Turkey

Leaving the security blanket of the EU and crossing over from Greece into Turkey was good training for the coming months. All Jules required with her wonderful maroon UK passport was 15 euros and she got a sticker. My not so wonderful green mamba South African passport meant I was sent back and forth between Visas and Border Control several times, finally being ushered into a police station and waiting for a policeman to wave it around for about 20 minutes while he worked out what it was, before taking multiple photocopies of it and handing me a hand-written visa with 4 different stamps. At least it was free, so we’re back to Even’s Steven’s in the “who has spent money on what for themselves” department. We then had to empty our car to show them we had no contraband – I think the guy was more interested to see what gear we had.

We saw our first donkey carts and thought driving through Turkey would be a calm, sedate affair. Then we arrived in Istanbul. During rush hour. A city with a population of 13.5 million people, all trying to get to the same campsite as us at the same time. After witnessing two bumper-bashings we arrived at our campsite, a place called Mistik camping. The photographs on the website for this campsite were clearly a serving suggestion and as we initially didn’t believe it was the same place, we proceeded to drive around the town trying to find the real “Mistik camping” only to end up back at the same place an hour later.

The campsite is on the outskirts of Istanbul in a place called Kilyos, on the Black Sea. Having arrived quite late after a long drive, we decided to treat ourselves to a restaurant. While we were waiting for our food to arrive one of the waiters offered us some fresh almonds. Except he wasn’t a waiter, and once he had served us our fresh almonds with 3 blocks of ice on them so we couldn’t give them back, he demanded 20 Lira. Wide-awake, exchange-rate savvy Chris and Jules would have told him where to stick his almonds one by one, but tired and weary Chris and Jules handed over the money and while he made a sneaky getaway we did the sums and then sulked our way through supper and got chased by a vicious stray dog on our way back to camp. At least the fish was nice.

At the campsite we met a lovely Dutch couple who are heading east with their 7 and 10 year old sons for the next 5 months. We compared notes and gripes about how we both originally wanted Land Rovers because they look so cool, but went for Toyotas because they are so reliable, only to discover that this isn’t necessarily the case – although their car has over 400,000km on the clock. Istanbul is currently having a tulip festival with flowers all over the city. Turns out they’re originally from Turkey and not Holland.

Istanbul on foot is a pretty crazy place – you need a Red Bull just to be able to fall asleep. We ended up in the old town, sampling bits of baklava and breads along the way as we made our way to the Grand Bazaar, Blue Mosque and other sites.
Highlights include the fish market, Basilica Cistern, and a street with music shops full of Martin acoustics, Parker Fly’s and other guitars I used to drool over when my university degree was something to “fall back on” if my music career didn’t work out.

We’ve both experienced the call to prayer in other countries, and it always makes us feel like we’re in an exotic location, especially when walking through places like the Grand Bazaar and seeing streets turned into places of prayer, although the 05:00 am Allahm is not as much fun.

We watched fishermen catching little fish on a bridge over the Bosphorous Strait, 6 at a time, which we later enjoyed battered and deep-fried at a little fish shop in a slightly quieter street. Having experienced the odd drunken kebab in London, our expectations were pretty low, however sober we weren’t disappointed and really enjoyed a different version of the doner kebab, with chicken, fried chips, pickled chillis and a yoghurt drink thrown in to wash it all down. The yoghurt also comes cleverly disguised as milk, something we discovered when our tea curdled the next morning.


We spent most of the next day driving through more Istanbul rush-hour traffic, in the rain, trying to find a Toyota service station as worryingly our car is using oil and we want to take it for a service after adding over 6,000km in one month. As there were no campsites in the area I redeemed myself from the almond saga and haggled a hotel manager down from 180 Lira per night to 120. After quite a bit of google translate while talking to somebody at the Toyota service station, we found out that a service was going to cost us 10,000 Lira (over £3,500). A bit of haggling later and a service was going to cost us £400, using our own filters etc. It looks like it might have to wait until Egypt.
Hopefully the oil issue isn’t too serious – as with diagnosing health issues online, diagnosing car problems can also result in sleepless nights. Please don’t helpfully mention the words “head gasket” in any comments!

After our unsuccessful attempt with Toyota we did a 9 hour drive to Cappadocia, amazed at how much the landscape in Turkey changes in such short distances. They clearly aren’t messing around with Syria on their doorstep as we passed a convoy of trucks towing about 20 tanks and saw a fighter jet and 2 army helicopters flying around Ankara.

