Bridget the Midget

You should be aware from the two previous bulletins of Chris’s misfortune although it has turned out alright finally. The dog involved was identified by a local vet treating him for food poisoning and was not Benji.

The Aswan to Wadi Halfa ferry is not your usual car ferry as it consists of a passenger boat, a general cargo barge and a vehicle barge. The barges travel independently of the passenger boat, are slower therefore take longer, and as they leave at more or less the same time do not arrive until one or two days after the ferry.

We actually loaded our cars onto the barge on Sunday and returned to board the ferry ourselves on the Monday at 09:30. The ferry does not leave until 17:00 and by then is a seething mass of humanity. It appears that every Arab that travels carries several huge bags of goods, enough to fill most small shops. So by the time the ferry leaves the dock there is hardly room to swing the proverbial cat.

Although cabins are available there are very few and frankly not to be recommended for the squeamish. As for the other facilities the less said the better. When buying our tickets, from the infamous Mr Saleh, we met several fellow foreign travellers most of whom were also doing Cairo to Cape Town or similar. In the main however they had far more suitable vehicles. We all had the same idea when boarding the ferry, which was to claim a spot under one of the lifeboats where the air was fresh, compared to the inside of the boat, and shade was available from the heat of the sun. We formed a ‘travellers club’ exchanging stories and experiences as well as tips. One very useful thing came out which is that we will require a letter from the British Embassy in Addis Ababa stating that they will take responsibility for our car whilst it is in the country ensuring that it isn’t sold, etc. We will have to contact the embassy as soon as we get to Khartoum.

The ferry crossing was not difficult. Leaving at 17:00 on the Monday it took almost sixteen hours to reach Wadi Halfa. The daytime was hot and the night a little cold, but not too bad. I had taken a camp bed with me so I was comfortable whilst everyone else complained of a hard deck. The night skies over Lake Nasser are something to behold, not only because of the millions of stars visible but also because of their brilliance.

We were not allowed to disembark from the ferry for two hours and then it was chaotic threading our way through customs, but we eventually made it at around midday. We were then bussed into the town of Wadi Halfa. That was a bit of a culture shock. Wadi, I suspect, exists only because of the passing trade via the ferry. It is a collection of mud brick and corrugated iron houses built where the desert meets the lake.

We were taken to our hotel, the Kilopatra; don’t blame me for the spelling and I don’t know if it was someone’s sense of humour or not. The rooms consist of a twelve foot square area containing two beds. The doors were tin as were the window shutters, and there was a fan in the ceiling. Power cuts are a daily occurrence and the common bathroom facilities were just about as basic as they come. By some good fortune we were destined to enjoy the hospitality of Wadi for three nights.

The second day there we all wanted to know when the ferry would arrive, following a ten minute exploration of the towns amenities. However you have to wait until a lookout spies it steaming towards the port. It arrived late that afternoon, after the customs officials had all gone home for the night. We were directed to appear at the port the next morning at 08:30, which we did. The cars cleared customs at 13:30 and we were free to go!

We had so enjoyed the hospitality of Wadi that we decided to stay for one more night, although the cynics said it was because the next sizable town was 5 hours away. We left Wadi at 06:35 next morning. It would be wrong however to leave anybody with the idea that everything about Wadi is poor; the fact is the people are gorgeous. They are friendly; love to chat to foreigners, honest and proud of their country. They are extremely good hosts.

The drive from Wadi was interesting, but hot. For the first sixty miles the cars drove perfectly and the morning sun had little heat, then the temperature started to rise fairly rapidly until by 10:00 it was over 35°C and still rising. Bridget started to develop some hesitation on acceleration and then started to misfire. This continued for around another one hundred miles when it started to get seriously bad. We pulled over and I started to check everything to do with the ignition. Eventually I altered the timing which appeared to clear the problem and we started off again.

About one hundred miles south of Wadi we came across the largest campsite I have ever seen, with literally thousands of people moving around, building things and being generally industrious. There were hundreds of temporary dwellings, some ramshackle huts and many tents of all sizes. Smoke was lazily wafting into the sky and there was a low level smoke screen across the road. This was the Sudanese gold rush. It is largely unregulated and very recent in its construction however it is, by all accounts, very productive.

