Author  |  Alex Brown  |  Journalist and Founder of Advanture Magazine

An idea conceived in one world, to travel another. While half-way through their Pan-American trip, adventure couple Mary Hannah and Andy, quickly discovered they had the appetite for even more adventure. Something more raw and demanding.

Mary Hannah and Andy, the couple behind Expedition Rove, sat around burning logs on a campfire, somewhere on the side of a mountain in Columbia, when something sparked within. While half-way down the Pan-American highway on their first long roadtrip, the desire for an even bigger, more remote and challenging journey had just ignited.

While the trip from the USA to Argentina had set them off in the right direction, the idea for a more raw adventure became a daily conversation. As a former mechanic for the military stationed in California maintaining Land Rovers, Andy returned from crossing the Bolivian salt flats hastily presenting Mary Hannah with a possible solution to their next adventure.

“Andy had just walked miles across the Bolivian salt flats, for a military charity project that we were working on. While sitting in a hotel with blistered lips from sun and wind exposure, he had found a Land Rover defender up for auction online. We made a pact that if we won it, we would set our sights on overlanding Africa. That is how Tango came into and changed our lives.”

What lay ahead was an exciting journey, to return to Europe in order to fit out the newly acquired Land Rover Defender, and seriously prepare for what would most certainly be a testing route as Expedition Rove set up for Trans-Africa.

 

 

Expedition Rove

NEW HORIZONS AWAIT

Like many before them, the couple had dreams of pursuing a Camel Trophy type of experience when it came to thinking about the Trans-Africa adventure. The event, which started all the way back in 1980, would see teams of explorers navigating their way across the harsh continent. Numbers of similarly painted off-road vehicles would rally together, in a free to enter tour. The event was less of something where a first place would land some prize money, but more of a trip of discovery and comradery. There was no prize money, and the sort of trophies one would take home would likely be scars to the vehicle … if it made it back at all.

This was the sort of adventure both Mary Hannah and Andy were longing for. It would certainly deliver an experience which the Pan-American trip did not. 

”We fell in love with daily life on the road, the routine that surrounds overlanding. And I remember as a child my Granddad going to Africa all the time. He would return and make photo-books of each trip. They were like coffee-table style books and we’d look through them together.”

Now with the keys to a vehicle which would be suitable for the job, and with the appetite to really explore a path less explored, attention was set on building a high level of preparedness. And that would be on both a mechanical and mental one.

After having shipped the Land Rover from England and picking it up a month later in South Africa, Sudan had just broken out in Civil War. It wasn’t an option for them to change course and go up the west coast due to safety concerns, so they decided to stick to the plan, head up the East Coast and hope that the fighting would be over before they reached the area. As of January 2024, the civil war in Sudan has now been raging 21 months.

“One thing that we didn’t share too much was the reason why we wanted to do the Africa trip now, at this point in our lives. We both knew that soon we’d want to settle down, or buy a place. Africa is one of those treks that we knew we had to get out of our system before we did that. And you know, we would love to have kids one day but thought we can do Australia, or we can do other places like that later. You only hear the bad stuff right before you go somewhere. So we just didn't think that Africa was one of those places that we'd want to bring kids on a trip.”

 

 

Although having taken 9-months enjoying slow life on the road, time passed all too quickly as they made their way north and reached Kenya. A decision still needed to be made about the on-going fighting in Sudan - passing through the country in order to reach the Mediterranean to the north wasn’t possible, but money was running low and they needed to find a way home. “It felt very anti-climatic. We drove into Kenya having discussed finally shipping out. But the moment we crossed the border, we were like, this can’t be it? We have got to finish this. We came to do the Trans-Africa, not just one part of it!”

The next challenge was the need to secure financial support through sponsors, and extend their visas. That resulted in having to back-track south, down to Windhoek in Namibia. It was nine days of continuous driving on a longer route due to not being able to cross the central areas of the Congo. “From that point on, it was a case of let's head north until we see the sign saying, Welcome to Leeds.”

