Who are we?

Jon and Jack are from Melbourne Australia. Jack is 19, Jon will turn 52 on the trip. Jack is a student at the University of Melbourne, deferring his studies.

What are we doing?

We are driving from home to London. We are leaving Melbourne at the start of July 2008 and plan to meet up with Jan [wife of Jon and Jacks Mum] and friends in Paris, France for Christmas 2008 and to celebrate New Years Eve in London. We want to see if we can do the entire trip without using an aeroplane. We want to drive as much of it as possible in our own car - from our front gate to Piccadilly Circus!

Our intended route is:

• Melbourne to Darwin
• Sea transit to Dili in Timor Leste
• Dili to the Indonesian border, and on to Kupang
• Ferry from Kupang north to Flores
• Island hopping through the little islands of Indonesia to Java to Sumatra
• Sea transit across from Sumatra to Malaysia
• Malaysia through to Thailand through to Cambodia and on to Laos
• We cross into China near Mengla Town and meet our Chinese guide for a month of driving through China via Kunming — Xian — Pingyao — Erenhot and to Mongolia
• Across Mongolia and back down into China via Urumqi - Kashgar
• Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan
• Iran or maybe a ferry across the Caspian Sea and then to Azerbaijan and Armenia
• Turkey
• Bulgaria to Romania to Hungary to Austria through Germany and France to the UK!

Why?

There are many answers to this question.

We are not raising money for a charity. We are not preaching. We are not spreading a message. We are not sponsored.

We are exploring the world. We are overcoming and also dispelling fear. We are going to have a good time.

We are a father and son spending a lot of time together. It will be a test.

We are taking lots of photos and if we can we will produce a book.

Jon is scratching an itch that has been there for more than thirty years. When a backpacker in London in the mid ’70s he clearly remembers spotting a Land Rover running around London with number plates from home - Victoria in Australia.

Preparation

The thirty years of dreaming about this drive has come to fruition through a series of chance occurrences. Jon negotiated long service leave and Jack decided to take a gap year from his studies. Originally Jon was planning to do this drive with Jan [Jack’s mum] when retired. For various reasons the chance to do it now presented itself and was there to be seized.

Planning in earnest started in mid 2007. Vehicle selection, route planning, internet trawling, book reading, map gazing, dreaming, talking, plotting, saving and buying all happened in various degrees of intensity.

In a nutshell though, whatever you think is involved — double it, and then double it again. Then you are within range of underestimating the work involved by about half. It is overwhelming, and if we had known then what we know now it is fair to guess that this trip may not have even started.

For those who want to know more about choice and fitting out of our car, see details in Our Car section. For those who would rather lose a limb than read chapter and verse about our car, read on.

For useful information for anyone else contemplating a trip of this kind, we pass on any helpful www links in the ‘Resources’ section, including other travellers, plus reference books, technical information, safety tips, emotional support and other suggestions.