Sprache wechseln
It’s perhaps inevitable that when your age no longer appears as an option on a Series II speedometer, you begin to cast your mind back and review some of the adventures you have had. For Philip James Russell, 80 used to be a downhill and with a wind behind you point that was still a long way off, but as his milestone birthday approached he suddenly found himself genuinely pondering not just the past, but also the future: was now the right time to start planning an overlanding rematch—some 50 years after he last arrived back in the UK?
Born in September 1943, Philip Russell had an unusual ambition as a child—no dreams of becoming a firefighter, astronaut or stunt man here: from the age of 11 he was dead set on being a maths teacher and duly ended up at university in Liverpool, studying for a degree in mathematics and physics. It was there that Philip was introduced to Land Rover ownership with the keys to an 88in Series II fitted with a hard top which, for reasons he could never fathom, proved to be stuck firmly in place, scuppering thoughts of open top motoring for this particular student. Yet for a 21 year-old, this didn’t cull the enjoyment and he recalls just how much he enjoyed owning the Land Rover, even taking it for a spin along the water’s edge at Bracklesham Bay in West Sussex before eventually selling it on a year later.
With intentions of joining the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot put to one side when he suddenly found himself a family man, Philip began to look at other ways he could put his qualifications to good use and spotted an advertisement in the Times Educational Supplement that promised a new adventure: “They were looking for people to undertake a teacher training course in Zambia before then being given a full-time post in the area. I signed straight up!”
By this time, Philip and his wife had two children and in February 1969, the four of them boarded the RMS Pendennis Castle in Southampton with Cape Town as their next destination, followed by a drive from the tip of South Africa through Rhodesia. The next couple of years proved to be pretty busy with the completion of a PGCE at the University of Zambia, followed by a teaching contract at the Munali School in Lusaka and a stint working with the Zambian Army cadet force for which he was given a commission in the service. However, it was getting to know Perry Dutfield at the Lusaka Theatre Club that would come to shape the next chapter of his life.
“Perry was nine years older than me,” recalled Philip. “He had previously driven back to the UK in an old Land Rover via Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt and I remarked that I rather fancied doing something similar.”
Perry’s response was simple: political changes since he’d completed the journey meant that the same route was no longer possible, but that certainly didn’t mean another overland adventure wasn’t—just that they’d have to find a different way home.
It was now 1972 and Philip had been in Lusaka for over three years. Unfortunately, he and his wife had separated, but plans for his trip back to the UK rapidly took shape and with Perry egging him on, he found himself at an auction of ex-Zambian Army vehicles and ready to bid on Lot 13—a recently retired Series IIA ambulance, complete with four stretcher beds in the back.
“It was perfect for our trip,” Philip recalls. “But I was concerned that I would quickly be outbid and mentioned this to one of the Officers involved in handling the auction. He assured me that there wouldn’t be any other bids thanks to my own Officer status—apparently that meant I would go unchallenged and Lot 13 was soon mine!”
With the ex-ambulance in their ownership, the pair set about preparing it for their journey. Two of the four stretcher rails were removed and storage trunks bolted to the side in their place. Philip and Perry then bought another 109-inch Land Rover that had suffered a rod through the block and was for sale as little more than scrap. They removed the fuel tank and fitted it to their IIA to increase the range and then stripped the rest for spares—adding half-shafts, a dynamo and lots of other parts to their inventory in the process before selling it for more than they had originally bought it for.
Of course, no respectable overlander at the time would leave their steed looking as they bought it and so they decided that zebra stripes were in order.
“A chap by the name of Ian on my PGCE course was an artist,” Philip explains. “He had us paint it white and said he would pencil in the correct zebra markings that we could use as a guide. In fact, he ended up returning and painting it for us—complete with Playboy bunny on the front!”
