2 Years

2 years ago today the lovely R and I set off on a journey of a life time. We drove from where we live in Northamptonshire to Banjul, The Gambia on the West Coast of Africa.

Our trusty stead for the 4000 mile trip was a 17 year old VW Polo Coupe. We had to have a team name and as we were heading to Africa we were Team Hakuna Matata (No Worries!) and the car was called Zazu! Those of you will know they are both links to The Lion King... my favourite Disney animation.

We had one brake down in Dover with the master cylinder, thankfully the chaps at Kwik Fit on that occasion really shone through and got us back on the road albeit we ended up 12 hours behind schedule by the time we got on the ferry at 12am instead of the 12pm earlier in the day we should have been on and we missed a nights stop arriving in France at 2am in the morning. We then sprinted the rest of the day to get to our Christmas stop for 3 days in Biarritz arriving at 5pm. The hotel was fantastic and it saw R and I spend our first Christmas together with a picnic on the beach and a meal so un-traditional to what we would have in the UK but fantastic in the evening. We'd always spent Christmas on Boxing Day previously, so it was fantastic to be together.

From Biarritz we went to Madrid, then to Sotogrande near Gibraltar where we met up with the rest of the guys and gals doing the trip down. We crossed over into Morocco spending New Year in Marrakech which was amazing and then crossed over the High Atlas Mountains over to Agadir and then down through Western Sahara which included a wild camp night in the middle of nowhere, a night in Tan Tan Le Plage where we did a hotel as R was not feeling well, a very bizarre meal in Laounne and then a couple of days R&R in Dakhla.

The next bit of the trip was the expected 'hairy' bit as we were to cross into Mauritania, which isn't the safest place in the world suffice to say we spent all of 17 hours there sleeping in the cars over night. By this point I had picked up what ever R had, had. We were mightly pleased to make it over the border into Senegal and the haven of Zebrabar near St Louis. It was warm, pleasant and R mended a fuel hose tear while I sat on a wonderful beach with my own thoughts. I was happy as larry and both R and I rested up before the last leg to Banjul.

We set off from our couple of days at Zebrabar and expected to cross in to Banjul that very day but the roads in Sengal were that poor that we ended up staying the night in Koalak, a strange place with a market even stranger... the rumour goes that at that very market you can pick up a whole load of things that you wouldn't normally find... it made your local town market look a bit tame... needless to say we didn't stop to investigate!!

Arriving in Banjul was a real high... and a real sense of achievement especially for me as I had not done anything like it before in my life. We'd been recommended a hotel and stayed there for one night before being given the heads up about another much nicer hotel by the beach! I have to admit... when R was saying we must move then the hotel must have been bad and it wasn't just me! On the way to the new hotel however our trusty Zazu came a cropper when a local restaurant owner pranged it! We were gutted! To get all that way and have it nearly written off was unreal. In the end we just had to enjoy the 9 days we had to chill out in Banjul before heading home. The new hotel was fantastic and right by the beach and the whole experience was awesome. We met some fantastic people that we travelled down with too, that I have kept in touch with, especially L, M & D from America.

The restaurant owner was true to his word and 'Zazu' was repaired and went to auction in the March reaching £1400 for vetted worthy causes in The Gambia.

I can't believe its 2 years since we set off... but what awesome memories to look back on!

Hopefully my Blipfolio should be available to look at now and there is a photo from Banjul in there... I will add more photos from the trip shortly.