This morning we woke up to the sound of a flame thrower right outside our tent, opened the flap and had a hot air balloon about 20 metres above us coming down to land nearby. There were balloons all around us, with the most bizarre Martian landscape in the background. The rest of the day has been just as horrible, with a long walk through strange rock formations, looking at old houses and Christian churches cut into the rock over 1,000 years ago.
We’ll be here for the next three days or so, doing a bit of sightseeing and relaxing before heading over to Egypt for the real start of our trip.

Italy to Greece

To drive along the Amalfi coast you don’t need a fancy pair of brown leather driving gloves, although a fancy pair of brown driving trousers is a prerequisite. As with other coastal roads in Italy, the beast was a bit out of its depth, sharing the pool with a very nervous driver and even more nervous chief navigator. Occasionally we would pull over to the side when the rare opportunity presented itself to enjoy the breath-taking view and allow the hordes of Alfa Romeo drivers to go past. There is only so much friendly hooted greeting a man can take. We weren’t alone – at one of the viewpoints we stopped at a car with two sweet old ladies on a girls holiday had also stopped and the one lady was all apologetic for swearing when she described driving on the road as – forgive me – “hellish”.

From the Amalfi coast we headed towards Bari to catch our ferry, stopping at Alberobello along the way. This is a UNESCO world heritage site known for its Trulli’s – buildings with roofs like you’ll see in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Walking through one of the roads we got sucked into a chilli shop to enjoy a “free” panoramic view from his roof – no need to buy anything. On the way out he proceeded to feed us samples of all his wares – from chilli chocolate, to chilli liqueur, to chilli jam, to the star of the show – Dynamite, packaged with its very own fuse. After Chris Way-Jones’ concentrated napalm, this was like candy-floss-flavoured-baby-food, prepared by fairies and angels, stacked full of unicorn kisses, good deeds and sweet dreams. One bottle of Dynamite richer we headed on to the ferry, passing a gaggle of prostitutes along the way – what little we saw of Bari is pretty classy!

The ferry trip was uneventful. We realised why cigarette companies used to advertise with pictures of people on yachts rather than long-haul truck drivers chuffing away in stairwells on ferries. I also spent about an hour watching a Greek father and son play backgammon. Turns out there are about 5 different variations of the game, each one with its own devious ways for a father to put his son in his place.


After a night with no sleep we found a brilliant campsite right next to the beach and spent the day lounging on the hammock with a couple of Mythos – I can’t believe none of you have heard of it, it’s “the world’s most famous Hellenic beer”. The highlight of the day was when a man and his wife came past us fishing for octopus with hand-lines, chains and half-eaten chicken legs as bait – some couples go to the theatre together, I guess this is their thing. We both said we wanted to take the best bits of our trip and incorporate them into our lives – most romantic wedding anniversary ever?

Greece has been an interesting experience. As much as we would have loved to have seen Athens and Delphi, we were too far north and haven’t seen much touristy stuff. The countryside has been beautiful, from farmland to snow-capped mountains and forests. Meteora was spectacular – monasteries built on amazing sandstone formations. We experienced our first night of “wild camping” – driving down a sand road into the middle of nowhere and waiting for the sun to set before pitching our tent. It took a while for us to get to sleep – suddenly the sound of the wind blowing against the tent becomes an angry farmer with a shotgun. I guess this will take some getting used to.

For a nation that effectively gave the western world our moral compass it has been a bit distressing to see how animals are treated over here – to quote Ghandi “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated”. I wanted to find out why there were so many strays and came across the following website: http://www.straysofgreece.org/ – this is effectively what we have seen throughout. Shame on you all!

Tomorrow we make our way to Turkey.

Monaco & Italy

When we were in Monaco the beast went on some of the Monaco Grand Prix Circuit, including inside the tunnel. There is no new lap record. There are a few angry Ferrari drivers who were stuck behind us and were unable to get out of second gear and impress the ladies on the yachts as they went passed the Marina.

Speaking of the Marina – there are some pretty big yachts in Monaco. It must be a bit upsetting to feel like you’ve finally arrived only to discover that the guy moored next to your yacht has one with a with a helicopter and several jet skis. The second most impressive boat didn’t have another one right next to it, so we could have taken a pic of more than just the back of a yacht. It also happened to have a pompous English twit walking up and down the deck on his phone speaking loud enough so that we could hear him telling Alfi that he would call him back as soon as he had finished closing his latest deal. Who would give somebody like that the satisfaction – rather let him think his yacht was beneath our contempt. Unfortunately this backfired when it turned out the Bentley I was admiring nearby had the name of his yacht on the parking slip. At least we can all go to sleep comfortable with the knowledge that he has a small willy.

