Day 17 – Libya

Day 17 – Libya

Africa, Blog, Libya
Location: Ajdabiya (N30 47.303 E20 13.717) Miles travelled: Day 16 = 240 / Day 17 = 310 Weather: 30ºC - Stormy and hot Today we mostly listened to: A variety of "Dad Rock" The last couple of days have been a mixture of some awesome sights and some less awesome landscapes.  We visited the arch of Marcus Aurelius in the centre of Tripoli and after a short trip to the supermarket to get some supplies we headed for the Roman ruins of Leptis Magna.  It really is a rather awesome place, particularly the Roman theatre where you can get a view of the entire city and beautiful blue sea in the background.  There were a few coach loads of tourists there, but not that many (I don't think Libya is…
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Day 15 – Tunisia to Libya

Day 15 – Tunisia to Libya

Africa, Blog, Tunisia
Location: Triploi (N32.54446 E13.16070) Miles travelled: 316 miles Weather: 30ºC - Hot sunny and dusty Today we mostly listened to: Kings of Leon We set off early this morning from Sfax, if you're planning to do this trip plan to avoid Sfax, it's an uninviting hole in the desert. Stay in Sousse or DJerba. As we travelled south the landscape turned from Mediterranean to desert quite quickly and before we knew it we were at the Libyan border. Tip: Fuel is a lot cheaper in Libya so don't worry about filling up before you get there. Our border crossing was quite painless, under two hours which is good apparently. On the Tunisian side they did ask "do you have any beer or whiskey" to which we replied confidently "no". We…
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Day-14 Tunisia

Day-14 Tunisia

Africa, Blog, Tunisia
Location: Sfax Miles travelled: TBC Weather: 28ºC - Cloudy with sunny spells Today we mostly listened to: Paul Simon (Today), Tunisian music in the front of a recovery vehicle (yesterday) Although Tunis is quite a nice place we woke yesterday glad we were going to get moving. We picked up Monty from the garage at about 3pm, the new clutch had been fitted and we were ready for the road. Then the noise came back, not the same noise but more of a heavy squeaking. Eager to get on and convinced it couldn't be the clutch we pushed on. 37 miles later there was a big bang then a lot of rattling from under the footwell and looking in my mirror and seeing a large piece of metal skipping along…
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Day 12 – Hammamet & Tunis (again!)

Day 12 – Hammamet & Tunis (again!)

Africa, Blog, Tunisia
Location: Hammamet (N36.24236 E10.33664) and Tunis Miles travelled: 50 miles Weather: 26ºC - 30ºC - sunny with big storm clouds too Today we mostly listened to: Prince (today), Arcade Fire (yesterday) Useful info: The campsite we stayed at was called Camping/Hotel Samaris (just outside of Hammamet) - hotel.jasmins@gnet.tn So we spent a fine day in Hammamet yesterday walking along the beach and running in to huts everytime a big storm cloud came over.  We ate lunch in a nice hotel (blowing the days budget in one go).  We must have walked for about 5km in total so feel like we've done our exercise for the week.  We went back to the campsite around 5ish and made dinner whilst it was still light.  Scrabble and more gin followed.  I cant remember…
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Day 10 – Tunisia (Still!)

Day 10 – Tunisia (Still!)

Africa, Blog, Tunisia
Location: Hammamet (N36.24236 E10.33664) Click to view Miles travelled: 96 miles Weather: 29ºC Sunny all day then Thunderstorm in the evening Today we mostly listened to: Elbow - Seldom seen kid Our main mission today was to find the Land Rover Dealer (N36 43.665 E10 14.390) so that we can take Monty there first thing tomorrow to get the clutch, which doesn't seem to be getting worse but isn't getting better either, fixed. After deliberating over our two "official" Tunis maps we found a route and set off. Unfortunately these maps are a bit like the ones you get at theme parks showing you where the rides are and therefore not exactly accurate. There are roads on them that don't exist and roads that exist that aren't on them, so…
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Day 9 – Tunisia

Day 9 – Tunisia

Africa, Blog, Tunisia
Location: Gammarth, near Tunis Today we mostly listened to: Funny wailing music in taxis Miles travelled: 10 miles between Gammarth, Tunis and Sidi Bou Said Weather: 30ºC Sunny It took us about 2 hours to get through Tunisian customs on Thursday night.  It then took us another hour to find our hotel, which was only 15 mins away from the port - doh.  We stopped to ask a lovely policeman for directions and he proceeded to escort us in the general direction of our hotel getting us back on track - so far the Tunisians we have met have been very nice and helpful people. Our hotel is lovely (a bit too nice really so we feel we are cheating) but it has secure parking and there isn't really anywhere…
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Day 8 – Ferry between Italy and Tunisia

Day 8 – Ferry between Italy and Tunisia

Africa, Blog, Europe, Tunisia
Location: In the middle of the mediterranean sea (N38 32.093 E10 18.874) Today we mostly listened to: Chill out albums (the calm before the Tunisian customs storm!) Miles travelled: Well lots, but on a boat so we're not counting Weather: 26ºC Sunny I am going to entitle this blog my 'Coeur de la Mer' blog (Lucy T will understand) - made appropriate because I have spent the last two nights dreaming about the film Titanic.  What does that say about my inner thoughts? - that I was hoping Leonardo would be on-board, perhaps. Well unfortunately there is no sign of Leo - just the German Sahara Club, a few french couples, a Norwegian family (who drove all the way down to Genoa in 2 days!) and lots and lots of…
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Day 7 – Italy

Day 7 – Italy

Blog, Europe
Location: Genoa, Italy (N44.24.597 E8.54.530) Today we mostly listened to: Duffy Miles travelled: 227 Weather: 23ºC Sunny with clouds After going to bed at about 9.30 last night, due mostly to the lack of alcohol and entertainment at our campsite, we arose early at around 7.30.  Charlie cooked poridge for breakfast and we packed up and headed off around 9am.  The drive from our campsite to Genoa was beautiful.  It has been a blue sky day with temperatures around 25 degrees (perfect).  We passed through Cannes, Monaco and Antibes.  Had we had more time (and money) we might have stopped for lunch but we decided to push on to the port.  As it turned out we had such a long wait, we should have stopped! We got to the port…
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Day 6 – France

Day 6 – France

Blog, Europe
Location: Small Camp near Saint Tropez Today we mostly listened to: The Entrantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie Miles travelled: 464 Weather: 25C sunny After a restful and rather lazy few days in Eymet we started this morning at 8am on what turned out to be a 10 hour drive from the South West of France to the far South East. We're now in a small camp site between Toulan and Saint Tropez. We arrived with only an hour or so of light so set up camp as quickly as possible and Charlie made pasta for dinner. It's now 9pm and the forest of bamboo we back onto is looking decidedly creepy and producing far too many mosquitoes than are necessary. Monty went well today but has developed a funny…
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Day 1 – Oxted, UK to Eymet, France

Day 1 – Oxted, UK to Eymet, France

Blog, Europe
1st October 2009Miles traveled: 627 Today we mostly listened to: Audiobook, God is not GreatFollowing a lovely evening at Chows Chinese restaurant in Oxted - where a bunch of family and friends decided to send us off with a farewell dinner - we headed off early on Thursday morning to get on the Eurotunnel.  Not much really to report from our first day.  We saw lots of French service stations, the Paris ring road and paid extortionate amounts of money for a limp lettuce baguette.  We arrived at our destination in the Dordogne just after 9pm - much red wine and cheese followed... We should probably mention at this point that we never would have left by our 1st October deadline if we didn't have help from a few people. …
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