At the end of June I flew home to Yorkshire in northern England with no real picture of how life would be. COVID of course is embarrassingly prevalent in the UK and the government has successfully bungled and mismanaged the social circumstances for the British people so nobody is really sure how to approach the topic. I’d hoped to travel in some limited way, perhaps to Ireland, but that has not yet happened. Instead I took the chance to work on my three Land Rovers at home….

Elsa is now a fully-functioning 130, with a vast gullwing door from Rhino Overland (with sand ladders as a dropdown table), and various other bits and bobs. She’s still not finished but you can see very clearly how she will end up. Elsa’s intended purpose is long-range self-supporting overland travel in remote areas where resupply is not necessarily likely or reliable.

Nightingale has changed a bit. She’s no longer a straightforward soft top pickup – instead a MyWay Serengeti TR1 safari trailer tent has gone into her rear loadbay. A double-deck drawer system in the rear, mated to drinking water tanks and various other bits and pieces, means Nightingale is a great vehicle for remote area camping trips. I’ve also hoiked off that tired old Superwinch x9 from her nose (and very rusty 20 year old bullbar) and replaced it with a Superwinch Husky in a galvanised heavy duty winch bumper.

Tusker has stayed pretty much as she was, apart from removal of much of her Overland kit to transfer to Nightingale and Elsa. She’s my “everyday car” at the mo, and continues to be reasonably fast, economical and simply a joy to drive.