The West Coast was a different beast. From Angola and beyond, leaving any pocket of civilisation would quickly find Mary Hannah and Andy at the mercy of their own support. The places to find food, fuel and water were non-existent. The supplies carried onboard Tango were their lifeline. Overlanding in general presents even the most experienced and prepared drivers with unpredictable circumstances, and quite often at the most inconvenient timing. Mary Hannah and Andy endured their fair share of breakdowns, which would see them fixing prop shafts stranded in the wilderness, and tucking into their emergency food supplies while between areas of any form of human inhabitation. 

No campsites and dangerous environments meant the only place to sleep at night was often military checkpoints or hotel parking lots. Although it wasn’t the case of sitting around campfires stargazing, it was the sort of wild experience they had hoped to realise. 60-days travelling in these sort of conditions would be enough to put any couple through a test of extremes, but Mary Hannah and Andy love to be in each others company, as you need to be when sharing the space of a Land Rover together for nearly a year. 

Despite the harsh realities of life, the trip was certainly filled with incredible moments that would lift up their spirits. A 400-mile crossing of the Sahara Desert brought back those Camel Trophy vibes. Nothing but cascading golden dunes and one train snaking through the sand.

 

 

A well thought-out layout within Tango was the key element to making a journey such as Trans-Africa a possibility. Every piece of gear chosen had to endure thousands of miles of bouncing around and being shaken about. The internal living space included the Dometic CFX3 55L fridge, and also a Dometic sink with tap and water pump. These base line essentials meant that Mary Hannah and Andy could continue to eat properly, and also upkeep a level of sanitation as required. Well-known for its capability in hot climates, the CFX3 fridge unit is packed with insulation and an economic compressor, allowing multi-day operation between charging up the batteries.

“While grocery stores were plentiful in Southern and Eastern Africa, the West Coast was a different story. In hindsight, our fridge proved to be one of the most essential pieces of gear in our setup. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again...upgrading to a Dometic fridge back in 2018, before our journey through Central and South America, was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made for long-term overland travel.”

And when it comes to the batteries, Tango was fitted out with two 120Ah Dometic Lithium Batteries. Two solutions would charge the battery array, the first being the MT LB90 Dometic DC/DC charger, allowing the batteries to be charged “on the go” while the vehicle was in motion. A second option was via the 420W of solar, captured by two MT210 Dometic PV’s mounted on the roof. Ample sunlight in Africa meant that Mary Hannah and Andy never went a day without sufficient power, even while parked up off-grid hundreds of miles away from the nearest power source. 

 

 

EMBRACING ADVENTURE

The Trans-Africa journey spanned a period of 18-months, and travelling across miles of tarmac, dirt, sand and river water left those tell-tale scars on both Tango, and the kit out of Dometic gear that endured the distance. Both humans and equipment that return from a trip of this nature all deserve a stamp of durability, relentlessness and dependability.

So what is next for Mary Hannah and Andy? Surely the desire for that raw adventure was fulfilled. For now, they have returned to more familiar aclimes of North America, but taken on a new mission which will see them handling the restorations of an 80’s wood cabin deep in the backcountry.

 

 

Get to know Mary Hannah and Andy

ABOUT THE TEAM

 

About Expedition Rove

Mary Hannah (USA) and husband Andy (UK) bonded over a common appetite for real world travel. They called upon their expertise from former jobs - Mary Hannah having worked in publishing, and Andy as an Army Landrover Mechanic - which proved to be essential skill sets in order to tell the story of two capable overlanders.

Their story has been well-documented on social media, where a dedicated audience was able to travel to Africa with them on a latest adventure aboard Tango. A bright orange Landrover Defender, kitted out with a range of Dometic and Front Runner products, necessary for living off-grid in Africa for one and a half years.

 

"We fell in love with daily life on the road, the routine that surrounds overlanding."

Mary Hannah, Expedition Rove