Internet access

Apologies for this blog not being updated daily. As you can imagine Internet access is hard to come by in africa, especially when you only have WiFi. So here's an abridged version on the ones I had prepared to keep people updated.

Day 3 . Biarritz to Toledo.

An early start and were off towards Madrid with the hope of staying there overnight. We go in convoy with Jane and Kate from team Witches Abroad. As is normal seamingly there are hundreds of toll roads on the way and we soon reach the Pyrennese. The forcast is for snow but we head on regardless. The hills are fairly steep but we manage to get up them regardless until we reach nearly the highest point on the pass and are stopped by an accident up ahead. The snow starts to creep up the wheel arches and we start to think about being stuck once we can actually move again, but were fine and make it over without too much hassle. We travel through beautifull scenery on virtually deserted roads for many hours until we reach the madness that is madrid. We have made such good time that we decide to carry on towards Toledo which is about an hour south. This was a great ides as we found a beautiful hotel which wasn't too expensive and we end up in some back street pizzaria as it's the only place open.

Day 2 - Le Mans to Biarritz

The day starts slowly as we manage to pull our weary bones out of bed. Due to the hours difference the time is 8:30 and it's still dark outside. The weather is the complete opposite to yesteday's clear blue skies with low cloud and heavy rain.

We pack and checkout of the hotel, before leaving, I ask the receptionist for directions to the world famous Le Mans race track. She doesn't seem to know but just writes on a piece of paper the names of towns and points in the direction of the motorway we used to get here. I suppose now is a good enough time to share with you all my theory on getting directions. I'm a man, and quite frankly we never like getting directions in the first place, this implies that we don't know what were doing and this hurts our ego. And since women now rule the world, our ego is all we have left. However, if you ask someone for directions and they tell you straight away then thats fine. Any sign of hesitation or err-ing means they probably havn't got a clue and your going to spend the next half an hour driving around before you realse they've sent you in the wrong direction. This was the type of woman the receptionist was. We set off along the motorway towards tours but as the miles clicked by (as they do when your doing 80 legally, you have to love the french for that) we never saw a sign for the racetrack and our hops of a nice photo opportunity are gone....

Having missed our photo opportunity we put in some quick miles in along virtually deserted French toll roads. i assume the french are too tight to pay the tolls. We arrive in Biarritz about 5pm and soon find a hotel, the hotel Tulip hits the spot nicely, it's decently priced and really nice. sarah and I unpack and have a quick change and hit the town. Biarritz is absolutly lovely, it had a great harbour and lots of nice restuarants and shops, none of your Primark here, the high street is full of Prada and expensive jewelry shops.

We arrainge via text to meet up with Witches Abroad who have driven all the wat from Pembroke to Biarritz in one day. They arrive about 8pm and we decide to hit the town. The girls are knackered but we decide to stroll back into town and have a meal. I decide to have a steak, which is a brave as I have to have mine cooked properly, but they do I well done as I ordered and it and a great meal is had by all. After that we have a cheeky after dinner drink in a local Irish Pub (every town must have one) and they it's off to bed for a good nights sleep ahead of another long days driving tomorrow.

Day 1 - Stevenage to Le Mans

Hanabal went over some mountains with just a few blokes and some circus elephants for company so i'm told, but although my friends history might not be entirly accurate. It still seems a good starting point for my blog of the first day of the 2008 Timbuktu Challenge. I raise a likeness between my monumental journey and that of Hanibals jaunt through the park because I'm sure he never had to put up with traffic on the M20 or comments from French customs officials.

