Well we are back in the UK with a few snags. Carl's arm is in plaster and unfortunately our camera with the majority of our pictures was "removed" from the baggage. But all is not lost - we have most of the pictures of our progress from everyone elses cameras and these will be uploaded over the next few days. Thanks again for all your donations; as you can see we have raised more than our original target and with Gift-Aid have raised over £3000.

nice work fellas.

congratulations to the both of you.


Same again next yr??

What an achievement - congratulations both!
Still can't get the vision of 100mph across the Sahara out of our heads (not to mention dodgy Germans).
Hope the flight home is boringly uneventful.
Stay safe!
Margot & Julian

Yes, very good both. Where are these photos then?

P&M

Well done Rob! Hope to catch up with you on our return - If you throw a return party - let me know -would love to hear the stories.

Yeah! Congratulations boys, that is fantastic news. Hope you are now relaxing with a few cold beers and seeing the sights of Banjul. Good luck in the auction, and I look forward to hearing the stories on your return.
Tricky xxx

massive well done from us all man.
bet you had a great time. whilst we were all standing in the rain
ps did you use the snowboard

the andrews family

Fantastic news - you must be exhausted but should be very proud of yourselves. Enjoy all the celebrations - you can catch up on sleep when you get home! Hope the BMW makes a good price - it deserves to - hope saying farewell to it isn't too painful.
Incredible achievement - I hardly dare ask what next??
Love Bridget and Bryan

We made it!

After 4000 miles the BMW has driven into Banjul, Gambia. After leaving our campsite in Senegal we travelled with a customs escort in convoy through Senegal, however, we managed to lose him when it got dark to stay the night in Senegal before attempting the border crossing.

On crossing the border we picked up 3 german travellers who needed to get across the border "covertly", we've yet to find where they stashed the drugs. We were welcomed into the Gambia by everyone we met, a complete change from the Senegalese officials.

On reaching Barra we joined the queue for the ferry - a moment of quick thinking by Rob saw him swap the snowboard for 2 cold beers so the wait was bearable.

The ferry turned out to be a close relation to the sandbanks chain ferry and took an age to cross the river.

We are now staying in an apartment near the beach, while we wait for the first available flight back to the UK. Spent yesterday touring the Gambia and tomorrow is the victory parade and drive through the presidential arch. All being well the BMW will be up for auction on Saturday. The rest of our camping gear, tools and spares have been donated to the Don McMath Foundation (http://www.dmf.dsl.pipex.com/) which supports a school in the Gambia (team DMF drive another of the BMWs in the challenge and have been travelling with us since Morocco)

Once again thanks for all of your support; we are very close to reaching our fundraising target. As soon as we are back in the UK we will upload all our pictures to the website so keep checking!!

TLL

Sounds awesome boys. Good to hear that the sports tourer is living up to its expectations, and that team lodge losers are sowing the seeds of the lodge vision in darkest Africa. Hoping to see some excellent photos and hear some tall stories of immense losing. If I can manage so many tales of woe from a week in Tarifa I'm sure you'll have plenty...

live the lodge dream...

luke

You are doing so well, lads - makes me feel very pathetic and stay at home as I type this during my lunch-hour. I hope you are sitting on towels rather than the vinyl in those hot temperatures! Am tracking your adventures on the map at home and improving my geography. I hope you're going to write a full account of your adventures when you get back. Keep going and good luck for the final stage, love Bridget

Greetings,

Well the BMW has crossed the Sahara! After leaving Dakhla early in the morning we left Morocco, got lost in the minefield in nomansland then finally with a few bribes made it into Mauritania. We stayed overnight in Nouadibou, another dusty border town and split up into our groups for crossing the desert. Ours was hardly the ideal Sahara team, us a BMW 520, a Renault 5, a Ford Sierra, a Dodge Van and a Vauxhall Cavalier.

