On the way to the 2024 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia we write an article for 4WD Magazine. In this article we look back on 4 years of overland travel and look ahead to the 2024 Dakar Rally, which will be held in the deserts of Saudi Arabia.
These are a few excerpts from the article.
Overlanders Sonja and Gert Jan have been traveling around the world full-time for years with their Land Rover Defender camper. They experience all kinds of things during their travels, from lions in Africa to the Northern Lights in Iceland and of the desert in Morocco to the endless snow plains of Lapland. They also sometimes look for special events such as the Tour de France in 2020. They will be in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of 2024 and want to experience the 2024 Dakar.
We are active people our whole life, cycling to work and sporting holidays with the children. Sonja went to the gym for periods and I, Gert Jan, did running for a while and even ran a full marathon. Sport as spectators has never really fascinated us. Of course we watched the European Championships and World Cups in which the Netherlands and/or Belgium participated and the derby between the Netherlands and Belgium was of course our favorite, after all Sonja has Belgian nationality. Motorsport is never actually on on the family television, although I do like to watch when one of my friends’ GPs are on.
We are Sonja and Gert Jan with our Milady Landy
We are Sonja Van den Berge (65) and Gert Jan ter Haar (67), originally a Dutch teacher and civil engineering pipeline engineer. We have been traveling overland full-time with our Milady Landy since October 2019.
Milady Landy is oneLand Rover Defender 130, built in 1998, which we personally converted into a mini camper. The car has now driven about 550,000 km, but with the necessary maintenance it still drives well. Milady turned 25 on November 13, 2023. We celebrated with a glass of juice in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. We will save the glass of wine to toast this happy occasion for later, when we are allowed to drink alcohol again, which is not allowed in this strictly Islamic country.
With our four children we traveled a lot, camping and backpacking in Europe and in 2006 a 6-week safari in Tanzania and Zanzibar. During this trip I got,Gert Jan, the idea of driving to and in Tanzania with your own car. Sonja: “I really thought then, keep dreaming.” “We had 4 growing children with the associated costs and we still had to finish our house.”
But in 2016 we shipped our self-restored Land Rover Series 3 to Namibia. In 6 months we crossed with our firstMilady Landy 12 countries. The overwhelming landscapes, the large amounts of animals and especially the countless encounters with local people and fellow travelers made an indelible impression on us.
After this adventure we decided to make traveling our life. We bought a new second-hand Land Rover Defender and converted it into a camper. We quit our jobs, sold our house, said goodbye to our now grown children and left.
You can download the digital magazine with the full article for only €3.75.