17/09

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What makes Lottie special?

Many people have asked us how we’re managing to live out of Lottie for four months, let alone transform her into a mobile studio every evening when we knuckle down to the business of editing footage. For those petrol heads following us, here’s a list of the ways in which Lottie’s been specially adapted to deal with the rigours of our project.

First up, an innocuous little thing that sits on our dashboard which has fast become one of the most vital bits of kit in our car, a National Luna battery monitor. Lottie has two batteries – the main one and an auxiliary one which we use to run all our cameras, computers, phones, and seismic equipment. This gauge tells us how much power we have left and stops us from draining the main battery dead. An alarm goes off if the power starts getting low – which, when we are in full editing mode – 3 laptops running, 4 cameras charging and a seismometer reading, has happened more than once!

Security is a major issue for us, what with all the equipment we are carrying. The car attracts a lot of attention wherever we go – more so as we head further east. In some ways this is a good thing as we get chatting to lots of people this way, but we also have to be mindful of our stuff. The cage makes the boot of Lottie secure – all the windows are covered in metal grills, and there are extra locks on the back door, as well as safe boxes inside for extra important things.

This little beauty allows us to cook wherever we are, although truth be told, we haven’t used it that much, instead relying on a little foldaway BBQ most of the time. This is great for any meal more ambitious than pasta and sauce – it’s usually only rolled out on birthdays or when we have guests.

Lockable jerry cans on the roof – we’ve only used the jerry cans twice so far – once in Iceland interior where petrol stations were few and far between, and then in Greece where there was a fuel strike. They weigh a ton when full so we try not to use them, although it’s good exercise for Adam getting them up and down.

This is a water purification system. We could put the hose into a dirty puddle and be able to drink it – not that we’ve put this to test yet. Black water jerry cans sit behind the tap so we can carry all the drinking water we need.

State of the art winch with remote control. Thankfully we haven’t had to use this yet as that would mean we were in dire straits, or someone else was.

No expedition vehicle would be complete without a snorkel, even if it’s just for looks alone – although we put ours to good use in the rivers in Iceland.

Lockable wheel nuts so someone doesn’t take off with our wheels when we are asleep.

Roof rack – most important thing we have. There’s no way we’d be able to fit all our kit inside the car, especially not when we have experts with us. Ratcheting the roof every morning is Adam’s least favourite job.

Foot plates on bonnet – necessary when roof gets out of control and we need to go up top to sort it out.

Those are all the things that make Lottie special.