With the aesthetics sorted, they continued with their preparations but eventually decided that they had procrastinated enough and on 7 September 1972, Philip Russell and Perry Dutfield pointed their ex-ambulance in the direction of Salisbury in Rhodesia and left Lusaka. Once there, their main task was to stock up on spares—as one of the main towns in the region, dealers and garages holding Land Rover parts were relatively abundant and so it made sense to do so while they could.
Already the Series II had gained a nickname: IWE. Not only was this a phonetic reference to the first two digits of the registration, EY, but also coincided with a rough translation in the local dialect to hey you. The pair spent another couple of days in Salisbury readying IWE before heading south west to Bulawayo and then Francistown in Botswana.
By this point, Philip had started to write in his 1972 Zambian desk diary and simple entries punctuated the first 10 days of travel: raining and cloudy, fought off dog, game skin factory and good dirt all serve to paint a sometimes humorous picture of the journey so far. Monday 18 September was clearly noteworthy: 1½lb fillet steak, 50c—an entry that Philip recalls with delight: “We had travelled from Francistown to Maun on the edge of the Kalahari Desert and stopped for food at a local butcher stall. That fillet steak was absolutely stunning and with a glass of red wine in hand and the sun setting in front of us, it has stuck in my mind ever since!”
In contrast, the goat they bought a couple of days later near Sehithwa provided a very different taste experience, but the route was also providing its own challenges. “Every 5km or so, there was a stick with a red tip to show you the way. Having a compass was useless because of the abundance of iron-ore in the area and the sand made for tough going in places.”
The diary entry reads Fair > Bad > Terrible and then lists having to use four-wheel drive and low ratio before becoming momentarily stuck en route to Ghanzi. The conditions also played havoc with their packing and Philip recorded that their food cupboard was a mess and that they lost oil, a funnel and a rubber mat! With rocks thrown into the mix, this would be the start of their tyre issues, but the pair had thoughtfully brought four or five spares with them—not just tyres though, but complete wheels in order to ease the change in event of a puncture.
A leaking radiator and wheel hub added to the list of relatively minor woes and the campsite showers that awaited the travellers in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, were most welcome. The duo spent a few days over Philip’s birthday in the area, shopping for spares, doing their laundry and getting haircuts as well as fulfilling more crucial tasks such as applying for their Angolan visas and getting the various documents in order for the next leg of the trip.
The Land Rover didn’t go unattended to either; brakes were adjusted, a new fan belt was fitted and curtains were installed in order to provide a little more privacy for overnight stays, but soon the IIA was heading north once more and in the direction of the Etosha Game Park.
Philip’s diary entry for Wednesday 27 September records seeing 16 lions, but with door tops removed due to the heat, it was decided not to get too close! An elephant and the usual zebras were also spotted and the pair witnessed a hyena attack on a young oryx—clearly something so distressing that they had to relax around the pool for the rest of the afternoon before continuing on their way the following morning!
The Land Rover was still performing excellently; Perry’s previous overlanding trip had been carried out at the wheel of another Solihull model and as far as he was concerned, there was absolutely no question what they should be driving.
“Perry knew that if our choice of vehicle left us stranded, we could well be in serious trouble,” recalls Philip. “I don’t think he used the word trouble though, but it’s why we opted for a Land Rover in the first place. They were easy to work on and spares were readily available and although Perry owned a Peugeot when I met him, there was only ever one vehicle for the journey.”
As October rolled around, the duo were making good progress and were now in Benguela on the Angolan coast. Continuing north through Lobito and into the capital of Luanda, Philip and Perry hit upon their first real problem.
“We had to jump through hoops in order to get our papers so that we could continue into the Congo,” explains Philip. “There was a war zone ahead and we were sent to the High Commission, then the Army, then the Police before returning back to where we started—each refusing to give permission for us to continue until one of the others did.”
The pair were eventually allowed to go on their way, but with a crucial caveat: “The British Embassy let us know in no uncertain terms that they had told us not to enter the area and that if we got into trouble, they were to have nothing to do with us… obviously we carried on regardless, but the whole affair had set us back by a good five days.”
