Sprache wechseln
Talking with Jeff Willner about his ongoing overland expedition from London to New York.
Not entirely dissimilar to First Overland, where six Oxford and Cambridge students embarked upon an impossible journey from London to Singapore in two Series One Land Rovers, Jeff Willner is endeavouring to complete what is possibly the last overland challenge from London to New York – a journey that includes mounting large pontoons to the vehicles and crossing the Bering Strait, which is approximately 82 km at its narrowest point between Russia and Alaska.
JEFF WILLNER is an entrepreneur. His first business venture was a computer training company that he sold to Microsoft. After a spell as a McKinsey consultant, he founded Kensington Tours in 2007, which, through acquisitions and growth, has since developed into the Travel Edge Group.
The seed for Jeff’s passion for travel was sown at an early age when he was growing up in South Africa.
Jeff, this is by no means your first adventure.
Can you summarise your earlier trips and tell me how the idea for London to New York was born?
I did my first overland trip in 1999. Six months through twelve countries in Southern and Eastern Africa. And then, after my MBA, I decided to take a year off and drove around the world taking in around 70 countries and almost every continent. So, that was Cape to Cairo, through the Middle East, to the top of Sweden, and then back down to Spain. From there, I shipped to Brazil and explored South America, before continuing on to Singapore, through Southeast Asia, across China to Everest, India, back across the Middle East, and all the way to England. Then, I shipped back to Toronto where I started a job, got married, had kids, and basically stopped travelling.
I did manage a short six-week trip down to South America again. I also crossed Iceland in one of those tricked-out large-tyre Defenders.
But then came the COVID shutdown. We really couldn’t do anything and were getting a bit stir crazy. That was when I read the article in Overland Journal about the Steve Burgess and Dan Richards expedition. One thing led to another, and I started firing e-mails to different people asking if they thought it was possible. From there, it just picked up steam.
I know you are a Land Rover Defender enthusiast. Did you ever consider anything else for the journey?
As far as the truck is concerned, we didn’t really have a great deal of choice. We needed a chassis-based vehicle so that we can attach the pontoons. So, it was either a Defender or an old Land Cruiser, but I’m an old Defender guy and have owned five of them in the past…including the new one. I even owned an asphalt-tearing Defender with a 550-horsepower Corvette engine.
I’ve got three of them kicking around home at the moment, plus the one for the expedition. So, I’m a bit of a sucker really.
I will say that this one has been a giant pain in the ass at times. You know, you can get a good one or you can get a lemon. I call this one Princess, because she’s like a delicate flower.
Other than the pontoons, what modifications were necessary to prepare the vehicles?
We’ve done quite a lot, starting with the Arctic Trucks 36” tyres. We we were going to have Arctic Trucks actually do the modification for us, but they were pretty busy, so we tackled it ourselves. The big tyres entailed a 2-inch body lift, cut out arches, and new fenders.
We’ve modified the gearbox ratio to help the engine turn those big tyres, and upgraded the suspension and steering link arms because they take quite a beating on the road.
I’ve got a full roll cage, which helps with the body stability when the pontoons are mounted. Inside the load area, we mounted some shelves to keep everything organised and secure.
The Puma 2.2 L engine is pretty much stock—we didn’t really do much except remap the ECU.
With the vehicle complete, how was the water testing?
We did water testing for most of last year, and we even went into the English Channel; but we weren’t getting the power off the PTO the way we had hoped. We ended up talking to five different people, who came up with just as many different propeller configurations, however, we still couldn’t get the speed we needed. So, we bought a third Defender, which we still have, and they are continuing development in Hereford as we speak.
We found another marine specialist, who has been given the task to make sure we can achieve 15 mph on the water—which is the minimum we’re going to need going up the Yukon river because a) it’s very long, and b) it’s got a five-mile-per-hour current we have to swim against.
Even though you weren’t yet completely ready, you still had to start the expedition. How much have you covered so far, and what are the plans for the future stages?
Indeed. We didn’t want to lose the season, so we decided to get going and set off in early January. We started in London and drove for three weeks up to Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, and then back down to Moscow, before continuing east to Chita, which is where the trucks are right now.
We’ll start the next leg in two or three weeks, and drive from Chita to Bilibino, where the Defenders will stay until we return in April. The leg thereafter will be from Bilibino to Uelen. If the weather is on our side, we’ll be able to drive along the beach to Uelen. If not, then we’ll take the slightly more tricky inland route.
Once we get there, we wait till August when there’s a festival happening this year, which is very lucky for us. They’re doing a friendship festival with Alaska, so they’re actually trying to have people complete the crossing in traditional, native-constructed boats made of wood and skins. And we’ve been invited to do the crossing with them, which is great. That will make us the second vehicle to cross—another Land Rover did the crossing before.
