Irish Unimog motorhome in South America

mervifwdc

Hi folks,

My wife and I are traveling around Argentina at the moment in our truck, and are suprised by the amount of Europeans we've met, though we've not met any Irish yet. We were wondering if anyone had concidered this as a location for a motorhome holiday? The roads are quiet, scenery amazing, diesel not too dear.

If you'd like to see what a bit of the roads look like through our windscreen, take a look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RfBGUgxNZ8

Ours is a Kildare registered truck, with a home made camper back. We have been living in it since last christmas, and have sailed across from europe with it on a commercial freighter ship that takes a few passengers on each voyage.

We plan to explore South America for about a year or so, and hopefully things at home will be looking a bit less gloomy by the time we have to come home.


When we started our trip, we visited Morocco for almost 3 months, that's a superb country for motorhome travel, as thousands and thousands of french folks have discovered. If anyone can make the time to go, it's well worth it. We wrote up the highs and lows of it as a location in our blog here.

Anyway, We thought it might be the kind of trip that folks may have an interest in.

Take care!

Merv and Sarah.

650Ginge

Not sure if am more impressed or jealous.

You have to be blogging this surely and I want to see more pic too.

mervifwdc

Yes, blogging like a pair of mad folks. We have been planning for this trip for a long time, so we're enjoying and documenting as much of it as we can.

You'll find the blog at www.moglander.com

and a facebook page at www.facebook.com/moglander

We're not trying to make anyone jelous, but hope by talking about the trip we might inspire someone who is on the cusp of making such a trip jump in the deep end and go for it.

Merv.

Aidan_M_M

mervifwdc wrote: »

Yes, blogging like a pair of mad folks. We have been planning for this trip for a long time, so we're enjoying and documenting as much of it as we can.

You'll find the blog at www.moglander.com

and a facebook page at www.facebook.com/moglander

We're not trying to make anyone jelous, but hope by talking about the trip we might inspire someone who is on the cusp of making such a trip jump in the deep end and go for it.

Merv.

That's just about the coolest thing in the world.

defike

Thats a mad machine,I love it.Would like to hear some facts about it .
Its history who converted how much it cost what it looks like inside,mpg.
These may be considered personal questions so if you don't answer its ok.

Ok so I just saw the link on your blog to the truck.

mervifwdc

No worries on the questions, I'll answer some of them. :-)

It started life in the German Army as a troop carrier, then bought by a guy just outside London who converted it, and drove it on a 2.5 year trip that included North Africa, middle east, far east, Russia and then back home.

We bought it from him last year and made a few refinements, and off we went.

It gets about 11mpg, which is shocking, but our average kms per day since we left home is only 89km, so the total fuel bill per day is not too bad. We're now getting fuel at less than a euro per litre, and as we go further south in Argentina the price is still dropping, we hope it will get as low as about 60 cent per litre (Euro cent).

We will do up a page on how it looks inside, but it's pretty simple. We do have a permanent double bed, chemical toilet, shower (water heated by the engine as we drive OR heated by a diesel powered water heater if we are parked up), 4 gas rings, grill, oven, 60 litre fridge (compressor electric), 40 litre freezer (engel - electric compressor) and so on.

It lets us go just about anywhere, and we have 330litres of fresh water on board, so we can stay "out" for over a week easily, and longer if we push it.

We have not used an electic hookup for over 2 months, and the 2 solar panels are doing the trick, and keeping us going. Note: the freezer is currently turned off as there are way way more shops in Argentina than we thought. We will just need it when in places like the atacama desert etc.

mervifwdc

Oh, and we think it is probably one of the few, if not the only truck based camper that was registered in Co. Kildare. It took a bit of head scratching by the revenue to figure out what import duty it should attract etc. If it helps anyone, They did accept it, and it's registered as a motorhome.

Which means I do not need to have a tachograph, or reflective tape like regular heavy trucks, but I did put it through a HGV test. It is based on a 7.5ton truck, so you cannot drive it on a regular car license.

Merv.

colm_mcm

That is just awesome.

niloc1951

Merv, you are THE man, serious respect to you

Wibbles19

I hate you guts you lucky, lucky bugger! total respect.

Cwaor, truck lust!
Do ya mind me asking how'd you engineer your engine to heat the water?

mervifwdc

Thanks for all the nice comments! Glad you like the idea of this mad trip.

As to the heating, I just wrote up the whole thing.

http://moglander.com/?page_id=2107


but the short version of the story is that we spliced into the hoses delivering hot coolant to the drivers heater in the cab.

CRM Ireland

Blown away by this entire thing. I have the same feeling looking at the blog as I did when I watched The Long Way Round tv series . I feel like Im wasting my life and want to get out and explore and do something just like this.

Aidan_M_M

Only on my phone so didn't read the blog, but to heat the water from the engine I assume you used a water jacket heat exchanger?

mervifwdc

Hi Aiden,

No water jacket - Not sure what that is?

just cut the engines water hoses that go to and from the cab heater, and put in T pieces to them.

