Stanley is our trusty Land Cruiser. We bought him ready equipped and he's already managed Cape Wrath (North West Scotland) to the Cape of Good Hope.

Why Stanley? The vehicle has been named after the African explorer Henry Morton Stanley. We would have gone for the more famous and respected David Livingstone, but let's face it, Livingstone is a rubbish name for a car! If you'd like to learn more about Stanley, (the explorer, not the Land Cruiser) go here.

For all those Land Cruiser buffs out there, Stanley is an 80 series Land Cruiser, a 1992 HDJ81 to be precise. He's a Japanese import and has done about 120,000 miles. Hopefully he'll manage the few thousand we'll be adding to that!

Seeing as neither of us had any off road driving experience we decided to book ourselves on a course. We fitted this in with a trip to Wales to try living out of the car for a week. We found Wood Park on the Internet. You can find out more about our off road day here.

We'll be adding a list of modifications to the base vehicle and pictures shortly, so stay tuned.