Expedition Conservation

22/03/2025

D R C 2 / 2 🇨🇩

Another set of random pics from our overlanding adventure through the southern part of the DRC.

We were amazed by the incredible loads on beaten sedans that crawled with us through some dirt roads and water crossings, lush wetlands and bamboo forests near Moanda, and endless waives from locals to whom we were a sight to see. The tar road from Matadi to Moanda was perfect, but we got lost numerous times when navigating little dirt tracks towards Iema border in the north.

We loved to wake up in the chirping of bee-eaters in our quarry wild camp, where we were hidden from the main road, yet lulled to sleep by the heavy trucks passing by. Security situation permitting, we would have liked to linger longer, but one day we’ll be back again.

We wish peace for the DRC, stay well our friends 🩵💛❤️


🇨🇩

20/03/2025

We noticed tiny wet spots near the clutch pedal recently, a telltale sign of a leaking master cylinder. So we wanted to grab the chance and get it checked here in the Republic of the Congo, before crossing into Cameroon and Nigeria.

Good news: slave is not leaking and our one-year-old LOF Powerspec Clutch should be perfectly fine, too.

Bad news: the piston in the clutch master was shot again, although we changed a brandnew TRW master just 4 months ago. This is already a 3rd failing master within just a year!

We spent a full day in a busy garage in central Brazzaville, trying hard to source a spare locally (we carry a lot of spares, but trusted that almost new master wouldn’t fail) and figure out any kind of solution without success.

So we just ordered the master from Europe with DHL Express, fingers crossed we’ll get it to Congo within a week! 🤞

Ps. If you’re an overlander on route from Cabinda to Brazzaville next week (we know there are a few on the move), please contact us, because we’d have a spare one in Cabinda, too!

19/03/2025

We crossed the Democratic Republic of the Congo last weekend! 🎉

It was a huge milestone for us to see the mighty Congo River and Matadi, country’s prime port city. Here’s the first set of random pics from our hectic 2-day overlanding adventure through the DRC.

Border crossing was rather easy but getting a TIP (temporary import permit) for HB the Defender was a bit tricky. The officials are used to stamping carnets, so with a CDP the you’ll sail through smoothly though.

The friendliest customs officer Tychique (in pic) helped us with all formalities, finally taking us to the port, where he organized our Carte d’Entree (equaling TIP or passavant) and foner (also needed for crossing the numerous police stops). But then suddenly, a security guard didn’t let our vehicle to exit the port anymore, and Tychique’s boss Mr. Raymond needed to step in. Thank you, gentlemen, for your generous help and hospitality! 🙏

After losing many hours at the border, we got perfectly stuck in one of Matadi’s infamous traffic jams, a next level ”embouteillage” like the locals told us. It took 4 hours to navigate through the cramped streets, including some close calls. But in the end, we only scored a couple of small scratches, and those already at the border!

Driving in the dark wasn’t our plan for the DRC, but light faded while we were inching our way through the town. Again, a bunch of friendly lads helped us squeeze the through two bogged trucks from so narrow gap that there was merely few centimeters air between the Defender on both sides.

We escaped the Friday night fever as the riot police convoy arrived, continued through the darkness and eventually wild camped in a quiet quarry by the main road.

Thank you DRC, we felt welcome, and one day we’ll be back again! 🙏 Our first visit was already 10 years ago, when we hiked the fiery Nyiragongo volcano in Virunga National Park - highly recommended if and when the safety situation stabilizes in Goma again!

08/03/2025

M E N H I R

Ugab Menhir is a weird monolith standing alone in a vast plain of Namib Desert. Against its name, it isn’t made by man.

The odd stone one of the landmarks along the remote Skeleton Coast and also a popular wild camping spot in Ugab Menhir 4x4 track. Our bivouac spot was a few kilometers closer to the Atlantic, even more scenic if you ask me 😉 (pic 4)

07/03/2025

First change of plans to our route through West Africa. We are not driving through Gabon, as we just yesterday learned that they have general elections (also presidential ones) next month (12th of April) and all land borders with Cameroon are closed, which we would’ve had to use. At least nobody is getting from Cameroon into Gabon, and even though it’s a bit unclear, could you still *exit* Gabon to Cameroon (no one seems to know for sure), we decided not to take the risk.

It was good to know yesterday, as today we had planned to go apply for the Gabon visa here in Luanda, Angola. They would have issued it, of course, ’cause that is just a business for them. However, no guarantees that we could’ve actually used it.

So, we’re skipping Gabon now, as also we don’t want to take unnecessary risks like that.

But now we may have a visit to the Odzala-Kokoua National Park in Congo (Brazzaville) in the cards after all. 😎✌️

Pictures are from Luanda Yacht Club where we spent a night.

