1. Introduction – The Smith’s Overland Adventure

17 March 2006

Dick and Pip Smith, Australian adventurers, have flown around the world by both helicopter and fixed wing aircraft.  Dick and Pip have visited the North Pole together, and Dick has visited the South Pole.  He is the first person to fly a helicopter solo around the world, and Pip is the first woman to fly around the world in a helicopter.

The Smiths have now decided to drive around the world.

The plan is to depart Anchorage, Alaska, in May 2006 and head in a number of stages to New York.  They will ship their vehicle by sea to England and then drive from England to Vladivostok, over possibly a two year period.

From Vladivostok they plan to ship the vehicle to Perth and drive to Steep Point (the western most point in Australia) and across the Australian deserts to Byron Bay (the eastern most point).  The Smiths will then drive down to their home in Sydney.

They plan to do a distance equivalent to the diameter of the Earth at the equator. That is 21,600 nautical miles, 24,901.55 statute miles or 40,075.16 kilometers.

Dick and Pip will be regularly filing a diary on their trip, and Pip will be taking photographs similar in quality to the ones in her book, Above the World.

I hope you can join us on our overland trip of discovery.