Plymouth to Dakar Challenge : Team Spitting Llamas

Day 15 - Desert(MR) to Beach(MR)

Posted by Aaron on January 17, 2008 11:22 AM

We woke up quite refreshed, the sand was oddly comfortable to sleep on. Team dither slowly roused, cooked some breakfast and strolled around to take photos of the desert. We didn't have much distance to cover and in theory would only have to land on the beach to call it a day. The last section of the desert driving got really hard, really deep sand meaning there were no stops unless it was really needed as we wouldn't be able to get the car going again. We had to dig out Rosco and Dave in Bravo 2 Zero about another hundred times, which wasn't helped by the fact the temperature had sored from one day to the next. A couple of the cars had started to over heat in the heat and we they were starting to use a bit of water. Rusty was fine in the heat and we were happy that all the repairs were holding firm.

We broke both of our head lamps on the Ozzies car playing bumper cars – but at this point we didn't mind so much, was all part of the adventure. The team had really started bonding as each and every car got stuck and needed help getting it out. Our guide knew the tricks of the trade as far as getting the cars out of the sand, but did like to ride the clutch to the point we thought a few of the cars may not be able to be driving again after the sand leg. We meet the other two groups on the beach, having only 2 km to where we would set up camp for the evening. Sticking to the harder wet packed sand we made decent progress., But the issue was if we got stuck, Rusty was so heavy and the wet sand so slippery that once stuck, we really need a tow to get going again. At the camp site, we paused on the breach – getting stuck – our new suspension system (sticks) had long come out. With the incoming tide, all of the cars needed to be parked higher in the soft sand. We couldn't get Rusty out, so the guide took the wheel, drove the car pretty deep into the sea to turn it around and gunned it, flying along the beach in order to get enough speed up to make it up the soft sand, at the last minute he turned inland. Some how he managed to hit the only small mound of sand on a perfectly flat slightly inclining beach for miles in each direction. As he did so, we could hear and see the impact from about 100 metres away – we knew that something was broken but we didn't know what at this point.

As we approach the car, our "mate" the guide is walking away going "all is good", all is good my arse we were saying as we could see the radiator water spewing out the bottom of the engine. He had managed to rip the bottom radiator support structures away in the impact, pushing the radiator into the fan, breaking a fan blade off into the radiator causing a 4 inch hole for the water to let go. Corde was livid to say the least, we had been repairing, fixing and maintaining the car pretty much every evening for the last week. Tonight was meant to be a night relaxation, swimming in the sea and having a decent meal around a camp fire. But we had to get back to fixing poor Rusty. We sawed off the opposing fan blade to balance the fan, and removed the radiator. Corde managed to clean up the mess left behind, twist up the coils to stop the leak from one end, and borrow some metal putty to meld into the base of the radiator to block the tube ends. We couldn't start the engine this evening as we needed to let the putty set over night. So the morning was going to be the make or break for poor Rusty. Rusty is starting to look worse for wear now, with lots of rust, holes just "appearing" as the bog fell out.

Very dirty and tired, the group bought some fresh fish from a local fisherman, wrapped it in tin foil and cooked it in the open fire. Sitting on the beach, with the wind blowing off the desert into the ocean, the whole horizon is a massive haze due to the fine dust and sand being blown into the atmosphere. It is pretty amazing and we couldn't get a photo to do it justice.

See more photos of Day 15