27/02/2025

☠️ C O A S T

On a second day of our West Africa expedition we crossed the fascinating Skeleton Coast National Park. Wind-swept dunes, rugged canyons and ancient volcanos, raging Atlantic Ocean; changing shades of burned orange, cream, copper, and blue.

At first glance, there’s not much; a handful of marine birds scattered around, an odd springbok wandering alone in the moon landscape, lots of dead seals. But those undulating hummock dunes and vast sand plains sustain a life of their own: a hundred species of lichen, hundreds of years old welwitchia plants, insects, more birds, even brown hyenas and desert-adapted lions!

Whales and ships have stranded along the 500 km long hostile coastline, hence the name. We admired the white bones and rusty shipwrecks on the way, spotted brown hyena tracks (it had dropped a half eaten seal by the road) and followed a playful jackal.

The southern sector of Skeleton Coast National Park, from Ugab River to Torra Bay, is open to visitors, road is excellent and if you just transit from gate to gate, it’s free! The northern section requires special permits but you can drive just outside of the park boundaries for example in the Hoanib River (our next destination and all-time favorite in Namibia). Stay tuned for the desert elephants!

26/02/2025

We stopped by at our favorite wild camp at the Hoanib river in the remote Kunene region of Namibia😍🇳🇦 While we were in Khowarib, we heard that the riverbed was dry, so nicely drivable, and we then decided ”ex-temporé” to go there for one night.

And yes, we found the desert-adapted elefants, too! 😍🐘 We just *had* to go to say goodbye for now. We’ll write a proper post about it later, too — with videos in our Substack!

And because of the recent rains, we also saw these beautiful, lily-like flowers for the first time.

24/02/2025

F R I E N D S

Sometimes friends let you down - but you can make new friends when sorting out the mess 😁 A long story including police intervention, lost and found Defender roof, some gray hair and laughter!

When we did the Icarus roof conversion two years ago, our original roof was still in a great condition. As we left Namibia, an old friend promised to store it at his farm when getting our old tires.

Time flew, we had some potential buyers, but there was a wrong phone number in our ad. After returning to Namibia, we started asking about the roof and it turned out to be stored at the garage of our friend’s friend, who had recently passed away. We found new buyers and got info that the roof was now in a storage, so we organized a sale.

But it wasn’t easy. The storage owner never came to the address he gave to our buyer, and there was no storage either. The buyer warned us that the roof might be stolen.

After arriving to Swakop, we marched to the main police station and started reporting a theft. The officers called the storage guy, who tried his utmost to linger away. Luckily, we had two amazing lady officers to help us out, and they made a deal with the guy.

The next morning, we took the officers in our car and hired two workers from the street, as the deal was to dig the roof from a fully laden storage. The officers warned us though that the roof might have been stolen already, but we wanted to give it a try.

So off we went to ”DRC” (a township in the outskirts of Swakopmund, the officers wanted to es**rt us for safety, too). And lo and behold – the roof was found at the back of a shack! Unfortunately, its condition had deteriorated, some parts were bent and a seal swollen.

After 2 days’ hassle, we managed to sell the roof for a third of the price that it was worth 2 years ago. Still a win, and now we have a new friend, too, Queen from Swakopmund police. We had also a pleasure of meeting her daughter, Maria.

Thank you Swakop police for your kind help! 🙏

24/02/2025

An awesome wild camp few days ago amidst the desert of Namibia, on the Ugab Menhir 4×4 track. 😎🇳🇦
And that is a track of the brown hyaena, just nearby! 😍

Supersilent night in the middle of nowhere — and in the morning we noticed that the brown hyaena had also slept only about 50 meters from us! 😍

18/02/2025

P A N E L B E A T I N G

Eish, it’s not a first time we struggle with panel beating in Africa but this time was rather complex, too. It took altogether 5 weeks just to change a Defender door, door seal and paint a couple of hinges 🙄

We had to go back to the panel be**er 6 times to correct different mistakes and parts that were damaged in the process (incl. the paint, central locking and the brand new door not closing or getting stuck etc).

Yesterday the panel be**er just gave up and directed us to a Landy garage. Lo and behold, aligning the door properly took just a couple of hours, not weeks!

Good news: today we can FINALLY leave Windhoek, after being delayed by 3 weeks. We’ll spend a couple of days in Swakopmund first, to sell our old roof and hail & farewell. On weekend, we’ll continue towards Angola through Kunene region, one of our favorites in Namibia.

Bad news: we are still fighting over destroyed seals and door channels with our insurance, but at least we had the car insured which made the repairs more tolerable moneywise (yet even more time consuming).

Thanks so much Gunther from East End Motors for helping us out again! If you need a good Land Rover mechanic in Windhoek, book well in advance, as he’s super busy. And shame on Zirkas Panel Beaters, you downright lied to us too many times.

