Challenges aplenty on rocky road to Morocco

Despite a ‘stowaway’, cancelled ferries, broken down vehicles and being refused entry to Morocco, Challenge 4000 team members are still smiling on their mammoth journey to The Gambia.

The volunteers are driving more than 4,000 miles from Inveraray to deliver emergency vehicles to the west African country.

The convoy includes a road rescue and emergency trauma care unit for the Gambian Fire and Rescue Service; two ambulances to be used as mobile clinics; a 4 x 4 to be used as a sea rescue unit for the Gambian Fire and Sea Rescue Unit; and an ambulance to serve the Foni region.

Leaving Inveraray Jail on December 15, Fiona Nelson, Finlay Hutton, Charlie Denny, Vicky Lang, Jillian McCreery, Doug and Rose Hamlen, Grahame Ross, Dougie Feltham, June

Eades, Becky Headley, Dan Maddocks, Donald Stewart, Jacqueline Bottomley, Maggie Styche and Kim Bowskill ended up with a stowaway.

The infamous Inveraray gin thief escaped from the jail and hitched a ride.

The escapee was captured at Penrith from where the team pressed on through the Eurotunnel to France and onwards through Spain, into Morocco and Mauritania. On the way, the group has celebrated Finlay’s 14th birthday, had Christmas in the desert and encountered more than their fair share of difficulties.

A technical issue with an air filter needed to be repaired before the group arrived in Africa and wild winds left its scheduled ferry from Algeciras to Tangier cancelled, resulting in a mad dash to the Moroccan border when group members finally made it across the Strait of Gibraltar.

Thinking they had made it through, the group was turned back by border control. Contacting the Moroccan Embassy, members hoped to be given special clearance – but no such luck on a Friday. Plan B was implemented: make the vehicles look more like campervans by inflating airbeds and hanging up washing.

Unfortunately, one of the vehicles was recognised and they were again refused entry, meaning it was a return ferry trip to Algeciras until the Gambian Foreign Office and the Moroccan Embassy sorted it out.

Emergency funding appeals have been launched as they are en route, helping to cover unexpected costs of additional ferry crossings and the support the group has received has encouraged them to keep going.

At the time of writing, despite all the complications and setbacks, the team was back on track to reach its destination today, Friday January 3.