I started this blog with a rush to get another Land Rover. But I didn’t say anything about the first one. If you have a family with no interest in camouflaged 4-wheel drive vehicles, its best if they have names so you can tell them apart! These are named after my parents who enabled us to do this trip in so many ways.
My father, Peter, was a Cambridge University Mechanical Sciences graduate, and Royal Engineer General. And the first Land Rover, ‘Peter’ here fits his character; solid, reliable, like the biblical ‘rock’, of his name – and very technical.
Built in 1988 and acquired from auction in Tasmania in 2022, Land Rover Peter has had a comparatively easy life, averaging just over 2000 kilometers a year. Peter is an ‘FFR’ (Army speak for Fitted For Radio). In the 1980s these needed a massive bank of four deep-cycle batteries and a whopping 100-amp power distribution box. For this trip I’ve breathed new life into the system, giving us a 2000W inverter, capacity for a very non-military fridge, a host of USB and car-charging ports, – and, of course, a radio!
All this technical stuff will allow us to tell our story as we raise money for the four charities. Did you know that the Smith Family currently have 15,000 children waiting for a sponsor? Well, let’s see if we can help them. Please share the link and go to our GoFundMe site if you can contribute.
Glad they are to become named “characters” in this odyssey story!