The road from Wadi Halfa to Khartoum is excellent and is one of many newly laid roads built by the Chinese. Currently there is very little traffic on the roads in Sudan.

Bridget’s engine misfire became alarming and I was only able to maintain a speed of around 30 mph for the final twenty miles into Dongola. Dongola is in many respects very similar to Wadi, but larger and with one acceptable hotel. It wasn’t five stars but it was comfortable, clean and with working showers. It was the first time for five days that I came out of a shower feeling cleaner than when I went in.

That evening I set to work on the engine problem, changing the HT leads, distributor cap and going right through the timing setup. By the time I had finished she sounded good again. Dorothy was running fine so Chris went off with three ‘bikers’, we had met on the ferry, to have dinner.

The next morning Bridget refused to start. It was as if she was saying “I’ve been telling you I have a problem but you haven’t been listening. Now I go no further until you sort it” I can’t tell you the resolution at the moment as it will be the subject of a competition, but I will let you know later, but we resolved it.

Although leaving two hours later than planned we drove the three hundred miles from Dongola to Khartoum. The drive was very enjoyable across Sudan’s Nubian Desert, but the environment for the cars was easily the harshest to date. Midday temperature was around 45°C and sand was being whipped up by a fairly strong breeze. Stopping just the once for fuel we arrived around 15:00 and found the Plaza Hotel.

Khartoum is a bustling city with a mixture of traditional Nubian, old colonial and ultra-modern architecture. It, like the rest of Sudan, is not geared up to tourism and with a closed economy is unlikely to change in the near future. This means that no credit or debit cards are acceptable, no ATM machines exist except for Sudanese bank account holders, therefore you have to have US dollars, GB pounds or Euros. Photography is also disliked, particularly in Khartoum, where we were warned to stop using our cameras on more than one occasion.

From here we will be heading for Ethiopia.

Twitter users will already know, but for those that do not follow us on Twitter, I am pleased to announce that Chris did not have to return home after all. The doctor in Aswan came up with an alternative course of injections that allowed Chris to continue on this odyssey and so he is still touring.

A report on our latest adventures will be posted sometime tomorrow once I have had a shower and good nights sleep.

Chris Vernon has been bitten by a dog, in Aswan, Southern Egypt. He has to have a course of anti rabies injections over the next three weeks available only from hospitals or clinics. As there are no guarantees that such facilities will be available along much of the route we plan to take Chris has reluctantly withdrawn from this challenge and will return to the UK in due course.

I am sure everyone wishes him well.

No further bulletins will be available until the end of next week when Bridget, Benji and Roy expect to arrive in Khartoum.

Henry and I went to see the pyramids, which are pointy buildings in the desert. Roy said something about mummy being found in one and being taken to the museum in Cairo. I didn’t know she was lost and don’t understand why they took her there, but Henry and I went to see her anyway.

We searched the museum and found the Mummies Department but it was full of injured people all bandaged up. There must have been a very bad accident. We then found a room for Animal Mummies but didn’t find mine there either, so I think Roy must be confused, again.

We drove to a town called Hurghada where Henry and I wanted to play on the beach, but Roy and Chris didn’t like it and refused to stay. So we continued to Luxor. It has become very hot now and Henry’s coat is too heavy so he has decided to moult. There is fur everywhere.

We visited some temples around Luxor and I went off to the Valley of the Queens. I suddenly smelt a bone and, as I was feeling peckish, I started to dig. I soon had three bones and was digging furiously for a fourth when a guard lifted me bodily and threw me out of the site. He didn’t even let me fetch the bones I had already got, so I assume he must have wanted them for himself.

We are now in a town called Aswan. I am going to search in the desert for more bones and Henry was last seen sun-bathing. He says his new coat is too light and he wants to give it a tan. Roy says we are waiting for a boat, but Henry and I are quite happy here.

Don’t forget to take a look at Benji’s Odyssey in the photo gallery. There are forty pictures, now.

