Moroccan Rally 2012 completes successfuly!

As we drove down the mountainous off road route to Smara in the Western Sahara avoiding the occasional land mine marked out with rocks on the ground, we knew this rally would be another unique and explosive adventure.

The Moroccan Rally 2012 was successfully completed on Saturday 22nd September. It was a truly epic adventure that lasted 15 days and saw us travel 5,633 miles (9,013 KM).

On our previous adventure, the Moroccan Road Trip 2010 we managed to get from London to the southern tip of Europe, Algeciras where we catch our ferry to Africa, in 48 hours. We had to beat this record and came very close on our way down to Morocco, but only managed to meet the record and do the drive in 48 hours again. On the way back, we pushed the odds to the limit and managed it in 44 hours and 20 minutes, this includes our ferry from Calais to Dover. Although Red, our Land Rover, only has a top speed of about 55mph (and much slower if going up hill), we managed to beat it through some persistent power driving through Europe.

The adventure in Morocco and the Western Sahara was another incredible journey for us. We covered most corners of Morocco and the Western Sahara from east to west and north to south.

We shared many a cup of Moroccan tea with the locals, whether it was someone we bumped into in the road, met in a shop or someone who was welding or repairing our car, everyone from all walks of life welcomed us and shared some of that infamous tea that seems to be the foundation of any social occasion in Morocco.

We're also thrilled to have raised over £1,200 for the Mercy Corps and have raised the most amount in a single rally for them. This is not possible without everyone who donated whatever amount they could afford, the support we've had really was overwhelming.

This rally suffered a major setback in June 2012, when we first launched, due to engine failure in France. However, we managed to get the rally on track thanks to the help and support of some incredible people. When we first broke down in the south of France, Drew Brown gave us a place to stay for the night and gave up his Sunday afternoon and night to help us try and get Red back on the road. When we realised Red was not going to get back on the road, Drew looked after Red for us for a couple of months before starting Red's journey back to the UK. He also helped us locate a replacement engine for Red, something quite essential!

Mark Granger, at very short notice, helped us continue Red's journey to the UK just two weeks before our scheduled re-launch date. This saw Mark and Alex drive over 1,500 miles, departing on Friday evening from the UK and go to France to pick up Red. The car was returned on Sunday morning to Red's UK service centre facility hosted by the Desert Bunnies.

Moss of the Desert Bunnies and Lewis from the Rusty Rhinos Ground Crew, helped us get the replacement engine into Red and by the end of the week we had a working Land Rover once again. The time that Moss and Lewis have put into helping us with Red made this adventure possible again.

We must also thank Chris and Kai at PebbleTrack for continuing to provide us with the vehicle tracking facility that you see on our website during our rally. The vehicle tracking has become a rally essential and many of our followers use it to check out where we are in real-time.

This time we also had a special sponsor, Ecosse World. Ecosse World made a large donation to the Mercy Corps on behalf of our rally as well as facilitating our crossing to France (via Eurotunnel) and back to the UK (via Ferry) through Motis. Motis very kindly funded both of our English channel crossings, something that we really appreciated.

The support didn't end there, Jim from Ecosse World, also spread the word of our rally, this resulted in numerous donations to the Mercy Corps. We are incredibly happy to have had Ecosse World as our sponsor.

As with previous adventures, we have a vast amount of video and photos that will be uploaded to the website. In the meantime, we will leak some photos onto our Facebook page. Remember to like us on Facebook to get the latest Rusty Rhinos update.

Final blog post prior to Moroccan Rally 2012 departure

We're only a matter of hours away from our re-launch on the Moroccan Rally 2012. Everything is in order, Red is packed and good to go, all of our last minute checks have been carried out and we are now awaiting our final supper, a pizza!

Our website will continue to be updated whilst we are on the road with our latest news. Of course you'll also be able to track us via our live map too.

We are very encouraged by the additional donations we've had today, we can't wait to set off to the Sahara!

