Darrell van Zeil and crew pointed eight bonnets north, into one of the last great overlanding frontiers on the continent. Filmed the whole way. All three episodes are up, and the finale is live now. The route, the kit list and the honest version of what broke are all here.
The last night of fourteen was spent on the bank of the Cunene, inside Iona National Park, at a campsite that is hard to describe without sounding like an advert.
Getting there is the point. Episode three goes into the middle of Iona — fifteen thousand square kilometres of Angolan desert that almost nobody drives. The hardest mountain crossing of the whole fortnight, a night at Gruta do Leão, the Lion’s Cave, and more wildlife than a desert this dry has any business holding.
Then the part of the trip that was not about the driving. The community that lives alongside the park came out to meet the convoy, and the park’s own people walked the crew through how conservation here actually works — what the park and the people around it each put in, and what each gets back. Then the last camp, at Tchinhungua on the Cunene.
EP 01
The Portuguese called it the Gates of Hell. Episode one runs north up the most treacherous coast in Africa — fog, salt road, whale bones and wrecks going quietly back to rust — to the mouth of the Kunene, where Namibia stops being Namibia. On the far bank is Angola.
EP 02
The convoy crosses into Angola, climbs the Serra da Leba and drops into the dune belt, where several vehicles found the bad line. A Defender 110 broke and was fixed exactly where it died, then wild camping inside the red sandstone at Colinas. And at Purros, before the border, hot air balloons at first light.
Two minutes on what the whole fortnight was, if you are coming to this cold.
Watch the trailerTap a pin to open that leg — where it was, what the ground was like, and which episode covers it.
Distances are straight-line between stops. Road distance is longer — the odometer figure goes up when it lands.
—
Every item on this vehicle went the full distance. Tap a point to see what it is, what it did, and what it did not solve. Three of the eight live inside the cab or under the tonneau — their cards say so.
—
Fitment varies by vehicle and year.
Your fitment centre confirms what suits yours.
Three films from the archive — Botswana, the Caprivi and south-west Zimbabwe. Same crew, same cameras, same standard.
The vehicles went onto a barge and the crew slept on the river for two nights — the moment the comments still come back to. Botswana up into the Namibian Caprivi, taking in Kubu Island and the Makgadikgadi salt flats along the way. One stretch of the Okavango could not be reached on wheels at all; that leg went in by helicopter. Then Ngepi Camp on the edge of Bwabwata, a night beside Nkasa Rupara, and out via Elephant Sands.
A convoy this size does not move quickly, which is rather the point. Out of Maun, through the mud in Moremi, into Magotho, then across to the Makgadikgadi pans and Kubu Island. Some trips you do to cover ground; this one was done to be there. Still the most-watched film on the channel, and still the one people bring up.
South-west Zimbabwe, from Hunters Road through to Hwange National Park — bush that has not been tidied up for anybody. The crew left the vehicles behind and tracked lions on foot with Wild Expeditions Africa. They also spent time at the Painted Dog Conservation project; African wild dogs are among the most endangered carnivores on the continent, and the project takes donations directly through the film’s description.
Opposite Lock supplies more than 500 independently owned fitment centres across southern Africa. Find the one closest to you and talk through what your vehicle actually needs — before you plan the route, not after.
