30th July.... the rally so far!

I would like to start by thanking everyone who has helped us on this trip, from donations to actively helping us on the car and in other ways, we have been so lucky and really wouldn't have been able to do this without you, so thank you! 

We are currently in Rabat, in Morocco, and are intending to move on to Essouira later today.

We left Newhall for London on Tuesday the 22nd July, we were sent off by the Tory MP David Mundell, which was prett amazing. (4 days after we should officiqlly have left for the rally due to issues with our passport, mainly the fact that the Nigerian embassy lost my passport!) 

On our way to London we had a leak with our radiator for the heqter whichwas leqking into the footwell, but we managed to fix it while we were in London, and luckily haven't had any problems with it since. It took us around 12 hours to get to London, which was a real eyeopener for the scale of the trip that we are doing!

We left London at 4am on Thursday (24th July) morning and headed for the white-cliffs of Dover.

We got the ferry across to Calais, and it was Suzie's (the car) first trip abroad and she accustomed to the climate remarkably well. As Suzie is a soon to be famous rally car we felt that it would only be right to take her to a famous race track, and so off we went to Le Mans to see if we could fit in a lap or two.... unfortunately we didn't make it onto the track, but made sure that we got a picture! Our target that night was Bordeux, and with Suzie's blistering pace, we got there at 4am and found a lovely camp site!

Then we made our way to Spain, we got a little confused at the border as to which direction we were meant to be going but soon we were on our way and made it to just outside Madrid, it was there that we had the idea to find a random field to set up camp and after about a mile on a dirt track we set up camp in pitch darknes at about 5am, and Nick chose this opportunity to fertalize the land..... moments later we heard a lot of noise and some headlights heading our way and suddenly there was this massive lorry making its way towards us..... I' ve never seen us pack up so fast, and Nick managed to finsh his deposits remarkably quickly! Then we felt the only thing we could do was calmly and slowly drive past the farmer and give the casual wave as we departed for another campsite which we found in the form of a random field next to the motorway.

Next stop was with the Chestertons in Aracena, and after a beautiful drive through Guadalupe we made it there later on that afternoon, and just in time for a fiesta that night, which felt would be rude miss! After an amazing fiesta we felt like we had slept for a day aftyerwards, the Chestertons looked after us so well and it was great to have a good bed and amazing food, especially seeming we would be survivng the next fezw weeks on army rations.

On Monday afternoon we headed off to the ferry that left from Algeceres to Tangers. We had a bit of hassle when we got off the ferry because we forgot to get our visas while on the ferry but after a lot of running around we eventually were allowed a visa. Then the real hassle began when random people were asking for bribes left right and centre and to be honest neither of us knew what was going on, but after a few bribes we were allowed to go! And so headed for the nearest campsite which this time was a bit of pavement near a service station close to Rabat... not our finest choice, but it did the job, and the next morning we headed to Rabat to try and get our visas for Mali and Mauritania, unfortunately we only managed to get Mali visa as the Mauritaniqa visa takes 2 days to process and appqrently there is a national holidqy in morocco for 2 days and so we wouldn't be able to get the visa till Friday or Monday, so we have decided just to try and get one on the border.

Last night we headed for a campsite while waiting for others to arrive, but when we got there we found no campsite, and ended up camping on a golf course which was great apart from being a little steep and we kept rolling down to the bottom of the tent.... it was also the night that we found out that our tent is not waterproof.... this could prove interesting seeming that we are here during the rainy season!

Thanks for reading the blog, and keep checking our progress to see how we are doing!