Day 1 off the tarmac was a good intro to desert driving - just go fast and dodge camels. Stayed the night on the beach and had our first casualty, we left the dodge van there with a terminal electrical problem.

Soon into Day 2 the Cavalier fell apart - the back axle fell off. Miraculously the car was botched together, pinning the axle to the chassis with any bits of metal we had. A few more cavalier breakdowns later and it was decided to roll the car on its side to bodge it - amazingly this lasted the whole sahara crossing. That night we ate goat under the stars, camping at a dune.

An early start to day 3 and we set off for the beach, then drove the final 80km along the beach to Nuakchott at speed. Nuakchott was grim but gave us a chance to recover and more importantly refuel.

Crossed the border into Senegal yesterday, after travelling the last 60 miles in Mauritania along an unmarked potholed dirt track (which claimed another car - we came across the Latvian team after they had rolled their car 3 times)

The border was a bribefest but now we are at a campsite just outside St Louis with chilled beers - result!! A rest day here then the final leg of our journey. So far 40 out of 50 cars are left (and all the BMWs!) so it should be a good auction.

Next stop Banjul!!

TLL

Hello all

Greetings from Dahkla, a dusty outpost town in Morocco run by the army, 500 miles from any other town. After we left Agadir we had a 2 day, 1200 km drive through the barren Western Sahara. The roads are almost empty so we are making good progress, although it has been quite surreal driving at 100mph in the sahara for hours on end in a straight line. We stopped overnight in Layoone, another dusty town full of UN troops before arriving here late last night. The scenery has been spectacular, barren desert and amazing coasts with shipwrecks on the beach. We are camping here for the day to prep the cars before the desert proper tmrw, as i write rob is supervising the preps - the sports tourer has been raised by some cowboy mechanics in a back street and is looking good!

We set off tmrw across the minefields and into Mauritania so the next update will be in 4 days or so, assuming we get through the desert. 3 cars have died so far out of 44 but the next few days is the real test. On the plus note we have fixed the speakers so I am quietly confident.

Thanks again for all your donations, we are now thorugh the 2000 pound mark and are on course for our target.

Regards

TLL

Hi lads,

Thinking of you as I sit here in an office occassionally thinking or typing a bit...

Sounds like bloody hard work but a massive adventure. Keep it up, I can't wait for the next installment!

Love Hel xxx

hope all's well - take care.

Dear All,

As you may know, I went out to Marrakech to see TLL for New Years Eve. You'll be pleased to hear that they are living up to their team name and dropping social H-bombs and causing minor diplomatic incidents wherever they travel. The toils of the adventure are clear from Robbie's constant frown from worries on cost, and Carl's unbelievably smelly trainers! But all in all, despite spending a small fortune on New Years Eve (our friendly Muslim capitalists decided to double the prices for booze on NYE!) they are in good spirits, and were so keen to press on with their mission that they left me stranded at the airport for 6hrs! Cheers lads!
Anyway, wish you all the best in the journey onwards. And all those who are reading this and haven't donated yet.....DO SO! Carl & Robbie are living up to the saying, "you don't want to be the richest man in the graveyard" and so should you!

Scamp

Hi

Sounds like you guys are having as eventful and fun trip as might have been expected.

Back to work tomorrow so will let all onboard know you are still alive.

Happy New Year and good luck with the rest of the trip

M & C

Hi

Happy New Year to the team. You're doing a great job and we'll be thinking of you as you sweat through the desert - minus goodness knows what here and thick ice on the snow.
Thanks for the good job with the web site Craig - it's great to see all the photos.

Good Luck to all
Gerald and Alison

Hello all.

After a good New Years Eve in Marrakech we hit the road again with a suprisingly low level hangover. We travelled in convoy with the other two BMW's on the rally over the Atlas mountains, the Tiz n Test pass peaking at 2100m above sea level. We arrived in Agadir after nightfall and being stopped by the police for the second time in Morroco, this time for jumping a red light that was nowhere to be seen.

