Q&A: THE AUSSIE OVERLANDERS

By Unsealed 4X4 9 Min Read

Gareth Wright and Kirsty Hobbs, the Aussie Overlanders,
are young adventurers travelling the world in their 4X4. Over the past few years they have built their knowledge from the ground up. They don’t pretend to know everything but are happy to share what they have found to work best. Around here, that’s what we call an UNSEALED 4X4 expert.

Q: I’ve heard it’s possible to get mail sent to you when you are travelling around Australia. Is this true or a tall story? Jill, Wollongong, NSW  

Advertisement

A: This is true. Australia Post allows you to receive your post care of a post office address. It’s such a great service and it’s at no additional cost (which is kind of amazing). When we were driving around Oz it seemed that every grey nomad knew about it, but not many others. So here’s the deal: Have your parcel or letter addressed in the following format: “Post Restante. Your Name, C/O Post Office Name, State, Postcode”. For example, “Post Restante. Michael Jackson, C/O Brisbane GPO, QLD, 4000”. To double check on the process I enquired with Australia Post and they assured me: “People can definitely have articles posted to you addressed to the Post Office, this service is called Post Restante”. They warn: “Care of Post Office mail is held for 30 days in total.” We used this service many times around Australia. It worked every time and we never had any trouble. We used it to receive renewed banking PIN numbers, care packages from family and gear ordered over eBay (how awesome is that!). One postal employee told me it works better at smaller branches than the larger ones. In Western Australia and Northern Territory the service was in such demand that I saw designated desks just for post restante collection. K

Q: How do you guys stay fit on the road? Bonnie, Broome, WA   

Advertisement

A: Ha! This is assuming that we do stay fit, and some days that is a big assumption. On other days we feel like the fittest 4X4 overlanders out there… which isn’t hard when there’s a host of sedentary folk sitting around a campsite with sprawling backsides. The bottom line for us is this: Move it. Driving 60,000km means we have spent a lot of time sitting on our butts, so any movement is good movement. In Australia we ran quite a lot. It was amazing to have different running tracks each day. Watching the sunrise while sweating it out can get addictive; once you get past your addiction of hitting the snooze button that is. We use Nike’s running app that maps our run and gives us a little GPS spotter in case we loose our way. In Africa it’s a little more difficult, safety-wise, as we aren’t always in a position to go out running, so doing squats and turning jerry cans into weights has come into play. We also pack a couple of yoga mats with us to stretch out on the driving days. But to be honest we are no angels when it comes to fitness. Most of our days end with a celebratory beer or wine in hand. It’s all about balance and some days lifting that glass to my lips is weightlifting enough. K

Q: I have always wanted to do something similar to you guys but have thought it would cost too much. How do you afford to undertake such a long trip? Are you both millionaires? Tim, Frankston, VIC   

A: Mate, we are definitely not millionaires. Sometimes I wish we were when I check our dwindling reserves. But the fact of the matter, to us anyway, is that if you really want to do something you will make it happen. This took us a few years of planning, and procrastinating. Should we do it? Should we not do it? In the end Kirst said to me, “Let’s buy a 4X4 and drive it up through Africa to the UK”. My immediate response was to start looking for a rig. So that was that. We made the choice to do it and stuck to it. We are fortunate that we both work in well-paid professions – after building our skills in our early 20s – so while saving we were still able to enjoy the things that were important to us. Kirst finds it easy to cut out unnecessary spending, I found it tougher! So instead of expensive nights out in the city we would opt for picnics and BBQs. It’s the little things that that help when saving for a long trip like this. When working, I would buy one to three coffees a day (yeah, I know, my dentist tells me it’s no good) and at Sydney prices I was looking at up to $15 a day. Total that up and I was spending $2000-3000 on coffee a year. That’s a lot of coin and we have been living on that for over a month in Africa, including diesel costs. Good luck, buddy. G

Q: What have been the worst stretches of roads you have travelled so far? For both Australia and Africa? Katie, Coogee, NSW   

A: I can answer this one easily because I remember them so well. In Africa we have recently crossed into Ethiopia. To do that we drove one of the most notorious stretches in Africa; it’s known for armed bandits and crushing suspension. It took us six and a half hours to cross the 220km from Marsabit to Moyale. But then in Southern Ethiopia, from Yabello to Awassa we found a ‘tar’ road. Well it must have been when it was first built, but now it’s full of vehicle-swallowing potholes on both sides of the road. It took 11 hours to cross 306km. A potholed road is, in my experience, harder on the driver than a badly corrugated road. You always have to be switched on, and when you are dodging goats, bad drivers in big trucks and children, one mistake could spell the end of your car, or you could kill someone. We took it slow and survived, but at times I was calling for a brown paper bag to breathe into! On the Australian side of things, we obviously have brilliant roads. One particularly tough road was off the Gibb River Road driving towards Mitchell Falls on the Kalumburu Road, and then onto the Mitchell Plateau track in far remote Western Australia. It was pretty bad for us at the time of travel with massive corrugations. The kind that just slam you every couple of seconds for hours on end. But after seven hours of driving we reached the falls, which has got to be one of my favourite places in Australia.

 


Share This Article
Leave a comment