We've done it! The Touareg Cape to Cape 2.0 Challenge is complete, and Rainer Zeitlow, Marius Biela and Sam Roach are now World Record holders.
Our arrival in the the Northernmost point of Norway, Norkapp at 14:00 today (Sunday) marked the end of the gruelling 19,000km route across 21 countries...
It took us over 14 hours to cross Sweden from South to North through last night, which felt like a very long way for our now slightly tired team. At least Sweden has beautiful empty smooth roads – about as much of a contrast to the African road conditions we've experienced as it's possible to get!
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After saying goodbye to the Touareg Club Slovakia last night, we then headed to the nearby Volkswagen factory in Bratislava. This ultra-modern plant is where all Touaregs are produced. Alongside the main factory is the Pilot Hall, a workshop for prototype and special builds. The Pilot Hall is a...
After our memorable flight in the Cargo plane over Syria, we then had great drive through Turkey overnight keeping up good average speeds on the empty motorways. We reached Istanbul at around 03:00 and as we crossed the Bosphorus bridge there, we entered the continent of Europe. So we have driven in...
With Syria out of the question to travel through, we have been given World Record dispensation to fly ourselves (and the Touareg) from Jordan to Turkey. We chose the two airports that were the closest possible to Syria to keep our flying to a minimum and driving to a maximum. And so, we arrived at...
Late last night, we made a brief stop after the Suez Tunnel, Egypt to grab a bit of food. To our amazement in the carpark we met some other long-distance car travellers. The Zapp family (parents Herman and Candelaria, plus 4 lovely young children) set off from Argentina 15 years ago in a big old...
Our convoy of the Touareg and our four Egyptian fixers in their two Volkswagen Tiguans headed North from the border after a friendly welcome from all the officials there. Our route took us through the Sahara desert on a virtually empty dead straight road. With the temperatures up to 43 degrees even...
After the shock of being told that the Ehthiopian/Sundanese border was closed on our arrival there yesterday, we were more than relieved to get on our way into Sudan. After the green and mountainous surroundings of Ethiopia, the contrast was striking. Sudan is completely flat, and dry dusty desert...
To finish our time in Ethiopia, we enjoyed a very scenic and varied drive to the Sudanese border at Metima. Again, the Ethiopian landscape was stunning at every turn, with mountains, valleys, waterfalls – and at last some completely smooth roads. A great way to finish our time in Ethiopia.
After we crossed the border into Ethiopia yesterday afternoon the country straight away felt very different to all of the areas that have come before it on our adventure. Almost as soon as we entered the country the smooth and empty road started climbing into the mountains, eventually taking us up...
Since our last update we enjoyed the rest of our drive through Kenya with some more amazing wildlife and views in the sunset. We really liked the time passing through Kenya.
The border crossing into Ethiopia was a fairly easy and quick procedure. Compared to some of the borders between the Southern...
We have spend this morning travelling through Kenya since crossing the border this morning at around 01:30, crossing the Equator a few hours later.
Within those first few hours, in the dark of the night, we'd already seen a wide variety of Kenyan wildlife next to the road – zebra, giraffe, ibis and...
It has been a long day travelling through Tanzania since our slow border crossing this morning, but the Touareg and our team of three are all in good shape. Central Tanzania has turned much flatter and more desert-like, empty and sparse than this morning's hilly, greener more populated areas.
We drove through the rest of last night to reach the Zambian border at 05:30. Mostly the roads were fast and empty, with just the occasional high-speed trucks and buses squeezing us from the opposite direction. A couple of night-time memories for me stand out: seeing the stars and Milky Way more...
As we came towards the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia this afternoon, we made the long, steep and twisting descent from the high plains down to the Zambezi river that marks the border between the countries. Crossing the giant river over an old single-lane suspension bridge felt like an important...
After our last blog of yesterday, a group of our partners from Esteq were waiting for us at our first refuelling point of the journey in Johannesburg. They had a treat waiting for us to grab – a MacDonald's meal for the three of us!
With the Touareg and team all refuelled, we got back on the road...
