Mitch Turner, Adam Dowden and Jordan Cross, (pictured third, fourth and fifth from left) and eight friends are driving from London to Sydney in a vintage double-decker bus.

They’ve partied at Oktoberfest, camped next to ancient ruins in Turkey and dodged cows and elephants in India. But the adventure isn’t over yet for two Aussies and a Canadian making the epic journey from London to Sydney in a 1950s double-decker bus.

Adam Dowden and Mitch Turner from North Avoca in NSW, Canadian Jordan Cross and eight mates have spent nearly three months driving a vintage bus called Tadpoles across the legendary hippy trail pioneered by youth travel company Topdeck in the 1970s.

Setting off from Earl’s Court on 26 September, the group has driven thousands of kilometres across 16 countries and dozens of cities including Paris, Munich, Venice,  Belgrade, Sofia,  Istanbul, Tehran, Shiraz, Bandar Abbas, Dubai, Mumbai and Delhi.

The next stop is Kathmandu, where they’ll spend Christmas eating buffalo steaks, exchanging secret Santa gifts and recounting their adventures so far.

“There’s been plenty of adventure along the way including spending three inebriated days in the Oktoberfest beer halls, taking a private boat tour of Venice and camping next to some 2000-year-old Roman ruins in the middle of nowhere in Goreme,” Cross said.

“Driving through Tehran was a pretty amazing experience too - the people went absolutely nuts when they saw the bus. In India, we’ve competed with trucks, cars, motorcycles, cows, camels, elephants and dogs, all coming at us on the wrong side of the road. But India has been the most amazing part so far with Pushkar the highlight for most of us.”

The trip, the brainchild of Cross, was inspired by the book Top Deck Daze which recounts how Bill James and Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner bought a bus to take adventurous young travellers along the hippie trail in the 1970s. Tadpoles, a 1958 Bristol Lodekka, was the last double decker running for Topdeck and was taken out of service in May 1998.

“The biggest challenges so far have been mainly operating the old bus and the attention we receive in it,” Cross said. “Being so slow it can really cause traffic problems on major roads with aggressive drivers.

“Iran was also particularly challenging because we would get pulled over about five times a day by police. And while the original Topdeck overland journeys travelled through Afghanistan and Pakistan, we weren’t able to follow that route and had to get Tadpoles shipped from Dubai to Mumbai, which was a logistical nightmare.”

The group will leave Kathmandu on 27 December to drive back to Mumbai, where Tadpoles will be shipped back to the Isle of Wight Bus Museum in England.

The travellers, who have been filming their journey, will then fly to Perth where they will drive another original Topdeck bus, ‘Loft’, to Sydney.