We're juggling a lot of things at the moment. Though we aren't leaving til January, there's a lot of problems to solve and work to be done to bring about this grand adventure of ours.
Our plan, if you didn't already know, is to transform this:
Into one of these:
No, we aren't repainting it, AND this is a different model, but we're making a pop top. The vintage Series 3 Land Rover above is a 1973 model with the original 2.25 litre engine, and whilst it is already a camper, it was made on the cheap and not ideal for the adventure we have in mind.
It involves Jamie getting some box aluminium and welding them into a kind of rectangle that fits EXACTLy on the roof. We use the existing roof, and that attaches via hinges to the front, as per the yellow Defender above. That's all happening in two weeks time.
I've been panicking a bit about our time frame, but I felt a bit better contacting someone this week who can do the canvas for us for around $1000 which is far better than us trying to sew it when we're also trying to build the camper in the back!
I pretty much know what we will build in the back - we've done enough of them over the years. Funnily enough, we were looking for inspiration and found this site - a list of the 25 most inspiring camper builds on Wanderlust. Funnily enough, guess who features? Us, 
Jamie's been busy replacing the clutch, putting on new leaf springs, fixing the brakes, and many other mechanical jobs that needed doing before we travel from the UK to Morocco, Iceland and hopefully even Albania and Georgia. Depending on money (please HIVE, moon!) we might even go to Mongolia and some of the 'stans.
I'm busy trying to find the right shipping company to send the car by sea from Australia to Southhampton. We'll import it and sell it after a year, rather than bring it back. That'll fund the flights and shipping costs, with maybe a little left over to buy another vintage Landie when we get back.
We can also put the boards in the back and camping equipment too, and bikes - anything that can stuff in the car counts. On the other end we'll have to get British plates for it.
I'm 52 this year and I've never been more ready for another adventure. Adventures are not just for the young, and you only live once. It's important to us. We won't have money or jobs when we get back, but hopefully we'll have some stories to tell.
Here's a list of all the things we need to do by November:
And before we fly early January, we need to:
And..... a million other little things. Sometimes it's overwhelming. Like, really overwhelming.
But I haven't thought about not going - it seems the most important thing I can be doing right now.
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