or was it a bit more pre-arranged?

Also noticed the Coleman dual-fuel cooker instead of gas??

Steve

Nice lot of photos on your website. Do you have any pages documenting your build, and how you shipped the vehicle?

Would be interested to find out what sort of money it cost to do the shipping, and what issues you had bringing it back into Australia (I am presuming you are back home at the moment).

How did you go with "free-camping" in various countries?

Cheers
David

Originally Posted by steveG

What a great adventure.
Had a quick look at some of the photos on your website. Did you just come across other vehicles to travel with to different places along the way, or was it a bit more pre-arranged?

Also noticed the Coleman dual-fuel cooker instead of gas??

Steve

The only pre-arranged company (an English guide) was for half our time in Morocco when we were really remote. I hadn't had the time to plan routes prior to our departure and it appeased the in-laws as well. Whilst the chap I went with was a fantastic character, I'd never do an organised tag-a-long tour again - I missed my independence. It did take us to some spots I'm sure we'd have never found but for the guidance, but I was glad to be alone for the second half of our time down there.

We met a Danish bloke in Morocco who coincidentally was planning to cross the Pyrenees off-road at a similar time to us, so we teamed up there and pooled our maps and straps.

Iceland we went over solo but you meet people along the way. In the Central Highlands you often don't see anyone for a day or so. On the more serious fords sometimes people wait for someone else to come and try their luck and teams seem to form somewhat organically. A great deal of the beauty of the place is the solitude. Some nuts rent Sierras and try to take them across the deep fjords (read over the bonnet deep). As soon as they see a Defender with a snorkel they desperately cling to your tail so they can watch you cross. On a few occasions, to keep the solitude in tact, I'd have to pull over and wave them on.

All the rest of our off-piste was incidental and we navigated the tarmac alone.

We went for the Coleman so we didn't have to sort out gas fittings and knew we could get fuel of some sort where ever we were. The lighting routine grows on you - the sound of the pump is like the sound of a bell to Pavlov's dogs. That Coleman is secured to the bench with a pair of large rare-earth magnets, so we could detach it out and cook on the table, or cook inside the truck. We didn't feel gas bottles, with hoses and stoves would be quite as flexible.

Originally Posted by knodes85

The only pre-arranged company (an English guide) was for half our time in Morocco when we were really remote. I hadn't had the time to plan routes prior to our departure and it appeased the in-laws as well. Whilst the chap I went with was a fantastic character, I'd never do an organised tag-a-long tour again - I missed my independence. It did take us to some spots I'm sure we'd have never found but for the guidance, but I was glad to be alone for the second half of our time down there.

We met a Danish bloke in Morocco who coincidentally was planning to cross the Pyrenees off-road at a similar time to us, so we teamed up there and pooled our maps and straps.

Iceland we went over solo but you meet people along the way. In the Central Highlands you often don't see anyone for a day or so. On the more serious fords sometimes people wait for someone else to come and try their luck and teams seem to form somewhat organically. A great deal of the beauty of the place is the solitude. Some nuts rent Sierras and try to take them across the deep fjords (read over the bonnet deep). As soon as they see a Defender with a snorkel they desperately cling to your tail so they can watch you cross. On a few occasions, to keep the solitude in tact, I'd have to pull over and wave them on.

All the rest of our off-piste was incidental and we navigated the tarmac alone.

We went for the Coleman so we didn't have to sort out gas fittings and knew we could get fuel of some sort where ever we were. The lighting routine grows on you - the sound of the pump is like the sound of a bell to Pavlov's dogs. That Coleman is secured to the bench with a pair of large rare-earth magnets, so we could detach it out and cook on the table, or cook inside the truck. We didn't feel gas bottles, with hoses and stoves would be quite as flexible.

We have done some overlanding and agree that the dual fuel is less of a problem than gas. We kept on running into people in central Asia asking us if we had gas adapter x. Not being able to cook your own meals quickly depletes any savings.

Thanks for taking the time post some great pics John, wow what an amazing adventure. The photo's are spectacular, I will definitely have to check out your web page when I get time.

