News from Simon

Spoke to Simon yesterday (29th December).
They were still in dakhla, morocco about to set off into the desert.

It is very hot with very beautiful scenery and beaches.

They will be crossing the desert during the next 5 days or so and it is likely there will be no mobile contact for about 5 to 7 days. No news in the next few days until they get tothe first settlement in the next country (Mauritania).

Rossella

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laayoune, morroco stopped off at a very comfortable hotel at the port. Probably our last night of comfort. 2morrow 650km to daklah.

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Tan-tan, morroco just had lunch on the beach. We are now following the atlantic for a few thousand km. It's great to see the sea. I

Update from the field

laayoune, morroco We've had a few problems with the programme on our home computer that lets Alex and Simon post entries on the blog - they've been sending updates daily but they've not been getting through. Hopefully helpdesk here has sorted it out, fingers crossed...
I've just spoken to Alex and they are well - they're now in Laayoune, the capital of Western Sahara. In a hotel tonight - they were in their tents last night. For more info on Western Sahara, go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/3466917.stm - interesting background about the disputed territory.
If you go here, you'll see a map of the area and where Laayoune is.
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/africa/eh.htm
Tomorrow they're heading towards Ad Dakhla, in the south.

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Marrakech, morroco Merry christmas everyone. we hope you enjoy the festivities. We have a few treats so are looking forward as well. I

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beni mellal, morroco didn't make it to marrakech. Roads bad & left fes 2 late. Setting off at 7am to m. xmas brkfst at waterfalls! I

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Maamar, Morroco stopped off for lunch on road to marrakech. Might struggle to make it 2night as there are 00s km to do and It's 3.45 I

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chefchaouen, morocco stopped off for a coffee and going to look at the medina I

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Fes, Morocco We are now in Africa and Shogun running well. Border crossing involved four queues and typical african chaos. I

Morocco

Just spoken to Alex and they were 'somewhere' in Morocco having a coffee at a roadside cafe.
Onwards to Marrakech!

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ceuta, spain arrived in africa! border crossing into morocco yet to come. May take some time. I

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sotogrande, Spain getting an early night, ready for the 7am ferry. bought food for desert today and fixed spots. Brakes playing up:( I

Picture msg from South of Spain

MMS received: 22 December 2007 13:50:27 (UK)
Gibraltar
Pouring with rain outside. stopped for tapas and glass of Rioja. Now in south of Spain near Gibraltor. Day of rest and taking ferry to Tangier tomorrow morning.

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fombellida, spain stopped off for a late lunch. Not seen any other teams since ferry. Tonight we are staying at alejandra's brothers I

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Jaen , spain stopped off for a spot of lunch. 300km to go today. Should get to the hotel about 8pm , in time for a beer or two. I

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madrid , spain on the road again heading to Tarifa. problem starting this morning but okay now. I

In Cadiz

Just spoken to the intrepid explorers and they've reached the southern coast of Spain, where it's bucketing down with rain (not quite their words). The car is OK, but makes crunching noises when they go round corners - no corners in the Sahara, so that's alright then. Most of the cars in their team have now arrived at the hotel, although some latecomers complained about mud sliding down off the hills onto the roads and nearly not making it at all. Eek. Nothing a good meal won't sort out judging by the sounds of the hotel restaurant in the background. Sounds like it's all Rioja and tapas so far, what happened to the roughing it and beans and dried veg? Next stop Morocco - let's hope they don't have corners there either.

Madrid

Text message from Simon at 18:43

Hola! We are 100km north of Madrid and should be there in an hour.
Looking forward to tapas and glass or two of Rioja.

MMS at 22:03

Now in Madrid and met Alejandra. Eating fantastic tapas and drinking local beer and wine.

[..] leaving tomorrow for south of Spain - 6 to 8 hour trip.

Plymouth

Plymouth, Devon

A couple of messages from the 'Urban Deserters' today confirming that Alex and Simon got to Plymouth

6:30 am

"Parked at the ferry port in Plymouth having a sleep. Bit knackered so looking forward to getting cabin on the boat"

MMS with picture at 12:14 pm today:

"We're on the ferry and setting off in next 30mins"

Set off

Kew,London,UK

The guys have just set off on their adventure. After loading the car and collecting the last bits of equipment dotted around the house they drove off in the night full of excitement.

Loading the last few things.. ** The "essentials" packed

******

Ready to go!

.... and a couple of sad faces left behind ;)

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london, uk last minute prep arggghh I

Monsta 2 kitted out

London, UKWe picked up Monsta 2 from the garage on Saturday.. I think they've fixed the brakes now.. There are certainly a whole load of new parts in there now..
That bloke in Mali, who'll be bidding on the auction for the cars at the end of the rally, will do all right..

Simon and I did some work on her aswell so she looks the part. I'm hoping Simon puts on some of the photos.
We fitted the jerry can holders, kindly built by Martin's company, to the outside along with the extra spare wheel and roofrack so she looks very safari!

Still waiting on some bits and pieces to arrive through the post but apart from that I think we are there!