After Monaco it was on to Italy. It was a bit of a shock to the system going from tractors in France to crazy Fiats. In Genova we drove along some sort of Mobius strip for ages, always in the wrong lane, and always unable to get into the right lane because of some guy on a scooter. Unfortunately driving the beast on Italian roads is like getting a left-handed person to write calligraphy with a fountain pen – loads of elegant turns, but ultimately you’re left with smudged ink on your hands and a smear on the page. If you want to drive properly in Italy you’re going to want a red car with logo containing a horse. At least they give you the option of driving straight through the mountains rather than around them, although for this luxury you pay hefty tolls. I didn’t think it was possible to have so many tunnels and bridges.

Fuel in Italy is pretty expensive compared to France – we’re lucky if we can find anything for less than 1.65 per litre – the minute you’re away from a big town you’re suddenly looking at 1.75 and up. The really amazing thing is the sheer number of petrol stations right next to each other all with different fuel prices. You can also get charged 2 different prices at the same station depending on whether you fill up yourself or get a petrol attendant to do it for you.

Camping is also more expensive than France, generally around 20 euros a night for a rubbish campsite. In Florence you’re looking at around 36 euros a night.

We spent two nights at a campsite about 5 metres directly above the sea. From here we caught the train to Cinque Terra as cars aren’t allowed in the villages. You can’t go there without wanting to paint – photographs almost seem like an insult to the place.


From there we headed off to Pisa and Florence to see what all the fuss is about. Florence is beautiful, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit flat when we left – like Venice it has become too successful as a tourist destination and is completely overrun with them (/us) and the touts and restaurants trying to fleece them (/us). With so little time in Italy, I was also disappointed not to be able to see David and go into the cathedral because of the incredibly long queues. Florence can’t be seen properly in just a day.

Driving through the rest of Tuscany has been spectacular. Every picture we’ve ever seen of the area is exactly what we saw – vineyards, green rolling hills, villas with long driveways surrounded by trees.
In the south of Tuscany we managed to find a campsite run by a lovely elderly couple. While I was preparing supper Jules went to go and pay and disappeared for ages. I went to go and find her only to discover her stuck between them watching the new pope conduct a service on tv. Before I knew it she had made a quick getaway and there I was, not knowing how long was long enough before I could also bugger off without seeming rude. It was quite nice watching the two of them singing along, absolutely smitten by their new papa.

We were a bit nervous about driving in Rome, so decided to find a campsite outside and catch a train in. In the end we picked the sort of campsite that will prove to people that we are hardcore adventurers – Happy Village and Camping, with its very own shuttle bus.

Rome was incredible, although as with Florence, trying to condense everything into two days is impossible. We got to see the Coliseum, Roman Forum and some of the Vatican. We also managed to find a cappuccino for 1 euro a block away from a piazza where they were going for 6.50. Score! The beast unfortunately has a new nemesis – an Alfa Romeo – every time we want to do a u-turn there is one behind us, every time we want to overtake a truck, there is one overtaking both of us – thank goodness we’ve never had a full one behind us.

Today we went to Pompeii and are now in a campsite overlooking a bay with Mount Vesuvius on the other side. We’ve managed to find a plug for the laptop near a dinosaur and car you put money into for kids to ride. Every time we move they sense us and start flashing lights and playing the smurfs.

If I’m brave enough I might have my first swim in the sea tomorrow morning. Either that or a lie-in.

France

Having experienced a sinking Sunday blues feeling nearly every Sunday afternoon for the past 8 years, I think I’ve finally found the cure – not knowing what day of the week it is.  Jules keeps trying to teach them to me in French, but having only done a year of it when she was 12, I don’t think the dumb pupil is entirely to blame!  My current conversation with a French person loosely translates to “Good Day, do you know how to speak Milk?”, to which the response is “a leetil”, followed by a complicated game of charades.  Fortunately my vocabulary is growing rapidly with useful words like Pulez, Tierez, Overt and Ferme being added daily, although as with doors in England when it says “Pulez”, I tierez and when it says “Tierez” I pulez.

Jules has also kindly but naively added my folder of ACDC to her Ipod so there would be music for both of us.  This folder contains every one of their albums, which means that when the Ipod is on shuffle there is now a 20% chance of ACDC popping up.  Obviously she is very happy with this.


We arrived in Dieppe from Newhaven at about 3:30 in the morning, the perfect time to learn how to drive on the right as there was virtually no traffic.