Heading inland, the Series II crossed the border north of Negage without issue—although south of the Zaire border, the pair suddenly found themselves being waved down by a man brandishing a Kalashnikov rifle, as Philip recalls: “Although we were a little concerned at first, the chap instructed us to take a badly wounded man to the nearest hospital, run by nuns. He was bleeding heavily and so we put him in the back and knew that we needed to get him there as quickly as possible. I was by far the quicker driver and so jumped behind the wheel and pressed on.”
When they arrived at the hospital, the Sister was straight on the case and took the man into her care, but when she saw the state of the inside of the Land Rover—now covered in blood—she immediately barked at three locals to give it a thorough clean as a reward for Philip and Perry’s good deed. When the pair asked about the man’s chances, her response was simple: “It’s a head wound. He’ll survive.”
Crossing into Zaire, the border guard fell off his chair when he spotted the Land Rover. “I’ve been here five years and I’ve never seen anyone!” he announced. “You can’t come through though—you haven’t got any visas.” Fortunately, Perry and Philip immediately proved him wrong, but he then insisted on searching the Series II. When his Sergeant came out, Philip offered him a beer and began to chat whilst the guard prepared to dissect the contents of the Land Rover. “If I give you another beer, we don’t have to search it, do we?” asked Philip hopefully. They had nothing to hide, but it was a delay they really could do without; with the free beer having done the trick, the answer was no and the pair were sent on their way to enjoy a road so terrible that it was only ever used when one guard replaced another!
Having crossed the border, their next destination would be Kinshasa—the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With little petrol left and a reasonable distance still to travel, they paused at Thysville hoping to replenish their stocks, but with an absence of a bank, they eventually managed to change £5 into local currency at a hotel and get enough fuel to take them the rest of the way, but then began several days of frustrating bureaucracy. The banks in Kinshasa were shut when they arrived and with no camp site on offer, the pair managed to get agreement for them to stay in the car park of the Intercontinental Hotel—making use of their toilets and shower facilities whilst there. However they were told that a second night was firmly out of the question and it was suggested that perhaps they could try the local Police (Brigade Mobile) instead.
A night in the safety of their compound was followed by a ferry ride to Congo Brazzaville on the other side of the river. On arrival, they were told in no uncertain terms that there had been a coup, and all visas issued by the previous regime were null and void. Without the necessary permission, Russell and Perry were sent back across the river—a sympathetic border guard failing to stamp their passports when they re-entered Zaire, effectively being made stateless.
“We needed to get the right paperwork,” explains Philip. “So we went to the British Embassy who then sent us to the German Embassy. They then sent us to the French Embassy who directed us to the Portuguese Embassy—all without any luck.”
After two rounds of following Embassy advice, the British Consul, Andrew Kettles, took pity on the pair—largely because their attitude was pretty relaxed and, unlike others that had been in similar situations, clearly were not jumping up and down with expectations of help. “I’ll give you dinner if you service my car”, offered Kettles. “When the local garage does it, it usually comes back with older parts on than when it went in!”. Philip and Perry immediately agreed. When the Consul found out that they had stayed at the Brigade Mobile, he was somewhat horrified, asking whether they still had their possessions and were invited to make the most of the British Embassy Club instead—complete with swimming pool, tennis courts and, of course, toilets and showers.
A party at one of the diplomatic residences followed that evening and along with a very tempting offer by the American military to pop the Series II into the back of one of their large cargo planes and fly them over Congo Brazzaville to Bangui. For Philip, it would also provide an introduction to his future second wife, Janice—the secretary to the Ambassador!
Another option was available to the travellers: putting the Land Rover onto a ferry train where a series of linked barges would transport various vehicles up river for four days—drivers and passengers living in their steeds for that time, but Philip and Perry opted to continue their plans to travel by road and track.
