The Kingsley Holgate Foundation continues to share the story of meeting up with old Defenders and earlier Landy models to record how many years of Land Rover history they can chalk up along their Hot Cape – Cold Cape expedition route. It’s fun and quirky, and just grows and grows!

Part 2.

Situated about halfway between Cape Town and Cairo, the Tanzanian city of Arusha is a haven for old Landies.

British couple Paul and Erica Sweet of Twiga Lodge (with a great campsite for overlanders) are not only famous for their warm hospitality and knowledge of their newly adopted country, but also for their fleet of fully kitted-out old character Defender Tdi’s.

They hire these out to adventurers wanting to explore TZ’s famous Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lakes Vic and Tanganyika, Mt Kilimanjaro, the Swahili Coast, Selous and Tarangire national parks and everything else, under their own steam.

READ | 5 000 years of history in a Land Rover Defender

One of these ­– a 1996 model nicknamed Stanley (after the explorer by that name) – not only provided more years to our Landy Register but also became transport for the David Kyne team of malaria prevention volunteers from Dublin who joined the DTC expedition through East Africa.

Old Stanley never missed a beat and through Paul (‘the Land Rover Whisperer’), we were also able to meet a host of other historic old timers. What was interesting was just how many Landy owners pass on their much-loved classics to their kids or even grandchildren.

The best of these Tanzanian collectables was Africa-hand Tor Allen’s 1956 86″ Series I nicknamed Tindo. What a beauty, complete with a brass-handled hardwood drawer system and everything meticulously arranged for his next safari, including a small woven basket hanging from one of the canvas roof supports, serving as a receptacle to defrost his chosen piece of nyama for that night’s campfire.

It seems that Land Rover eccentricity knows no bounds!

‘Fundi’s’ everywhere!

The Masai also love their old Land Rover bush taxis and they can be found in the remotest of areas, overloaded to the hilt with red-ochred warriors wearing colourful beads and tartan-style blankets known as shukas.

Parts are still available (when they aren’t making their own) with every town having its much-respected Land Rover ‘fundi’ who is forever working miracles under a raised bonnet – on top of which sits an old, worn spare wheel, with a 20-litre plastic container on the roof, which through an attached piece of hosepipe, gravity-feeds fuel into the spluttering carburettor.

Then we meet Aadje Geertsema who arrived here from the Netherlands in 1970 to research Civet cats. She so loved the Serengeti that she bought the Ndutu Lodge in 1985 and they still transport everything in a fleet of old Landies that are still going strong today. ‘I just love them!’ she says as she poses for a pic alongside one of our new expedition Defenders.

The Landy encounters continue to grow, especially when Cymon Charnley (a delightful character – great sense of humour), organises a grand get-together with the Land Rover Club of Uganda. It happens at the very jolly Entebbe Sailing Club on the shoreline of Lake Victoria, where a long line of battered Defenders with nicknames like Trojan 1, Beast, The Loyal Knight, Roxy, Ocece (‘the dusty one’), Phoenix and Smoking Gun, and their equally colourful owners arrive to meet the expedition.

Ronnie Kyazze, the Chairman, gives us honorary membership and we’re presented with our very own Defender Transcontinental Expedition bush hats, a framed certificate and even DTC Expedition-branded travel mugs – they get well-used during the long weeks ahead!

We share stories from roads less travelled as all the Club members scribble messages in the expedition’s Scroll of Peace and Goodwill and just love their comments: ‘Even though I slow up others in the traffic, I love the fact that I still get waves – Ugandans love these old Landies’; ‘I take mine everywhere – even into the Congo’; and ‘We love them, especially the old TDi’s – the growl of that dependable old 300 TDi engine and the smell of hot oil!’ Gifeon adds that Uganda has a rich history of Land Rovers dating back to the British time and their Club is keeping that history alive.

‘When the mud is thick in the north-east and others fail, she always gets me through,’ says Moses with a grin. We agree – after all, the ‘heart’ of Land Rover belongs here in Africa – and through this colourful interaction, we add a further 360 years of Landy history to the story.

A Land Rover taxi

Still further north… who would have thought that after zigzagging across South Sudan, being hammered by illegal roadblocks in the no-mans-land buffer zone and detained by the Republic of Sudan military, that when finally heading for Khartoum, we’d come across a mud-brick town with a clutch of old Land Rover bush taxis; one proud owner even gives us a display of starting his ancient beauty with a flourish of the crank handle.

Then again at Wadi Halfa, still more vintage Landies where we cross out of the Nubian Desert into Egypt. An elderly gentleman called Amin swathed in a long white robe and white skull cap, proudly starts up his 2006 300 TDi Defender pick-up saying, ‘They are the best for the rocky desert tracks.

I’ve driven them for the last 25 years, even old Series IIs and IIIs left over from the British time. We Nubians love them, and we can still get all the spare parts we need in Khartoum. We even have a club on WhatsApp called Molok El Sahara – Kings of the Desert.’ As Amin generously pours small cups of sweet hibiscus tea for the team, he adds with a grin, ‘Forget those expensive new vehicles – we’ll stick to our old, reliable Defenders!’

And so, by the time we reach Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt to say goodbye to Africa and ship our Defenders across the Med to Piraeus in Greece for the journey north through Eastern Europe and beyond to the Arctic Circle, we’ve already clocked up 4 328 years of colourful Landy history.