Big Bertha came with Absorbent Glass Mat (AGM) lead acid batteries when we bought her in 2018 and we replaced these with another set of AGMs in Namibia in 2022. They have served us well. Lead acid batteries are very robust but have two inherent disadvantages in our application: Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries do not have these disadvantages; they […]
What a contrast Las Vegas is to the back country national parks we’ve been visiting in January! We are very lucky to have friends living in Las Vegas; we met Fabi and Chris onboard the Ocean Victory whilst visiting Antarctica just over two years ago. They then invited us to stay in Las Vegas and, two years later, we finally […]
A compilation of our American Southwest videos.
Zion National Park Entering the Zion NP from the east on the Mount Carmel highway is very special. The scenery was immediately spectacular and then we had to pass through two tunnels, the second of which, for a $15 fee, was blocked for opposing traffic, so that Big Bertha could straddle the centreline. On exiting the second tunnel, we entered […]
Bryce Canyon National Park Bryce Canyon was extra special for us because Dave’s old school friend Nigel drove all the way from Las Vegas, where he was attending a conference, to visit us – a monumental effort, especially as he had to return the next day. Thank you, Nigel! We managed to squeeze in a little pre-Nigel walk – the […]
Canyonlands National Park (North) Having really enjoyed the southern section of the park, we decided to visit the northern section and it did not disappoint (the sunshine was back). We stayed two days and hiked The Neck trail (9.5km) which was a toughie! Goblin State Park On our way we stopped at Mill Canyon to look at the dinosaurs footprints […]
Monument Valley / Mexican Hat / Valley of the Gods We saw Monument Valley from the main road as Big Bertha was too big for the track that threaded through the buttes (flat topped isolated hills) on reservation land. It was very atmospheric and reminded us of the countless times we have seen it on the TV. Further along the […]
Kwaaymii Point We entered the US at Tecate – a small Mexican Pueblo Magico border town. We chose this border as people had told us it was a lot calmer that Tiajuana. Once in the US we headed to Kwaaymii Point and camped the night on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. BLM land covers large swathes of the countryside […]
Given it was winter (late December) when we crossed into the USA from Mexico we decided to tour the southwest rather than head north, and into the snow, too quickly. This proved to be a good decision because, although cold, we’ve had mostly sunny weather. We tried to pick a route that would take us through the ‘headline’ national parks […]