Hurghada is a manufactured sunshine resort with little to recommend it, however we did give the cars their first complete service having completed over 4,000 miles. Fresh engine oil, topped up gearboxes, rear diffs and carburettor dampers. Chris found that one of Dorothy’s exhaust brackets was broken for which he found a man who welded it together and I replaced Bridget’s distributor points and adjusted the timing a fraction.

The following day we drove to Luxor and it was quickly evident that Bridget still needed further timing adjustment as her engine was pinking voraciously, otherwise everything appeared to be operating well. The drive across the Egyptian Desert was most enjoyable with the craggy desert mountains, followed by the lush green of the vegetation and the beautiful orange, red, white and purple hibiscus, at the roadside, as we arrived in the Nile Valley.

We checked into the Sonesta St George Hotel which had secure parking, an important feature as the cars would be easily damaged in these parts by enthusiastic fans. The following morning Chris went off to explore the West Bank of the Nile and I firstly adjusted Bridget’s timing and then visited Karnak Temple. I had already seen most of the sites in the Luxor area some five years ago but some of them justify repeat visits.

That afternoon fellow endurance tourer Roger Pearce, in a MG Magnet, arrived from Cape Town, heading up several classic Mercedes, a MGB and a Volvo 122. They had left on the 6^th September and were heading for Cairo. Once they had blown the dust off Roger, Chris and myself, visited Murphy’s pub just down the road for a medicinal glass. Roger was able to give us a few tips on where to stay, some useful contacts, but most importantly the low-down on the condition of the road between Moyale and Archers Post in Kenya. This is an infamous stretch of road that can be a car breaker. From what we gather from Roger it was at its worst when they came through. They met a group of BMW motorcyclists that were giving up and returning from whence they came, and the suspension of Rogers care was rammed up into the rear passenger area by rocks. All of the cars suffered damage to some extent and Roger admitted he wasn’t sure they would make it.

We set off from Luxor the next morning to drive down the Nile Valley road to Aswan where we expected to get the ferry into Sudan the next day. Disaster, the ferry left on the day we arrived and we were told the next one would be in precisely 1 week! We arranged a meeting with Kammal, a ferry Mr Fixit.

Kammal has turned out to be a very helpful guy who knows all the ropes and pitfalls of leaving Egypt aboard the Aswan ferry and entering Sudan. He will smooth most of the bureaucracy for us and we will just need to put in personal appearances here and there. There were no cabins available so we will be on the deck for the 16 hour crossing of Lake Nasser, but in addition we need to board the boat at 10:00am even though we will not leave until around 5:00pm. A total of 23/4 hours without using a toilet if possible!

The cars will be loaded on Saturday prior to our departure.

This will be our last bulletin until we arrive in Khartoum, around next Wednesday, as long as we can get an internet connection there. We will continue to Tweet using my mobile as things happen, until then we apologise for the disruption in service. Meanwhile there are loads of photos to catch up with, so enjoy.

The indignity of it all; Egyptian registration plates we can’t even read! Well, some of the things Bridget and Dorothy have to do for their drivers, but it’s only until we get to Aswan.

Following a very pleasant rest in Nuweiba’s Swisscare Hotel we struck out for Suez. Leaving at around 08:30 we thought it would be a brief and pleasant two hundred mile drive. As it turned out it was a hot, dusty drive in something like 37/38°C temperatures across the Sinai desert. We almost missed a left turn, just past Taba airport that would have resulted in a brief, but highly illegal visit into Israel, had I not seen the signs at the last minute.

Re-fuelling in Egypt is not an exact science. Some stations have 90/92 octane petrol, some have unacceptable 80 octane, some have only diesel and some have nothing (I couldn’t figure out why they open at all). Tedious, and often threatening serious damage, sleeping policemen abound in parts of the highway system and checkpoints are numerous. Then there was the road tunnel under the Suez canal; single lanes in each direction with one closed for no apparent reason other than allowing the police vehicles a traffic free lane. Therefore all other traffic took it in turns to cross through the tunnel.

