We are a recently married couple, both 30 years old and live in London. We graduated from Exeter University in 1994 and have spent the last 8 years developing our respective careers. Fi is now a freelance television director having been trained at the BBC and worked for numerous independent television companies; and Pete has spent the last 8 years as an investment manager in the City of London, the last four of which have been with Hermes Investment Management. We both share a passion for the outdoors, travelling and adventure.

The two of us have talked about taking some time off from London life for many years, but for one reason or another (normally work related!) we had failed to seize the opportunity. That all changed 2 years ago when we decided to get married and at the same time committed ourselves to taking a year out setting a departure date of summer 2002.

Having spent much of our free time since starting our careers dreaming about what we could do if we didn't work there was no shortage of imaginative plans for our gap year. Both of us were keen to travel but also wanted to undertake some kind of expedition which would challenge us and impress upon us a host of new skills and experiences. We had always harboured plans for organising our own overland trip and so over the course of many discussions we dreamt up our London to Sydney expedition.

We hope the whole experience will be both rewarding and enjoyable. We have no doubt of the former but we are very realistic about the risks of the expedition and recognise we have a very challenging time ahead of us. We will be driving through some politically sensitive areas on a mixed quality of roads and tracks and will be up against some of the worst driving in the world. We have to cope with camping in a huge range of temperatures from desert conditions in Iran and Pakistan to the freezing winter of the Himalayas. We face the same health issues as other travellers of dysentery, malaria etc with the added complication of altitude sickness in Tibet when we drive over passes up to 5000m high. Having our own vehicle gives us enormous freedom to explore but adds a further dimension as we have to spend time every day pre-empting mechanical problems and deal with breakdowns as they occur no matter how remote our location. And living in such cramped conditions for nine months will be a challenge to any relationship!

By the time we leave we will have spent almost two years planning and preparing for our expedition. Our route had to be thoroughly researched and bureaucracy and red tape overcome. Our vehicle had to be sourced and designed, customised, further modified, tinkered with, tweaked, and then tweaked again and again. Finance, insurance, shipping, extensive documentation and Carnets had to be arranged. Countless spares and equipment have been listed and bought or donated. Product sponsors and a patron had to be targeted and written to. A website had to be designed and set up. New electronics and software needed to be bought and understood (for example GPS, mapping software, remote website management). And we have spent the last year attending lengthy courses in mechanics, off-road driving and winch recovery, wilderness medical training, website design and management, and photography. In short, a heck of a lot of work!

We fully recognise how fortunate we are to be able to undertake a journey like this and, without intending in any way to sound patronising or corny, we want to give something back to the people and countries we will be visiting by using our expedition as a way of raising as much money as we can for charity.

We have spent a lot of time researching the multitude of overseas aid agencies and asking for the opinions of various friends who work in the field and have first hand experience of aid work being carried out. For us, CARE stood out as a charity by reputation and for the respect it commands in its commitment to eradicating poverty world-wide. Despite the large size of the organisation we also felt it would really benefit from any additional awareness we could bring through our expedition to its tremendously valuable work overseas.