Oh dear. A month left till our departure and so much to do.

Just booked shipping! It’s from Southampton to Halifax leaving on the 25th of November and we have to deliver Burt by the latest the 22nd. One inconvenience we learnt is that the shipping company (not custom) doesn’t allow us to leave anything in the vehicle -it has to be completely empty so the idea for vehicle parts, bedding stuff, kitchen, bathroom things, some clothes and so on we hoped we can just chuck in and send ahead was bashed and made us re-think, re-organise and of course completely ignore this and build in a couple of secret compartments and hide things in it.

Also Burt needs some finishing-up touches, meanwhile we need to sort out insurance, bookings, travel jabs, move houses (we sold the house), store and pack and so on, oh yes and take the driving test for 12 tonne trucks!

Start with that. John did pass the theory test with no problem but didn’t pass the driving test. Blimey! We had three weeks at that point and they have to leave 2 weeks between taking tests (?) so that leaves us (well Johnny) taking the test a week before we leave! To cut that short, he did gloriously passed the test the second time. So we good to drive the truck legally. Good man!

We packed up the house and moved out -staying for the last 2 weeks with Mother. Which was great and forced us to store the unwanted stuff and pack all we need for the trip ahead. We got our jabs, booked everything sorted all the paperworks and delivered Burt on time.

The early hours of the morning of the delivery we set off to Southampton, John driving Burt and I’m in the car behind. The weather was merciless. It was miserable, grey darkness with an absolute open heaven that was not at least fun on the motorway for 5 hours. Not taking anything away from John -as he was driving the 12 tonne beast, but I was directly following him, and you know what it’s like when you’re behind a mud-spraying truck in the lashing rain, you just wanna get out of there.

Anyway, the fun really peaked when we found ourselves in the recovery Lane on M40, pumping the air out of the fuel system in the pouring rain, and every ten second an 18 tonne lorry scooted by with 60 m/h and splashed more muddy water on all over us. We ran out of diesel! I think we have to get used to Burt mileage rate to the diesel… Luckily we have to separate fuel tanks so we could switch to the other one which had enough to take us to the nearest fuel station. I believe the adventure has begun!

As we were approaching Southampton, only then the sky ran out of rain and the sun came out. When we arrived at the port all of a sudden it was a beautiful bright sunny day. We really needed it. The whole delivery process went so quick we suddenly didn’t know what we haven’t done or should’ve done so when we got home Johnny remembered that we forgot to let the waste water out of its tank. Not the end of the world, but quite likely, it’ll freeze. Let’s hope the tank can take the ice cube without a crack.

Anyway, what a day. What a 6 months!! Today is an end of an era -as they say, and the beginning of a New with full of surprises, adventures, challenges and joy.

So within a week we will be on our way to Halifax to start our Journey. Me, John and Burt.

Just a short side-story of christening our truck. Might be a bit tacky or silly but breathing and living our truck for long months we still kept referring to it, in a rather impersonal way as “the vehicle” or “the truck”. It was just dry and meaningless besides we wanted the truck to be part of our threesome so we thought it’s time to give it a name.

We had a few German female names -talking of a German built vehicle but the truck seems quite masculine to us so we dropped the female names, as they just didn’t suit it. The only name popped in my head was Burt Reynolds -inspired by a friend but that’s another story. So we picked “Burt” just to keep it sweet and short – “his” real pedigree name still be a mouthful but as a nickname this will do. We had our friend Rob over for a weekend and after a bottle of red he came up a few variations of the meaning of the name. We picked the three that rang true to us. In order:

1. Built Under Ridiculous Tension.  Well, can’t deny it. It was true. Luckily as time went by the tension went with it. So this one now is the past. But it made us laugh.

2. Built Using Real Talent.  This is a spot on description that will always be true.

3. Beautiful Unforgettable Road Trip.  Which of course is the whole point of the project and we felt binding our truck with the journey really is brilliant and describes it all. Besides it felt like a good Karma.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me introduce you to Burt Reynolds-Brooks-Doherty

Vehicle parts, components needed to be arrived at our place in a certain order so that the workflow wasn’t held up. We were practically swimming in truck parts. Sometimes it looked like this at home.

…and the kitchen

We were on the tightest schedule. Anyone who’s done something like this before and had an idea what we’re doing, said it can’t be done in 5-6 months. Even if we are working on it full time, have some professional help and if we are lucky we’ll be able to finish it in 12-18 months. Now, there was that word “can’t” so John just wasn’t having it. He had his unshakeable belief that we can.

