We've just completed the Cairo-Cape Town route through Africa, to the best of my knowledge the first time this has been done in a L322. Seems like a good topic for the first post in the Africa section! (note: also posted on the General section of the forum)


Some of you may remember that late last year I posed the question “would it be possible to drive a L322 from London, all the way through Africa to Cape Town?”

Well, I’m pleased to announce that the answer to this question is an emphatic “Yes!” and this was is a virtually showroom-spec 2003 Td6 starting out with 80,000 miles already on the clock.

We left London on 2 January and, after 18,000 miles, 19 countries and 5 months we succeeded in our ambition to reach Cape Town. We had an incredible journey and the Range Rover was absolutely magnificent. We took it, fully laden, through hostile, remote and rough territory, high altitudes, high humidity, and vast amounts of dust, grit and sand while running it on uncertain fuel quality, yet it didn’t miss a beat. We know of no other vehicle that has completed this journey with so few issues, Landcruisers included! (the only thing that actually went wrong with the car were the parking sensors)

Our routing took us through: France – Switzerland – Italy – Greece – Turkey – Syria – Jordan – Egypt – Sudan – Ethiopia – Kenya – Uganda – Tanzania – Malawi – Zambia – Botswana – Namibia – South Africa – Lesotho

Some of you were kind enough to share your thoughts and advice on this topic before we left and I know others have been following our trip blog. I also learnt a huge amount about the car by trawling through this forum so, now back in London, it is my turn to make a contribution. Hope you enjoy it.

We have developed a very detailed website of our exploits so, rather than make an excessively long post here, I am going to direct you to the bits of the website that may be of interest through the following links:


A few snaps of the Rangie in action in Africa

How the Range Rover performed in Africa

Range Rover expedition preparation

Expedition trip log

Trip statistics

Homepage


Quite a lot to keep you busy there! I hope you find this interesting and heart-warming to see some emphatic proof that a modern Range Rover - 40 years on from its initial introduction - is still a formidable vehicle in virtually any environment you can imagine. The most capable vehicle in the World? Get’s my vote.

Best regards
RRG

Well done and great pictures.

Was planning Africa in a few years with the family (in my Camel Defender) and now starting to think about taking the FFRR.
Not a big trip like you though, just a potter about in Morocco for their first time.

And well done for finally getting first post in the Africa section.

Absolutely great post and a wonderful journey. A credit to you and the L322 of course.

Thankyou for sharing this with us all

Now, any other trips planned to really test the RR

I meant to ask...

Did you alter the air intake in any way?

How did it fare as I've had concerns about it filling up with dust/sand quickly and effecting performance.

I did take my Disco2 TD5 air filter out once a week in those conditions, bang it out and put it back. But not sure that's ideal.

Some great pics and looks like it was alot of fun!

Altho the picture with a donkey drawn in dust on your bonnet sends my OCD into over drive thinking about swirls its created  4.4 V8 Autobiography and 22" wheels!

wow,wow,wow and wow again, what a trip, did landrover help you with the trip. that must of been a real eye opener. great photos and well done, what was the cost of the speeding tickets... V8 facelift Range Rover Autobiography 22" wheels.
1976 Harley Davidson Iron Head Sportster

Fox - finally answered your question on air intake in the main forum. Sorry - forgot to check this sub-forum!

Fox, if you take your Td6 to Morocco (great idea by the way - keen to do it myself) then you will need to get a dreaded "carnet de passage" from the RAC. Very expensive for our vehicles. PM me if you want some advice how to go about this - I spent hours looking into it and can save you the same hassle and quite a bit of expense.

Full Fat, I must admit I've got the expedition bug! One day I fancy a crack at the pan-American highway from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego (although I think I'd ship around the Darien Gap!). Alternatively I think Paris - Peking is well within the FFRR capabilities...

Fancy coming?

Macdaddy, believe it or not I'm a bit OCD as well - doesn't mix well with taking a car through Africa! The car was *pristine* before we left but I had to accept it would pick up some 'patina' en route. It's survived very well, much helped thanks to Permaguard paintwork protection applied last year.

Unfortunately even that could prevent the paintwork scuffs the bl**dy Egyptians inflicted on it on the crappy barge across Lake Nasser from Aswan to Sudan. Don't think that will be too difficult to rectify though.

Daveo - no help from LR at all on preparation or costs.

Got stopped speeding 6 times in Africa and talked my way out of 4. The other two were about a tenner each. A few cops stopped us just to bribe us but they didn't get anything more than a bit of left over chocolate.

Tanzania was the real hot-spot for police on the road, always jumping out of a bush with a damn radar gun...

Quote:

"carnet de passage" from the RAC. Very expensive for our vehicles.

That is great to hear about Morocco and the Carnet, makes a trip there way easier/cheaper. How/where do you cross from Spain? Is there a regular ferry?

The roof loading thing was a bit of a concern - Land Rover quote a maximum roof loading of 50kg. Well that's great because our roof rack weighed 50kg!! So theoretically that gave us zero allowance for anything else.

In reality we ran with a Hannibal roof rack (50kg), Hannibal roof tent (60kg), Hannibal awning (15kg), spare wheel and tyre (30kg), 40litres spare diesel (40kg) and a few other miscellaneous bits and bobs giving an all up weight of around 200kg, or 4x LR recommended maximum! When we used the roof tent there was a further 160kg of static loading on the roof!

Despite taking all this down rough roads, which really puts a strain on the mountings, the Range Rover 'rack mounting system seemed to be more than up to the job. Which is more that can be said of the Hannibal mounting brackets, two of which broke in Northern Kenya after the really rough road and I had to fashion replacements out of angle iron.

By the way, I was initially going to use the genuine RR expedition roof rack but it's next to impossible to mount a roof tent properly and, because it sits so close to the roof, difficult to mount jerry can holders and spare wheel mounts as well. The Hannibal roofrack was actually the one they fit on Disco 3s. Mounting brackets apart, its a good bit of kit.

Conclusion from all this: LR guidance on roof loading is ridiculously conservative

Thanks for that.

There are regular ferrys from Algeciras to Ceuta (still Spain) and Tanger.
I used the Ceuta one as you still land in Spain on the Africa coast. Then you drive down the road to the customs point outside the town.

Great to see that someone has tried to use the FFRR to do this overland Africa trip and help debunk the bad reputation that LRs have on reliability. I have a Landcruiser company car that is going in and out of the shop almost montly and my RR Supercharged has only had maintenance done on it.
I currently live in Nigeria and am planning a similar but than starting here, first go up and then come down to Cape Town. So any information on RR preparation and other travel tips are very welcome (especially, how to ensure fuel going into a very thirsty engine during the long hauls ).
So please keep posting info as much as you can !!!