Easy really....

Merv.

mervifwdc

A Quick update. We have reached the end of the world. No, I don't think it's ending, but We have in fact driven to Ushuaia, the most southerly city in the world. If they had a bridge, next stop would be Antartica.

In fact, we saw these guys a few days ago on our way South, so there are Penguins living somewhere WARMER than we are. Crazy!


We have had our hickups:

with a damaged wheel bearing and drive gear, but we're back in action. It's not all plain sailing!

We've met folks with local home built bus or truck conversions, one guy even had his dog driving....
(Kidding).


Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone. Here's to new adventures next year.
Merv.

paddyp

Photos are Fab. Where are you headed for Christmas day? Glad you got sorted with parts saw you were stuck for a while. I'm so paranoid I'd have to tow a trailer with a complete set of spares ! Well that or convert something more ubiquitous like old hilux :-P

Aidan_M_M

@Merv , yeah that's what I assumed !

Wibbles19

I want to hate you soo much, Campervan and penguins, I'm putting your trip on my wall alongside Hugh Jackman, tings I need to do!

mervifwdc

Christmas day will be in our truck on a campsite in Ushuaia. We decided to go to a campsite as there will be a bunch of people in the same situation, so hopefully a bit of craic.

so, it will be roast chicken breasts, veg and baked spuds. Parma ham + cheese + olives starter, and a home made apply pie desert!


Dont hate us too much, We were "stuck in" due to 24hrs of rain earlier this week. Hope that cheers someone up! LOL!

Merv.

Wibbles19

Ahh your just teasing me now! have a wonderful christmas xxx

mervifwdc

Hi folks,

Well, after a brilliant visit to the end of the world in Ushuaia, we are now on our way North. This time on the Pacific side of South America. We're spending the next while in Chile which has got stunning scenery as it has the Andes mountains running through much of it. We spent 12 days in Torres Del Paine national park, and it's really nice at this time of the year.


The truck in the photo belongs to a German couple we have met up with.


This is "the Torres" at dawn, when the early morning light creates amazing colors on the rocks.


The park was badly burnt by some tourists a few years ago, but still amazing to visit.


We then went to see the Perito Mereno Glacier which is simple stunning.


Some of the small wooden bridges can give buttock clenching moments with the creaks and groans from them! As you can see, the roads are pretty small in places.


Stunning scenery everywhere!

We are travelling up through Chile at the moment, and hope to have more photos from the road to share soon. If you'd like to see more, there are loads over on the Blog, at www.moglander.com


Merv.

Esel

Absolutely brilliant!

Apart from fuel, what is the average daily cost per person?

Any particularly hairy escapades (bandits/thieves etc)?

RiderOnTheStorm

(belated) happy Christmas guys !

Great thread & blog ..... I am def jealous. Great idea & fantastic vehicle.

Please keep posting pics and keep us up to date on your travels :-)

Fair winds & following seas!!!!!

Aidan_M_M

I'm incredibly jealous.

Benbecul97

Fantastic!
One of you don't happen to be a photographer (sorry haven't read the blog yet!)? Because the pictures are just outstanding.

mervifwdc

Hi folks,

Daily cost: This is tricky because it depends on what we include in the daily cost. For example, the VHI will only keep up our VHI cover if we changed to the one for people who are out of Ireland for more than X months per year (think it's about 4 months, do not recall exactly), and this puts our VHI bill at about 3,000 euro per year! It also covers all your travel insurance needs including flying you home from just about anywhere on the planet for medical reasons.

Food in the supermarket is not much different in cost to Ireland in both Chile and Argentina. The wine is a lot cheaper, we've not spent over 5€ on a bottle since we got here, and yet to get a bad one. We dont eat meat every day any more, but that's more to do with not liking the cuts that the butchers do, it's different than we are used to. So, our food bill is pretty high. We don't eat out at all hardly, once per fortnight maybe. Fuel is on average about 1 euro per litre, and we do about 85km per day on avg, at 4km per litre.

It's not cheap to do this, but definitively not expensive either once you've got a vehicle, and get it shipped here.

Hope this helps!

As to the Photographer, yup, that would be me :-) for anyone near kildare who is interested, check out the Celbridge Camera club, I'm a member there and it has some incredibly talented people.

Merv.

karmaan

Merv,great pics, are you on flickr?
T

paddyp

You should put some of those photos up on dreamstime or shutterstock you'd definitely sell some.

Blagadan

Merv...

IFWDC...

The penny just dropped!

I think I remember you & your crew from a few years back. Off roading in the Slieve Bloom mountains.
I think you were driving a white defender 90 at the time... (in the background) Are you the same lad?

(I never knew my LWB Pajero could go to the places we went to that day...lol)

mervifwdc

Wow! That's going back a while. That is indeed my Defender in the background of that photo. And those were the days! All water has to be avoided now, so you got to have more fun than you would today.

Merv.