The day started well, for once it wasn't raining. I was up before the alarm as is customary before I go on holiday and quickly jumped in the shower hoping for a quick getaway, but that can never happen can it. By the time we had walked the dog and packed another TWO bags of last minute stuff we thought we might need (mainly crap) the time was nearly 9am and we were already half an hour behind schedule. Once a tearful goodbye was had with the mother in law (in fairness they were her tears as I was in too much of a rush) we were off. sarah was driving like a good-un on the first leg and TomTom showed us to have a handy 5 minutes to spare before our last check in time. Could it be this easy? Could it hell.... Within 5 miles of the tunnel terminal we came to a grinding halt due to an overturned lorry. We had queued for over half an hour and it was obvious that we were not going to make our planned train. But we were on the move again eventually and arrived at the tunnel around half an hour late. To my amazement the whole process of getting onto a later train was very easy, all you do is drive upto a self service machine and put in your booking number and it asks you if you want to get on the next train. Not many things work this well in England so i'm guessing this must have been designed by the french.

after the fiasco of getting delayed on the M20 we have a bit of luck as we need to get International Driving Licenses for both myself and Sarah. We stroll upto the AA counter with a bundle of paperwork which AA lady duly wades through "thats fine, do you have your photo's". "erm no" we reply and she points us in the direction of a photo booth on the oppositew side of the building, off we go until Sarah exclaims "Hang on, I think I have a passport photo of you in my purse" simultaniously the brainwave hits me that I have one of Sarah lurking at the back of my wallet. Hurrah, we both scuttle back over to the helpfull AA lady who is obviously not as touched by the hopeless sentimentality of it all as we are.

Our train is soon called and off were off to board the train. First of course we must endure a grilling from the customs gistapo. the English side politely ask us what were upto and where were going, when I say were going on a car rally to Timbuktu he gives us a sideways look and it's not until he spots the PDC decals on the car that he understand that were not taking the perverbial out of him. The French side of course are another matter and say "Aw your gooing to Mauritania" ( in the thickest French accent I ever heard, much akin to something from Allo Allo) to which we reply that we are. They seem to find this funny for some reason? Once they finish laughing at us, and than at the car they wish us the best of luck and say "be carefull". The tunnel journey is uneventful and we are soon on the road again. TomTom proves his worth and navigates us through the maze of slip roads until the reach the toll road bound for Bordaux and then Abbville. The roads are empty and with a speed limit of 80, we make good progress into the two hundred odd miles to Le Mans. It truly is a beautiful country, especially in the lovely winter sunshine. One thing that surprises me is the amount of wind turbines there are, it makes you wonder why we don't have more....

Well as I type this on my mobile we are tucked up safe and warm in our hotel room at the Brit hotel. After a hour driving around Le Mans looking for a decent hotel (we heard bad things about Formula 1 hotels) we decide on this one purly on the name. It's clean and tidy and if you've ever stayed at a travelodge, this place is it's twin sister.

well off to bed now. Off to Biarritz tomorrow, only 6 hours worth of driving

*** apologies for poor spelling or punctuation, i'm writing this on a mobile device ***

Ready to leave,

Well what seemed like a lifetime away for so long is now here. The car is packed, fueled up and ready to go tomorrow morning at 08:30. we should be catching the 11:20 Tunnel and with any luck be snuggled up in a nice hotel in Le Mans by 5pm tomorrow, hopefully the hotel will have Internet access so I can keep you informed about out progress via the Official PDC website at

http://www.pdcinfo.info/fieldreports/8527fr.htm

Grace Community church Support us.

Thanks go to Grace Community Church for their support after today's service. Here are some photo's of members signing the car.

click HERE for for a link to their Website. (I recommend the Alpha courses :)

Plymouth - Banjul Rally on Dave (UKTV G2)

To get a taste of what the challenge entails, here's a video diary of our sister rally, the Plymouth - Banjul rally which was on UKTV G2.


CLICK HERE.......

Cinderella Cast and Crew support us

Today saw Sarah and I have our photo's taken by our local newspaper "The Comet". Hopefully we should be in next weeks issue (the 10th Jan I think). Thanks in particular go do Paul Laidlaw, Scott St Martyn and Ben Roddy. Boo Sucks go to Ben Nicholas and Rachael Jerram who couldn't be bothered.