Although we both really enjoyed seeing Paris in the past we felt that 7 euros for a half pint of beer wouldn’t be a good opening gambit for this trip.  Generally when I get charged this sort of price for a drink I ensure it includes a free beer glass, but we don’t have enough space so we skipped Paris and headed straight to the countryside.

We’ve been driving predominantly on country roads to skip the tolls and fallen in love with what we’ve seen – quaint villages and farms separated by miles of fields, forests or vineyards, with the odd Chateau thrown in to keep things interesting.

As beautiful as the scenery is, March is definitely not the right time to go, as the trees are still short of blossoms and leaves, and pretty much everything is closed.

The various Chateaus we have been to have all been incredible.  I really wish I knew more about French history than guillotines and “your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries” – if you don’t know where that is from, you probably aren’t going to enjoy this site, because Monty Python is where half my general knowledge comes from.  The rest is a combination of Tintin, Asterix and Carry On movies.

Driving has been relatively easy, although our old address might suddenly receive a legion of fines in the post – somebody else’s problem?

There are huge differences in fuel prices, with diesel anywhere between 1.32 and 1.52 per litre.  Generally petrol stations attached to supermarkets are less.  Most of the campsites are closed at the moment, so we’ve had to do a bit of googling to find anything that is open.  2 campsites have really stood out so far.   http://www.manzac-ferme.com was one, where we were welcomed by George and Margaret like long-lost friends.  The other one is http://www.lemontagnou.co.uk, a lovely campsite in the Midi Pyrenees, with views of snow-capped mountains, a crystal-clear river with trout fishing, run by a lovely family, who went out of their way to help us, even though we had to resort to Google Translate to understand each other.   Catching a trout here must be wonderful, but not catching one is a close second.

Other campsites we have been to have been near big cities – Bordeaux and Dax (long story short, we buggered up Bordeaux, entering something into the Garmin and next thing we were near Spain.  Whoops!!!  At least we got to climb the largest sand dune in Europe along the way instead of moving from one Chateau to the next listening to crazy people talk about wine).  These campsites have communal bathrooms.  You may think communal bathroom means young French and Swedish ladies playfully flicking each other with towels then giggling while they chase each other around the room.  What it really means is old person in dressing-gown gurning because her false teeth are next to her bed in her motor home.

We’re currently staying with my cousin and his family in Provence for Easter, where we have been spoiled to the point of wanting to cancel the rest of our trip and move in with them.  It’s been really good getting to know them properly and meet their 2 boys Oliver and Tristan, having last seen them about 15 years ago.  The trip to Marseilles will remain a highlight of the trip – thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Without trying to place a commentator’s curse on our car, it has been running well.  There have been a few issues – the lever to lock the central differential became jammed after a short stint in sand.  Fortunately this was relatively easy to fix with the help of Anthony (good guy to know if you’re in Provence).  Our inverter popped a fuse the second time we used it and now makes a continuous beeping noise when we turn it on, which is a bit frustrating.  Hopefully I can get it working as it would be nice to remain self-sufficient when charging laptops etc.

Lesson’s learned

  • The French are skinny because their diet comprises 2 baggettes and a newspaper
  • Avoid campsites near cities like the plague.
  • 6 weight fly rod vs hi lift Jack – hi lift jack will win every time.  I don’t often feel like crying but this is an absolute travesty
  • Sitting on a round enamel teacup makes a chipped oval enamel teacup
  • The chilli sauce gift from Chris Way-Jones wasn’t a gift, it was an example of just how hot hell is in summer
  • Always have hot water in the flask
  • There isn’t time to see everything and we just need to accept that

Apologies for the late update – we’ve been really disorganised and when we have had the internet, we’ve had to use it for planning the following day.  I promise they will be more frequent – even if it’s just a note to say we’re ok.

D-Day

We’re 5 days short of our 8-year anniversary in the UK and are about to storm the beaches of Normandy. We leave tonight under the cover of darkness and arrive at the crack of sparrow’s fart tomorrow morning for a fortnight of cheese, wine and greasing the Beast’s axles with fois gras.

We had a brilliant send-off and fortunately there were no Robotos in sight (for the uninitiated a Roboto is 3 shots of anything in the colours of a Robot / Traffic Light – it could be shots of ketchup, orange juice and lime juice, but then it could also be red sambuca, tequila and absynth). My heart doesn’t want to leave our friends in the UK, but sometimes you need to listen to your liver and after 8 years it has finally said “enough”! Thanks guys for such good times – you know who you are.

See you all in Jozi.

Winches for when wenches won’t work

As the car isn’t heavy enough for this trip we invested in some recovery gear.

