Plymouth Dakar Sahara Challenge

Stage One, Home to Tarifa The first stage is from your home to Tarifa on the southern tip of Spain. We meet up there at a hotel in Tarifa for a briefing/party at 7.00pm on day 4 (day 1 being the announced departure date from the UK). You can take a ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao or cross the channel and drive down through France. The ferry crossing you choose and what day you leave home is up to you. You can do the journey in 3 days comfortably, some people leave earlier and go skiing in Andorra on the way, others arrive the day before the briefing so they can visit Gibraltar (worth it if you've never been). What tends to happen is that at the pre-departure meetings or via the online forums people arrange to meet up in small groups travel together, but it's your choice.

Stage Two, Tarifa to Marrakesh (the long way round). It's recommended you take the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier in Morocco on the morning after the briefing in Tarifa. The customs formalities at Tangier aren't onerous but if they are busy they may clear the cars in batches so it can take an hour or two to get through. You can buy car insurance at the port in Tangier and there is also a well stocked duty free shop. You now have 4 days to get to the next briefing party at Zagora, which is in the desert 600 miles away the other side of the Atlas mountains. There are a variety of routes you can take, people usually agree an itinerary that suits them and travel in groups. The roads in northern Morocco are fairly good but as you travel further south petrol, food, hotels and campsites are more spread out so you need to plan ahead. From Zagora you head north to Marrakesh where the next brefing is held in 3 days time. The breifing party starts at 7pm just off the main square in Marrakesh.

Stage Three - Marrakesh to Assa. Now the scenery becomes more interesting, you travel from snow in the mountains to desert in a few days. Again the route is up to you, but there aren't many roads and some may be blocked by snow. You can take the Tiz-n- test pass over the Atlas mountains and see some amazing scenery or follow the coast road down past Agadir. By the time you reach Southern Morocco it is getting warmer and more desert like, hotels are more basic and you need to think about where you stop to eat and refuel etc. You have 3 days before the next briefing in Assa where the real desert starts.

Stage four - Assa to Laayoune. This is without doubt the most challenging stage. Ideally you form into groups of up to 6 cars and set off across the desert to Samura. This section is used in the Paris-Dakar rally, there is no road as such, at best you drive from one marker post to the next across the desert, GPS helps a lot. The drive takes a couple of days so prepare yourselves for a night or two camping in the desert. From Samara its a short drive to Le Roi De Bedouin where you can sleep in bedouin tents but with the added luxury of hot showers. The next stop is Laayoune plage where in a strange modern hotel we'll hold the survivors party and debreifing. You can stay at the hotel for a rest and fly back home when it suits you. But before you leave you must hand your vehicle over to the local organisers who will auction it and pass the procedes to local charities.