We decided to refuel before entering the tunnel and so pulled over to the side of the road to disgorge our jerry cans. Whilst doing this the army wanted us to move on and the mosquitoes wanted me to stay whilst they sapped every millilitre of blood that I could produce. Otherwise it was a good drive.

We arrived in Suez town which must rank as the rear-end of Egypt. It is filthy, smelly and probably very bad for your long term health. However, I had seen the Panama canal and wanted to see this one for the set! There is only one hotel that we could find that you would allow your dog to stay in and that appeared to make most of its income serving as a stopover point for ship’s crew.

We were not unhappy to leave the next morning and head on the Cairo road to Le Giza and the pyramids. At the last moment I decided to abandon my usual habit of finding somewhere to stay when we arrived in the city, and booked the Movenpick hotel before breakfast. On arriving in Giza, we pulled over to the side of the road and I hailed a taxi. I agreed a price and the taxi drove to the hotel with us following behind. It took some ten minutes, in convoy, to find the location which in Cairo traffic was some feat.

We visited the pyramids and Sphinx the following morning and found the Sudanese Embassy in the afternoon. We have to apply for visas here, but the visa section was closed today and so we will extend our stay in Giza by a day so that we can get them. We returned to the hotel by way of Tahrir Square where there was rioting yesterday. It is reported locally that thirteen people were killed, but everything appeared calm today.

We returned to the Embassy of Sudan in the morning as requested and were told to go away again and get a letter from the British Embassy requesting that we should be allowed to travel in Sudan (whatever happened to ‘Her Britanic Majesty demands, etc. without let or hindrance’). Anyway we obtained the necessary letter, and an extra one for the Ethiopians who I understand have also started demanding these letters, and were charged £50 Sterling for each one! Thank you HM Government.

Returning to the Sudan Embassy for the third time we submitted our application and were promptly told to return at 15:00 that afternoon. We went off and spent four hours looking around the Egyptian Museum. Returning for the fourth time we received our passports complete with visas and planned our departure for Hurghada.

We left Giza at 7:00 behind a taxi that showed us the way to the Hurghada autoroute. Even with that assistance we managed to get on the wrong road and headed due south past Helwan and eventually to the Al Wassa Bridge where we turned right towards the Red Sea coast and then south to Hurgharda. The road was littered with sleeping policemen (road humps) some quite impossible to see. We hit two of these at around 50mph that sent shudders to Bridget’s nether regions. Additionally there were many deep pot-holes and the vibration caused by these were taking their toll.

Bridget was not happy, her engine misfiring a little and suffering hesitation. Around the halfway mark her engine cut-out completely and then picked up again. This happened several times before cutting out completely some 110 miles north of our destination. I checked that fuel was getting through and that the HT lead from the coil was properly attached. As it was a complete loss of power it had to be fuel or electrical and so having discounted fuel that left the alternative.

Just at that moment a car drew alongside and I thought “Oh no, assistance has arrived” It transpired however that Mohammed was a mechanical engineer and soon understood the basics of Bridget’s engine. Once I had explained what I had done so far we set about going through the obvious alternatives. I had been worried for some time that Bridgets’ alternator was packing up and we concluded that was the most likely cause of this problem after dismissing the HT lead and coil. Chris came to the rescue with a spare alternator which we quickly changed. I turned the ignition key and everything came to life, so the job was completed and we went on our way.

Just a few kilometres down the road and the engine cut out again. I decided to pull in to a roadside restaurant area to look under the bonnet again. Once again Mohammed appeared having stopped here after leaving us earlier and so we set about trying to identify the cause. Unknown to me Mohammed phoned a friend of his who is a vehicle electrician and he came out to help. Then I noticed a wire hanging loosely near the coil. I quickly identified it as an ignition low tension lead that should be connected. I reconnected it and it was obvious that it had become detached due to the vibration of the earlier beating that Bridget had taken from the speed humps, etc. The engine suffered no further cut-outs although she felt a bit lumpy. We arrived in Hurghada some 12 hours after starting and after dark for the first time on this adventure.

Hello everyone. Sorry I haven’t written recently but I am in disgrace. I said I had a secret that Roy wasn’t aware of and I have been caught out. Part of my punishment was being banned from writing on the website.

