Rainier’s co-driver, Sam Roach, reports from the car and updates us on their epic “Cape to Cape 2.0″ world record attempt to drive from Cape Agulhas to Nordkapp in Norway. (More details on the attempt here).
Southern Ethiopia
“The border crossing into Ethiopia was a fairly easy and quick procedure. Compared to some of the borders between the Southern African countries, there is minimal traffic (trucks, buses or private cars) between Kenya and Ethiopia. This has kept the roads empty and made the border crossing much easier.
“We’ve been climbing higher and higher into the mountains since the border. We’re at 2 500 m at the moment and still climbing. As we climb the temperature gets cooler and the plant life around us looks more green and lush. Nighttime has fallen and the beautiful fast smooth road that we started off on has now been replaced by the worst we’ve driven on so far. Alternating between broken tarmac with 30 cm deep potholes and just dirt tracks with boulders strewn around we are struggling to keep 30 km/h over this road.
“This is bad news for our average speed, and it’s concerning for the Touareg. This much crashing, shaking and vibration must be pushing it to its limits, although it is not showing any sign of suffering which we’re very grateful for. Still we have to be very careful; if we hit one deep pothole too fast we could be out of the World Record Attempt on the spot.
“The other concern about this sort of road is the effect it has on the three of us. The team relies on being able to alternate between driving and sleeping to keep up our 24 hour progress but it’s proving to be impossible to sleep in the car with this much crashing and banging.”
Sam Roach
