Team Suspect Device and Team Gammy Gecko signing out

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s been a blast.

To put it in as few words as possible, we covered 10,700kms in a 1964 Morris Minor we rebuilt from scrap in 4 months and on a 1991 Yamaha Super Tenere 750 we assembled in 36 hours straight including paint.

Our work here is done.

We’re off now to new adventures somewhere on this little planet, and as per usual we shall complete them in our own jaunty style. Probably in the most complex manner possible and always in or on vehicles that we have hand-built. It’s what we do.

In the words of the immortal song by An Emotional Fish:

“Celebrate, this party’s over, I’m going home”

PSM Signing out…

That’s right folks, the last update. This is where the story ends.

After 24 days of driving from Tipperary I’d been in Bamako in Mali with my co-driver for a few days and he’d been pretty ill. On evaluation of things the time it would take for him to recover (I’m still not fantastically well myself) we weren’t going to have it in us to make the final stint. Having gone so far and suffered/experienced (equal measures) so much we called it a day in Bamako and got on a plane at around 3.30am today. I’ve not been home long and obviously photos and so on will follow. It’s a bugger that we didn’t make it but the Micra never let us down and it was really a health problem and the fact that driving to and through Africa is really fucking hard work. We did a cracking job getting as far as we did and doing as much as we did. Not all the way but damned near enough. By yesterday morning we had both agreed that Timbuktu would take more than it would give and what we needed was to just get out.

Thank you all for your words of encouragement and support, I’ll be typing up my journal over the next week or so and getting the photos up and doing my best to satisfy any desires people have to know what exactly went on… I’ve written a lot!

We managed 4821 miles through 8 countries and one principality in 21 days on the road. No mean feat in a car 20 years old. The only real casualty to the car was losing the exhaust on the stretch into Bamako. I like to call it the “sports conversion”. I managed to sell the car in the city, and hopefully the Mali tax men will never find me cause I sure as fuck didn’t do the paperwork right but I’m home now and that’s what matters. I may not have swapped my co-driver for camels and/or a life of luxury in a remote spot of the world but we had one hell of an adventure.

Hopefully catch up with you all soon,
Dave

Timbuktu…. some other time!

Well, having spoken to a few friends at Mountain Madness on Tuesday/Wednesday, the general consensus seems to be that if I even get into Morocco without a full V5 and insurance documents (they didn’t arrive before I left), then every cop would pull me for speeding, then fine me at least triple for not having adequate documentation. After that, I probsbly wouldn’t even get into Mauritania or Mali as you need a V5 (or equivalent) in order to buy a lassier passez (or however it’s spelt). That’s ofcourse, ignoring the fact that I’d be on my own, with 2 tons of jeep, in the sand. Nope, seems it wouldn’t be much point continuing towards Timbuktu under those circumstances, so I’ll just go to Timbuktu some other time (some other time being after the end of the Bamako rally in February. Bamako to Timbuktu isn’t very far at all).

As for this rally  - I’m now finding suitable places to go/stay for next years rally. Found an amazing place on Thursday. Gotta make the best out of a bad situation, right?

After that, I’m heading into eastern Europe. I want to go through the Montblanc Tunnel, and I’ll head a bit east from there, then come back up north through the bottom of Poland and into Germany, Holland, Belgium, France (again) and back home.

Hopefully, I’ll be home in time for V festival