Things we’ve got include a strop for towing and a hi-lift off-road kit which allows us to turn the jack into a winch if necessary.

We also have a KERR rope.  This is a magic piece of kit that effectively bungy-jumps your car out of a tough spot if there is another car around to help.

We went for a T-MAXX air compressor. This model is significantly cheaper than the ARB and VIAIR compressors, but has quite a good name, so hopefully it will be up to the task.

Jules wasn’t too chuffed when I showed her that she has a pair of workman’s gloves to push the car when we’re stuck.  Fortunately she enjoys alliteration as much as the next person, so the heading for this post was allowed.

Overland Cruisers

Having lost our faith in the original overland expedition “specialists”, we went to see Julian at Overland Cruisers so that he could go over the car and see if there were any glaringly obvious issues that the other guys had missed. While he did this he explained each thing he was looking at and showed us some of the mechanical things to be aware of and how to fix them – basically enough knowledge for us to hurt ourselves.

Even with the OME springs, the back of the car was still a bit low and we installed some air bags which have made a big difference to the handling. Another hangover from the previous mechanic was that even though we’ve just had a massive engine rebuild because of the piston problem, the car needed about 3.5 litres of oil.  You would think they would have checked the oil levels before handing the car over.

If you have a Land Cuiser don’t make the same mistake we did – go straight to Julian at Overland Cruisers.  You can get hold of him through his website here.

Off-Road Training

Jules and I went down to Devon to give the car a run when fully loaded and say goodbye to some family.  While  we were down there we did some off-road training.  Having never used the 4-wheel-drive capabilities of our car in anger, it was really good to see just how capable it is.  Apart from being bloody cold, the day was brilliant.  Ian from  MTF training was extremely knowledgeable, giving us loads of advice and showing us the ropes when it comes to vehicle recovery.

To find out more about MTF Training click here.

Pulling Teeth

My mother-in-law told me that an abscess is as painful as child birth.  Having never experienced the latter, I guess I have to accept that as gospel, although a part of me (my jaw) feels that giving birth is child’s play in comparison.  I imagine it is probably even less fun when driving down a “four wheel drives only” road, so when I was in South Africa I went for a check-up.  All was good, although I’ve been grinding my teeth.

I guess working in a bank will do that to you.

A two week repair on a car that takes two months doesn’t help much either.  There has been a bit of stress in the Taylor household since January hence the lack of posts – broken car, packing up house, cleaning house, moving house, moving country, finishing work, closing down company, visa’s, documents, etc.  These are all what I call First World Problems, and normally when somebody moans about a First World Problem the standard response is to take a teaspoon of cement and harden up.

The car is back and although it is hard to stay cross with our bundle of joy, earning our trust will take a bit longer, with every shudder, squeak and moan resulting in anxious glances between Jules and me and heart palpitations.

We were hoping to have the whole of January and February to work out how to pack it and do our various mechanics and off-road driving courses, but it has all been condensed into two weeks.

We’ve got some more gear, which I’ll cover in another post, and we’re haemorrhaging money on grudge purchases like insurance, which I’ll also cover.

Other than that, life is good and it looks like we’re still on track to leave on 18 March.

Hypochondriacs

Lotions and potions

Normally when we go somewhere our first aid kit comprises some paracetamol and Rennies bought at the last minute in duty free before a flight.  Having gone on the first aid course and being shown all sorts of crazy ways to die we thought we should be a bit better prepared for this trip.

As well as the standard pain-killers, antiseptic creams, anti malaria medication and bandages, our first aid kit includes some antibiotics and a sterile kit with needles, syringes and scalpels.

Other items include a resusciade, sphygmomanometer* and stethoscope, aluminium splint and 2 neck braces.

We’ve got eye drops, ear drops, creams, pills to stop vomiting, pills to stop diarrhea, pills to start diarrhea, pills that stop vomiting but start diarrhea, pills that stop diarrhea and vomiting, but cause itching – you name it, we’ve got it.

We’ve also got or are getting vaccinations for Heppatitus A and B, Rabies, Meningitis, Typhoid, Diptheria, Tetnus, Cholera and Yellowfever.

We’ve probably gone a bit overboard with enough medicine and bandages to stock a small hospital, but at least it keeps our mothers happy and preempts the “don’t forget to take a first aid kit, and have you thought about medication for Malaria, and don’t forget to pack a toothbrush and don’t spill your coffee, yak yak yak”.

Hopefully when we get back to SA it was all a big waste of money and the medication ends up expiring and being thrown away.

* Sphygmomanometer was spelled correctly without having to google it.