During the trip „Mennica Wrocławska Australia Trip 2013-2014″ the aged van on Polish plates will cross more than 25.000 km through Austalia and New Zealand. In 4 months, in the middle of Australian summer, our team composed of:
Karol Lewandowski (Świdnica),
Wojtek Lewandowski (Świdnica),
Aleksandra Ślusarczyk (Kielce),
Tomasz Nowacki (Poznań),
Daniel Tkaczyk (Wrocław)
will have to struggle with rainy season, 50-degree heat on the deserts, thousands of kilometers of uninhabited wilderness and what is more – the most poisonous fauna in the world.
Mennica Wrocławska, which is the leading dealer of gold and silver in Poland, has become our Nominal Sponsor. The company offers products from the most famous mints all around the world, including the Australian Perth Mint, which we will visit during our expedition. This is the place from where come the coins like Golden Kangaroo or Silver Koala. Our fans, who are tracking our trip, will have a chance to win those precious coins in competitions organized during our journey on our Facebook!
‘With a pleasure we support the team of travellers, who consequently realize the 4th expedition „Bus Around The World”. This time our attention attracted the goal of the trip whose history and present times are intrinsically bound with gold’ said Wojciech Kaźmierczak, president of Mennica Wrocławska, the leading dealer of investment gold and silver in Poland. ‘In our permanent offer are such investment coins like Australian Golden Kangaroo or Australian Silver Koala, which is why this peculiar continent is very close to us’ he added.
‘The team of travelers gives big dose of optimism and energy and their ideas affect the others. They show to the young people, that everyone can dream – even globally – and make their dreams come true by themselves. You have to have a wish and the will of fight. The number of Sponsors is astonishing and they are all helping with making this dream become real. We also have our share in it.’ said Wojciech Murdzek, president of Świdnica.
The technological partner of the trip has become Lenovo Polska, which equipped the team with computers indispensible for editing pictures and videos, Freeway, that equipped us with cameras GoPro and the company S&R Polska, which gave us the set of tools for the requirements of the van. Our partner of the expedition has become as well the company Head&Shoulders.
We would also like to thank Hapag Polska, which has been responsible for the transport of the van from Gdynia to Australia. We would also like to thank CMA Monitoring for the GPS positioner and the companies Zenbox, Koszulka.tv Kangur Tour, Bumerang Polski, iStudent for their support and help with the organization of the trip.
During the previous eight expeditions in 4 years we were able to visit quite a big part of the world – 33 countries on 3 continents. However, this year’s trip will be definitely the most difficult because of huge wilderness (a city every several hundred kilometres), high temperatures and dangerous Australian fauna.
The preparations of the van took months to make it ready to go. We have changed the fuel tank and we have the additional canister on the roof of the van. All in all, on one refuelling we will be able to drive for 700 – 800 km, depending on the road. On the roof we have extra containers for water and in total we will always have over 130 litres of drinking water. Before the departure we have changed the tires for the special ones with bigger tread, which are supposed to be better for driving on the sand and mud. The company S&R equipped us with the great set of tools indispensible for all possible repairs, so even in the middle of nowhere we will manage to fix every flaw. This time we took a lot of spare parts, additional robes, jacks, drills and many other patents useful on the road. Many people have warned us against animals that like to jump right into the cars, so we have installed special bulbar, which is a special pipe system to protect the radiator. Thanks to some kind people, the engine and the gearbox have been completely overhauled. We also changed the radiators, a fan, hoses, wires, breaks, bearing and many others subassemblies. This time on the board we will have a new member of the crew – Daniel – professional mechanic familiar with vans, so we should handle every breakdown.
The preparations for the expedition “Mennica Wrocławska Australia Trip 2013-2014” lasted 12 months. It took a lot of time to perform all the necessary mechanical adjustments. Moreover we had to collect the crew (to our team joined 2 new members chosen among almost 500 people that applied for the participation in the project), get the visas and CPD pass necessary for the van to set off, find cheap flights, arrange the transport of the van, convince the Sponsors to support our trip and in the meantime save the minimum of 5 thousand PLN for each person.
While preparations we have met with a big help and kindness from Polish people that live in Australia. They have been emailing us, inviting to their places, helping with the organization of the expedition and arranging cheap accommodation. We are grateful for every help given.
1th of December at 14:30 of local time we landed in Sydney where we were welcomed by Polish House and met with the Polish community. The flight to Australia took 140 hours with 2-days stay in Singapore. After receiving the van in the port of Sydney we will be heading North toward Brisbane and from there to Cairns near the Great Barrier Reef, where we are planning to spend Christmas and welcome New Year. From there we will set off to the real Australian outback. Firstly, we will go by the coast to the West and then enter the heart of Australia – the holy aboriginal mountain Uluru. By the West coast we will reach Perth where we will visit the local mint and gold mine in Kalgoorlie. Afterwards we will go by the South coast straight to Adelaide from where we want to cross to Tasmania. Then we will fly for 2 – 3 weeks to New Zealand. We have to catch the flight before 3 months will pass, because our visas allow only 3-month stay in Australia at once. After coming back from New Zealand the visas will be renewed and we will be able to continue our journey toward Sydney. Once we are there, we will load our van on the ship and return to Poland.
On our blog By Bus Around the World we will post daily reports from our expedition and we will update very often pictures on our Facebook fanpage. Once a week new videos from the trip will be released on our youtube channel. You can also track our van on the GPS positioner. If possible, we plan to install online video camera on the van’s roof.
We sincerely thank all the people that helped us with preparations either in Poland Or in Australia. Thanks to all the readers, who were supporting us consequently and believed that our expedition will take place. We thank the Sponsors, who once again have trusted us and supported our trip, as well as all the others, who have been helping us – without you this expedition would not be possible to achieve!
You are welcome to track our journey!
Follow the expedition on: By Bus Around the World or FB
Photo © By Bus Around the World
