Few pics from our Algeria trip

Well, got back on Sunday morning. 6000 miles over 3.5 weeks (quite a leisurely pace really compard to our last trip). Covered 9 countries including 3000 miles in the Saharan Region.

Was a fantastic trip and so many great things which I am sure I will remember for a long time. The Land Rover was superb. A few minor glitches but nothing that couldn't be repaired or bodged. Give it any terrain, at any speed and it will plough through willingly. Infact, even though they will hate me for saying it, was a better ride off road than the Range Rover. Seems to me like coil springs are good for articulation and ironging out small bumps, but pounding them for hours on end at quite a pace killed the rear suspension on the Range Rover which had all new parts before it set off.

Only problems we had were overheating which was mainly caused by a dodgy radiator which wasnt circulating to the bottom half (yeah I know, should have replaced it before I set off) which was cured by a combination of lifting the bonnet with threaded rod and an Algerians tip of adjusting the thingy bob under the dissy cap. Wheel bearing seal went, luckily found a parts place that had genuine spares lurking in a box and happened to have the correct seal. Alternator bracket snapped so was flapping about a bit...but it just about lasted until I got home (wont start now - how flukey is that!).

Things I couldnt have done without...the cubby box...great for hording the days snacks. A decent stereo for drowning out noise. The overdrive...not jsut onroad, but off road too. Why you might ask...well...in some of the twisty sand stuff you are constantly changing gears. In regular 3rd to 4th not only is the gap quite big, but if you try to do the change quickly, cruncccccccch...but 3rd regular to 3rd overdrive can be done very quickly and is a good combination A superb co-pilot..not only to share driving, but as a lookout for "oh crap, there's a ditch!" for when I hadn't noticed one. Needless to say we did hit a few ditches, the most memorable at about 45MPH which launched all for wheels off the ground a few feet. Also got on 2 side wheels drifting round sound which was quite intersting. Actually, we found it hillarious, couldn't stop laughing!

Thanks to Chris (Ryder) for lending us the GPS equipment...not only is it a great way for friends, relatives and other followers to see where we are, but hopefully we will be able to get the data off it and will have out route published on www.saharan-rally.co.uk. It was not used as a map or sat-nav, just for the tracking.

Anyway, sorry to bore you with all the waffle, still quite overwhelmed by it all, here are some pics...

Sand Free Land Rover and Range Rover on the ferry



French Alps



Camping in the middle of no-where



Sand Dune. Very difficult to capture how vast they and the landscape is.



This is my sort of 4 lane highway





Adam standing on the edge of a cliff to capture the best picture possible!



Land Rover on the sand



Camels



Me ontop of sand dune, Adam and the Rovers in the distance



A seriously overloaded Land Rover in a sand storm. This was when it was mild.



Parking spot for the night. Notice lack of paint on the front of the wings - this, was well as my face was sandblasted in a sandstorm. Managed to strip Zinc plating from the diff guards too!



Salt Lake



Dodgy looking character in a dodgy looking Land Rover



South Tunisia



Range Rover on the move



Land Rover on the move



75 MPH in a series landy is quite shakey! The speedo shortly broke (but re-fixed itself) a few miles later.



Land Rover letting in snow and rain and temperature -1c. Cushion on leg is to stop it going numb due to the draght coming through the door. We managed 36 hours of solid driving on this, our last driving stint.



Hmmm, where to next! Quite fancy a short trip to Morocco or maybe a bigger trip to Mongolia and back. Might try to fit a more economic engine so I don't go bankrupt!

Regards

Alex

Cool ..

Now I'm envious.

:screaming_bug_eye_f

excellent job gents did you need a guide for the southern Algeria section?

G

fantastic,
respect to you lot.

Well done I want to do something like this in a few years Keep the Landy and fit a 200tdi

Great pics guys! Now I am even more envious than I was when you set off!

T'was a pleasure to loan you the equipment, let me know when you want it next time. Should have the trip data processed v soon for you to publish.

Cheers

Chris

Oh yes one question... and it is a little personal... excluding buying the vehicle, what did the trip cost you in all?

Read a post from another team yesterday that reckoned they did a morocco trip on 850 euros!

Well done guys, some great pictures there. When i can find some funds im hoping to drive from London to Cape Town via Turkey, Israil and Egypt (providing those last two arnt shelling the hell out of eachover by then over recent dissagreements).

What were your major obsticals, were all of the Border crossings ok?

Oh and you doubled up your first parragraph. I did read it!

How did the Black Rangie do, being black I mean ?

I would like to paint my landy black as I think travelling in an "Army Green" landy may not be the most sensible idea, but was worried black would be to hot ? Does it matter that much ?

Thoughts appreciated !

P.S. Well done, trip looks awesome !