You see I have a little friend, Henry, who I smuggled into Bridget the day we were leaving. Henry is a TLC teddy bear who I met some months ago and I told him what we were doing and how we are raising funds for CoCo and African children. It turned out that Henry is in fact a charity worker himself and he and hundreds of his friends help children in hospitals in the UK. We got on so well I wanted him to come with us and experience travelling in different countries, but I forgot to ask Roy first.

Anyway, when we got off the Aquaba ferry a nosey customs officer found him hiding behind Bridget’s seats and demanded to know what he was doing. Roy got into trouble for not declaring him and not having a passport or visa for him. So Roy was really angry.

Luckily, he is gradually forgiving me and I am starting to be allowed out again and Henry is going to be allowed to join us sometimes. Roy has managed to get him a passport.

We are in Egypt where I am sure I heard Roy say my mummy is, so I shall try to find her (I thought she was from Abingdon). We are going to the Pyramids later today so I will let you know what happens in my next report.

Sorry about the picture, but I couldn’t resist it. I swapped my walking boots for 5 pints of beer.

We left Antakya, in Turkey, at 7:00 AM and drove through the forty miles to the Syrian border under a clear sky but with a chill in the air. This is typical of early mornings in most Arab countries.

Being processed by the Turkish authorities to exit the country took almost an hour.

I approached the Syrian border with some trepidation because they could rescind our visas which would be catastrophic. I had considered alternatives even at this late stage and had decided if we were turned back I would get a shipping agent and explore the possibility of shipping the cars from Turkey to Alexandria in Egypt. This should have been possible and not taken too long, but the cost would have been fairly high. There were no car ferries from Europe to North Africa that we could use.

I need not have worried we were allowed entry and the processing took another hour. During the processing we were engaged by a man from the Tourism Ministry asking where we were going and what we hoped to see. He then, very quietly, suggested that we would be well advised to transit straight through Syria into Jordan without stopping anywhere as times were a little difficult.

Given the source of the advice, we decided to heed it and made our way onto the motorway network which would take us straight through to Jordan. The roads were generally smooth without too many potholes.

We were just south of the city Homs when I realised that the traffic had all but disappeared. Then a policeman stepped into the middle of the road and waved us down. As we stopped soldiers appeared from buildings on both sides of the road and approached the cars. Some appeared friendly but others were distinctly hostile. One in particular said you can’t drive down here, go back to Hama or Aleppo. I calmly explained that we were going to Damascus and then onto Jordan. He started to wave his arms about and become excited when a senior officer that Chris had spoken to, explaining where we were going, barked an order. The hostile man backed off while the officer made several radio calls.

He approached us again and said, “Sorry you cannot drive down here as we have a problem with some terrorists and it is dangerous” Whatever you do Roy, I thought, no funnies please.

He suggested we return on the route we had arrived on and then take a diversion which he pointed out on the map. This would circumvent the problem area and deliver us back on the motorway at the city of Homs. This we did and experienced no further trouble, but we had lost another 45 minutes. We did see several tanks at various points and numerous armed groups, mostly uniformed soldiers.

The cars behaved admirably again, with Dorothy hiccupping just once. We used our jerry cans for the first time in anger. These we had filled before leaving Anatakya in case there was a fuel shortage and was I glad we did. Although there clearly was fuel available the queues were quite long in most locations.

We arrived at the Syrian/Jordanian border at around 6:00 PM and by the time we had been through the exit process it was almost 7:00 PM. There was a hotel within the border area and rather than take another hour to go through the border routine to enter Jordan I suggested to Chris that we should call it a day. We had been going for twelve hours and covered 350 miles. That was enough.

I am afraid there are only four, fairly poor photos that I took in Syria. We were advised not to take any photographs in the country at all and to hide our mobile phones. However I couldn’t resist the challenge of taking four from the car as we sped along.

The next morning, Monday, we entered Jordan and what a different experience it was with the officials at their border. They couldn’t have been more helpful and pleasant, and no ‘backsheesh’.