The official departure is 9pm Tuesday evening. Fingers crossed.

Onward to Timbuktu

Well we've nearly finished fixing our second vehicle up with significant help from a garage!!
Last provisions are being purchased and packing to commence shortly.

According to Google Maps Timbuktu is on the Isle of Wight but luckily for us we've done a little more research.

Next Tuesday we'll be making our way from London heading to Plymouth for the start of the challenge.....

Monsta 2 in the doghouse

Sorry we haven't put any updates up here for a while. We've had a bit of a nightmare!!
We bought the replacement Monsta and let's just say it wasn't quite as good as we had hoped.......

On the way back from buying it the brakes seized and we had to get transported back on the top of a yellow lorry (AA).

It has been in at my local garage while we were deciding what to do..
Well we've taken the plunge and given the go-ahead for the work to be done..
Fingers crossed nothing else goes wrong.

Not long now

The trip's getting closer and closer and I'm feeling less and less prepared.. This weekend should be a turning point. New wheels. We have the mother of all lists and we are meeting up with other rallyers again on Sunday... I think!!

There's a new set of wheels in town ....

Havering, Sussex, UK
Not content with one 4x4 we've been on eBay again and found a great (cheap and with MOT) Shogun that's 4/5yrs younger has spotlights and car stereo. We'll be collecting it from somewhere in Sussex this weekend and assuming all okay this will be the vehicle for the Plymouth to Timbuktu rally. Basically it worked out cheaper to buy this new vehicle than to do the repairs to the old one to pass an MOT. Here's a picture for now - more details to be posted once we've paid and collected it.

Simon, Alex and tha Monsta

Courtesy of Rossella's facebook photo album. Thanks Rossella!

Trip preparations

Simon and I have been adding to lists to work out what we need to do before we go..

The important things seem to be Jabs, Int driving licence, charity, tickets and the car for now.

I'm sure there are others..
Feel free to suggest other stuff as comments..
We are getting the Ferry tickets this week (19th from Plymouth at noon) and I've set up our charity donation page to collect for WaterAid. The link is on the right hand side of the blog. We'd love your help!!!

Vehicle update

Well thought we ought to give a bit of an update on our progress.
Tha Monsta is suffering a bit. We've sorted out all the little electrical bits that we could do but have a few major jobs on the MOT fail list that are evading us.

There's a bit of welding (only minor), The brake discs and a cracked widscreen that is standing in the way of us having a road legal car for the trip.
The annoying thing is is that none of those things would stop us on the journey. They are just expenses to stop us getting going.

Once again it's a shame Simon and I don't have oodles of time, tools and experience and we'd sort it all on the cheap.

Crunch time soon.. When we've totted up the costs we'll have to take a view whether we should buy something else.

Route Map

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Engineering works

Since buying tha Monsta there has been a flurry of activity around getting her ready for the challenge. In some people's minds that might conjure up images of Simon and I in overalls carefully lifting out the engine..
But no...
It's involved lots of ebay.. We didn't really have any tools so I've been stocking up.
I've also bought a roof rack and jerry cans so she looks the part.
The next item I'm looking for is a another wheel. I've found one for £30 but it's all the way in Cambridge.

I took her for a pre MOT the other week. She didn't do terribly well.. Lots of little bits and pieces like lights which I've been busy fixing. Apart from that there were a few nastier items; A small piece of welding at the front. Brake discs scored which I'm not sure what we can do about and a bald tyre... Hence the search for another wheel/tyre combo.

She's also got a nasty creak or crunch when you've got the steering on full lock which I think must be a bush but need to get underneath it to work it out. Now we've got the ramps and axle stands (ebay) that should be possible..

So lots of work ahead but it should be fun as long as we get on with it..

We've got the car

Cambridge, UK

We've bought our car..

The Monsta is old but seems tough as old boots


Whaddya reckkon?

Simon and I had to treck up to Cambridge after some successful ebay bidding.. She got us back from Cambridge but seemed to consume the entire North Sea oil reserves to do it..

We've also got to get her through an MOT at the end of Oct too..

Apart from that she's perfect. An old 85 Colt Shogun SWB.

Alex

Launch Party

Cullompton, Devon
Back in London now after the launch party at the weekend down in Devon. Had a great time and it was really good to meet the teams that we did. I've tried looking back at the site and work out which teams I met and which ones I haven't..

It turns out we were a bit crap really because we probably only met about 10 teams out of 30 odd. Mind you I don't think half of our group's teams were there..

The journey home was a long one especially as I needed to find somewhere to have a fry-up before setting off proper as I was feeling a little worse for wear..

Anyway if I met you (I'm the massively tall one) it was great meeting you and look forward to seeing you again on the challenge. Some of the Londoners that we met were up for meeting up in London town before that anyhow.. I reckon Regent's Park is a good bet as it's central and has parking most of the way around so that's good if people have got their vehicles by then and want to show them off. Maybe some Sunday in late August..

Next job finding a vehicle!!!