Oh yes one question... and it is a little personal... excluding buying the vehicle, what did the trip cost you in all?

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Yeah I am sure you could do a Morrocco trip on 850 euros, most of which would be the fuel and ferry crossing. However going to Algeria is much more expensive. More petrol to get there and back than Morocco and although fuel in Algeria is dirt cheap (about 22p a litre), Tunisia isn't that cheap (about a quarter less than the UK)...Europe really is the killer, its more expensive than the UK so when you do 3000 miles of European fuel (esp at 18MPG on a good day) it takes a fair chunk of the budget. Then there is the ferry crossing which is expensive (700 Euros) and the guide which nowadays you need from the start to finish on the border crossing at 50 Euros a day. Then there is the Euro tunnel...fine if you want to book in advance, only £49 each way, but will cost you 130 Euros each way if you get it on the day. Food in Algeria and Tunisia is dirt cheap and doesnt really affect the budget (easily get by on £1 a head for a main meal). We took a lot of our own food anyway. Algerian Visa will cost £40pp, Tunisia does not require a visa. Having an International Driving Permit is a good idea at £20pp. Depending on which route you take (France being partic expensive) toll roads in Europe will cost about £150.

im hoping to drive from London to Cape Town via Turkey, Israil and Egypt

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Sounds good

Well done I want to do something like this in a few years Keep the Landy and fit a 200tdi

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I have briefly looked into engine transplants but not sure which to go for. the 200TDI is 22-29 MPG according to the net. 29MPG would be fine, but 22MPG would not be worth the money and effort at all for an extra 4MPG so not sure what to do.

excellent job gents did you need a guide for the southern Algeria section?

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Not only do you need it for the southern part, but now the whole of Algeria. This is not documented very well at all on the net, but trust me, you need it for the entire country unless you know officials in Algeria or something personally! For a start you cannot get a 30 day Visa (which some people in Algeria were suprised we got, apparently it is quite difficult for foreigners to get a 30 day visa, not that we seemed to struggle) without having an invitation from the authorities, for which you need to prove that you have arranged a guide. They will not even let you into Algeria on the border crossing unless you have a guide at the border...so much to the extent that we tried to get the guide to meet us in the next town over the border a few miles away and they would have none of it. At every police stop in all of Algeria, not in just the south, all over the country (usually at the start and end of most reasonable size towns, when entering new regions and at random plces on roads) they expect you to have a guide with all the relevant paperwork which the guide gives copies to at every stop...if not they will imply not let you pass. To me it is an extreme measure as the country seems to be very safe but oh well. Hopefully as time goes by this situation will change and become more relaxed. Don't let this put you off though, the guide we had was superb. An arab speaking desert wanderer with 60 years and 22 children under his belt who most of the time we didn't notice he was there. Drop him anywhere in a North African desert and he will survive. All the routing and so forth was controlled by us so more of a legality than anything else having him with us, but at the same time he did show us a few things we would have never found by ourselves.

The guide is also a good information to regional differences in Algeria...there are certain places where yo cannot camp freely (so either have to stay in a campsite or get well away from roads and civilisation) and some places where the police will get quite ****ed off if you drive at night. There are also various regions where you are requred to register on entry and exit with the national guard and so on which the guide was useful for as it is difficult to figure it out on the net. Again, don't let this put you off at all, its not like having a holiday rep with you, he just blended into the background (I am hoping all the guides are like the one we had of course!). I guess if you were quite hardcore you could cross borders illegally, skirt round police stops and so on but that would be a bit risky!

What were your major obsticals, were all of the Border crossings ok?

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Border crossings not a problem at all. Sources on the net suggest it can take 8 hours to get into Algeria at the border which is not a fair reflection - we took about 2 hours or so, which included faffery on our part as it is not quite obvious where and what you need to do paper-work wise. I wouldn't say there were any obstacles to be honest! We found by being friendly chatty with the officials you can get through them a lot quicker than anyone else...some guys from Switzerland were quite suprised how we managed to get through at half the speed of them! (helped by one of the officials saying to the other officers "leave them alone, they are with us" ) It helps that my mate Adam knows Arabic. They pointed out that it is illegal to bring in fuel from another country but casted a blind eye on our 160 litres of Algerian fuel. It is of course illegal to have GPS equipment in Algeria and Tunisia...but if your car is pilled up with crap in the back it doesn't seem like they can be bothered to do a thorough search. Opening the back door and sighing was about the maximum extent of any searches we had.

