The powers of persuasion

The Xmas trip was supposed to be a way for me to dip my toe into the water before committing to the rally. Fruit had other ideas. He can be very persuasive and somehow managed to convince me of the benefits of entering the rally BEFORE we had been on the trip! He probably slipped that it while we were frantically converting the Rat to a camper van.

What started off as being a bare basics conversion gradually transformed into something of a work of art; fully lined, artwork on the window panels, a ‘double’ bed, folding table, food cupboard, solar panel, reading lights (I kid you not), over bed shelf and of course water storage and cooker. Well, it was to be home for two weeks.

Testing the kettle

In addition to that lot we had a jerry can on the back, a high lift jack, sand ramps, shovel, a box full of spares, tool box, two spare wheels (largely used for sitting on at the table as we didn’t run to garden chairs), sleeping bags, pillows and clothes for the trip – precision packing at its best - especially without a roof rack.


The original plan had been to both go from home to Spain (Calpe) in the Landy and then onto the port before heading to Morocco – but as I have less holiday, Fruit gamely volunteered to drive to Spain and pick me up from the airport a few days later. Fruit had a few reliability issues and I began to look up the location of Land Rover dealers in advance of his journey – but after 2 tow trucks, 3 garages and 6 bottles of coke he eventually made it to the rented apartment in Spain – only to find that the keys for the apartment didn’t fit the door – where would we be without mobile phones?

A little maintenance later and a trip to the airport to collect me and we were ready for the next stretch – down to the port and our first night together in the Landy. Fruit, of course, had to sleep diagonally and if I curled up it worked out nicely – although we did have to coordinate rolling over.

The mists of time?

It was back in summer 2006 when Fruit first started talking about doing the Tuareg rally. I wasn't against the idea, but was rather more cautious and wanted to 'try things out' first. So, it was agreed that we would do a trip to Morocco over Xmas and New Year. Plan A was to join a group, plan B was to go it alone. Plan B won out.

At this point we had never driven a 4x4, let alone owned one, so the first job was to go shopping. We plumped for a Land Rover Defender 90 - one, because it looked the part and two, because there was one for sale just up the road. Enter the Rat stage left.

A short wheel base probably wasn't the brightest choice as we planned to turn it into a camper and Fruit is 6 foot 3, fortunately I am only 5 foot 4. So with the seats folded forward, the creation of a cunning sleeping platform, Fruit sleeping diagonally and me filling in the gap at the side it kinda worked.

We bought the Rat in October and after a few off-road lessons courtesy of Jim at Explore Off-Road (http://www.exploreoffroad.co.uk/) and some camper van conversion work we set off to Morocco via Spain.

Get lost?!

When Fruit first suggested that I be his navigator for a desert rally I was, I confess, rather worried. Virtually the ONLY thing we ever argue about is navigation! Was this some perverse (and expensive) way of seeking a divorce?! If it was it was not a success as we are now approaching our 18th wedding anniversary (although there is another rally before then).

There are some pretty crucial differences between rally navigation and your day to day, "get me to Lower Thrupwell", map reading. For a start there are no maps (what a great idea). I am not very good with maps - contour lines are just brown squiggly lines to me (apparently some people can tell what the topography will look like from them.... could explain why I was crap at orienteering..!). Rally navigation, however, uses something called Tulip diagrams and 'accurate' distances between points.

Some of the diagrams are a bit of a mystery until you actually get there - but when you arrive all is clear - basically just follow the arrows. It seems to be de rigour among navigators to mark up your road book the night before using lots of highlighter pens. Being new (and, on the quiet, being rather partial to colouring) I did the same - I'm not sure why though. More important for me was to mark 'L' on the left hand turns and 'R' on the right hand ones - as under pressure I don't actually know my left from my right!

You also get a number of gizmos to keep you busy and make you feel important - like a trip meter and a GPS. The trip meter measures the total distance travelled and, by resetting at each instruction, individual intervals, which is great when your meter is calibrated EXACTLY the same as the person who made the road book!

Thus armed you can give your driver clear and easy to follow instructions. In 300m turn left at the T junction......... in 100m turn left .......... NO LEFT! Ahh the route to martial bliss.

26 days and counting

26 days until the start of the race - unfortunately its more like 23 days until Fruit leaves to drive to Spain ....

We started the new car, for now lovingly termed the 'Duck' (for reasons which may become apparent) in September 2008, when we got a Land Rover Discovery to act as the base vehicle. We then went away for a month to Libya in the Rat, which we had rapidly converted from desert racer to desert camper, on the Libya Rally Raid pre-tour (http://www.libya-rally-raid.org/-raid.org/). So nothing much happened until November.





After a bit of a incident in our last Tuareg, when we unexpectedly ended up upside down, we decided that an integral roll cage would be a really good idea and so with some egging on from BD and Paul Round at Rally Raid International 'the Duck' was born.

Fruit, while undetered by most things, doesn't actually know a great deal about cars (other than how to drive one) so he is on a steep learning curve. The Duck is currently being wired and the lights were switched on for the first time yesterday.

We have taken the rally seats from the Rat, but Fruit may be looking at a new one as it is a bit of a squeeze in the cab and, lets face it, any excuse for shopping (it's not a female preserve you know - its just that blokes buy different things).

A month to go

Welcome to the Rally Raiders Blog. A month today (inshallah) March 23rd, we will have finished day 1 of the Tuareg rally in Morocco (http://www.tuareg-rallye.com/).

We have a number - 252 - trouble is we don't yet have a car..!

We are Up and Under rally team (aka Fruit, Lorna and others) and this will be our second Tuareg. The first time, two years ago, saw us zipping through the desert in a 10 year old Land Rover Defender (lovingly known as the Rat).

This time we thought we would go for something designed for the job, with an integral roll cage and all that sort of stuff. Although the Rat had a roll cage it was a bit of an after thought and when given a thorough testing proved to be OK but only just.

Fruit is busy (very) building the new car, with help from Rally Raid International (Dakar veterans) but as you can see it looks as if will go right down to the wire.