Although choosing to stay in Zambia due to COVID 19 for all of 2020, we unfortunately did not have the opportunity to explore Zambia as much as we would have liked. Big Bertha developed a front and rear wheel hub bearing oil leak in March and this was not fixed until December. This is the biggest disadvantage of travelling in […]
When driving off road, it can be very advantageous to deflate our tyres thereby greatly extending their footprint, or contact area. Deflating helps driving in sand for example. Letting air out of our tyres is fairly straightforward using my ARB deflator from my desert driving days – it’s a device that extracts the inner Schrader valve, but keeps it captive. […]
Having waved ‘au revoir’ to Big Bertha on the dockside at Sheerness Port on a blustery July day, we have just been very happily reunited 34 days later in a hot and sunny Walvis Bay, Namibia. BB was shipped here on the Glovis Summit, a so-called RoRo (roll on roll off) vessel. The ship called in at a number of […]
We have been busy readying Big Bertha for the next leg of our adventure: Southern Africa. Several companies have helped us and we would like to say a big ‘thank you’ here. MAN Truck and Bus, Exeter A big thank you to Alastair, Leah, Stuart, Sam and Matt for looking after BB whilst in the workshop for its service. BB’s […]
It’s a comfortable 24⁰c inside Big Bertha. Never mind that it’s cold outside, our truck has been designed by Bocklet to cope! Our defences start with a thermally insulated cabin structure – the walls are 65mm thick and are composed of GRP outer layer, then foam, then 10mm plywood and then a GRP inner layer. Along with all windows being […]
We bought Big Bertha with a known problem… the front axle wheel hubs had a small oil leak. This required David to periodically top up the front hubs with oil, but unfortunately this has disturbed a second gasket and has caused a more severe leak. Our options were to replace these outer gaskets (cheap) and continue periodic top up, or […]
We recently had occasion to help out some fellow campers. It has been very wet in our part of Spain and it’s so easy to get stuck on grass in a front wheel drive camper; even on the level. And so it came to be the other day when a couple of campers ventured into the grass overflow carpark and, […]
Yes we do, and very comfortable it is too. Just think of it as a small bedsit – compact and bijou. It has everything one really needs; a fixed bed, kitchen, dining area and bathroom. Our bathroom has a full sized toilet with a china bowl, a good sized sink with a large bathroom cabinet and mirrored doors, a heated […]