Adventure Overland show 2012

Had a good day today. Left at 8ish this morning to pick some ebay tyres up from Oxford. Nice chap who'd bought a Tenere complete with new Metz Karoo's, done a few hundred miles on them and then swapped to Tourances. They'll do me for winter. As I was up that way my mate Dave had asked if I wanted to go to the Adventure Overland show near Daventry. It was a new one on me but looked ok so we met up there just before lunch. The stuff on show was mainly 4/6 wheels such as this rather orange Pinzgauer.

Mmm lovely, and just the thing for the school run I'm sure :-)
In the previous post I mentioned my love for axes, well there was a stand with my beloved Gransfors Bruks axes on.

Yes, I picked most of them up, and after some time on the stand and some meaningful looks from Dave I put them down and backed away. Next time, next time.
There were plenty of stoves and wood burners floating around. As someone who likes a good fire and has built a few burners in the past it was interesting to have a look around some different designs.
I particularly liked the swing out plate on this one. Good for cooking on or just having a blaze.

This was a slightly different take on it, with a larger, flatter area for cooking on but less volume for burning.

There were plenty of overland 4x4s, both in the camping field and also on display. There were a pair of cracking Carawagons based on Land Rovers. More details here but the basics are the background vehicle was built in 1968 and the pop up roof is made of duralloy which means it can bend and then flatten.

A great bit of design I thought, with consideration to materials. Inside was pretty spacious all things considered.

You can see the curvature of the pop up roof, amazing that it flattens back out.
There were many, many different takes on roof tents, awnings, side tents...Some of the offerings were GRP based, and seeing as we've seen an old take on how to do it, here's a modern take.

Hmm. I think I prefer the classic.
Onto the bikes then. Well there weren't that many there really. I had the pleasure of meeting Austin Vince, and his Mum as I purchased a copy of Mondo Enduro. I'd last read it when my mate Barry had lent me his copy as I lay in a hospital bed last year. It really is a great read, and the DVDs are well worth a watch. With travelling by bike on our minds Dave and I also purchased a copy of In Search of Greener Grass from Graham Field who was there with his KLR.

Wandering around the parking areas I came across possibly the widest bike I have yet seen.

A very orange (what is it about orange?) GS1100 with some 1150 parts on it by the look of things. It was vast.
Well, that sums it up. Interesting show to look around, I was disappointed that there were no cycling related stands, despite being advertised, also it was very much car/truck related with not a lot of motorcycle stuff on display.