Overland Journal Winter 2010

First Rate Advice I stumbled across your website by accident about a year ago, and ordered the entire back catalogue. I just felt the need to write and say, like many others, bravo! I’m sure you get a lot of emails along these lines, but your magazine has really helped me make decisions on a lot of the equipment I have bought for the overland adventure I’m undertaking from London to Singapore in a couple of weeks. From GPS units to waffle boards, the advice and guidance have been first rate. I’m doing my bit spreading the word with your stickers plastered on my Defender 130. In fact with the number of people asking me about them and the Journal I should be getting a commission. Keep up the good work, and I…

Tom Sheppard Tom has an exploration career spanning 50 years, and totaling over 110,000 overland miles since 1960, including significant exploration in northern Africa and the first-ever lateral crossing of the Sahara from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Tom is a freelance writer/photographer and consultant, and author of the Vehicle Dependent Expedition Guide and the new The Nobility of Wilderness (Desert Winds). From the Royal Geographical Society, Tom has received the Ness Award, and the distinction ARPS (Associate of the Royal Photographic Society). Graham Jackson Graham Jackson was born in Lesotho in Southern Africa. He grew up racing motorcycles in the dirt as well as helping his father design, build and race off-road buggies. Graham completed his first safari across the Kalahari at age 10 in a Range Rover with his family.…

I’ve learned something over decades of doing a lot of different things outdoors: No matter how tough you think you are, there’s always someone tougher. One of my most satisfying moments on the “tougher” end was the time years ago when my friend Tommy Thompson and I paddled our sea kayaks out to a tiny island in the Sea of Cortez, about 16 miles from the nearest land mass, and farther from where we launched our 22-inch-wide, 17-foot-long boats. It was a rough paddle in choppy conditions, and we were tired but satisfied when we pulled up to the cobbled shore, and carried the boats up to a spit beneath a hill on which several thousand seabirds were nesting. Late that afternoon as we relaxed in camp, glassing for the sharks that…

I deliberately titled this column in a way designed to raise eyebrows. Clearly, there is no such thing as the perfect tool kit—at least, not short of stock number 9600GSBO in the Snap-on catalog: a spectacular 1,000-plus-piece triumph of the forger’s art that includes rolling chests and wall cabinets and retails for—I’ll write this out for full impact—thirty seven thousand, seven hundred and twenty dollars. And ten cents. Even that wouldn’t be perfect. Most obviously, while 9600GSBO is inarguably comprehensive, it would be . . . inconvenient . . . to transport, and one of the salient features of an ‘overlanding’ tool kit clearly must be portability. Considering only that, then, the Leatherman Charge TTi on my belt would qualify as perfect—except the Leather-man falls short when we factor in the…

DAFN without the AF? Why electric vehicles don't feature here very often You may have noticed that, over the past couple years, I’ve covered few electric-powered vehicles. The word order in the title of the column is an indication of where my personal preferences lie, but despite that I’m not one for ignoring the possibilities electrics offer. For that reason I feel my lack of coverage deserves an explanation. There is a handful of criticisms typically directed at Electric Vehicles, or EVs. The source of the electricity is often questioned, since much of it is derived from burning fossil fuels. While true, this is a short-sighted objection, since, besides the efficiencies of scale (one big power plant is more efficient than a bunch of little ones), that infrastructure is more than capable…

A Land Rover club you can’t join . . . . . . unless you are a 9-year-old girl. Meet the Rover Divas: Grace, Izabella, Samantha, Sophia and Sydney. The definition of a Rover Diva is: “A bunch of girls who all own Land Rovers and love the outdoors and camping,” according to the homepage of their popular blog (roverdivas.blogspot.com). Inspired by their many outings together with their parents and the Arizona Land Rover Owner’s club, the five young Arizonans have blogged about looking for gold in the Santa Catalina Mountains (it was iron pyrite), rock climbing, and exploring Chaco Canyon, including an excellent discourse on misspelled inscriptions and signage (immediately endearing the author to this magazine’s executive editor). The Divas’ trip logs are often very useful, with maps, history, and details…