But hey, cheers to new adventures! Can’t wait to see the ocean this evening!

10/02/2025

N I G E R I A 🛑

Overlanding has its bumps and turns: for the last weeks we’ve been trying hard to get Nigerian visas - without any results.

Process by far:
✅ 3 visits the High Commission of Nigeria in Windhoek: first we were told to come back, then come back again, until this morning they claimed that the visa service has been temporarily suspended until further notice. They don’t issue online visas either.
✅ Countless calls and emails to the aforementioned embassy (that were unanswered for the first two weeks, we only got their attention after contacting other parties)
✅ Seeking help locally in Nigeria, also with the immigration
✅ Contacting Finnish embassies both in Nigeria and Windhoek

But worry not, we’ll keep on turning stones until we get those stickers in our passports! Might need to change the country first, but hey, it’s on our list. Angola, we’re coming 🇦🇴

04/02/2025

As we prepare for our driving spree through the coast of West Africa, here are some reflections on the last five years on the dusty African roads – and life. 🙏

Some reflections on the last five years on the dusty African roads – and life.

03/02/2025

T E S T D R I V E

Yesterday we did a little spin in Daan Viljoen Game Reserve just outside of Windhoek. We hadn’t been there before, so it was a fun way of checking what’s going on after the recent repairs while spotting giraffes, gnus and baboons.

This week’s agenda:
✅ Fixing a leaking roof
✅ Fixing the missing things from the latest maintenance round, such as always problematic injector pilot learning
✅ Still trying to find a source for the weird driveline noise (in stories) and fix it if possible (thanks for everyone reaching out, you’re the best!)
✅ Nigerian visa
✅ Oh, and intermittent starting issues, our old friend, never forget!

Our West Africa departure is delayed again by one more week, as some parcels haven’t arrived in time. Next week we’ll still need to fix the mistakes in the panel beating (why every job needs to be fixed?) and install new legs for the roofrack, which are somewhere in the limbo, too.

But today we scored a new visa: Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville)! 🇨🇬

01/02/2025

T R A N S F E R

Ommm, the last month in Windhoek has been a hassle but we hope to see some light soon 🙏

A year ago, we changed a new clutch and opened an evil Pandora’s box. It’s been 3 master cylinders and 3 transfer case jobs since 🤯 (…and a head gasket and many other unrelated mishaps)

This time we wanted to get the transfer reconditioned for good. Ollie has developed a special steel bush to avoid intermediate shaft chewing the delicate aluminium housing. All bearings & seals changed, no gaskets this time (there shouldn’t be any in newer trannies we’ve been told), shiny as new.

Bad news: we still have a weird, cyclical, bearing noise kind of sound on first and second gear and simply can’t find a source. Maybe gearbox related, maybe something else?

We’re already a month late from our West Africa departure but aim to hit the road next Sunday! Still sooo many things to sort out first, wish us luck 🤞

23/01/2025

W E S T A F R I C A 🌍

It’s finally happening: yesterday we applied for a visa to the Democratic Republic of the Congo! 🇨🇩 West Africa, we’re coming!

Our car repairs aren’t done yet, but we have to apply for the needed visas already, as it can take up to week per visa.

In Windhoek we should be able to score visas for the DRC, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) and Nigeria 🇨🇬🇳🇬

We’ve been in the DRC also before and really liked Lake Kivu area. This time we’re crossing the western part rather quickly but plan to return some day for further exploration!

22/01/2025

W I N D H O E K

Honey Badger the Defender had been hiding in Windhoek for the last two weeks 😇

We came here right when businesses opened after the long Xmas holiday and have been super busy to arrange all things for the next leg through the West Africa: car repairs, visas, stocking up spares and supplies.

The list is quite long and some schedules were messed up right when we arrived from Etosha. Now things seem to be back on the track but we only have 2 more weeks to finish all, wish us luck!

Top 3:
✅ Panel beating for the door we crushed in an accident in Zambezi (finished this week)
✅ Maintenance & transfer case reconditioning (yes, 3rd time in a year but this time properly, the badly done repairs are killing us but we can only fix things). Fingers crossed more big things won’t pop up!
✅ Visas for the DRC, Nigeria and Kongo 🇨🇩🇨🇬🇳🇬

There’s been so much going on that we took a lil break from socials, but we’re back at it, let’s gooo! 🌍

Ps. Don’t we have a gorgeous garden around us? Lot’s of birds and wide views over the hills of Windhoek 🇳🇦

09/01/2025

So, has the time finally come to drive to another continent and move on with our overlanding expedition? It seems like so. New Year, new plans! ☆ Read more! 👇

So the time has finally come to drive to another continent and move on with our overlanding expedition? It seems like so. New Year, new overlanding plans!