Wheelers on Fire

Posted Wednesday, January 24, 2007, 8:46 PM by Lonely Planet

Tony Wheeler prepares to take on the Plymouth to Banjul Challenge 2007


On Friday 2 February Maureen and I will be departing England in a beat up old Mitsubishi to drive the Plymouth-Dakar. You read that right, 'Plymouth' not Paris. So it doesn't start in Paris, and to be honest it doesn't end in Dakar in Senegal. It continues on to Banjul in Gambia, next capital down the coast of West Africa.

The other big difference from the Paris-Dakar is the Plymouth-Dakar does not cost a squillion dollars and you don't drive there very-very-fast. Simply getting there is the key, because when you arrive you must give your car away. They're auctioned off for African charities.

So we have our car, a 1989 Mitsubishi Colt (a Lancer in some markets), German registered (Berlin) because the cars have to be left-hand-drive (British cars have their steering wheels on the right). It's waiting for us in Exeter (about 170 miles west of London). We've never seen it and about the only thing we know about it is we have to hand over £350 (that's US$690) before we can drive it away.

We start from the Triangle Car Park at The Serpentine, Hyde Park. London at 10 am on Friday 2 February. We hope some of the other 42 cars starting at the same time as us will also turn up there. Their teams come from England (of course) but also Belgium, Dubai, Germany, Ireland (north and south), Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal and the USA. As well as our Australian twosome.

Then it's over (or under) the Channel, down through France and into Spain. If our Mitsubishi, dubbed 'The Original Lonely Planet,' keeps going we'll be at Tarifa (near Gibraltar) on 4 and 5 February, Marrakech in Morocco on 8 February, Dakhla in Morocco on 12 February, Nouuakchott in Mauritania on 17 February, Zebrabar in Senegal on 18 and 19 February and finally, 6000km from our starting point, in Banjul on 21 February.

So keep an eye on this site to see where we've got to. We'll make our first report on Tuesday 30 January, after we've picked up our wheels.

See Outside Magazine or the Plymouth-Dakar website for more on the trip.

- Tony Wheeler

Track progress and view a map of the route here.

Labels: Africa, Plymouth to Banjul Challenge 2007, Travelsnitch

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