Thanks to Motis, we'll be taking the ferry home

We're going out from the UK to France on the Eurotunnel but arrangements hadn't been finalised for our return to the UK, until now that is.

Jim at Ecosse World, our Moroccan Rally 2012 sponsor, has been very vocal about our adventure. Ecosse World have funded our outbound trip on the Eurotunnel, but now we also have a sponsor for our return journey from France to the UK. Motis!

Motis, have very kindly supported our return journey to the UK and will be arranging our ferry crossing nearer the time when we get to Calais.

Motis is one of the most progressive shipping companies in Europe with over 1000 customers throughout the E.U. Their network covers over 450 Freight Ferry Routes, Motorway Tolls throughout Western Europe, Alpine Tunnels, Rolling Highways, Truck Parking and Freight Insurance.

We are incredibly please and grateful to have Motis sponsoring our return journey. Thanks to Motis for their sponsorship in support of our Moroccan Rally 2012.

Latest news and the Eurotunnel

In our first attempt of the Moroccan Rally 2012 launch in June we took the ferry. However this time we will be taking the train thanks to the generosity of our sponsor, Ecosse World, who have bought us tickets on the Eurotunnel for our departure on Saturday.

Ecosse World, being a transport provider, has got us on board the commercial/freight part of the Eurotunnel. It will certainly be an interesting ride for our Land Rover along with all the trucks and vans! It should make a great photo opportunity.

We are thrilled to see the donations are coming back in today and have raised further funds for the Mercy Corps.

Our satellite phone has also arrived today and with less than 72 hours till our departure, everything is ready and in order.

Before our departure on Saturday we'd like to thank our sponsor, Ecosse World, our vehicle tracking facilitators, Chris and Kai at PebbleTrack, our Land Rover Service Centre team, the Desert Bunnies, Lewis part of the Rusty Rhinos Ground Crew, Drew who helped us in France and everyone else who has supported us and made a donation to the Mercy Corps.

We can't wait for Saturday morning and the launch of our 4th adventure.

Moroccan Rally 2012 re-launch set

We are pleased to announce that the Moroccan Rally 2012 re-launch date has been set for Saturday 8th September 2012. Less than 2 weeks away from today.

A monumental effort has gone into making this re-launch possible with less than 3 months since our previous attempt.

We must thank the following people who had made this re-launch possible; Drew Brown for giving us a place to stay when we were broken down in France, for trying to get us back on the road and for starting Red's journey back to the UK; Mark Granger for letting us use his Land Rover Discovery and for driving with Alex all the way to Tours in France at ridiculously short notice to bring Red back to the UK.
An enormous thank you to Moss of the Desert Bunnies for giving up his weekends and evenings on many occasions to help us prepare our replacement engine and rebuild Red.
A massive thanks to Lewis, part of the Rusty Rhinos Ground Crew for all his time helping us prepare Red. Thank you to everyone who has helped us along the way and those around us who have had to be flexible whilst we concentrate on our rally preparations.

Thank you also to Jim of Ecosse World for his continued support on the rally.

Ecosse World continue to be our Moroccan Rally 2012 sponsor.

Ecosse World Express provides logistical solutions for specific markets & industries where speed, reliability, and security are of the upmost importance. Ecosse World Express are specialists in time critical and high value shipments offering a 24/7 on demand service. Services vary from On Board Courier option to express transit full load trailers covering the UK and mainland Europe daily. Visit the Ecosse World website at http://www.ecosseworld.com for all your logistic solutions needs.

Our fund raising effort resumes and whilst we have already raised over £1,100, we hope our recent story encourages those who can to make a donation to the Mercy Corps.

Red, our Land rover, back in the UK and ready for action

It has been a while since we've posted an update, but Moroccan Rally 2012 re-launch plans have been simmering away.

Drew, who we met in France and had put us up for the night and helped us try to get back on the road had been looking after Red for the last 7 weeks.

We had a plan to bring back Red to the UK on Friday 17th August. Drew had very kindly offered to bring Red back to the UK on a trip he had already planned. He had a trailer and everything was set.

