The Lada soldiered on through every catastrophe. The clutch slave cylinder went, the waterpump went, front wheelbearing went (both of them), I smashed the bottom off the transfer gearbox (out in the desert, 175km from the nearest town), and we bashed the exhaust system off. But the car still ran and got us 4,700miles to Banjul.
We decided to go for Banjul (about 100Km south of Dakar) rather than either abandon the idea and tour around Morocco or go for the original destination of Bamako in Mali. Morocco just wouldn't have given all the sponsors (of whom there were many, and all soooo generous - thanks to you all) a run for their money and Bamako was still out of the question on security grounds.
African "bush" engineering is of the very best kind – they could teach us a thing or two about what’s do-able. Nothing is too big a problem to fix, and it's all done in the crummiest conditions. The seals on the clutch slave cylinder went almost completely within 20Km of getting off the boat into Ceuta in Morocco (the car had run like a dream during the shake-down and the run down to Gib - 2800miles in all). But the local garage had a small mountain of cylinders various in the back of the shop, so it was just a case of stripping some down 'til the right size seals were found. Then the waterpump went as we dropped out of the Atlas mountains toward the Sahara at Ar Rachidia. As I was inspecting the problem and topping-up at the roadside, a local guy who spoke English pulled up beside us and offered to help. He ended up spending the whole day with us ferrying us around between the garage, the turning shop and a tiny motor-factors. It ended up that they couldn't get a similar part to fit, so scavenged the bearings and seals off another (new) pump, cut the waterpump shaft off, as it was badly corroded and turned up a new shaft which was welded onto the old impeller. It's a shame that I had knocked the spare pump off my list of stuff to take as it would only have cost £12 here. Even so, the complete bill was only 2700MAD (about £250), but we learned a huge amount about attitudes and how kind people can be when you don't expect it. Hassan looked after us from 11.00am until we left at Midnight, ferried us about all day and all evening, took us home for tea with his family and made sure we got away OK. He wouldn't dream of taking anything at all as reward.
The desert for real was amazing. We hired a guide to take us 'round Erg Chebbi (the most famous of the "Sand Seas") where we very nearly rolled one of the Landrover Disco's. Then we headed off on some of the long pistes parallel with the Northern Algerian border, heading generally West. Whilst we were skirting a village in deep "fech-fech" (we were the lead car in a little convoy of 4 cars) I hit a big boulder which broke a bottom corner off the transfer box. It looked pretty bad as the box was hanging out of the car and it had dropped all of the oil. As we were 175Km from the nearest town, the only choice was to make good and drive it out. Anyway, we lashed the box back together with duct-tape and a luggage strap and headed on through real deep sand for about 50Km, and eventually got back to reasonable piste. Then it was a question of jacking the car onto her side, stripping out all the duct tape and we took the broken bit of box off. It was fairly straightforward to cut a piece of beercan and epoxy it in place, refill the box and drive out to Zagora, where we found a garage to weld it back together properly. Actually, they found us through the jungle telegraph. We got to within 50Km of the town and met a Defender which was coming out to meet us. The guy had heard about the problem from his brother, who we had met the day before and came out to drag in some business!
You simply HAVE to tour Morocco in a 4WD some day. It's just the best thing that you can do with your time. At this time of year it's not too hot (mid 20's) and the accomodation is cheap - 10Euro's a night DB&B in a desert auberge.
The rest of the trip was a bit of a slog after we got to the Atlantic coast and turned south. After Agadir (where we replaced a front wheelbearing at the side of a dual carriageway), it's mostly tarmac, with hundreds and hundreds of miles of stony, flat desert to look at. The original plan was that we were just going to get to the border with Mauritania and see what the score was, then make the decision to either go back to UK or go for it through the badlands. Anyway, by the time we got there, there was no way we were going back north, so the decision was made to go on. Because of the breakdowns we missed the promised military convoy through to Nouakchott by 2 days (which turned out to be one squaddie with an AK47 – the guys who did manage to tag on were charged 600Euro for the privilege). Anyway, we were told by the border police that it was safe to go, we headed through northern Mauri as a 2-car group.
Mauritania went by too fast. Senegal is beautiful but falling to bits since the French left in the middle of the C20th, but the people are absolutely immaculate.
Would we do the trip again? Maybe - it's a heck of a long way, with not much stimulation after Agadir. The end result is good, though – the local charities will make good money out of the auction of the cars that made it to The Gambia.
Through the generous contributions of the people and companies that sponsored us, we made over £2,500 for The MS Society (all monies raised went direct to them, the trip was entirely self-funded). Thanks to you all.
How do you combine adventure, challenge and a little madness, at the same time as raising money for charity?
Answer: The Plymouth - Dakar Challenge.
The aim is simple - to get a £100 car from Plymouth to Dakar (or Banjul, or in our case Bamako) with no outside support whatever, and on arrival donate the car for auction in aid of local charities.
Originally we were going to Timbuctu, but the current security situation is too unstable in that area of Mali.
Although the sale of the car goes to local African charities (through the Rotary Club), we have decided to use the opportunity to also raise money for a UK charity, The Multiple Sclerosis Society. Many people will know that Tim's wife Nicky was diagnosed with MS 3 years ago, and is doing well thanks to research and the professional help and support from the Specialist MS team in North Staffordshire and Cheshire.
Tim Walker and Ian Bartle (Team Tally-Ho!) will leave UK on 6th January 2010, in our £100 Ebay Lada and travel 4,800 miles through France, Spain, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Mali, taking 3 weeks to reach Bamako. Obviously, it would be irresponsible to attempt such a long and demanding journey through winter Europe, the Atlas Mountains, the Skeleton Coast (including a 10-mile traverse of the minefield between Western Sahara and Mauritania) and the Sahara Desert without serious preparation - therefore we are also allowed a rally preparation budget of £15...
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Tim Walker & Ian Bartle.
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