Wally the Landy

Now that most of what we set out to do is finally done, we went for a cheeky camp to put everything to the test.

So far, everything is working and flowing exactly as we hoped it would! The only real area of friction at the moment is the battery setup. We went with a portable solution — the Gizzu Hero Pro 2048Wh. We made a proper pros-and-cons list comparing an integrated 12V system to a portable setup, and for us, portable just made more sense.

The battery lives behind the drawer freezer inside the cabinet. We chose that spot because it’s nicely hidden and makes use of what would otherwise be dead space. The downside? We haven’t cut a vent hole yet, so it does get a little warm in there. The ports also aren’t the easiest to access — you have to open the rear driver’s side door and lift the bed flap slightly to get full access.

That said, we’ve got a solid plan to solve both of those issues… so stay tuned.

On the comfort side of things, we added some soft LED strip lights that instantly make everything feel cosy. And one of our favourite upgrades has to be the timber panelling look on the underside of the main bed. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, but real timber is expensive and adds a lot of weight — so we kept putting it off.

We eventually found a 3D wallpaper that gave us the exact look we were after, at a fraction of the cost and without the added weight. We decided to give it a shot… and we honestly think it came out SO good. Definitely a win-win for us.

After gathering tons of reference photos from other builds, we started mocking up different ideas in 3D before buying a single piece of material. Once we were happy with the design, we headed out to purchase a whole lot of wood — and everything else we realised we needed along the way.

DIY projects are always a great excuse to slowly grow your tool collection 😊 Since Nicole works normal hours and I work in a different time zone, we only had an hour or two in the evenings during the week, plus whatever free time we could squeeze in on weekends to get this over the line.

We enjoyed every minute of it and loved learning something new together. While it’s far from professional, we’re honestly a little shocked at how it turned out.

There’s a certain warmth that comes with DIY projects. Maybe it’s because they feel relatable — you see something and think, “If they can do that, maybe I can give it a go too.” I think that’s why we love it so much, and why it’s received such positive feedback from friends, family, and the online community.

The standard sound in the Defender is really bad, it has no depth. So instead of going the route of putting an amp with a sub and new speakers with all the wiring etc. We went with a portable solution which so far feels like the right choice! The speaker has superb sound, crazy long battery life and just looks so cool in the van.

We found a few examples of how other people have done this but their speaker was a little smaller so we had to improvise a little and sorta just wing it. Its not perfect but its good for now haha

Nothing too fancy here, just adding some front runner roof rails so we can keep things outa the car, like wood or the sand boards which get dirty.

We had a few off-grid wild camps planned, so we decided to treat ourselves to a gas geyser. Burnco installed a sill water tank that runs off the vehicle’s main battery since we don’t have a dual battery system yet (more on that later).

They also fabricated and installed a geyser box. It’s already been through rain and some seriously fine dust, and it’s stayed completely sealed — which we’re pretty stoked about.

A hot shower in the wilderness is definitely a luxury, but after a long, dusty day on the trails, it’s honestly one of the most satisfying things ever.

we took our Defender to Burnco who handled the entire conversion. We told them what we wanted and they made it happen! We are aware of the other options but this is what we wanted to go with because it fit our budget and we clicked with the Burnco team when discussing everything. We're stoked with the result and we havent had any issues with it so far after 9 months!

They also installed an additional fuel tank under the rear wheel arch which came in handy when we did the Namaqua 4x4 eco trail!