However, during his trip up to England, his trailer suffered two tyre blowouts. The tyre garages did not have stock of the required tyres so he had to continue back to the UK without the trailer and Red. Drew had driven Red as far as Tours in France, shortening the remaining distance home.

Given that we had planned the weekend of the 18th/19th August to get our replacement engine in Red in time for a possible re-launch in early September, we had to react quickly.

Alex, along with friend Mark, hired a trailer on the afternoon of Friday 17th August, caught a late night ferry from Dover to Calais and continued driving onto the tyre garage in Tours, France.

After some non-stop night driving, they arrived around 9am on Saturday 18th August to find Red in the tyre garage on Drew's trailer.

Red was moved across to the hired trailer and was towed back to the UK with Mark's Land Rover Discovery.

Alex and Mark caught the evening ferry from Calais to Dover on Saturday 18th having not yet had any sleep for a day and half.

When Alex and Mark got to the UK, they had a short break before continuing their drive up to the home of the Desert Bunnies which is equipped with all the tools and gadgets one could ever need to service and fix a Land Rover.

Alex and Mark arrived at our special Land Rover service centre on the morning of Sunday 19th August.

Moss (Left) and Mark (Right) can be seen helping Alex get Red off the trailer.

Work then began on our engine swap out. Our old and failed engine was hoisted out of Red with little difficulty.

Left: Moss of the Desert Bunnies. Right: Lewis, part of the Rusty Rhinos ground crew.

Work continued on a very hot Sunday afternoon taking off parts we needed from the old engine and fitting them onto our replacement.
As we took the sump off the old engine we realised how terminal it was. Bits of shredded bearings can be seen in the pictures below.

Once our replacement engine build was completed we hoisted it back into the Land Rover. This was certainly not as simple as removing the old engine and we spent the next two hours into the Sunday evening manoeuvring the engine using rather creative techniques. Eventually, with the help of what can only be described as a Knight's wooden lance, we secured the engine into place.

We continued working on Red into the evening and got quite a bit of work completed but we were not in a position to start up Red as we had hoped but we weren't far off.

Alex resumed working on Red on Saturday 25th August, this included fitting a new oil pressure gauge that can help us predict oil related engine failures before they become terminal. We believe that the oil pump had failed on our previous engine causing the catastrophic failure.

Red was finally started up today and taken for a test drive, there were no problems and performance was better than ever. We are now at a point where we can declare Red as rally ready once again! We look forward to announcing our re-launch date shortly!

Replacement engine acquired for Red

We've had some rapid progress since our last post. Red, our Land Rover, is still due back in the UK in August, but we're wasting no time in getting an engine ready.

Drew put us in touch with someone who was prepared to sell their engine for our Moroccan Rally 2012.

The engine being loaded up

Moss and Alex had the day off on Friday to go and collect the engine.

Moss from the Desert Bunnies driving our engine back to base

And here is our replacement 2.25L petrol engine that will be powering Red through to the Western Sahara.

Voila!

Once unloaded, Moss and Alex inspected the engine, the result was very pleasing indeed. The engine is in good condition and will be good to go once we've finished servicing it. Our service will include fitting a brand new Land Rover original oil pump and replacing the gaskets.

Moss (left) and Alex (right) examining the engine

Up close with our new engine

Moroccan Rally 2012 latest news

We are now back in England, having had to surrender to engine failure in France, 500 miles in to the rally.

We had a long journey back to London which included walking, driving, taking the metro, the tube, the train and the eurostar. It took 6 trains, 1 car and our legs to get from Aunac in France back to London. All in all, that took about 9 hours.

Red, all packed and ready to go the night before the rally
We set off on Saturday 24th June at 5.25am, 25 minutes later than planned. We arrived at Dover with 15 minutes to spare, but customs decided to have a quick look at our vehicle which delayed us further. This resulted in us being put on the next ferry 50 minutes later.
Not ones for giving up, we decided to drive up to the original ferry that we were supposed to be on and managed to talk the ferry loader into squeezing us on. He put us in with all the lorries.

