Three weeks after the original rescuers pulled out, Daisy the van will finally be making her way back to Putney thanks to another couple Georgia and Costas.
It’s just the latest saga in the extraordinary journey of the coffee-roasting Harrison family, who set off from Putney in February to deliver a single bag of coffee to Australia without flying, handed the keys over in a backstreet in Kuala Lumpur, leaving them under the back tyre.
Georgia and Costas are expected to pick her up in around a month, then drive her home to London the way the Harrisons came, in reverse.
They were not short of competition. Georgia and Costas came from among the 900-plus who answered the callout for a new driver, which drew 200,000 views after the original rescuers dropped out and a shipping container to London briefly looked like the only option left.
For anyone joining the story late: the Harrisons, who run Curious Roo Coffee Roasters (Upper Richmond Road), set off from East Putney at the start of the year with one bag of Barn Door Blend coffee for Magda’s mother in Perth. Rather than post it, they decided to drive it there, overland, without a single flight, through 25 countries across four continents. They say it would be a world record: the longest coffee delivery by hand.
It has not been straightforward. Thailand refused Daisy entry after border officials spotted an onboard sink, fitted to filter drinking water for the children, and classified the van as a motorhome requiring a permit the authorities would not grant. With the Thailand-Cambodia border shut by conflict since June 2025, the family had Daisy driven through the country on a flatbed truck instead, her wheels never touching Thai soil. TV presenter Andi Peters even weighed in, backing a petition to Putney’s MP, Fleur Anderson, to help clear the way.
Daisy has had her share of drama too. Her heating system failed somewhere in northern France within days of setting off, and she broke down again in Croatia, leaving the family, in their words, somewhere between “this is the best decision we’ve ever made” and wondering what the dashboard warning lights meant.
The handover had its moment too. As Daisy drove off, son Nile put an arm round his sister Danika, “for once, not a strangle,” the accompanying video dryly narrates, “so that’s progress.”
The coffee, at least, is still travelling the old-fashioned way. While Daisy heads for London by road, the Harrisons themselves are pressing on toward Perth without her: Edwin by yacht from Indonesia, Magda and the children by plane to meet him, then 3,000km down Australia’s Kimberley highway. “After meeting them, I’m pretty sure Daisy’s in safe hands,” the family said of Georgia and Costas.
Follow @curiousroocoffeeroasters on Instagram for the next instalment.
