It is with a very heavy heart that I have to tell you that Colonel K, our trusty Leyland Daf overland truck, has been sold.
I like to think that he has got a new custodian rather than a new owner, but either way very soon Colonel K will no longer be our responsibility, and whilst I know that his new master has great plans for him, there were very mixed emotions after agreeing the sale.
As you will know we have had a fantastic 3 years in Colonel K in Africa, and it proved a perfect way to travel the “dark continent”. Since we got back to the UK earlier this year, we have had an amazing 5 week trip to north west Scotland, doing approx 2,000 completely smooth running, trouble free miles. This was a terrific last experience in Colonel K.
So is this the end of our travels?? Ha ha…….. Absolutely not!!!
We now have a much much smaller vehicle based of a 4 wheel drive Mercedes Sprinter (chassis cab, not van based), and we have plans…..
Thanks so much to the 49,750 people that have viewed this blog (so far), and I hope that you might have been slightly entertained and more importantly been inspired to just get up and bugger off on a trip of a lifetime.
To be Continued (soon)………
V
lorrywaydown 
Congratulations mate, all the best, Andy
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What a shame I was coming to see you at the weekend with my £50k cash – so are you both back in town ?
Would be nice to catch up
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Still ducking and diving guys….
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Looking forward to welcoming Colonel K into our family! He will be well looked after and lots of new adventures are planned!!
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Ah so it’s that Fiona lol. I’m sure you and Nick will have some great times in Colonel K, and if you have a tiny percentage of the fun that we’ve had in him, you will have a ball
Vince
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Thanks for the update. Looking forward to your new adventures with the Sprinter
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Thanks Erik
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Thanks for it all. Took us back to our years spent across Africa. It has never left the blood.
Bill
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Thanks Bill, very kind words, I’m sure our travels will return us to Africa at sometime. In the mean time we’ve got other travel “plans” that we need to put in place. For us yes Africa gets in your blood, but so does travelling on four wheels…….,
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Oh, I’m so sad!
Just back from three weeks in the US, never checked my mail…
I would have loved to meet the Colonel again!
But it seems that he found a loving new family.
Still hopeful to see you again some day, Jacky & Vince.
Love and best wishes from Tina & Jan,
Koblenz, Germany
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Hi Tina, I was hoping you’d buy Colonel K from me, then I know he’d have a loving family ha ha, I hope you enjoyed USA we are planning to drive to Alaska next year, please keep in touch eh xx
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I will!
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awww too late Tina, but he has gone to very nice owners
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Hi Vince & Jaqui.
I was very interested to hear about the sale of Colonel K and the purchase of a Sprinter.
Will Colonel K be going back to Africa?
I have attached a photo of our Sprinter van, if you remember it from when we met you in Capetown 2016.
We covered 100,000km in three years, between Europe and seven countries in Southern Africa, in our Van. It has been very successful, other than both left and right rear ABS sensors failed after 90,000km. Also, I am not impressed with the 4×4 System, I am in the throws of researching a limited slip diff for the rear. May be I was expecting a little too much, as the sand in Botswana was a big ask.
From Africa we shipped our van to Aus, and after six months we got a little bored, so we shipped it back to Europe for the summer of 2017, and covered three of the Scandinavian counties and the Baltics, before shipping it back to Aus
Wondering what type of box you will be putting on the back of the new van, please keep us informed, with some photos.
What are your plans with the new vehicle, are we likely to see you in Aus at some stage?
Carole and I would like to return to Europe for another summer. I turned seventy earlier this month and things are not quite as easy as they used to be. Hopefully we will have made our minds up by the new year.
Regards
David & Carole
________________________________
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Hi Dave and Carole, yeah we remember you guys, you had the brand new Sprinter (5 ton dual wheels I think).
Blimey you’ve covered some miles since we met you, 100,000!!!!
Considering the harsh conditions in Africa I guess a couple of failed ABS sensors isn’t too bad. We met a few people with 4×4 Sprinters in some shape or other during our travels (mostly vans), and they all seemed pretty pleased with the abilities of them.
We ended up buying a pretty standard build almost off the shelf from a German manufacturer of motorhomes (more on a post in a few weeks). So we ended up with a 3.5 tonne, 163hp 4×4 standard wheelbase, chassis cab basis, uprated to 4,050kg with extra leaf springs etc.
We decided on a more comfortable “motorhome” type vehicle because we are planning a few colder climates like Canada and Alaska fairly shortly, the Merc is also so much nicer to drive, especially for Jac.
We do plan to get it over to Aus at some point, so maybe we could catch u guys somewhere, we can’t remember where you are in Aus. We really do miss Africa and Im convinced at some point we will ship into Southern or Eastern Africa, theres nothing quite like it eh.
Who did you use for your shipping?
Keep in touch and if you want our email address let me know
V
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Any details or pics of your new van? sounds like something we are interested in.
Many thanks Pip & Andy
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