Parked up with all the lorries
Because we were so late and in the rush of the ferry staff closing all the parking areas on the ferry, we were left behind and locked in. Here we can be seen using the emergency phone on the ferry to call the ferry crew to come and get us.

Adam using the ferry emergency phone
We arrived to a sunny Calais and were on our way, hoping this was just the beginning of our epic drive down to Morocco. It was still early morning, we'd had some chocolate doughnuts, but clearly that wasn't enough so we had to tuck into something else.

Alex helping himself to some dry cereals
After about 12 hours of driving, as we approached the small town of Ruffec, our oil pressure light came on and we lost power. We pulled in to investigate the matter but realised we might have a serious problem as the engine made a loud ticking noise each time we revved it.

At this point it was about 1am in the morning. We were still able to drive the car, but at speeds not exceeding 15mph and if faced with a hill, our speed would drop much further. So we drove around the outskirts of Ruffec to try and get some ideas, but then crashed out in the car at 2am and got a couple of hours of rather uncomfortable sleep.

At 4.30am we were up and decided to limp the car at 15mph to the nearest major town, Angouleme. We got there just around 6am and were still exhausted, so we checked into a hotel and fell asleep.
Once we were up at 2pm, now Sunday 25th June, we emailed a few of our contacts, posted up requests for help on Land Rover forums and then walked into town in search of possible garages.

The outskirts of Angouleme
As we wandered around the sleepy outskirts of Angouleme, we found numerous car garages that may have been able to confirm the terminal condition of our engine. Being Sunday, we would have to wait till the next day before they'd be open. However, we hit a spot of good luck when we got back to the hotel to check the Land Rover forums. A member of the forum put us in contact with Drew. Drew was about 20 miles away from us and offered to help look at our car.

We limped the car to Aunac, 20 miles north of Angouleme and Drew looked the car with us for the next 6 hours. The conclusion was that the engine needed to be replaced. This was the confirmation that our rally had come to a premature end. Drew was incredibly hospitable and put us up for the night.

Drew (Left) and Alex (Right) working on Red

Red being taken apart

Working late into the night on Red
We camped the night out in Drew's garden, got up and had some breakfast and finalised our return plans. At 2pm on Monday 26th June, Drew drove us to Angouleme train station so we could catch the first of our many trains to Paris. We arrived in London around 10pm.

What next?

Red is still in Aunac. Drew is very kindly bringing Red back to the UK in August. We are sourcing a replacement engine for Red and if we can time everything just right, we'll be back on our way to the Western Sahara a bit later this year. We'll keep you all posted.

The fund raising will continue for the Mercy Corps. We've raised over £1100 and this will be carried forward into the re-launch of the Moroccan Rally 2012. We are hoping that this false start and our determination to head for the Western Sahara will help us raise even more for the Mercy Corps as our re-launch date approaches.

For now, all that is left to say is 'Long Live the Moroccan Rally 2012' :o)

False start for Moroccan Rally 2012

We got about 500 miles away from our Moroccan Rally 2012 launch point in London to then experience a fatal problem with the engine.

We spent most of yesterday considering our options to repair the engine which included exploring local garages in Angouleme, posting up requests for help on Landyzone.co.uk (A Land Rover forum) and emailing our various contacts.

One of the Landyzone members put us in touch with Drew in Aunac, who has been incredibly hospitable and helpful. We spent 6 hours yesterday attempting to diagnose the fault. We took the head off and the the head was slightly warped, we couldn't see anything else obviously wrong with only the head off, so put it back together in the hope that it might solve the problem. Unfortunately it didn't resolve the problem and has confirmed our suspicions that the engine is terminal.

We will be heading back to the UK at some point today and will return to Aunac in the near future to collect the Land Rover. The Rusty Rhinos don't do AA!

The rally is not cancelled, but will be relaunched once the car engine has been repaired/replaced in the UK. Full details of our events and the relaunch will follow.

We hope it is sunny in England!

