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    What the Hell Are We Doing Here! [Across the Sahara to West and Central Africa by Land Rover]
    What the Hell Are We Doing Here! [Across the Sahara to West and Central Africa by Land Rover]
    What the Hell Are We Doing Here! [Across the Sahara to West and Central Africa by Land Rover]
    Ebook199 pages59 minutes

    What the Hell Are We Doing Here! [Across the Sahara to West and Central Africa by Land Rover]

    By Murray Gough and Peter Travers

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Three friends confronting middle-age set out to explore the world and the great sweep of people who inhabit it. A 4WD journey across the Sahara to Africa - sights & adventures from one of the world’s most colourful overland routes.

    For travellers, 4WD enthusiasts, and armchair adventurers.

    This version for iPad & similar - 180 colour photos, links to videos. A greyscale version with 40 photos ("Across the Sahara to West and Central Africa") is also available.

    Review of original print version -

    "This book is outstanding - it provides the ideal coffee table, conversation making, trip planning photo-journal for every overlander's household! A book like this has been long overdue in the "overland community". Everyone I have shown it to has loved the photos and the narrative. Absolutely fantastic!!"
    (The Africa Overland Network - www.africa-overland.net)

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMurray Gough
    Release dateNov 1, 2010
    ISBN9781458093684
    What the Hell Are We Doing Here! [Across the Sahara to West and Central Africa by Land Rover]
    Author

    Murray Gough

    Chief executive for several years of a large corporation, then retired and worked as a professional director for a further 20 years.Have been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel through some of the most interesting parts of the world. Two journeys have resulted in books, while most have resulted in videos (Channel xtr717346 on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/user/xtr717346) .

    Read more from Murray Gough

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      What the Hell Are We Doing Here! [Across the Sahara to West and Central Africa by Land Rover] - Murray Gough

      Planning for

      the Unknown

      It was midwinter, June, on a cold and blustery street corner in Wellington.

      Drive across the Sahara? Peter mused, Why not?

      There must have been a thousand perfectly sensible answers — all in the negative. Hell, we didn’t even know if it was possible.

      We should do it, I replied, with a confidence I didn’t feel.

      It wasn’t the first time we’d discussed this trip, but the difficulties were obvious. Neither of us had handled a four-wheel drive vehicle before. We had no experience of desert travel. The Sahara was on the other side of the world. And no one we knew had ever been there.

      The journey nevertheless had a powerful attraction, and by September we had made a firm decision. We were going, unless it proved totally impossible. We were ready for a change from the tightly scheduled holidays of our business careers, and crossing the Sahara was as radical a change as we could imagine. Deciding to go in the end wasn’t all that difficult: the problem was persuading others we were serious.

      Why the Sahara? This huge desert conjures up visions of camel trains and the French Foreign Legion, sandstorms, explorers dying of thirst, and endless vistas of rolling sand dunes. I had visited Algiers on business many years before and an old Algerian had talked then about what lay on the other side of the Atlas Mountains, of vast seas of sand, brilliant sunsets, and silent nights under a star-filled sky. Those mental images never left me, improbable as any thought of seeing the desert was at the time.

      An exciting world opened up as our planning began. We scoured libraries and bookshops for the writings of other travellers and learned that it was indeed possible to drive across the Sahara, despite long stretches of soft and difficult sand, but it was not an exercise to be undertaken lightly. Not by a four-wheel drive vehicle on its own, and certainly not by anyone unfamiliar with driving and maintaining one.

      We didn’t have those skills so we recruited another Kiwi, Lloyd Powell, to the project and became a partnership of three. Lloyd brought a wealth of mechanical and driving experience, and an unstoppable determination to finish whatever he started. In the end six of us made the journey: Peter and I, our sons Hamish and Cameron, and Lloyd and his wife Julie. The boys were in their early twenties, the rest of us around fifty.

      Knowing it was physically possible to drive across the Sahara was only part of the story. The whole region was in a state of constant political turmoil: serious and worsening civil unrest in Algeria, rebellion and landmines in the south of Morocco, and revolts by nomadic Tuareg tribes in the north of Niger and Mali. No one knew from one week to the next which borders — if any — might be open, and our plans changed with monotonous regularity as new information came to hand. We would leave in the end with only a vaguely defined route, but with a determined optimism that one way or another we would cross the desert and wind up in West Africa.

      We chose Land Rover Tdi Defenders for their rugged simplicity and ease of maintenance, and made contact with an English firm that specialised in preparing vehicles for overland travel. The principals of this firm, Ken and Julie Slavin, were both experienced desert travellers. They fitted our two vehicles out with long-range fuel tanks, roll bars, roof tents, CB radios, hordes of jerrycans for extra fuel and water, sand ladders, winches, air-conditioning, a refrigerator, and a pile of critical spares.

      Once in the desert we wanted to travel into some of the more remote regions. We purchased a good compass and a Global Positioning System receiver, and our checklists covered an extensive range of contingencies: we even carried supplies of a blood substitute, enough to avoid a contaminated transfusion in an emergency and give us a fighting chance of reaching a decent hospital.

      To give ourselves an identity we called our group New Zealand Expeditions, a simple decision that had an unexpected benefit: the once-promising tourist trade in the more accessible parts of the Sahara had been virtually destroyed by political upheaval, and the possibility we may be the first manifestation of a new and regular travel company frequently did wonders for our welcome.

      Our paperwork included Passports and Visas, International Driving Licenses, and Carnets de Passage, vehicle passports issued by the International Automobile Association to enable our Land Rovers to move freely from one country to another. We also arranged to carry official government and bank letters with impressive seals, endorsing our credentials to any who might dare frustrate our passage.

      Security was a major initial concern. Should we be armed against the bandits and rebels we seemed likely to encounter? Carrying a gun or two sounded like good sense. On the other hand we had no experience with weapons, and any attacker we confronted would be far more likely to shoot us than the other way round. Not only that, but shooting someone in a foreign country could mean weeks in court if not years in jail. We decided to go unarmed. In the event, and despite frequent political unrest, we found respect for the law in Africa surprisingly high. Friendly helpful behaviour was almost universal. With reasonable precautions, foreigners visiting even the more troubled spots are probably at little more risk than they would be travelling in their own countries.

      Morocco

      Looking back now, after so many strange and difficult border crossings, entering Morocco shouldn’t have been such a culture shock. But few experiences are more disconcerting than arriving by sea, after dark, in a very foreign country.

      A piercing wind blew as we cleared Customs, and heavy rain began to fall. It was winter and we were seriously disoriented: unpaved roads, no street lighting, strangely garbed people, and dogs and goats and chickens all milling about. We lost our way within minutes and there wasn’t a soul with enough English to direct us to our first destination, Tetouan.

      Driving through the gloom and relentless rain in what we hoped was the right direction, we eventually came across a campsite near the main road. It was waterlogged, dark and deserted, and we were only mildly disappointed when it also turned out to be closed. Another hour brought us to a seaside resort where we finally got lucky: an open campsite, cold water showers and squat toilets only, but somewhere to safely park and sleep.

      In Tetouan we were befriended by a young man eager to be our guide. He helped us explore the medina — a maze of

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