Amman were only 50 miles south of the border and we soon found a pleasant hotel, having first rejected the Hyatt as far too expensive. Fuel was now only 70p a litre.

During the afternoon we visited the Amman Citadel, built by the Romans in the 8th century. As is often the case the site had been used by earlier communities dating back before the Iron Age. Even older than Chris!

We spent the morning of our rest day checking over the cars. Bridget needed a little oil, her exhaust nuts tightened again, and the tick over increased slightly as she had started stalling in traffic. Dorothy needed general fluid levels topped up.

We idled away the afternoon at the Roman amphitheatre. It is in amazingly good repair and seated 6,000 in its heyday.

The drive to Petra was a pleasure. The roads were generally wide and smooth, and our cars were purring. Only a distance of some 160 miles and no sign of the previous engine problem from Dorothy although she did flood when first started up. I think Bridget is in need of some balancing on her carburettors as she is running-on when I switch off the ignition, but suffering low revs when idling. I will leave it until we do the next service somewhere in Egypt.

We found and checked into a reasonable hotel on the outskirts of Wadi Musa close to Petra and the next day walked to the Petra complex. It was a long, hot, dusty, but totally fantastic day. It really is awe inspiring and well worth the visiting if you ever get the chance. We walked around the site for over 6 hours in temperatures of around 35°C and some of the climbs are fairly severe, but it was an amazing experience.

Benji, of course, wanted to play Indiana Jones when he heard that some of one of the series was filmed there. I have to say he has been acting very strangely recently, I will have to keep my eye on him.

Our final day in Jordan was to be filled with a short drive to Aquaba followed by a three hour ferry trip to Nuweiba and checking in to a hotel for the night. So much for that plan; on arriving in Aquaba it took two hours of searching, with the help of a friendly local, to find somewhere we could buy the ferry tickets. On arriving, at 12:15 for the 13:00 ferry we were refused access as they had ‘finished boarding’, and the ship left at 12:25! The next ferry was between 00:01 and 01:00, so we ended up travelling overnight without sleep arriving in port just after 04:00 and were kept on the boat until 05:00. In fact it was approximately 09:30 by the time we cleared customs to search for a hotel.

The first two were full when we met a very helpful tour guide, Liz, who recommended a small, family owned hotel called Swisscare. If you ever visit this part of the world, and I would advocate that you should, you will not find a better hotel in the area.

We have arrived in Egypt, our seventh country on this trip, and the cars now have Egyptian registration plates!

We spent our rest day nosing around Istanbul just like typical tourists. Visited the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia Museum, Topkapi Palace, the waterfront and discovered Istanbul’s answer to Hampstead. There is an area of boutique hotels, bars, and restaurants. It comprises mainly of restored buildings so it is clean and very, laid back for Istanbul.

As finding accommodation had taken four hours and resulted in budget breaking costs we only stayed for one rest day before moving on. Late change of mind meant we took the coast route south from Istanbul, along the coast opposite the Gallipoli Peninsula. After a hot days driving of just over 300 miles we stopped at Canakkale. This town is opposite the main battlefields, and now cemeteries, of the World War 1 action, so poignant for Australians and New Zealanders.

We quickly found a hotel close to the ferry terminal and tried to check in. Having checked, with a rather beautiful receptionist, that they had rooms available, the Manager suggested we park our cars in-front of the hotel doors and then complete the registration. As we moved the cars into position a small group of interested people gathered to look at Bridget and Dorothy. They started to ask all the usual questions; “Where are you from?”, “Is this a Porsche?”, “How old is the car?” etc. etc. The gathering increased into a small crowd all jostling to take photos. Chris and I managed to extradite ourselves after about fifteen minutes and went into reception. Whilst Chris explained things to the hotel Manager, I chatted to Kübra, the receptionist.

When things outside quietened down a little, that is no more than six or seven amateur models posing for their loved ones with our cars, the hotel staff then wanted their photos taken with the cars. This started the whole thing over again. It must have taken a total of an hour just to get to our rooms. The interest in the cars continued throughout the evening and even started again at 8:00 the next morning when we were preparing to leave. I have to say that, personally speaking, I found the Turkish culture here very much to my liking.

