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Apart from a bout of malaria, a box-jellyfish attack, a baboon raid, a lost passport, and one girl getting mauled by a lion, the trip went off with surprisingly few mishaps. No one was incarcerated for dealing with black-market money-changers, no one was robbed or became a permanent part of the food-chain, and there had been a total absence of ‘hostile natives.’

Fair enough, our departure from Nairobi had hardly been the death-or-glory stuff of the Count Teleki expedition. Far from heading into uncharted territory in a land of potentially murderous tribes, we were following the well-trodden overland trail and our schedule would run through many of the most famous sights in East Africa. We were almost as well-equipped as the Count (minus the boxes of ammunition and cases of ‘medicinal’ Scotch) but in place of a team of 450 native porters we had loaded all our provisions into a huge, wallowing yellow truck known as ‘The Whale.’

A 4,000-mile safari through five African countries is never likely to be a foregone conclusion, however, and there was room for a little trepidation as 22 optimistic ‘Jonahs’ climbed into the belly of The Whale one bright Kenyan morning. There was a group of London-based Aussies and Kiwis (out to ‘do the world’ in the few years they could spare), a few Brits (mostly erstwhile solo travellers), a Frenchman and a Canadian (taking a gap year out from their careers) and a group of four Argentines (‘old Africa hands,’ who had been tempted by an itinerary that would be hard to match independently). There was even a young English honeymoon couple who were keen to pick up as many (mental and physical) souvenirs as possible in the few weeks of ‘irresponsibility’ that they were allowing themselves. Women outnumbered men in the back of the truck by two-to-one, perhaps testifying to the fact that the security of overlanding is particularly attractive to female travellers.

After years of travelling independently - and, more often than not, solo - I was finally taking a chance to see what this overlanding business was all about. I wasn’t convinced that I would ever be an overland convert but, as I climbed into the big yellow truck that would be our home for the next five weeks, I was certain that it would be a memorable experience.

I had researched enough about the various operators and their invariably contradictory ideas on truck design not to be surprised to see that there were no glass windows in the body of an African overland truck like this one. Plastic-sheet windows could be dropped down in the event of rain or, more likely, heavy dust, but the sides of the truck were mostly kept open to the African elements. For a photographer, the benefits of this over a sealed, air-conditioned glass cocoon were obvious. Oasis Overland prefer inward facing seats which they claim allow more legroom and storage space under the floorboards but other benefits soon became clear too in the way that this sociable seating arrangement means that everyone is able to chat more freely as a group. By the time we had made the short drive north, over the Rift Valley to our first campsite at Lake Naivasha the atmosphere in the back of the truck had become even more light-hearted and optimistic.

Paul and Lisa, our driver and ‘tour leader’, had already guided us around the truck, showing us where the onboard safe and first-aid equipment was, and where the tents and cooking equipment were stored. During the course of the next week in a successive chain of campsites, we would perfect our routine so that, within twenty minutes of our arrival, we could have a little tent city erected under the shade of the acacias and a cook-team would be at work preparing dinner.

I would be travelling onwards alone after the tour so I had brought my own little one-man tent, but the others buddied-up with someone they thought they should be able to share with for the rest of the journey. (By the end of the trip though, a certain amount of random tent-swapping had taken place…for one reason or another).

Spend an evening around the fire with an overland crew - or even better when two crews get together in a spirit of friendly, frequently beery, rivalry - and you will get an idea of the depth of trial-and-error that has gone into overlanding. Crew-members are rarely particularly knowledgeable guides; they often travel too far too fast to gain much beyond a streetwise road-knowledge of each country. But if you find yourself doubting their resourcefulness, just imagine the responsibility of leading a flock of two-dozen people - like some latter-day (though not particularly spiritual) Moses - for ‘forty days and nights’ through the African wilderness.

There is particularly heavy competition among overland crews to drive the most macho trucks and the worst way to offend an overland driver is to refer to his beloved vehicle as a ‘bus.’ The vehicle that Oasis Overland use for their 30-week Trans-Africa trip is fitted out with all the rigmarole of a full-blown expedition vehicle: cross-axle-diff-lock; high-low range gear box; seriously BIG tyres to improve already impressive ground-clearance; GPS, sat-phones…

Since our journey between Nairobi and Vic Falls would be about 85% pot-holed tarmac, however, we would be using a converted road-truck that was not geared for the sort of off-road demands that are a part of some of the most remote national parks. The unexpected benefit in this became clear when we disembarked at Arusha to transfer into a fleet of Land Rovers (3 people per vehicle) to spend a couple of days following the great migration across the Serengeti. Long experience of leading tours through Arusha had proven who the best guides were and the group booking secured a reasonable price for a level of ‘exclusivity’ that would have been overwhelmingly expensive for an independent traveller - most of the time we were unable to see another vehicle, even within the apparently limitless savannah horizon.

Being able to ‘reap the fruits of the overlanding grapevine’ is one of the less obvious advantages of an overland trip. You stay in isolated villages you would never have found alone; you cross remote wildernesses where no local bus could have taken you; you feast in local villages where your crew are already long-term friends with the headmen. Crews pass on word about a particularly wild Serengeti campsite (surrounded by hunting lions on the night we were there), a beautiful beach on the Mozambique Channel (though plagued with the vicious box jellyfish that left me in partial paralysis for almost an hour), the Malawian lodge where shots of alcoholic caffeine stretch the party out until way past dawn...

I had travelled in Zimbabwe on other more stressful occasions (covering the aftermath of a particularly tense election for example) but I knew that, under more relaxed circumstances, this beautiful and astoundingly friendly country would be a highlight of the trip. By the time we arrived at Vic Falls, to raft the Zambezi and hurl ourselves into 111-metres of ‘Big African Air,’ we had tracked white and black rhinos on foot, watched the sun rise over Great Zimbabwe Ruins, dug the truck out of several mud-wallows, watched wildlife in several of Africa’s most impressive national parks, partied on the old colonial Vic Falls Express, swam with horses across a crocodile-infested river (their hooves keep the crocs back apparently)...

At Kwekwe we had stayed with a friendly Zimbabwean farming couple who had a pet lion. At the sight of Lisa (apparently the most ‘gazelle-like’ of our travelling companions), Cleo the lioness apparently decided that it was time to assert her ‘lion-ness.’ The attack was only a practise-run but Cleo was sufficiently in earnest to have her claws out, and to cut a series of bloody gashes in Lisa’s arm.

Try telling Lisa she took the soft option and didn’t have any adventures during her five-week African overland trip!

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