Our Wild Journey Travel diary

Czech Republic

August 2007...

The plan to go to Africa was born in Sweden while we worked in a factory there. And also from there we bought our first thing for Africa...a roof tent! We didn't even have a car for that! :o) On the way back from Sweden we stopped in Rene's place and had a look around for a suitable 4x4 for our project...that's how we found our bumblebee and took it to Czech Republic to prepare...we have more place there than in Rene's home and we think we will need a lot of place!
It took a quick 2 weeks to prepare the car for the MOT and to get it registered in Czech Republic. The next thing we bought was a snorkel made by a Czech "Vitalak", but we are still now getting at him with a lawyer because he sold us rubbish!

September till December 2007

So what now? There was work enough! Rene took the car back to Germany to kick out the back seats and start building a frame and side boxes for the drawers and the fridge. At the same time we had the car checked from inside out for any faults or hidden damages...there were none! Only the jets were replaced by our Diesel service in Otovice close to Karlovy Vary.
And as our project is supported by Engel Fridges (Dalix) and HUMI for Outdoor clothes we had a little drive through Czech Republic to meet up with Mr. Hnevkovsky from HUMI in Voznice and then with Mr. Harvanek in Zd'ar nad Sazavou, who all wished us a nice expedition and happy travels! On the 12th September we flew to England for work as usual, (we would need a lot of money for this trip!) and in this time Andrea's dad and her brother took over to start making the roof rack and the bumpers. We kept in contact by skype and talked about what needed to be done. Making the roof rack proved a bit more difficult because of our "choice of car" which has a hardtop made of fibreglass and not normal sheet metal. So Roman would need to make extra reinforcements. For the bumpers we would plan a winch as well,although we had seen most of the overlanders without but for our worried families we took one just to be safe - and if it doesn't help us maybe we can help someone else! :o)
And while we were working in England the car got send to fix 2 holes (nothing too worrying) and we continued our "theoretical" preparation. Often, after the tiring work we would sit and prepare our homepage which you are reading now, all in all a very "nerve-consuming" thing, we had lots of empty beercans laying around! :o)
For Christmas we came home from England, had a few calm and nice celebration days, received our presents from a tiny little Santa Claus called Simon and Roman had his cardboard model of the bumpers finished! Uff...one step further!

January till March 2008

After the New Year (we had a quiet one) Simon built his first "snow man" together with all of us, we still took a deep, relaxing breath before flying back to England for more work. In February we came back from England and all the preparations started fully - we had a lot of things to do. And as nice as internet is, as confusing it is at the same time. One can get so many information about how to do this and that so it was hard for us taking only the important points for us. Same counts for the numerous travel and offroad forums, where, instead of giving useful information a lot of "knowledgable" people just pass their time making fun of serious questions. :o( So all in all, our planning and paperwork time took more than our actual work on the car. So we drove to Prague to get the carnet, went for vaccinations, applied for new passports etc etc.

April - June 2008

Our paperwork and search for info continued while Roman kept working on the bumpers and roof rack. When combing through the offroad forums we found one guy close to Karlovy Vary who prepared 4x4s - and has he had good prices and knowledge he did some work for us like changing the clutch, fitting the snorkel and finally as well putting in a new OME suspension (springs and shocks). All in all our car got the expedition look by now. By the end of April Rene went to Germany for 6 weeks because he would work for his friend's company - the new springs were an unforeseen cost! :o) So Andrea in the meantime was left alone with more organization! :o) And in may, when Rene came back, the bumpers were ready and now Roman took some time with the roof rack - it's not too easy for our car and it was his first time to do something like this. In the meantime Andrea's dad finished the drawers for the back of the car and our planned departure date "March 2008" was moved to April and finally to somwehere around June. Some things one just can't plan! A lot of work on the car we did also in Chrast, Roman's home, where already a new baby was born - little Kacenka, sister to Simon. So Andrea became aunt for a second time! Yahooo! :o)

July - September 2008

As you see, we didn't make it in June either and are still in Czech Republic. Some people didn't really see us go by now, but we can only say that a lot of things need to be thought of for such a trip and any unforeseen events delay the departure. We apologize for the delay and hope, the people who have been waiting for our travel stories since March will keep hanging on and follow us on our way down anyway! :o)
By the end of summer we moved to another place and also took Simon from Chrast to Vojkovice to camp with us (his first time in the tent!) and grill sausages over the fire! He loved it the same as the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
This was also the time when our new springs were fitted but unfortunately we had to find out that our mechanic got a little greedy and didn't do his job so properly...:o( We will see now if the springs last throughout Africa. Furthermore we had all the electrics done, the 2nd battery got connected, all lights and extra plugs etc. And already before the travel we had to exchange some stuff we bought which didn't prove to be fit for their job - welcome to "made in China"!

October 2008

...finally we had everything packed and booked our ferry from Genova to Tunis for the 22nd October - the earliest possible so we HAD to make it til then! Rene ate heavily for the last days (he thinks there is no food in Africa!) and Andrea somehow looked for other jobs before we left. And then finally - we said goodbye to everyone and left...