“When Monday came around, we returned once again to the German Embassy—a letter from Andrew Kettles in hand,” recalls Philip. “They mentioned that the new regime across the river were setting up an Embassy in Kinshasa and so we hot-footed it to the address and just happened to find the new Ambassador inspecting the premises. He told us that they would give us the visas we needed, providing we could produce tickets for the ferry to Brazzaville. We bought those and were then told that it would take between eight and 14 days for the paperwork to be sorted; it felt never-ending, but when we finally got the visas, they were numbered 001 and 002—the first to be issued!”
Having arrived in Kinshasa on the 12th, the pair eventually made their way to the ferry on 27 October, ready for the 10am crossing. “The official didn’t believe that we had visas this time,” laughs Philip. “When we produced them, they told us that they would arrest us if we were still there that afternoon. Why? Because they could! Naturally, we visited a bank to pick up some local currency, bought fuel and quickly left town!”
Their next destination was Gabon, and to their pleasure, they crossed the border without any apparent problems. “Twenty minutes later and we suddenly became aware of blue lights and a siren behind us. Pulling over, the officer explained that as we had entered French territory, we were meant to go through immigration, customs AND the Police controls. We had skipped the last, but what annoyed him most was that it had taken him 15 minutes to catch up with us thanks to our eagerness to press on!”
As October gave way to November, the Series II made progress—with the help of several pontoon ferry trips in Cameroon. These ferries were commonplace and usually fitted with a diesel motor, but never with a battery with which to start it. The modus operandi was to simply remove the battery from your own vehicle, use it to fire up the engine, then put it back where it came from whilst making your way across the water!
This would be the least of their worries however; for the following days, Philip’s diary includes simple, damning statements such as: “Bloody awful roads… rain, rain, rain… roads awful… STILL raining.” To make matters worse, there was a major logging industry in the region and the huge trucks that literally dragged the felled trees from their once homes did an excellent job of turning a passable track into a chewed up quagmire that would challenge our overlanders.
“We were very proud of never needing to be rescued however,” recalls Philip. “The conditions on that section in particular meant that we had to make full use of four-wheel-drive and low-range, but even when we thought we were stuck, the Land Rover pulled us straight out.”
Although the Series II was proving to be a worthy companion, Philip and Perry were becoming slightly concerned with what was happening up front. “We didn’t know why at that point, but as we were driving along, shards of glass were breaking off from the windscreens—clearly the frame was flexing and despite our efforts to tie it in position using the roof rack, it eventually got so bad that we just removed the screens altogether and put up with the rain.”
Perry happened to have a friend in Kaduna, Nigeria who was the manager of the local Land Rover dealer. It was thought that with the Sahara not far ahead, the 160-mile diversion was well worthwhile and offered the perfect opportunity to put ‘IWE’ over an inspection pit and stock up on some spares in anticipation. A loose propshaft was sorted, a broken bonnet catch welded, new radiator fitted and a replacement windscreen procured and fitted, although this would again be a short-lived fix.
“Neither of us realised that the reason for the collapsing windscreen frame and the glass showers was that the chassis of the Series II itself was cracked,” smiles Philip. “We did have it welded up at one point, but it didn’t last and I’m convinced that it actually cracked fairly early on in the journey, thanks to the speeds necessary in order to make the best of the rough roads!”
The fitting of a new axle casing, rewiring the interior electrics, realigning and fixing doors, an oil change and the purchase of some new tyres are all documented in Philip’s diary and despite the pair enjoying the facilities and home comforts on offer, they finally decided to make a move on 21 November—a slight false start when the dynamo then seized due to the wrong size of fanbelt being fitted, and they had to limp back to Zinder where repairs could be facilitated!
With the Sahara on the horizon, a stop in Agadez gave them the chance to hook up with another Land Rover—this time inhabited by some Germans also heading north. With safety in mind, it was decided that they would cross the sand together, as Philip explains: “There is a hard crust on the sand, but if you fail to make good enough progress, there’s a good chance that you start to sink in. If it rains, then you’re stuck until it dries up and that can take some time.”
