Contact us on benandjen.adventures@gmail.com
Ben
After growing up in Witney, Oxfordshire, and going to Loughborough Uni to get at Mechanical Engineering degree, I worked and lived in Sunny Brighton for about 7 years, taking 6 months out in the middle to drive Land Rovers for Raleigh International in Borneo & “do” South East Asia. Early 2005 to late 2007 I took another break from engineering and worked for Dragoman Overland as an Expedition Leader / Driver / Mechanic (see http://www.dragoman.co.uk) . During this time I did the following journeys, would love to hear from you if we met on any of these….
- Kyrgyzstan to UK – end of 2005
- South America (all over) – Dec 2005-Feb 2007
- Nepal to UK – May-Aug 2007
- UK to Mali – Sept-end of 2007
In 2008 I had a short spell as a volunteer come freelance web analyst at Oxfam in Oxford before deciding to get a career back on track in Engineering.
Have always talked about buying a Land Rover & driving to Cape Town, and have been lucky enough to meet Jen who loves travel too, has managed to put up with me for the past 3-4 years, sorted the lions share of our trips to South India & Cuba, and now reckons she can manage 6-12 months locked in a hot dusty tin box with me too (I’m a lucky man).
Well amongst other things I’ve spent the last 12 years or so working hard, squeezing in some travels to some fantastic places (such as Alaska, Mexico, Belize, Kenya, Thailand, Australia), renovating houses and training for the odd marathon. After all the hard work we’ve decided it’s time to give it all up, leave the daily grind behind, pack up our our little house in Leamington, say goodbye to some fantastic friends and family and take a trip of a lifetime, overlanding all the way down to Cape Town.
Things I’m most looking forward to – being free to go and do whatever we want to do, seeing some amazing scenery, meeting lots of different people, soaking up local life, amazing safari viewing, pushing myself to do something a little bit crazy … oh and chilling out! (just a little bit)
Our Disco
Our Land Rover Discovery is a 1997 300TDI, a nice simple one.
We think she is the best travelled of our team (we’re compiling a trip list for her), as she was originally built as an overland wagon by Paul Marsh @ Footloose 4×4 and used by him as a support vehicle on a host of crazy trips, Africa, London-Sydney, Alaska, South America, etc etc. For more info see Preperation-Vehicle.
Ben & Jen: Leamington to Capetown 
Hi Ben & Jen.
Sorry for taking you back to the Omo Valley times. As I’m starting a Madrid-Nairobi trip this next June, there is some info I need. You said Harry reached Arba Minch only driving on tar. Wich route did he take?
Congratulations for your trip and thanks for the valuable info you put on the blog.
Good luck!
Pepe
Madrid
Hi Pepe. I think Harry broke his springs whilst on tar South of Addis. Strictly speaking you can pretty much reach Arba Minch without leaving the tar apart from the stretch of road just north of the town (if memory serves me correctly). After Arba you won’t see any tar heading to the Omo Valley but that’s no fun at all and Lake Turkana is a fantastic route (one of our favorite parts of the trip)
Good luck with your trip plans and let us know how you get on !
Thanks for the info. I’ll certainly give the turkana route a try!
If we write a blog on the travel we’ll let you know
Good luck