I mentioned earlier the good fortune that we found an engineering workshop who was willing to do the truck exterior work for us. Well, sadly it didn’t work out as well as we hoped for and unfortunately it was too late when both sides (us and mr. engineer) realised the quality differences between what we wanted and what they could actually provide. Our intention has been to build a first class overland vehicle keeping: travel, self-sustainability, safety and living space in the main focus. His profile was more “UK off road-ing” where using high quality, light materials, top security, efficient sustainability weren’t priority. So there had to be a lot of re-do’s and it didn’t go down easily. Besides the fact that we were the paying customers and regardless of all our efforts of being very reasonable and polite we were still continuously facing – let’s put it this way, his lack of skills of customer service.

Even that this was an unfortunate match we didn’t intend giving up the efforts for making the best we wanted.

We did have an epic few months. Plenty of challenges and difficulties, in which we had really big technical learning curves and some heavy personality clashes, meanwhile we were constantly trying to elevate our moods that the misfortunate summer-weather, with its top 12C, left oh so low.

At this point there are a couple of things I would like mention:
Number 1. Johnny is not the man who shies away from any challenges. Oh no. His brain is sharp as razor, and is fierce as a honey badger on its bad day, so words like “no” , “can’t” or “impossible” are unknown to him. He also is a splendid forward thinker (I.e. by the time you realise the importance of temperature differences in various places, John would’ve already built the thermo glass and the cooling-heating system in the truck)
Number 2. It really started dawning on us; converting a truck to a reliable, liveable motorhome is turning out to be something of an unspeakable challenge. Everything but really, EVERY SINGLE PART needs to be a special make or custom-made which doubled our estimated (or hoped) budget. Have you ever watched “Grand Design”?…

John spent the first 2 months from 8AM sometimes until 10PM researching all the knowledge about building a vehicle like ours. He educated himself in just a few months on special truck wheels and tyres, diesel tanks and fuel system, on the complete internal electronic, plumbing, gas, heating and safety system and so on. He knew nothing about any of these before but somehow, just at the right time, we always found the right knowledge and help, and he took all on board and “translate” them in to our “wants” and “needs”.

At the same time we were on the internet or on the phone trying to find the right company or person who would custom make the relevant part for us.

In the UK the “overland vehicle building” business isn’t as sophisticated and advanced as you may think; most of the companies only sell domestic DIY stuff that is not just big, clunky and heavy but it’s rigid therefore no use for a moving, shaking object. Other companies or factories simply don’t talk to individuals -they have no interest in selling one piece of custom made (or not) part, they usually deal with commercial orders of hundreds.
So we had to search and search for every single parts until we were fortunate enough to bump into someone at the right manufacturer who was amused enough by our project and was very kind to help us. (we have a long thank you list!)
Meanwhile we were constantly pressured by the time…

It’s 10th of June 2012. We just got back from Germany with enormous enthusiasm, full of ideas and with some tips.

Our first trip was to the workshop at Mr engineer to see how the truck is doing. We were pleased to see that the old, rusty, heavy box has been removed, discarded and the chassis has been cut short as we wanted.  

We’ve been thinking for a while to go to the Annual Overland Show that is held in Bad Kissingen, Germany.

It is a 4-5 days fest in June for overlanders and off-roaders where they can show off their luxurious vehicles with tremendous equipments and tyres size of a car, mingle with like-minded folks, meet manufacturers and companies who are specialised building parts or perhaps the whole of these vehicles.

So it seemed like a good idea to go but a couple of things we needed to consider were;
1. it is quite costly. We thought perhaps driving would be more convenient in case we buy some bits for the vehicle so we just chuck them in the car and drive it home.
2. it is exactly at the time when we are moving houses. And it isn’t just a quick move. We need to sort hundreds of items and think 4-5-6 months ahead: what goes to storage and what comes with us then later to storage but keeping the season change in mind too, then prepare and clean the whole house and the garden for the new people moving in.

So, of course, we decided to GO!

After a long few days dropping off the truck at the engineer company, boxing, packing, lifting, storing and moving, just as we were in our ripped jeans and worn-out T-shirts, with a few last bits in our car boot -some cleaning products a pair of rubber gloves and the hoover; Plus! leaving the house keys with the purchaser’s mother (practically a stranger) as we wouldn’t be there for the completion day, we headed down to Folkestone to catch the Eurotunnel.

