Briton and pet Labrador to take one-way 10,000-mile drive to Australia in ‘bougie’ converted lorry after fiancee break-up

A man who is selling all of his belongings to drive from the UK to Australia with his dog in a converted lorry has said he decided on the life-changing one-way trip after breaking up with his fiancee and having “one too many” at an apres-ski.

Bobby Bolton, from Wigan, is handing over his company RNB Construction to his business partner and selling almost everything he owns, from the caravan he lives in to his bicycle in order to pay for his “new home”.

The 31-year-old will embark on the 10,000-mile journey from Wigan with his beloved seven-year-old fox red Labrador, called Red, in late September and provided all goes well, should arrive in Australia around the same time next year.

He is planning on spending around £40,000 refurbishing his former 4×4 water bowser MAN truck into a “bougie apartment on wheels” – equipping it with a king size bed, air conditioning, full-size bathroom, solar panels, slide-out barbecue and standing fridge/freezer.

Bobby, who says his language skills are “absolutely terrible”, will drive to Singapore without getting another ferry after crossing the Channel, passing through 29 countries, including the UK, France, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, China, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Australia.

“I will just have to speak a little slower and louder in English,” he said.

“Over 90% of people who I tell are like: ‘Is that even possible?’

“This is a one-way trip for me, so Red is coming with me, come hell or high water.

“I’m going through the Alps, down the Croatian coast, into Greece and Turkey, where I’ll hook the top of the Black Sea.

“Then it’s down through Iran and to the other side of Myanmar, and then from Laos down to Australia.”

Bobby, whose father Mark, 60, is a truck driver, went through a difficult time when his business started struggling and he separated from his fiancee in March 2022.

“The only way to dig myself out of the pretty disastrous place I found myself in was to go and do something completely epic, because a little jump like getting a new job would not have sufficed,” he said.

“I needed to go big or go home.”

He was at an apres-ski with his sister Sophie, 28, in France last Christmas, when he spotted an old Land Rover and started fantasising about driving to the other side of the world.

“It was fully kitted out and had a big sticker on the side saying ‘Family Expedition’,” he said.

“The family looked so cool and I thought ‘Do you know what? I fancy a bit of that’.”

After “a few too many pints”, he decided the East Asian country was still not far enough and set his sights on Australia.

He said: “I remember getting my phone out, zooming out on the map and trying to trace a line from west to east to see if there was a landmass which I could travel down, because my geographical knowledge is not expert, and it just about looked as though you probably could.”

Bobby began plotting his route over the next few months based on which visas he could apply for while at the same time trying to find the most “epic scenery” along the way.

“I wanted to find a mixture of mountains and sea,” he said.

“Because I’ve got the four-wheel-drive truck, I’m going to be going off the beaten track – the sort of places that travel documentaries don’t go.”

Rather than buying a camper van, Bobby decided to convert an overland expedition truck, a type of HGV, which he bought from a dealer in west London.

“The benefit of a truck over a van is its weight/load capacity is far greater,” he said.

“So my old Mercedes Sprinter was 3.5 tonne, whereas this is 18 tonnes, which means I can take 460 litres of fresh water with me and 250 litres of waste water, and it means I’ve got enough solar capacity to run indefinitely.

“So the idea is, I can last about four months completely off-grid.”

Bobby has had to sell almost all of his possessions to pay for the truck and refurbishment, including the caravan he lives in, as well as his car, bike and surfboard.

“To buy a new or second hand truck, they are anywhere north of £90,000, but I’m trying to do mine, all-in, for less than £40,000,” he said.

But this has not stopped Bobby from putting his comfort first as he is planning on kitting his truck out with a king size bed, air conditioning, a standing fridge, a bathroom and full-size grill and oven.

“It’s a bougie apartment on wheels,” he said.

Security is one of Bobby’s main concerns, especially for the middle leg of his journey, when he will decide on whether to drive through part of Afghanistan.

“I would like to go through the narrowest part between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is only like 10 miles,” he said.

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) advises against all travel to the country, which is currently under Taliban rule.

“At least I don’t need an alarm system with Red,” Bobby said.

“He can pick up on the slightest sound and ward off anyone with bad intentions.”

The diesel truck, which does around 10 miles to the gallon, has been kitted with a 650-litre fuel tank, meaning it can run for more than 1,000 miles before Bobby will have to find a petrol station.

“This is a sustainable means by which to travel the world and it’s going to be my home, that’s the idea,” he said.

He is aiming to start his journey at the end of September and anticipates that it will take around a year for him to reach Australia’s sandy shores.

“What better way to find my purpose than by taking the chance to go and explore the world and see what doors are opened along the way,” he said.

“Australia is the goal but it’s what countries I’m going to see along the way that’s more important for me.

“So I’m just going to go out there and fill my boots and work it out as I go along really.”