Moving to Sweden, the long way... (UK To Mongolia and beyond and back to Sweden)

[Cysne]

Hi All,

Been a lurker for a while on this forum, I am from England unlike many on the forum, so hopefully this trip will be off interest. We may extend the trip to Magadan, depending on time and money.

Anyway, this will be a live report of my long move to sweden, in a Nissan Terrano with my girlfriend. We are leaving on the 7th of May and will land for the last time in Sweden, late 2013.

Website in the current state: www.chasingourshadows.com

This is our initial route plan (Road of bones to magadan is still up in the air)

I will continue to update this thread as we prepare and have launched the website and as travel.

Also any hints and tips for must see's would be appreciated.

 

[Cysne]

Just to follow on, we have made some progress with the car. We received the graphics from Humvee graphics, and also a couple of ebay shops. We have fitted these.

We also had the Side steps and Tow Bar removed to increase ground clearance and hopefully reduce the chances for us to get stuck in mud, the tow bar was like an anchor in the mud on the off road day.

We have also booked our ferry from Dover, 7th of May.

Sleepless nights have started, rather scary but exciting...

 

[jessejman]

This will be fun! Let us know how planning/preparation goes. Following along - Jesse

 

[Bayerische E53]

Is that a Dakar "Tosser Edition" sticker I see?

If so, I'm literally pissing myself with laugher. Good on ya for being creative!

Just out of curiosity, isn't the road of bones supposed to be virtually impassable via normal automobile? I take it you've seen/read Long Way 'Round and gotten the Road of Bones idea from there. If I recall correctly, Charley and Ewan couldn't get all the way through it alone and had to load the bikes onto massive military-type flat/open-deck lorries to get across some of the serious water passes. How do you reckon you'd cross it?

Good luck, mate!

 

[Cysne]

Yes it is, Can't go wrong with abit of humor.

The road of bones is a interesting one, there is a new Gravel road built after Long way round has been complete. So if we decide to head to Magadan, we have two options.

 

[Bayerische E53]

I see. That's brilliant, mate. Best of luck with it. I'm looking forward to your updates. Make sure to post photos of the modifications (if any) that you make to your ride!

 

[Cysne]

Sorry this is my first chance to update, I didn't expect updating the website and a couple of forums to be so hard! :Wow1:

For anyone wondering the Nissan Terrano did 500 + Miles to around 70 litres, giving around 34 MPG average from Yorkshire to South Belgium, thats with been stuck in traffic for around 1 hour and fully loaded.

So we set off on Tuesday, it was a very strange feeling but now is time for a few pictures as we've been on the road for a couple of days. All in all I can't believe I'm going to be away from home for so long, it feels like I should be turning around heading home now...

Firstly leaving Dover on the ferry.

Our first real stop after the boat was Ypres (Ieper) so far this has been my Favorite town, it's a shame we didn't get there earlier and get some more pictures.

We made it in time for the Menin gate parade, very overcrowded and much preferred coming back 30 minutes when the crowds had gone to have a real look around, chilling.

We spent the next day in Brugge and spent the night, no pictures to show as was raining and horrible all day, spent most of the day drinking and eating.

An elephant from the Into Africa Museum in Brussels, seems we missed the fact that it's a bank holiday today in Belgium, nearly everything was shut, nearly ran out of diesel as we passed around 8 stations that were shut. Anyway, today we are in Bastogne, so far quiet strange and very busy. Hopefully it will be quieter in the morning to have a better look around.

More to come...

 

[Cysne]

Here are some pictures from Bastogne, I wish we had done more research on sites to visit, but well worth our time.

 

[Cysne]

Sorry not really a report as far, but many pictures.

I'll try and improve on the writing as we get more time to.

Currently we are 10 days into the trip and enjoying it, we have done around 2,000 miles and the car has averaged around 35 mpg, no problems yet fingers crossed.

Overall, Germany we drove through quickly, maybe we should have visited more sites, but plan to revisit on the way back, Denmark was dull much like England, sweden and Norway so far has been the highlight. Look forward to moving forward.

I'm really unsure what to write in these posts...


First large birdge in Denmark, the toll was around £30.00, very expensive.

Helsingborg

 

[Cysne]

We arrived in Delsbo at Rebecka’s parents and will be here for the next couple of weeks, working out our route and plans for the next section of the trip. For now here is a lot of pictures. We will prepare the car into a semi-camper, before setting off to Russia, we think we will be leaving sweden around 12/06/2013, so not many updates until then. A little bit strange how we are not driving and to be honest I feel like I should be heading home...

Anyway, picture dump from the rest of Sweden and Norway;

Volvo Museum in Gothenburg, well worth the visit and some of my favorites;

Into Norway, norway was expensive as hell, as expected, I was shocked still, but we still spent too much money for our budget. Parking in Oslo and the hotel was nearly £200.00 for one night. Ouch, nearly a weeks budget in Mongolia.

But the view from the room wasn't too bad.

Oslo's Kings Palace

NOK

Opera House

Typical Norwegian scenery

;

Yes it was still bloodly cold!

Norway was full of tunnels and bridges, the longest was a huge 25km tunnel.

One of our camping spots

Didn't get many pictures at Bergen as was very busy, but enjoyable and strange.

 

[Rattler]

Didn't get many pictures at Bergen as was very busy, but enjoyable and strange.

That waterfall is something else! I enjoyed my time in Sweden a couple years ago. I met a very nice older couple from Bergen on vacation in a VW Westy while there. Ever see that dumb reality show Alt For Sverige? I was on the first season.

Tack for the pics!

 

[Cysne]

My girlfriend knows of the programme, reading on Wiki sounds interesting might be worth a watch.

More interesting pictures and reports to come as we build the car and progress into russia.

 

[Wainiha]

Great pictures. I really like the one with the river running through the valley and town. Is that the warmest day of the year? Ha. I'd love to see the winter shot.

I look foward to more on your adventure. Thanks for posting.

 

[Cysne]

Great pictures. I really like the one with the river running through the valley and town. Is that the warmest day of the year? Ha. I'd love to see the winter shot.

I look foward to more on your adventure. Thanks for posting.

Glad you like them! Strangely for the last 2 weeks we've seen around 30 degrees C in sweden and Norway! ,In January we saw Minus 30-!

Anyway, lastest update;

So as part of our Trip, We made a choice that we would prefer a camper type, then camping, but due to budget this is a simple budget conversion. The total cost is nothing, as we re-used all the parts here.

Anyway, if off interest to anyone here it is so far,

First Step was to remove the Seats;

Then cut wood board to size, using the former seat mounts to hold the uprights in place, this was a really easy way to secure it.

We used one sheet of board to make the bed base, so underneath the board we are able to store goods, using plastic box's at the back, which we will store things like food and cooking equipment and then under the bed were the middle-seats were, we have space to store clothes etc. All these compartments are easily accessible due to the doors.

As the bed is custom made and not standard, we have are making our own mattress, the bed is around 170cm x 120cm, so the plan is to use self inflating camping mats on the bottom, on top of that we have a memory foam old mattress topper that we will trim to shape and size for the bed, then finish as a normal bed.

Last step so far, again we have made custom made curtains for the bed area. Happy with them.

More to come, as we need to finish the bed and sort out a few other things. But very happy with it so far.

Also if anyone wants to like our facebook page it's www.facebook.com/chasingrshadows

 

[G0to60]

Really like the simple and cheap bed conversion. Looking forward to your updates as you go along.