The present engine is so good I want to keep it for the 4x4 or a future raid car. I have another that should do this rally (hopefully..)



It seems obvious really I know!

I do have a co-driver. We toyed with keeping the dash on the right for amusement but decided to keep it looking roughly standard to not give the border and traffic police any more reason to rob us blind... however the co-pilot has the choke and headlight adjuster to play with and a new cubby hole to hide things...

Cheers Neil. It was perfect..
Its great having a deadline of 'I have no other means of transport to get home today'

Hopefully I can return the favour someday.

Bit of a rally update..

Preparations are moving along with only 25 days till departure.

The Walmington has a 'new' engine thanks to Rick Pembro. I took it into the eye of the Devonshire storms last weekend and it performed pretty well. Main issues seem to be noisy wheel bearings. Still some fettling to be done with the fuel tank guard and some interior comforts.

Thanks to one of our chief sponsors c-diddy The Walmington is now sporting some vinyl adhesives:





We have heard that our start location happens to be Dunsfold Park near Guildford; the site of the TOP GEAR studio and test track. We are apparently going to be allowed a lap of the track before heading out to Africa... 'Gambon' here I come!

The hardest part about the organisation of the rally has to be the visas.. the Nigerians change their minds daily and now the border of Mauritania and Western Sahara have stopped issuing visas. This leaves us 48 hours to drive from Calais to Algeciras (2200 kms) to catch a ferry so we can be in Rabat at the Mauritanian Embassy before they close for four days.. happy days

That's about it for now

Ru

Get yourself on the phone, then on the train to London, and get yourself a visa from the Consulate there - it's just off Park Lane/Grosvenor Square. All they're worried about is getting some cash from you. In cash. Just under £40 (and they don't give change!) when we went. The photos & signatures on the form are mere niceties.

8 Carlos Place
020 7478 9323

http://mauritania.embassyhomepage.com/

This would be fantastic.. small problem though, the embassy closed in September 2007!
They started issuing them at the border which they have now recently stopped due to the border officials not declaring the cash... etc etc

Is it my fault you leave everything to the last minute? Is it? Hmm?

Anyway, can the French Consulate help?
http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Central-Af ... bouti.html

Personally speaking, if a country puts 'obstacles' in the way, to make it difficult/expensive to enter, then SOD 'EM, I'd much rather go to a country that is easy to enter and they are happy to let me in(Which kind of rules out GB, with our border control. I find it hard to swallow, when as a British citizen, I/we can move from France to Belgium to Holland etc, without having to stop, then find we have to show passports and stuff, before they lets us back into our own country!! ).....Life's too short, to pissy fart around with visas and such like.

I'll get off my soap box now

Thanks Adrian.. you're good at this. (I hope you are coming on the Barbour South America to North America Raid, sometime in the distant future?)

Yes maybe the French can help and we are looking into it now.
Also Brussels issue them but they say go to Paris and Paris say it will take three days. That would be expensive.
Finally Rabat and possibly Casablanca in Morocco do them if we drive like loons...

Trouble is, Mauritania's about the only realistic route south from Europe.



<shrug> The UK chose not to sign the Schengen agreement in 1985. Nobody's suggested we try to get back in since, even though Switzerland joined last year.

(Oh, and Ru - we _really_ want to do the 'merkin trip...)

They don't put obstacles in the way to make it difficult to enter. The only people that do that are those after a bit of cash on the border, and to my mind, thata dds to the charm of it all.

I went to Wales once, that's a country that didn't require me to produce a passport, and they put so many obstacles in my way I will *never* return. Ever.