And then, we’ll try to drive up the Iditarod Trail from Nome to Fairbanks, or we go up the Yukon River in the summer. But that’s an open question right now.
The previous guy who did it, spent three years crossing Russia. The water crossing was done in two stages. He got halfway across before hitting bad weather which made him stop on an island. He waited six months, raised some more money, and went back to finish.
However, he didn’t do the Nome to Fairbanks run. And weirdly, it sounds crazy, but when we talked to people in Alaska, no-one has really driven that route—which answers the question, why everyone uses snowmobiles.
So, that’s the big question mark, actually. There’s a lot of challenging stuff to get through. But that’s the key element to the whole trip. And, of course, once you get to Fairbanks it’s a very easy drive from there to New York.
With all the challenges still to come, how do you compare this to your earlier expeditions?
It’s nothing like the old overland trips that I did back in the day, where you jump in the truck and drive across Africa, or through the Middle East, or even up into Nepal or whatever, knowing you can stay at a hostel and then move on whenever you feel like it.
This one is much trickier, and it’s different when you sleep in the roof tent. I remember in Romania, when it was cold, I caught a bit of a chill. That’s terrible because you lose a couple of days. Up here in Siberia, it’s minus 35°C. You just can’t take chances like that. You’ve got to be prepared.
Who else has joined you for the trip?
MIKAEL STRANDBERG is a very famous explorer—he actually canoed and skied up the Kolyma in winter, at minus 65 degrees in a tent. I’ve known Mikael for years. We’ve done a bunch of movies together, and he was the real inspiration for doing a big trip like this. He’s the one that said, “let’s go do something fun.”
STEVE BROOKS, who famously flew his helicopter from the North Pole to the South Pole, and also flew a Spitfire around the world.
Steve is also on the racing circuit and drives vintage Formula One cars. He is endlessly positive. He decided to buy his own vehicle and just kind of tags along with the expedition. So, Steve became the second vehicle on the expedition.
And then, we have a film crew of two and a local guide…in the end, we were six people by the time we got to Chita.
With all the preparations you have put into the vehicles, have you encountered any problems along the way?
Well, we ran into a couple of problems on this leg. The first was unknowingly self-inflicted. We had to cut our fuel tank so that we could run a solid shaft from the PTO to the back bumper. When we modified the fuel tank, I didn’t realise that with the body lift on top of the fuel tank, the plastic fittings were right underneath a structural member on the body. So, the first speed bump we hit, we crushed the fuel lines coming out of the fuel tank. The next time I filled up with diesel, it was all over the forecourt at the gas station. So basically, both vehicles ended up crushing their fuel tanks. We continued the entire trip fiddling with the gas tanks and resetting error codes because the vehicles were confused: they thought the tanks were empty.
We pulled over at a great workshop in Hannover, called Bratsch British Cars. They were absolutely delightful, made some space for us, swapped out some components, and got us back on the road. That was terrific.
The second problem had to do with the Dome cover on our snorkel. In the slushy winter weather, it turns out, those big tyres basically threw up a bunch of spray and it was sucked into the snorkel, saturating the air filter. Water got through that and blew the turbo, which we then had to replace in Moscow. So, that was a bunch of drama. That was the second workshop in five days: London Auto.
They had five mechanics and even stayed on into the night to get the job done.
The third problem has to do with air mass. I believe it has to do with just really cold air. I don’t think the Puma likes minus-30-degree air going into the engine. Thankfully, we had an engine diagnostic tool and the app on our phones. We were overriding engine error codes while driving just to keep the vehicle going. I miss the old Tdi—the simpler versions of the engine that just chugged along, no matter what you threw at it. I had a Tdi when I drove around the world, and it was absolutely bulletproof. The Puma is a little more delicate.
If the temperatures are that bad, how’s the Land Rover coping to keep you all warm?
It is not. It is terrible, really terrible. It’s as bad as you know it. Comfort was always an afterthought in the Defender.
Did you design and make the pontoons yourself?
They were made by a company in Kent, England, that does a lot of work for the Grand Tour and Top Gear. They created the steel saddles and supports.
As it happens, our trucks were painted by Richard Hammond’s new paint shop at The Smallest Cog, which is right across the way. So, our trucks were one of the first jobs that his new shop actually did.
So where are the pontoons right now?
They’re on the top of the truck. We tried to make them so that we were self-contained. That way, wherever we are, all we have to do is bolt the structural members on, inflate the pontoons, and away we go.
We’re really just missing the prop which is having the pitch tweaked right now, as we speak. So, we’ll take the new prop with us when we go back.
