from mauritania to senegal, how?

[karellevrau]

Fellows,

in july and august we plan a trip to the Gambia, west africa, starting from Belgium, with seven old Landies.

Has anyone information about best pistes, duration, state of the pistes, points of interest on the way from Atar to Senegal :
We plan to drive south from Atar to the Senegal-river at Bogué. If possible we would like to follow the Senegal_river on the Mauritanian side until we can cross it at Bakel.
Any information and suggested pistes on that traject is welcome.

Thanks,

Karel

[Renato Braz]

Hi

I'm planning to drive from Lisbon to Dakar in August! I also drive an old landie, a 1976 Land Rover SIII '88. I will be traveling with some friends in their series landies!!!
In february/march we will be in moroco for the second year!

Great cars don't you think?

Renato (Portugal)

[karellevrau]

Renato,

indeed, Landies and especially the old Series are excellent cars for that kind of travelling : no non-sencense, easy to repair and stylish 4x4's.
I drive a 1981 Series III 109 (ex dutch army vehicle).
The oldest vehicle in our convoy is a 1968 Series II 109 (ex fire tender).
Our route in Morocco will be : melilla, missour, merzouga (piste M5), tagounite (piste M4), foum zguid, tata, assa (piste M1), tan tan.
Do you have any comment, information about road and piste-conditions, duration on this routes?
Are you member of any LR-club in Portugal, Renato? I am president of the Flanders Land Rover Club. It seems that Portugal is also a nice place for off-roading.

See you,

Karel.

[Chris Scott]

Having been to Bakel (in 93 I think) I can tell you you will not cross the river there unless you take the car apart and put the bits into a pirogue.... The only car crossing is by the estuary, as far as i know

CS

[karellevrau]

Chris,

BTW very usefull and comprehensive book.

I have heard that there is some kind of ferry-service at Bakel now (African style of course).
Can anyone confirm this?

Karel.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chris Scott:
Having been to Bakel (in 93 I think) I can tell you you will not cross the river there unless you take the car apart and put the bits into a pirogue.... The only car crossing is by the estuary, as far as i know

CS<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Renato Braz]

Hi

Last year we went to morocco and indeed we traveled the piste merzouga – taouz – tagounite – zagora . The piste is about 180 km and took us two full days. The piste is very confusing and is mostly rocky terrain or tôle but it has some very fast (60 – 70 Km/h in our series) parts also. We travelled without a guide only with some (very few) GPS coordinates so we got lost a lot... we drove trough dry rivers (oueds? ) and we even found a dry salt lake!! We enjoyed this piste very much and it has some excelent camping spots but be carefull not to cross the algerian border...
If you, by any remote possibility, need some mecanical help, Zagora is the place. Just ask for “mohamed land rover”! Great guy, and you can give away t-shirts (those with advertisement about your local supermarket) to pay for some small intervention.
What are the M5, M1, M4 etc. that you refer to?

I can also recomend the region of Gourama (I think it is about 100 Km north of merzouga, but I am not sure...) great landscape ( american desert kind ) and some genuine berbere contact.

About Portugal you are right... it is a great place for off-roading and especially in a soft-top series you can enjoy our sun blessed contry ( serra da lousã, serra da estrela, all the atlantic coast from lisbon to sagres in Algarve, etc...) .
As for the portuguese LR-club, it is great but... I don´t belong to it because it´s activities are very expensive and I am a student. The average activity cost about 250 Euro, wich is very much, regarding that I have been two weeks in morocco and spent 400 Euro (all included).

Maybe we can meet in senegal in august!
Are you going to drive back all the way or just ship the cars and fly back home?

See you,

Renato

[karellevrau]

Hello Renato,

did you need any mechanical asistance with your Series? That's virtualy impossible with Landies!!!!!
The M1, M5 etc. are the names of the pistes mentioned in the book "sahara overland" written by our sahara-goeroe Chris.

We start in Belgium 17th july and should reach The Gambia within 3 weeks. I don't think we will visit Dakar if we can cross the senegal-river at Bakel (have you any information about river-crossing other then Rosso?.
We would then like to spend 1 week in the Gambia. Because of working-reasons we have to leave Gambia 16th august.
Our trip is a humanitarian one. With our LR-club we are collecting goods witch we will send over in a container : all for the village of Bansang in Gambia witch has a hospital and school.
It would be great to meet somewhere in Senegal and then driving together in our Landies. Let me know when you will be in Senegal and when, then we can work something out.

Because of our lack of time we need to ship the landies and fly back home.

The FLRC is not as expensive as the portuguese LR-club : our activities : driving roadbooks, technical gatherings, greenlaning, driving on trialparcours, annual meeting, FLRC-party, ...
The FLRC-meeting will be 14-16th june : interested in coming over?

Do you have roadbooks for off-roading in Portugal? Maybe an idea for a joint-adventure for you and your friends and us in the portuguese countryside.

Hasta lasagna and see you,

Karel.

[Renato Braz]

Hi Karel,

I needed mechanical assistance because the “bujão” (the screw you take off to check and refill the gearbox Oil ) became round and I couldn’t unscrew it. The gearbox has leaking a bit and I had to refill it every 500 Km or so. That was why I needed mechanical assistance. I also needed to change a injector pipe that started leaking after we cross the Erg-Chebbi over the dunes (great fun!!!) but that I did by myself.
About our trip to Senegal, it is only being prepared now, nothing is for sure yet, but since our vacations are from the 1st of August (so it will be quite difficult to be there from 14-16th June) to 15th of September we should only leave Portugal about the 8th of August, so it would be almost impossible to meet :-(

Do you have any sponsors to your trip?

I have lots of road-books for off-roading in Portugal! let me know if you interested in coming over.

I will be in morocco from the 23rd February to 8th march!! so I will be able to give more updated info about the southern pistes!

Have fun,

Renato ( TTRenato@hotmail.com )

[karellevrau]

Yo Renato,

about roadbooks in Portugal ; this year we have a packed program of activities with our LR-club but it would be interesing to work something out in Portugal for next year.

Yes we have some sponsors for our trip to west-africa : we will buy some tools like drills, welder, compressor, etc. Now we are collecting ; toys, children's cloths, hospital equipment etc.


Your landies is a 2.3 diesel? I've had one like that a few years ago but the engine have me too much troubles. That's why I bought a 2.3 petrol on LPG (is this available in Portugal?).
Now I put a 2.5 diesel engine in my 109 : really a great engine, much better then the 2.3 diesel. These engines fit right in without any changes.

Have fun preparing your trip to Africa.

See you,

Karel.