A Special Thanks must also go to Kelly from the Gordon Craig Theatre for Organising the event and to Kerry Briars from MacMillan.

Rally in Doubt

Our chances of making the starting line took a knock today, with the news that the Paris Dakar Rally which follows a shorter (if more arduous) route than us has been cancelled due to the shooting of five French tourists last week. The Organisers of the Paris - Dakar rally the A.S.O said that they have received specific threats against the rally and that coupled with advice from the French ministry of foreign affairs not to travel to Mauritania has made the rally untenable.

What does this mean for us? Well obviously it's not great but we have not received any specific threats so far and the foreign office has not changed the risk level for travel to Mauritania. Having spoken to a few of the other competitors, tensions are high and there is already talk of people dropping out. Our view is that we are going to wait and see what happens over the next few days and unless there is a specific risk or the rally is cancelled we will go.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/world_rally/7171426.stm

http://www.dakar.com/indexus.html

New Years Fundraising

It's that time of year again. Sarah and I journey off to Oxford in Uncle Festa to Spend New Years Eve with Tom and Sally. Festa performs amazingly and easily does 70(ish) for the whole yourney.

A great time is had by all and Tom has a great fundraising idea, why not run a competition in the pub with a puzzle he got for Christmas. The Idea is diarmingly simple and we agree immediatly. The puzzle works like this, There are three holes holes in a rectangular box and what looks like a slider at one end. The problem is that this slider won't move and it's soon found by most that this is a red herring. The puzzle is so elusive that not even the magician on hand for entertainment can solve it.

The puzzle proves to be a great success and we raise over £90 for our charaties (Blue Cross and MacMillan Cancer Care)

Our heartfelt thanks go to Tom , Sally and the Staff of the Victoria Arms for their help and support.

Feel the Power.... or not.

Yet more problems with Uncle Festa. Yesterday the battery light came on whilst driving Sarah to work. After much faffinig around with the Alternator belt, it soon becomes clear that the Alternator has died. The Hayes Manual comes to the rescue once again. The replacement Alternator is fitted and to my surpise works fine first time (My mechanical knowledge must be improving!!!)

Uncle Festa... A new beginning

Well our new pride and joy hasn't quite turned out the dream machine we thought. We're joking at the minute that something brakes every day. Well where shall I start? First of all we realised on the first morning of owning the car that there was a huge puddle of oil underneath. We wheeled Uncle Festa in the garage to take a carefull look and found that the Oil hadn't been changed in so long that the oil filter had actually rusted through and oil was literally pumping through it when the engine started. Quite how it got home from Chelmsford I will never know (the previous owner must have known this and overfilled it with Oil, It just goes to show you have to be carefull what you buy on Ebay....)

The saga continues once we try to remove the sump plug, it would appear that the previous owner had a bodge at that too and made the plug completely round. Over the next day we try various method of extracting the tight little bugger, but to no avail. In the end I purchase a pump which extracts the oil via the dipstick, this works a treat and the rest of the job takes no time at all. That couples with a change of Oil filter makes Festa run like a dream.

You gotta Start Somewhere....

The Plymouth - Bamako Challenge is a mad-cap adventure across Europe and through the world's largest Desert. During the Event the cars are subject to a Wet English Winter, The freezing trip over ice overed road of the alps and thousands of miles through blistering desert heat. Your Abviously thinking we must be spending Thousands of pounds on specialist cars designed for such extremes. You would be dead wrong..... Each team has only £100 to spend on a car and a further £15 in Race preperation. The basic rules of the Rally are.

1) Cars must cost less than £100

2) Maximum Budget for Rally Preporation is £15

3) Once the Rally is underway. There is no help provided by the organisors. EACH TEAM IS ON THEIR OWN !!!

4) All Vehicles must be handed over to the organisors once we reach Bamako. These will then be auctioned for Charity.