Rusty Rhinos ready for Moroccan Rally 2012

With just over 3 hours till the Moroccan Rally 2012 launch, we can finally say we are ready!

It looks like no more than 3 hours sleep for us which is going to make our 48 hour drive to the south of Spain and into Morocco somewhat challenging!

We had a few issues that slowed down our preparation including having to repair a headlight, tail light and brake light. Then just as we thought we were done, our car stereo stopped working so we had to take it apart to try and repair it. It seems to be working now.

We're expecting to depart at 5am as planned to catch the 7.35am ferry from Dover to Calais. This is our last blog update as we'll be on the road but you can continue to follow our Twitter feed which will be updated regularly.

We are very excited to be heading to the Western Sahara and leave you with a late night photo of Red, our Land Rover, with the camo net fitted.

Music for the road

One of the most essential rally items is music. Music is the only in-car entertainment system that we have. Entertainment system sounds quite elaborate, the actual set-up we have is 2 large speakers mounted somewhere relatively close to our ears, a basic stereo and an mp3 player that is wired to the car stereo.


Alex fixing the wiring to our speakers on the Moroccan Road Trip 2010

We have to mount the speakers near our ears so that we stand a chance of actually hearing what is pumping out of our mp3 player over the engine noise.

If you followed our blog on the Moroccan Road Trip 2010, then you'll remember we have an mp3 player that we consider quite special. It is the Samsung YP-K5.


Samsung YP-K5 - 4GB MP3 player with built-in stereo speakers

The Samsung YP-K5 has rather small built-in stereo speakers that are actually quite effective by the tent and in enclosed spaces, so we can take our music with us in and out of the car. The battery life is excellent.

We carry quite a variety of music with us to help us with our drive. We have same classic rock anthem favourites, a lot of indie music and some dance music for those long night drives. We even have some very cheesy and rather embarassing tracks to play whenever we want.
Some of the artists on our mp3 player include rally essentials such as the Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler, David Bowie, Coldplay, Razorlight and Pulp. You are also likely to find a variety of classics from Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Tom Petty, The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Cars, Foo Fighters, Chicago, Keane, Sheryl Crow and many others. Awesome!

Satellite phone arrives

As our final days of preparation slowly approach an end, one of our essential items arrived today, our satellite phone.

We've opted for the Motorola Iridium 9505A, this is one of the most cost effective satellite phones that uses the Iridium network. Although cost effective, this is a rugged phone that should survive with no problems in the environment we are taking it to.

This is an item that we're hoping we won't need to use whilst on the rally, but it provides us with a last resort optin for communication should it be required. We tested the phone today and it is ready for the rally.

Alex on BBC Radio Lincolnshire

We've recently been raising awareness of our Moroccan Rally 2012 and are very pleased that Alex has had success getting through to the BBC.

He was interviewed live on the air on BBC Radio Lincolnshire this morning. Click to download and listen to the interview.

Changes to Red, our Land Rover, since our previous adventure

With less than a week till the launch of the Moroccan Rally 2012, we thought we'd post up some information on some changes to Red, our Land Rover, since the previous rally in 2010.

A luxury item upgrade was added, cup holders.



We also added some light guards.



Then we had a slight issue with the gearbox...namely a hole in the gearbox!



So the gearbox housing was damaged and needed replacement. We got hold of a second hand box - which we were told only had a small problem with one of the gears - but our gear was fine so we made a good box out of the two.


Left: Moss from the Desert Bunnies, Right: Alex



We put the gearbox back together and thought that would be the end of it. We were very wrong - it would randomly jump out of gear, which we could not put up with on a rally. What occurs next can only be described as a gearbox fitting marathon - we had the gearbox in and out the car several times and replaced various bits that looked faulty. Eventually we got there - by basically replacing virtually every single component for a new one. Needless to say, the gearbox on Red now seems perfect.

Some of the brake components were already worn out, so we decided this time we would go for genuine Land Rover parts. All of the shock absorbers were very worn from the previous trip so we treated Red to some heavy duty shock absorbers - hopefully these ones will last. Or perhaps we should stop "driving as fast as the old thing will go, all of the time". But then again, probably not!

