The Plymouth - Banjoul challenge <- clicken Sie here ...

"If you have lots of money and a sense of adventure then the Paris/Dakar Rally could be your cup of tea ... if you have a sense of adventure but relatively little cash, then the Plymouth-Banjul Challenge might be up your street!" -Julian Nowill, founder of the Plymouth - Banjoul challenge

My beloved car - a 1991 silver Volkswagen Golf with deep-tinted windows, murderous fender flames, and a nice pair of fuzzy-tits hanging from the rearview mirror - has passed the 300.000 km mark. That's quite a lot of kilometers, especially for a regular-fuel car. I decided the car deserves a nice retirement, and what better way to retire a car than to go on one last adventure together! The Plymouth - Banjoul challenge is just the right adventure for this: Drive from Plymouth in the South-West of England to Banjoul on the Westcoast of Africa. The rules are simple: Competing cars must cost less than £100 Maximum budget for the vehicle Rally Preparation: £15 Once the Rally is underway, there will be no form of formal assistance from the organisers in any way - Teams are ON THEIR OWN. All of vehicles that make the full distance to Banjul must be handed over to the Challenge Control Group to be auctioned under controlled conditions (reported to The Gambian Government) in aid of local Gambian Charities.

Sounds like fun to me! This weekend was kickoff-party in Plymouth, and co-pilot Fabian and I mastered the first test of our globetrotter survival abilities: Drive nearly 800 km to go meet fellow participants, party, drink lots of alcohol, pass out, and drive back 800 km in less than 48 hours. Done that. The real odyssey of 6.000 kilometers through dusty deserts and juicy jungles will start on December 26th, and we're hot and ready to go. Now we need to spend our £15 wisely to prepare the car for the ride of a lifetime. We were thinking of buying mudflaps for the money ...

Take a look at these great pictures of last years challenge I found on the internet.