That’s quite a lot of additional weight to be carrying on the roof. On the other hand, do the big tyres contribute to stability?
Yeah, about 80 kilos. As for stability, not really. It’s as tippy as you would imagine it being—they’re absolute pigs to drive on the highway for sure. Plus, we’ve got three people inside, all of our gear, food and supplies. The trucks are just absolutely crammed full from bottom to top. Spares, tools, water, equipment, fluids, and everything else we need.
We are running about five tons all in, so they are definitely overloaded. We started at 3.5 tons and went up to five.
With all that weight, your fuel consumption must be quite spectacular. How big is the tank?
With the extra tank we’ve got about 125 litres, and I’d say we’re averaging around 12 MPG. So not great, but not too atrocious.
You’ve shared a couple of the hassles you’ve encountered. What about the other side of the coin?
We’d been stuck at the border for seven hours into Russia and decided to drive all night to stay on track, so we pulled into Moscow between 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning, when the sun was coming up.
It was very cool. We found an unbelievable restaurant that we stopped at for the day, in this little town, and we just ended up having this amazing meal, completely out of the blue. I think that was in Kazan.
Things like that. You know, moments, unexpected moments. Lake Baikal was spectacular. We rented a hovercraft for a couple 100 bucks and went up the lake, saw the bubbles frozen in the ice, and ate some local food. Amazing.
And then, I think the other big thing for me is, driving across Russia, meeting the people. It reminded me very much of Canada. You know, where I am right now [Toronto], our GDP’s are almost exactly the same. Canada’s GDP is a little bit higher. We’ve got a lot fewer people. 40 million people here. Compared to 140 there. But in many ways, the countries are very similar, and I’ve driven across Canada a couple of times.
You’ve covered a lot of kilometres in a comparatively short amount of time, so you’re literally behind the wheel most days. Do you still have the opportunity to meet the people and immerse yourself in their culture and hospitality?
No, not at all. I mean, it’s exactly as you say. We’re just covering ground so quickly. But the flip side is, the hotels we stay in and the people we meet there. And we’ve seen the insides of a lot of workshops [laughs].
We’ve used our frequent fuel stops to interact as well. The film crew is really good about getting in front of folks when we stop. They immediately jump out and get people on camera. So, it’s been interesting.
How long are you going to be travelling for on the next leg?
About two to three weeks. From near northern Mongolia, where we are right now, and all the way up to the area where Stalin’s gulags were. Up to the Siberian Sea in the north.
What is the reasoning behind taking the breaks along the route?
My wife.
That’s a good reason.
I own a pretty big company, and I’ve got kids who are 14, 16, and 18. My wife is the CEO of another big company. Maybe you can imagine how that discussion went. “Hey, honey, I wanna take three months off and do this stupid trip.” So, we had a vigorous discussion and ended up compromising around these chunks of time. She said, “two weeks I can live with. Anything more than two weeks is problematic.”
Thus, we are burning up a lot of extra miles, flying in and out. But to be honest with you, we definitely needed the break by the time we got to Chita. We were really burned out from being on the move every single day.
Are you going to write a book about this when you’re finished?
No, I’m not gonna write a book. I’m not doing it for charity. I am doing it simply to try and do something really hard.
Once you’ve overlanded and you have the bug in you, you think back on those times when you were sitting by a campfire or driving into a brand new town and staying until you want to move on. I just want to go back and do something really interesting.
If we draw this first instalment to a close, do you have any words you’d like to share before setting off on the next leg?
Well, my final words would be to your readers, and we’ve talked about this a lot as we’ve been preparing for the trip:
The biggest thing that stops people from doing trips like these, setting aside the cost for a moment, are our Gulliver’s ropes. You know, Gulliver washed up on the beach, where the Lilliputians found him, and they put these little strings across him and tied him down on the beach.
On their own, an individual rope isn’t going to keep you down. You know, you’ve got to drop the kids off at hockey, your boss doesn’t want to give you time off. Lots of tiny ropes.
You know you could say no, and just snap the ropes. It could be as simple as that.
But as we get older, we get stuck into life and those ropes start getting strung across you. You’ve got car payments; you’re expected to sing in church; you know your daughter wants you to go to this thing; and you just have all these ropes holding you back.
Sometimes, you’ve just got to sit up and break all those ropes, and that’s a conscious amount of discomfort. I can tell you from the other side, when you’re on the road again, and you’ve got that unknown scary project stretching in front of you, you’ll be grateful that you broke Gulliver’s ropes and got back out onto the highway.
Great advice. Thank you.
The next instalment will follow when Jeff and his team have completed the second leg of the expedition.
