When the weather in the UK is good, it’s one of the best places in the
world to be working outside. However, when it’s bad, it’s one of the
worst.
It was at the end of one of those foul wet days, after a long saturated
summer, that tree surgeons Paul and Guy, wringing out their drenched
socks and looking like they had been swimming fully clothed, decided
they needed to go somewhere warmer and drier.
And so, joking that the Sahara seemed perfect (it was quite hard to
think of anywhere more warm or dry) the seed was sown. Little did they
know that within weeks, this throw away comment would somehow transform
itself into applying to the Plymouth Dakar rally, and committing to
driving 4500 miles in an old car to the most remote city in the world:
Timbuktu (If they’ve stopped kidnapping tourists there that is). They
were delighted to discover that at this point, that they would have to
donate their car to a charity, raising money for a local medical centre,
so rather than just indulging a whim, they were doing something
genuinely good and for the benefit of others.
Their epic journey will take them from the wilderness of North Wales
and Cheshire across the Sahara desert following most of the Paris Dakar
rally route, through countries where every other person seems to have an
AK47, and though the local idea of a feast consists of goat’s entrails
and locusts, there are 500 miles between toilets.
Needless to say, their girlfriends were less than impressed by this idea, and so team Doghouse was born.
Paul and Guy have a bit of a track record of doing slightly unhinged
stuff, with Paul taking every chance to go scuba diving in pitch black
muddy cramped caves, and Guy riding a mountain bike hundreds of miles
across the Atlas Mountains with a Frenchman he barely knew.
They do not speak French (or Berber or Arabic for that matter) and have
little in the way of mechanical knowledge, and so will be relying to a
large extent on crossed fingers and speaking slowly and loudly to get
them out of trouble.
Please get in touch with Guy or Paul if you can help or sponsor in any way, because they really really need your help.