Crossing the border into Morocco with a vehicle

Driving into Morocco is a fairly straightforward affair compared to some of the countries we've had to drive into before. There are some essentials that you can prepare before entering Morocco. First off, you must have your original car registration document (V5C), sometimes referred to locally as the vehicle passport. Next you'll need a completed D16 Ter form. This is normally a 3 part carbon copy form, however the Moroccan customs have provided an electronic version of this form that can be completed online and printed before you go to Morocco.

You can get to the D16 Ter form at the Moroccan customs site.

Below is some guidance on completing the form should you have to do this as well as a partly completed form for Red, our Land Rover.


Bureau d'entrée: Office of entry, in our case this is BAB-SEBTA as we enter from Ceuta, Spain in North Africa.

Prénom and Nom: Given name and family name (surname).

Identifiant: You have 4 options here:

1. CIN(Nationaux): Moroccan National

2. Etrangers résidant au Maroc: Non-Moroccan resident in Morocco

3. Etrangers non résidant ayant déjà visité le Maroc: Non-Moroccan visiting Morocco having been to Morocco before.
If you choose this, you'll need to locate the Moroccan ID number that was stamped into your passport when you first entered Morocco. This is typically 6 numeric digits followed by 2 letters. Enter this Moroccan ID in the field that appears next to Etrangers non résidant ayant déjà visité le Maroc

4. Etrangers en première visite au Maro: Non-Moroccan visiting Morocco for the first time

Immatriculation: Vehicle registration (license plate) number

Marque: Vehicle manufacturer (make), this will be Rover for us.

Type: Vehicle model, Land Rover 88 in our case.

Genre: Vehicle type.

Pays: Your country of residence, in our case Grande Bretagne.

Date de 1ère mise en circulation: Date that your vehicle was first registered.

Numéro de châssis: Your vehicle identity number (VIN), which you can find on your car, on your car registration document (or V5C in the UK).


Once you've completed the form, click on Imprimer, this will generate a single PDF document with 3 sections in it. The 1st section is yours to keep, the 2nd section (Exemplaire service 2 (Apurement)) you'll use on exit from Morocco and the 3rd section (Exemplaire service 1 (Entrée)) is required on entry to Morocco at the office of entry that you have specified in the Bureau d'entrée field.

Rusty Rhinos announce Moroccan Rally 2012 sponsor

With less than a month to go till the launch of the Moroccan Rally 2012, we are very proud to announce a partnership with Ecosse World who are our Moroccan Rally 2012 sponsors.

Ecosse World are making an incredibly generous donation to the Mercy Corps along with providing transport support services for the Rusty Rhinos. We are very pleased to have Ecosse World as our sponsor.

Ecosse World Express provides logistical solutions for specific markets & industries where speed, reliability, and security are of the upmost importance.

Ecosse World Express are specialists in time critical and high value shipments offering a 24/7 on demand service. Services vary from On Board Courier option to express transit full load trailers covering the UK and mainland Europe daily.

Visit the Ecosse World website at http://www.ecosseworld.com for all your logistic solutions needs.

Red, our Land Rover, has been fitted today with Ecosse World stickers which have been kindly created by Zero Seven Graphics, specialists in professionally designed and applied vehicle graphics. You can see Zero Seven Graphics services at http://www.zerosevengraphics.co.uk

Thanks to Alex and Zoe who spent much of their Saturday afternoon fitting the stickers to the car. A great result as seen in the photos below of Red with the Ecosse World stickers.

What happened to our Land Rover after the last road trip?

If you've ever wondered what happens to our car after a rally, what state it is left in and what we have to do to it to prepare it for our next rally, then look no further. Alex has been meticulously documenting what we've had to do to Red, our Land Rover after the Moroccan Road Trip 2010. He has been been maintaining a post on relentlessracing.org which they've recently featured on their front page.






The entire post has been put into a PDF file which you can download from our downloads page!