Cape Draa

Lars, Inge and the nimble Land Rover left to explore the beach tracks while we headed inland following a river. After meeting some nice camels, we followed another river and ended up back on the beach. This is a desert area or at least semi-desert so it does not rain much. However, today it was lashing down. We wandered out onto the beach. Nice golden sand. Looked firm. Several vehicle tracks. We sank into the soft, wet sand. Fortunately, this was not too much of a problem. We were above the high tide mark so not in any danger although the rain was a bit unpleasant. Once the tyres were deflated, Baloo just popped straight out. We headed for higher ground and parked up for the night.

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Next day we forded a river and attempted to head back inland but once again ended up close to the beach. We were on a boggy looking area between the beach and the cliffs following the only track we could see. It seemed reasonably firm but was going in the wrong direction. Just as I spotted a possible place to turn, the right hand side of Baloo sank. The whole track looked muddy and wet in the rain. We’d found the bit that was soft as well.

Getting out of this was much more of a problem and deflating the tyres was not enough. We also spent a couple of hours digging. Making a space in front of the wheels for the truck to move into. All our spare firewood then went in front of the wheels so they would have something to grip. While this was going on two locals arrived. They watched us and smoked cigarettes. They explained how what we were doing was not going to work and then offered to fetch a gang of people to dig us out. We declined and they wandered off.

With all five diffs locked Baloo hauled itself out of the mud. We were very relieved. We were also wet and very muddy so we only moved a short way, onto some firmer ground and parked up. Later we met a passing military officer who was patrolling the area. We discovered that if we had gone with the local’s offer that it would probably cost us around €500. Next day we headed directly back to the tarmac road. I resolved, for the umpteenth time in my life, to never, never go driving on beaches.

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