Our main obstacle was coming back through Europe, the damn place. We did not know about the road taxes you have to aquire in Slovenia, Austria and a whole other host of European countires. We got away with it on the last trip oblivious to it all but on this trip we got fined in Austria...it was sort of a "Welcome to Europe" which sucked big time! The road tax isnt expensive, 8 euros for example in Austria but the fine is 120 Euros FFS! Apparently you need to purchase the tax in the last petrol station in the previous country and is clearly signposted in petrol stations. Of course, being in the zone whilst driving we didnt notice anything of the sort. The Austrian official was not sympathtic to us at all, simply pointing out we should have checked on the internet for information before entering her country. Seems like a way of catching people out to make money to me! Yeah, that's just what I am going to do when I wake up in the morning in the Land Rover! We didn't even have a planned route through Europe, let alone checking for that! Oh well next time I will be more prepared.

Glad you all liked the pics, I will post a few more up once I have got them sorted

How did the Black Rangie do, being black I mean ?

I would like to paint my landy black as I think travelling in an "Army Green" landy may not be the most sensible idea, but was worried black would be to hot ? Does it matter that much ?

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I dont think it will make any difference to heat what colour it is! (The Range Rover is actually Dark Green). If it is an old land rover you are going to boil when its hot and freeze when its cold regardless of colour! Go for it in the army green Land Rover, it will prompt discussion with police stops and they will probably find it highly amusing, as they did our camo net . I wouldn't suggest approaching police stops too fast though, you may get shot at before you get to them lol!

I wouldn't suggest approaching police stops too fast though, you may get shot

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That is exacly what I am worried about, there is also a Union Jack on the bumper, and that's way less popular than it used to be

info on guides and other such things can be found on chris scotts Sahara overland website. Its linked to mine. Just wondered how you got on with the guide. seems ok. 50euro's/day seems cheap too.

When you say reletively safe, the guides are with you so you dont "find" any military installations etc. etc. so not so much for your own safety, but their countries interests and being a westerner in that place is not all that safe. 2 Austrians were kidnapped over a year ago in southern Tunisia and have only just been released. 4 others have recently gone missing in northern Mali. suspect terrorist groups operate and train out in the grand Erg's, the area is not regarded as being safe.

G

excellent pics .... well done to all you guys

That is exacly what I am worried about, there is also a Union Jack on the bumper, and that's way less popular than it used to be

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Hmm. Just say you support Manchester United and you will be fine!

info on guides and other such things can be found on chris scotts Sahara overland website. Its linked to mine. Just wondered how you got on with the guide. seems ok. 50euro's/day seems cheap too.

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Saharan Overland is a useful site for reference...but for instance "Algerian Sahara require an escort pretty much anywhere in the country now, ie: not just the desert." doesn't quite give the true picture. Lots of little things like "Info needed for your invitation...• exact dates of entry and exit to the country". Nope, not the case!

I agree the guides are with you more for the sake of Algeria than anything else. But to say it is not safe for a westerner, I would disagree. Statistically you are far more likely to get robbed, kidnapped, murdered etc in England than you are in Algeria. What difference does it make being a westerner in Algeria? Besides, having a guide wont stop any of those things from happening anyway! Yeah you need to be sensible, but people worry too much.

Personally I would not go to Mali at the moment though, I agree with that!

That is exacly what I am worried about, there is also a Union Jack on the bumper, and that's way less popular than it used to be

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Hmm that might be pushing it a bit!

More pics now added on http://www.saharan-rally.co.uk/

Regards

rustyrhinos said:

What difference does it make being a westerner in Algeria?

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O nothing, just the small matter of belonging to one of the countries bombing other muslim countries. The group that kidnapped the Austrians were gutted they were not american or british. I think they would have been killed if so. Gadaffi actually paid the ransom NOT the Austrian government. The dutch are not flavour of the month either.

Does not look good for the 4 kidnapped recently, 1 british, 2 swiss and another from europe. Local media is saying it Toureg rebels, but western intel believe its more likely to be seperatist groups linked to Al - Qieuda.

Casablanca bombings in 94? carried out by Algerians who came across the border at Figuig. that border is now closed again, due to that incident.

I know what your saying about people worrying to much, but people need to know the background and political state of the country before charging in. Going in an ex-mil 90 with union jack livery will no doubt spark some interest. Why do you think Tom Sheppard travels in a white G wagon?

Food for thought.

G

I know what your saying about people worrying to much, but people need to know the background and political state of the country before charging in. Going in an ex-mil 90 with union jack livery will no doubt spark some interest. Why do you think Tom Sheppard travels in a white G wagon?

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Thanks for that, backs up my gutt feeling, I'll do it white and go for a UN look

some great pictures there fellas, looks like you had a great trip.

Yes I agree knowing the political state of a country is a good idea. However, this is Algeria and NOT Mali and you cannot even slightly compare the two! And bombings in 1994? Its hardly a hot topic, think of the bombings we have had in the UK and Americal! You wouldn't use those to put off people coming to England, nor the hundreds of kidnapping cases we have each year!

Cheers Ad

I wouldnt suggest posing as a UN vehicle!