A puncture, a few wrong turn-offs (as the satnav broke just as we left England! So I was the map-reader) and about 5 kg of cherry munching later we finally arrived and headed to the show.
We really came here to get inspired, find an answer, as it were, for how we should do this project also get a few tips and perhaps some good offers, meet manufacturers and of course to feel the buzz and shoulder-rub with hardcore globe-trotters. What we really saw on the show was some unbelievable vehicles, custom-made for a fortune for their owners who travelled extensively in their dreams but probably never got further the borders of Germany. OK that might not be true but I mean, just look at these beasts all shiny not a scratch on them.

(photos: All copyrighted from Google Image Search)

So the next morning we decided to ditch the show and visit the campsite instead where most of the visitors were staying with their overlanders. This was far more exciting than the exhibition. I felt these folks were the overlanders camping with their converted MAN and Merck trucks, sometimes, DAF etc. And these vehicles had far more creativity put into.

(photos: All copyrighted from Google Image Search)

These people were all very friendly and happy to chat through how they converted their trucks. We had a few good chats, invites in to their vehicles to have a look inside. Most of them had dogs that they picked up on their travels in Egypt, South America or in remote Mongolia. I quite liked that!

So we got the inspiration we wanted.

Good job I learnt yoga. I needed the pranayama breathing technique… But here we were.
Luckily we found a place, near our home to park it but only for a few weeks. And here it is in its early form.

BURT before his makeover
April 2012

BURT before his makeover
April 2012

With a nervous smile on our faces, we used to say “we don’t know what we don’t know” but trying to stay optimistic, keep adding “but how hard can it be?”
John’s research of the whole project and search for an engineering company, who builds this kind of vehicles started. (Although we wanted to build it ourselves, there still were certain things that needed to be done by vehicle engineer professionals.) Unfortunately the only guy, we heard of, used to exist as an Overland Vehicle converter in this country, has vanished. So this needs a some more searching…

Meanwhile, my notice at work came to an end and I finished my job. At the same exact time, we sold our house and we needed to move out within just a couple of weeks (the speediest house-selling process in property history!)
We had a generous offer from family to move in to their spare empty house in Shepshed (in the Midlands), under the agreement that, within 2-3 months, this house needs go on to the market too so we need to look after and maintain it which was fine with us. But most importantly we had a peace of mind knowing that we have a place to go to.

During these hectic weeks, John’s desperate but rock-solid determination to find an engineer company was unbelievable. He literally moved mountains to find one in England, in Scotland, Wales -we really didn’t mind where just needed a place. It was pretty much race against time at this point.
Finally, Google Search page 34, there it was: MR ENGINEERING HIMSELF. And guess where? In Shepshed. 10 minutes walk from the house we’re about to move in. If this isn’t a sign then what is?

The beginning of the year (2012) we decided to pack up our jobs and our beautiful home and swap England for the Americas -at least for a while and see how far we can go.

First we thought we are just going to go for a couple of months visiting friends and family but our attentions have been hijacked by some really awesome, shiny overland vehicles and right there we begun imagining ourselves travelling in one….

(photos: All copyrighted from Google Images)

We also preferred the idea to have our “home” with us throughout the travel, be self sustained up to 8-10 days, cook our own food, sleep in our own permanent bed, have our own onboard shower/ toilet (not to be fussy but finding a private area somewhere in the outback then digging holes when we’re in urgent need isn’t hugely appealing to us) also stop and move on whenever and as long as we wish without any complications of finding accommodation,check-in and -out etc on the daily basis. They were key concerns at this point and we both agreed that all these are important to us.

So like children in the sweet-shop with beaming smile on our faces, and with enormous enthusiasm we started browsing on the net with an intention of purchase one of these beautiful vehicles. Soon we realised the obstacles and complications of buying one in Germany (practically the only place to have good, reliable vehicles we wanted)
So it crossed our minds to build one on our own… How hard could it be? One thing followed by another -I can’t quite recall the exact moment when we actually decided but within a few days we ended up buying a 12 tonne, 17 years old, Mercedes ex-police rescue vehicle. <GULP>

On a rainy but bright late-April Saturday -not having the correct classified driving license, not having the space outside of our little terrace house to park it, not having the slightest clue where to begin, off we went to pick it up.