Reluctantly leaving Canakkale we headed south, making for Izmir and beyond. There is an unbelievably large road building program going on across Turkey and roads which three years ago were just acceptable, but not good, are now excellent dual carriage-way or motorway standard. After approximately 150 miles I became aware that Bridget’s quietly purring engine was developing a distinct growl. At first trying to ignore it, eventually I had to pull onto a garage forecourt and pop the bonnet. I had a suspicion that an old problem was recurring and quickly established that that was the case. One of the exhaust pipe fixing bolts had lost a nut and the exhaust was loose. This was a persistent problem on Bridget’s world run and although I ensure they are tightly done up they still fall off. Perhaps someone can suggest a cure, short of welding them in place.

Bridget also has an electrical problem affecting her rear lights. The obvious answer is that there is a bad earth connection causing one of the indicator lights to be dimmer than the other. However, according to the manual it is a common earth with the other rear light clusters and the effect is sometimes on the left indicator, sometimes on the right one, and in one instance affected all the rear lights. I will try to fix this during our next rest day.

Including the time to repair Bridget we were travelling for nine hours. We stopped in a small pretty coastal village called Antayaka. We have now covered a little over two thousand, three hundred miles since leaving Abingdon. Other than the minor problem mentioned, the cars have performed excellently, even in the mid-thirties temperatures. We are currently running over budget, but that was expected on the first leg of the trip. What was not expected was the appalling cost of fuel in every country so far visited. It is constantly the equivalent of £1.60 per litre, even in Turkey. The only positive factor is that we have been regularly recording consumption of 40 miles to the galleon. This is far more than Bridget has ever done previously.

I fixed the electrical fault which was caused by spares in the boot crushing the wires and disturbing the connectors. However, I also discovered another problem, almost certainly caused by the heat. A plastic connector into the rear carburettor, for connecting a breather pipe, has snapped. This is not a spare that we have and so a call to Moss Europe was required. Whilst talking with them I also asked if they could send some exhaust to manifold nuts and a set of brake pads. Moss called within the hour to confirm the spares would arrive at an address in Kenya which we supplied, now that’s service.

The following day, Monday, was a rest day and I decided to check Bridget over thoroughly and am glad I did so. With the engine cold I was able to access the two remaining exhaust to manifold bolts to find that one was very loose and the other, the most difficult to reach, had lost its nut. Having replaced that I have decided I will have to find a garage that will fit a bracket around the exhaust and attach it to the engine’s bell housing to reduce the vibration. I suggested that Chris might also want to check his exhaust as the standard mounting was the same. Sure enough he too had the problem, so we will need two fixes.

We now followed the D400 towards Fethiye where we originally planned to stop overnight but things were going so well we decided to continue further. Along the route I spied a tyre fitting depot and decided to stop and see if they could fit the exhaust bracket for me. It took just half an hour and we were on our way. We passed Fethiye and the road from Yesikoy to Kas is fantastic. The first indication was when we were suddenly presented with one of the most beautiful coastal views that I can remember. Then for the next mile 15 miles we followed a terrific mounting hugging coastal road, passing off-shore islands, delving into deep clefts in the cliff and riding a roller coaster of a road. This is a route to experience whilst it is still available because an AutoRoute is being driven through the mountains as part of the national road building programme and some of the old route will disappear forever.

We were in such high spirits we stopped in Kas where several passing British couples paused to admire the cars. We also met an Australian couple from Brisbane and a Danish MG enthusiast. All but the Australians had homes in the area and the Aussies are sailing around the world.

Eventually we prised ourselves away and drove on to Silifke for an overnight and then to Antakya arriving a day earlier than planned. This is the jumping off point for Syria and I want to be able to select the day of travel and crossing point rather than leaving it to fate.

Dorothy, currently, is experiencing some fuel issues which Chris is addressing and hoping for remote diagnostic assistance from Debbie Evans and/or Rachel MacB.

Finally, the word on Syria is very positive and we are going on Sunday. We will traverse the country in one day reducing the perceived risks. We will communicate again, hopefully, from Jordan.