When I lived in the UK, many moons ago, we used to visit friends in Reykjavik every year. Your photo's brought back some great memories. I vividly remember pulling up to one particular fjord in my Series III, where there was a guy in an old Russian army truck helping people cross, for a fee of course. The truck was a ZIL-157, it was wonderful to watch. The 4x4's drove onto the tray of the truck, via a dirt ramp, then the truck ferried them across.

Originally Posted by spudboy

Nice lot of photos on your website. Do you have any pages documenting your build, and how you shipped the vehicle?

Would be interested to find out what sort of money it cost to do the shipping, and what issues you had bringing it back into Australia (I am presuming you are back home at the moment).

How did you go with "free-camping" in various countries?

Cheers
David

I've nothing documenting the build beyond the photos in the "Sulo" section of the site. Shipping arrangements were not documented either. I'll try to expand on this, and the reimportation process I experienced in the coming days. We shipped in and out of the UK as we had no idea what we were doing and I wanted to avoid the language barriers. Given the exchange rate, that may not be the most economical option - I think in and out of Hamburg Germany would be cheaper. AU-UK-AU you'd be lucky to get much change out of $10,000 for a Full Container Load by the time it's all said and done.

The success of free-camping is very much dependent upon the state you're in, and your comfort threshold. Many countries up there allow it legally, or don't really care.

- The Algarve area in Portugal for instance was magnificent. I'd just drive the truck into the dunes or onto a headland wherever the surf was best, then just stay there until the conditions changed. Not technically legal, but the police saw me and for the most part couldn't care less.
- Iceland is also magnificent, but because of the geology you cannot drive off the tracks at all, so sometimes finding a protected spot can be a challenge. We encountered winds that would easily have been 70 knots up there - I thought the truck was going to flip.
- Norway was another free-camping nirvana however the locals had understandably had enough, as many twits don't clean up after themselves. Luckily the Defender can get where most can't.
- France has aires which are essentially designated free-camping areas - some are nice, some seem extremely sketchy. In the surf towns on the coast, you just park on the street near the surf. The same goes for the ski towns - just park near the lift so you can ski to your car at the end of the day.
- Scotland tolerated it, however in some forest areas we camped at we encountered the dreaded Scottish Midge which were so tiny they could get through the stitching holes in Daniel's pop-top canvas. Unbelievable numbers of them got in, easily hundreds.
- Morocco was comical - you could just go wherever you wanted and camp wherever you wanted. The trade off is that the locals can be interesting. I was pulled out of my car in the dead of night by some very angry soldiers who thought I was a people smuggler watching over the sea for boats coming in. It took a long time to convince them I was parked on the headland so I could surf the beach below. Shepherds often guided their flocks at night to beat the heat, so you'd sometimes be woken up by bleating at 2:00am with 50 sheep surrounding your car.

In the built up areas, a pop-top Defender with skis and surfboards on the roof isn't exactly inconspicuous. My design allows the floor to be pulled out, it sits on legs to form the table, or it sits on the cupboards to make a sleeping platform that doesn't necessitate that the roof be popped up. We slept in some interesting carparks in cities like that, but I wouldn't describe the nights as restful. There's something about people wandering around your truck at 3:00am speaking in foreign tongues which isn't exactly a lullaby.

Some countries wouldn't tolerate wild camping at all, Germany and Switzerland for instance were quite strict. There we'd just try and find the least developed campgrounds we could and would stay there. Often that would just be a designated car park with a toilet block and a power plug. I'd never stayed in a camp ground before (beyond our National Park campsites with a drop toilet) so the extent of some of the resort style places was a shock. Europeans seem to go to these resort campgrounds for two week holidays, never leave the confines of the actual campground and demand entertainment while they're there - seemed like torture to me. At the end of the day they provided a safe place to store the truck and we'd just stumble back from touristing come night and pop the top to sleep. It can be a real battle finding somewhere to park a 2.5M tall 110 in the cities as well, so the camp grounds served as somewhere with Defender height clearance.

If anyone is chasing specific spots in these countries I had a Spot Trace which tracked me along the way. It was more for security in case we broke down in the middle of Iceland / Morocco, or someone pinched the truck, but I should be able to use the log to give GPS coordinates for spots if anyone wants them. The same for good campsites - one in every 3 or 4 would be pretty nice.