Plymouth - Dakar (Banjul) Challenge

Spanners On Tour

New member
Has anyone else here participated in the Plymouth - Dakar Challenge? It was later called the Banjul Challenge as the cars in this bangers rally weren't allowed to be auctioned off in Senegal and so the rally went all the way to Banjul in The Gambia.

I went on the 2007 rally and we drove a Peugeot 205 from Plymouth in England to Banjul in The Gambia in 3 weeks. There were lots of participants from all over Europe but also a couple od Aussies and Americans.
It was such an amazing adventure with lots of good spirited and fun people. Of course there were breakdowns, some cars were fixed on the spot by someone in the group, other cars were taken to a local Bob The Fixer, and one Caddilac driven by two Aussies living in Scotland was left behind in France, but they guys made it all the way to Banjul.

A personal highlight of the trip was collecting donations for the SOS Children Village in Banjul and going to see them and handing over the check and other gifts.

allan-205.jpg

allan-sleep2.jpgbig-dune.jpgmini-desert.jpg
sos-village2.jpg
 
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Gren_T

Adventurer
Hi, I was also on the 2007 PBC with team lost boyo's in a £91 mitshbishi shogun with 200,000 miles on the clock and averaged 30mpg over the entire trip.

I had a great time, especially with the Americans in the yellow school bus sadly they did'nt make it across from spain due to the bus having a strange tyre size and were unable to source spares.

our 1st night camping in Mauritainia490023
 
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Spanners On Tour

New member
So you made it all the way. We left mid December and 3 days after leaving Plymouth the aussies had to leave their Chevy in France, but we took the guys all the way to Banjul.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Gren_T

Adventurer
Hi,
yes made it all the way, though the truck blew its brake master cylinder in the desert & I ended up topping up the lost fluid with engine oil - drove the rest of the way with very poor brakes, I spent a week exploring the gambia & southern senegal before flying home before the truck was sold.

It was a great experience, I did another trip with the dakar challenge & Julian in 2017 visiting Chernobyl that again was an awesome trip.: https://www.dakarchallenge.co.uk/chernobyl-challenge/

Regards
Gren
 

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