How 3 friends toured Africa in a Land Rover 101

23 years ago (1999) 3 guys by then who were in their mid 20s,the eldest one (who narrated to me) being 27 bought a LAND-ROVER 101 (in Leeds UK), a typical British military Land Rover by then.They then shipped it to Mombasa port in a container.They flew to Nairobi and took a train to Mombasa to pick their Land Rover 101 and bought 60 jerrycans that will be used to store fuel as they drive through Kenya.

They set off their journey from mombasa driving the manual stick vehicle and their first destination was Naivasha, proceeded to nakuru and then burnt forest. They located the Trans African highway using their manual map, by then things like GPS or smartphones with maps were not available. They therefore trusted their map eith the help of locals who showed them around. On locating the TransAfrican Highway, they used it to drive to Tanzania, all the way to Ngorongoro crater. They camped their for 1 week and next destination was malawi.

They didn’t tour Tanzania much, from malawi they met a good reception like in Kenya unlike Tanzania, next they went to Mozambique, then they ended their southern africa part tour in Zimbabwe. They started driving back again via the same route on the TransAfrican Highway, they passed through Kenya again, went all the way to malaba, crossed to Uganda, Congo and ended up in Central African Republic where they connected to Nigeria. From Nigeria, they headed to Ghana and started sorting a visa to enter Algeria, with the aim of driving across the sahara desert, this  didn’t materialize because Algeriadenied them a visa and they cut shot their trip, packed their Land Rover 101 in a container and shipped it to UK. They flew to UK from Ghana.

Their journey traversing Africa lasted 8 months! They still want to come drive across the Sahara desert. According to him, the best countries based on people being warm and welcoming were in this order; Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, Uganda, Central African Republic,Tanzania, Nigeria and Mozambique came last on his list. He further says Tanzanians and Nigerians extorted them some good amounts of money, out of the $10,000 they had, a 1/4 went to pay up bribes on the roads so that they could be allowed to pass. Other challenges they faced were adulterated fuel many Ugandans sold to them, occasionally they had to drain the vehicle tank, clean it and refuel with good quality fuel.

This guy made me discover today that different Land Rover series were named based on the distance between the front tires and the rear tires for example the Land Rover 101 they had meant that the distance between the front tire and the rear tire was 101 inches, Land Rover 90 means 90 inches between the front and rear tires or should i say axles? The same case applies to Land Rover 110 et al.

It was a great story i heard from the 56 year old Dr who is currently a consultant radiographer. They’ve not yet given up their quest to drive across the Sahara this time they want to use a Land Cruiser 70 series.

Source:

LandCruise