This week we were lucky enough to get a dump of amazing photographs from Rally Cool Photography from @africaecorace - Thank you @disodbediente it has reminded me of how totally epic it is racing across the desert. The dust, the scenery, the speed, the sliding and the excitement is captured brilliantly in this little series of pictures (more to follow). Now we are pining for the freedom of being in the rally, when can we go back!?

Breaking down is part of life when you run old cars, but taking a 35 year old car into the middle of the Sahara with no support and then racing it might be close to madness. We loved it. The only way to really experience the wilds of African Sahara is to be stranded and have to find a way to keep going. I would suggest losing the fuel pump in the middle of Mauritania is up there with as far from help as you can find yourself, but we soldiered on. Two big failures of note, losing our transfer box and therefore all drive in Western Sahara and losing the fuel pump in Mauritania. Amazingly we carried a spare transfer box as @landrovercarhostoffroad4x4 had warned us of impending failure so a Moroccan workshop worked through the night to keep us moving. The fuel pump was more of a McGuivre affair, we magpied around the bivouac pinching parts off fellow competitors such as @aventuregirousse and @metge_adventure until we had something resembling a working fuel system to propel us to Dakar. Our final visit from the fuck up fairy was when a coolant hose burst, and we drove on innocently for nearly 20kms wondering what the new chemical burning smell was as coolant pissed all over our exhaust…Thank God for @allisport_ltd incredible radiator which demonstrated extraordinary ability to keep the engine cool despite dribbles of coolant. Without the exceptional radiator we would have totally destroyed the engine, so thank you to the Allisport team for keeping us moving and the amusing noises from the header tank when I added a bottle of water when it was clearly well above 100 degrees! Sadly the blown hose lead to a blown head gasket, so our competitive run came to an end. But determined to finish we nursed the old Range Rover all the way to Dakar.

Bivouac Life - Having now settled back into real life, Bivouac life feels a long time ago. We were looked after @africaecorace so well, it feel unfair not make a dedicated post to life in the Bivouac. The amazing food, the cold beer, the bottles of red wine at dinner, the camaraderie, the briefings, the laughter and the shared experience of living under canvas in the Saharan Desert was magical. Once you have settled into the first few days of life together, it became apparent everything is possible in the Bivouac, everyone is there to help and to guide and to support. The Armies of AER staff always willing to help and the fellow racers and mechanics willing to lend a hand or to help. It was a wonderful place to live for two weeks, and the service provided was incredible. You will see quite a stark difference in our self supported set up and the remaining teams with their trucks, LED lights, Starlink and beds. We had a pair of swags and a bag of tools, which of course made the whole experience even more real.

Lac Rose Dakar, Senegal We did it! 7,000 kms from home and have made it down the legendary beach to Dakar, and despite all of the challenges on the way, we took part in the ‘historic’ group start on the beach, to Lac Rose. This is undeniably an epic achievement for both @skeggsmatt and @tomlloydowen but most of all the car. Nursing the car to the finish and then completing the beach run under the helicopter was a huge moment for @guinchoracing and will always serve as the springboard to whatever comes next. It was an emotional ending to the @africaecorace and a fantastic end to this whole adventure. Our next race is likely to be a lot closer to home, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Iceland? Who knows… Special thanks to all our sponsors without whom we would never have been able to get to Dakar. - @saracengroup - One Alpha - @holbornassets - @contrastcapital - @ninjaramenqa - @runnieshq - @shaka_surfschool - @ecosoukqatar - @contrastcapital - @allisport_ltd - @landrovercarhostoffroad4x4 - @bahcraftbeer - @artemis_education - @wijayagirisl - @royalfab.co - @4low4adventure - Giraffe Gin - Mascot Trust - Horizon FO

Mauritania what a place! The second week of @africaecorace found us enjoying the vast open spaces of Mauritania. It wasn’t all success and glory as the car started to really bring us challenges almost immediately after crossing the border. First our fuel pump gave up the fight, and a DIY replacement external pump had to be built in the bivouac from multiple of our wonderful team mates boxes of spares Once back on the road the car endured thousands of kms of hard sand driving and eventually a coolant hose blew and stopped our race while we switched out a spare. Sadly during the process we think we have blown a head gasket and so the latter part of Mauritania racing was gentle and all about survival. We still raced all the way until the last day where the whole caravan pushed for the border with Senegal. We left Mauritania amazed by its vastness having learnt a huge amount about endurance, the spirit of rally, high injection fuel systems and how crossing the Sahara means never giving up.

@africaecorace in Morocco is now coming to an end. Tomorrow we head to Mauritania and the wild, vast open spaces of one of the most remote countries on earth. We discovered today not only are we the only unsupported team in the race, we are the only unsupported team to ever do the Africa Eco Race….we found this out during a chat with our French organisation team who were remarking how it is “typically British” to come to Dakar with no support team, being unsure if he was complimenting us or calling us stupid we have decided to twist this entirely to our benefit. #quiteproud #fatladynotsinging

The transfer box finally gave up. We knew it was coming, it was only a question of when. It chose km 76 of the first stage of the 4th morning. Amazingly one of our sponsors @landrovercarhostoffroad4x4 (thank you Juan!) picked up on the transfer box fault the morning before our departure from Lisbon. With no time to replace the box that day, he very kindly put a spare box he had on the shelf into the car. We strapped it down behind the seats and hoped we would never need it. Now it seems like the best decision we have ever made, as having the spare part at least make fixing the problem a reality after a dusty hot 50kms 6 hour tow out of the desert from the incredible sweeper truck from @africaecorace Fingers crossed the workshop can fix everything in good order and we can catch the rally tomorrow. We are 3,700 kms from Dakar, and still in the fight, just. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but if felt like she warmed herself up today. Tomorrow brings a casual 800kms (12 hours) drive south to Dahkla through Western Sahara with an untested transfer box, sadly with no racing as we have separated from @africaecorace Let’s see what excitements that brings.

An amazing first few days of @africaecorace in Morocco, some amazing racing (difficult to film) and some mega camp spots. We are currently heading towards Western Sahara. Dakar is only 4,000kms away after 2,000k of race distance to date. It’s worth mentioning in case we have@t already, we are the only unsupported team taking on this epic race and amazingly we are still rolling with the pros!!

Stuck in Tarifa waiting for a horrible storm to pass through, so we can cross the straits to the start line in Tangier. We can literally see @africaecorace on the horizon across the violent seas….