Thankfully, there were no such issues for Philip and Perry however and at one point, much to the bemusement of the Germans, the pair brought the Land Rover to a halt at 4 pm sharp.
“What are you doing?” one of them enquired? “It’s 4 pm!” exclaimed Philip. “We are English and it’s time for tea!”
With the astonished onlookers, Perry and Philip donned their dinner jackets, erected the awning, set up a table and chairs and laid out a rug. They then proceeded to crack open a bottle of fizzy wine from the fridge (eventually served by one of the Germans!) and a tinned cake. “They thought we were absolutely mad,” laughs Philip. “But they got the humour and playfully joined in!”
By the time the convoy approached Tamanrasset, the serious job of navigation had taken over: “This was proper Sahara,” explains Philip. “Your only real way of finding your way through was to keep a lookout for the occasional posts with a white top. You’d reach one, then stop, get out your binoculars and see if you could spot the next one before driving towards it. If you failed to see one for a while, you were very much lost.” Nowadays of course it is tarmac all the way but no such luxury then.
For the Germans, Tamanrasset would be a no go area as they were refused entry and had to return to Niamey, but Philip and Perry had their own issues as, despite their considerable petrol provisions, the fuel had all but gone and they were void of any coupons with which to buy some more. Eventually, a spot of bartering temporarily resolved the situation and an opportunity to fill up properly would be taken advantage of in In Salah.
Their crossing was all too quickly coming to an end, but the challenges remained as the Series II was piloted up and over the Atlas Mountains.
“Suddenly, it was cold!” recalls Philip. “We didn’t have a heater—we didn’t need one when we set out—but now we were waking up to frost on the ground and water that took a good half an hour to boil before we could think of having a cup of tea.”
They may have been closer to home than ever by this point, but complacency would not be allowed to take over and the pair fitted new plugs, points, replaced the air and fuel filters, adjusted the valve clearances, mended the air horns… and fitted a heater!
With the Mediterranean in sight as they approached Algiers, the Land Rover was pointed west along the coast line and towards Morocco—their shortwave radio picking up the BBC World Service for the first time on their trip. Having crossed into Morocco, they then entered Ceuta, a Spanish enclave and booked their passage on the ferry that would transport them to the mainland before heading into town.
“When we eventually wandered back to the port, there was some consternation,” laughs Philip. “We hadn’t realised that Ceuta uses Spanish time and so was one hour ahead of Morocco—IWE nearly left on the ferry without us!”
Somewhat ironically, given that the pair were now about to embark on the home straight, Perry went shopping for a new pair of binoculars and Philip bought a new camera, but after crossing over into Spain, the next major purchase would be tickets for the Bilbao to Southampton ferry.
On 13 December, the Series II was driven onto the 6.30 pm ferry in preparation for the two-day trip back to the UK and, following a rough passage across the Bay of Biscay, the rest was a relatively smooth sailing and the overlanders docked in Southampton at 8 am on 15 December.
UK Customs didn’t even bat an eyelid at the motorised zebra coming into the country and after a brief stop near Southampton, Philip dropped Perry in Blandford Forum, Dorset and was home at his parents’ house by 1.15 pm. Opposite a full page picture of a real zebra, his last diary entry simply reads: “Message ends.”
Two or three weeks later, the Land Rover—complete with its cracked chassis—was taken to a local scrapyard near Poole and consigned to an unknown fate. It had been bought cheaply and served its purpose admirably, but Philip often wonders exactly what happened to it. Does anyone else remember it? Did parts of it end up on someone else’s Series II? Maybe we will never know, but please do get in touch if you know otherwise…
Crucially, the excitement and adventure of their experience still lives strongly in Philip’s memory and although Perry sadly passed away in 2013, thoughts of undertaking a return journey back to Zambia are ever-present. So, would he do it again? “Never say never!”
Editor’s Note A version of this article first appeared in Land Rover Monthly and is reproduced with kind permission. See landrovermonthly.co.uk for back issues.