Since our update earlier today, we have stayed on the fast, straight empty roads of South Africa, heading North East now towards Bloemfontein. For the past few hours, there has been almost no sign of life or civilisation away from the road, just the occasional small farm, beyond which empty...
The day of departure has finally arrived. We woke early at 06:30 to enjoy our last hot breakfast for ten days, and begin our routine of packing and daily preparation on the Touareg for one last time. Many jobs all around the car to do to get all of our on-board cameras, communications and location...
An early start for the team, driving the Touareg up Cape Town's famous Table Mountain before sunrise. With Sam's arrival from England the night before, our Challenge team of three is now complete, so we took the chance to get our official pre-departure photography with the Touareg. As the sun rose...
From Johannesburg, our trip took us South along Highway N1 to Cap Agulhas, the most southerly point of the African continent. The drive takes almost a full day along a very lonesome route. One of the most amazing sights of this part of the trip came at night with the completely clear skies giving us...
We spent the next four days in Johannesburg. The main time went by with visiting our sponsors and other organizational things, which just have to be done before the start. We were based in a nice lodge in Pretoria and everything went well. Many thanks go out to Volkswagen Hatfield Bryanston and the...
Just after crossing the border to South Africa, we saw this lovely Volkswagen Golf 1. They are still built here and sold under the name "City" - it has a large and faithful fan community. Further south, driving through mountains on a street with a harsh slope, we met a Trike fan, with a self-made...
Just behind the border to Zimabwe we were surprised about being stopped by officials. The Touareg was searched through very accurately, because of the tsetse fly, which exists in Zambia, but not in Zimbabwe. On all our prior stops at this border, this had never happened.
In the afternoon we left Lusaka. We found a lot of good photo opportunities in the Zambian capital, such as the strung shoes, you can see on our diary picture, or the strung sunglasses of last year world record run, which look like a giant cluster of beetles. The way to the border is surrounded by...
We drove through the night on the long and lonely national road T2 in northeastern Zambia. At a fuel station on the next morning we were astonished to see a Toyota minibus with 23 passengers and their luggage - you see such things often, but some just really are over the limit.
We woke up inside the Touareg, next to a rice weighing station. It was early in the morning, but the workers were already really busy and did not care about us. We then drove on through Central Tanzania. The last building sites have been completed, roads are really good now, apart from these...
After crossing the border from Kenya to Tanzania, we drove through central Tanzania. We would often see herds of cows, goats or donkeys passing, which are brought to few watering holes her. These also serve the locals for their water supply. The streets are well built, although every village has its...
We left Nairobi early in the morning. Our journey took us to Amboseli National Park, which we did also visit last year - I can only recommend it. It is a great experience, as it is famous for its elephants and the beautiful scenery with Mount Kilimanjaro right behind. We were lucky enough to see...
In the morning we crossed the border to Kenya in Moyale, formalities were done quickly. It was interesting to see that a big part of the "Road of Hell" has been paved in the meantime, also thanks to support by the European Union. Still, we had to stop quite often due to police controls.
We were happy to recap in Addis Ababa once again, as we started our journey to Kenya the next day - a long and tiring stretch. We took chances of stopping here and there to see as much as possible of countryside and people. It is also a welcome intrusion to talk to the locals and to get some...
Visiting the rock-hewn churches was a really great experience. They were built around 1250, by hand with hammer and chisel - really impressive. We started our journey from Lalibela back to Addis through the night. In the Ethiopian highlands we were confronted with thick fogg and had a very bad view...
Marius has safely arrived in Addis. It was a pleasure to see him at the airport, knowing that a great adventure awaits us.
We've also got a new sticker on the Touareg: Marius brought a present from our friends from the Touareg Club Slovakia. We then headed north from Addis and made our way to...
Everything worked out fine: Rainer and of course the Touareg arrived safely in Addis Ababa. The company Maccfa did good work and got the Touareg out of customs in only 4 hours. The Touareg looks good - no damages or problems on the flight from Belgium to Ethiopia. Rainer came at the airport to pick...
We're proud to announce that we are finally about to start a new world record drive - after finishing the project "Touareg CapetoCape" in 2014 with an unfortunate delay, we've decided to get on the road again and take another try on the world record through Africa and Europe. This time, we will...
