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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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