The real desert begins today as we enter Western Sahara. We are stocked up with food, water and a lot of petrol, newsletters may become less frequent now!

Due to a small communications error we can't send any pictures at the moment but we'll put them all on the website when we get to civilisation.

TLL

Happy New Year -
Hope you are still doing OK - I think you're both brave and generous and I hope you had time to party last night. It's snowy and cold here - crisp white on the Highland hills - hold this image in your mind as you swelter on the vinyl.
Lots of love and good wishes,
Mary, Grant, Simon and Tim.

Hi there
Enjoyed the photos - you must have liked the Eiffel Tower! Well done so far - hope your bums are not getting too sore from all that sitting in the car. Keep going - and one day you can tell us about the near death experiences in Marrakesh!
Happy New Year to you both, and to all your team.

Hello Everyone.

Since our last update we have covered the length of Spain with almost no problems. Whilst driving on the motorway we started to develop a horrendous vibration which caused the dash to start self destructing and the stereo to fall apart (the worst thing that could possibly happen). When it became difficult to hold the steering wheel we determined that we may have a problem, we got out to kick the tires but couldn't see anything obvious so carried on. One of the back tires then exploded in the fast lane just outside Malaga, having wrestled the car onto the hard shoulder and having our first fire extinguisher moment we set about changing the wheel. As we discovered to our disappointment we didn't have the right size wheel brace, doh! A quick hitch hike and cab ride later we acquired a wheel brace and were back on the road.

The next day we got the ferry to Ceuta and started the long drive to Marrakech where we met up with our best buddy James Balfour (Scamp) for another quiet night out. Well after the road into Marrakech where we had many near death experiences we deserved it.

New Years Eve tonight and then continuing into the sun tomorrow.

Happy New Year from TLL

PS Check out the updated photos on the website - Thanks Craig!

Good evening all,

Having returned from my 4 day road trip I thought I would add my experiences to the guestbook. It was a wicked trip and the endless amount of driving was well worth it for the two nights in Barcelona.

The car is doing very well although it had a bit of a wobble on the final day, possibly cause by the excessive lane changes and three point turns

I have put all my pictures in the photo gallery that I have taken and aim to add more as and when Carl and Rob send them to me.

One last point I feel I must make is that this is by no means a holiday and is far more hard work and driving than I imagined, and I have a lot of respect for them taking part. The 800km drive down to Barcelona seemed like forever, so god knows how morale was after the 1200km trip down to Sotogrande.

As Charlotte said earlier it is costing them a small fortune so please make them feel it is worth their while by sponsoring them. Also remember that every penny raised is going to charity, all fuel is kindly being paid for by Abbey Fuel Cards Ltd and ANY other expenses on the trip are being paid for out of the teams own pockets.

Good luck boys, I’m sure the beige beauty will hold out.

Craig

Hello All.

We made it to Sotogrande on 29th December to meet up with the other teams.

Unfortunately the 1200km drive took its toll on our trusty motor and we had a blow out. Not a problem you might think - surely they have a spare? Yes we have two, it's just that we forgot to pack a wheel brace!

However, after hitching to the next town on the back of some girls moped to a Spanish version of Halfords we sorted something out. Next stop Marrakesh.

All the best,

TLL

Hi boys,

Hope the drive down south wasn't too hazardess and that the car's still in one piece!

To all that read this page, I need to express a BIG WELL DONE to Carl and Rob, it is not pretty sitting behind a wheel for 10 hours straight! They really are emptying out their pockets for this, spending tones of their own cash and slogging away behind a wheel. I think that just the toll roads alone sent them back at least a hundred each!

C & R: I really do hope that the fun experiences outweigh the bad and that you boys have an excellent time! Despite the many hours in the beamer, I certainly enjoyed myself, so thanks. Always "perfect gents"!

Look forward to seeing you both for the welcome home!

Happy New Year!

Char xx