Lusaka To London in ANA45

Lusaka to London in ANA45 - Tales from along the way

The author describes various incidents which took place during his overland travels from Lusaka to London in 1986 from Zambia in Southern Africa to London. Travelling in an old Land Rover (with the registration ANA45), these were the days before sat navs or mobile phones, what could possibly go wrong?

Leaving Lusaka in February 1986 with a travelling companion (a young Brit called Peter, recruited by the author's wife), the journey was to take 6 months.

Only 80 miles from Lusaka the first major mechanical failure on the Land Rover resulted in expensive repairs, using up all of the remaining Zambian cash which had been set aside for fuel. Undeterred we continued to the Tanzanian border where the vehicle was then loaded onto a ferry travelling up Lake Tanganyika. On route up Lake Tanganyika was where the next major incident occurred.

After visiting silverback gorillas in the Virunga mountains in Rwanda, and negotiating civil unrest in Chad, the next major challenges involved dealing with serious illness on board and total vehicle breakdown in the Saharan desert. Bartering with the locals for spare parts to repair the vehicle, ANA45 was repaired and the journey continued through Algeria. Peter was now in a medical clinic receiving life saving attention and the author was travelling alone through the desert when the Land rover's chassis split almost completely. Roadside repairs in Morocco saved the day. The journey through Spain passed without incident but the final breakdown occurred in rush hour traffic around Paris!