Sun, sand, and suicide... the '06 Plymouth Banjul Challenge is upon us, and Team Omega's all set to go. Actually, that's a lie. We're not. Our car barely has 2 wheel drive, let alone 4. Then there's the issue of that strange ticking noise from under the bonnet. And the pool of gunk dripping from the engine. Someone informed might call it a "terminal oil leak", but such technicalities just fly over our heads - it's just "gunk" to us. What we do know is that our mini-bar is well stocked, we've run out of stickers to plaster over the rust patches, and that our range on a full tank of fuel is no more than 200-odd miles on a good day, yet we've got to cross at least 300 miles of desert without refilling. To everyone that's at some point said "I wish I was coming with you", you should have known better: we're about as well equipped for crossing Africa as a pair of agoraphobic emperor penguins.

Update: The Photos

Now we're back in one piece (give or take), you can see all the pics through the particularly crude gallery here. Maybe I'll sort something a bit more swish out later; I wouldn't hold my breath, though.

Live Updates

OK, so we suck when it comes to preparing the car, route, etc. But some effort has gone in to keeping in touch... Below are our live-updates (and hopefully those of any other teams that mention us) as we (fail to) progress towards Banjul. It's set up so that either of us can send an SMS that's turned into an e-mail, that's picked up by a server, that's turned into web-content, and that's pulled into this page. Geeky? Yes. Simpler/cheaper than trying to get in touch with everyone individually? Absolutely.

Sponsorship

Please sponsor us for the challenge. It's costing us around £3,000.00 to get the Explorer and fix it up; this is £3k that we're donating ourselves by giving the car away for charity once we reach Gambia. We're also trying to raise money for Cancer Research UK back home, and would greatly appreciate everyone doing their bit to help with this. By clicking here you can donate online painlessly, and extort a bit of money out of Gordon Brown in the process through gift-aid tax relief.

• We're trying to break a target of £1,500.00 for Cancer Research
• So far, our total (updated continually via techno-wizardry) is [Currently unavailable]. Please help us raise more!

Thanks to everyone that's donated so far... keep it coming!

Links

To check up on the progress of all the cars in our group, sponsor us, and so on, follow the links below:

• Updates from all of the teams (Click on the Group 2 link)
• Sponsor us via "Just Giving"
• Official PDC 06 website

The car

Below left is a picture of what a 1992 Ford Explorer (supposedly identical to our car) should look like. Almost looks up to the task, right? Next to that is a picture of our Explorer. Which is in a slightly worse state of repair.

The gory details

Given that our route planning consisted of a quick scan over the 2cm square splodge that covered North Africa in "My First Atlas", to say we've got the itinerary down like a military operation might be stretching it a bit. What we do have, however, is the following picture and list that we robbed from the official PDC site. It's not much use, mind, as we're already a day out of kilter with them by the time that map has us in Spain. And to think - people have trusted us with project management in the past!

Day Route Distance (miles) Total (miles) 1 - Depart UK - 2 9AM arrive St Malo and drive to border with Spain 600 600 3 Drive through Spain to Gibraltar 600 1200 4 Rest / Catch-up / Repairs in Gibraltar 0 1200 5 Ferry to Morocco. Drive to Rabat. 173 1373 6 Drive to Marrakech. PARTY TIME!!! 205 1578 7 Rest/Recovery day 0 1578 8 Drive to Agadir 172 1750 9 Drive to Laâyoune 433 2183 10 Drive to Dakhla 338 2521 11 Drive to Nouâdhibou 288 2809 12 Rest / Repairs / catch-up / Party 0 2809 13 Into the desert. Overnight camping (probably near a dune). 110 2919 14 Continue through the desert, out of the National Park at Nouâmghar, and part way down the beach. 120 3039 15 Continue down the cost to Nouakchott 93 3132 16 Drive to Zebrabar campsite, near St Louis 189 3321 17 Rest / Party night 0 3321 18 Rest and recovery Day 0 3321 19 Customs escort straight through Senegal 338 3659 20 Drive to The Gambia 40 3699 21 Chill out & Party at the Safari Garden Hotel. Surviving cars will be auctioned off with the proceeds going to Gambian charities. - 3699 22 Fly home from Banjul - 3699