the thing is, your money would probably be better spent elsewhere, rather than trying to transform this bike into something it's not..
in your neck of the woods i'd imagine there's lots better candidates for the sort of riding you're looking to do, and at good prices too..

the UO8 is a bit of a klunker.. you'd probably end up replacing every bit on it and you'd still have a gaspipe frame underneath it all (with nefarious french threading to boot).. perfectly respectable and serviceable as it is for tooling around town.. but maybe not what you'd want to do a long tour on