Rallye Aicha des Gazelles: 8 days in the Moroccan desert
When my Fairfax editor asked offhandedly if I was interested in driving a Volkswagen Amarok in the Moroccan desert of course I said yes. With my bestie, rally driver and fellow journalist Samantha Stevens, we headed off in the biggest, hardest adventure of our lives.
A rally run for eight days straight, with no electronics - only 1950s maps and a compass. Entirely in French. Did we know how to navigate? Nope. Drive some of the biggest dunes in the world? Nada. Speak French? Non!
Brilliant people, jaw-dropping (and sometimes jaw-shattering) terrain and a lot of je ne sais quois. We stood our car on its nose, camped in the dunes, drive the X route and distinguished ourselves with a placing of 46th out of 181 cars..and several cameos on French prime time TV!
A rally run for eight days straight, with no electronics - only 1950s maps and a compass. Entirely in French. Did we know how to navigate? Nope. Drive some of the biggest dunes in the world? Nada. Speak French? Non!
Brilliant people, jaw-dropping (and sometimes jaw-shattering) terrain and a lot of je ne sais quois. We stood our car on its nose, camped in the dunes, drive the X route and distinguished ourselves with a placing of 46th out of 181 cars..and several cameos on French prime time TV!
