Thursday 8 February 2007

Car Stuff

Five countries on one tank. The fill in Naas got me to Spain, just. The low fuel light had been on for about 80 miles when I crossed the bridge to Irun yesterday. There was no sign of a border, but the diesel was suddenly 20c/litre cheaper than France. Managed to get 156 litres into the 150 litre tank, so I think it was pretty empty (surely the pump could not be wrong?). That´s 8.2km/litre, or something less than 20mpg, over the first 1000km.

The coast road to Bilbao twists through the pyrennean foothills, and it worked the suspension hard, resulting in some new and interesting sounds. So today I looked out for a Land Rover garage to have a look at the underside. I found one in Vitoria, and after a couple of hours waiting (a long lunch), they put the car up on the lift. When the mechanic called two others in for a look I suspected the worst, but it turned out they were just admiring the heavy duty engineering, and annouced that it was built like "an armoured car", and the sounds were just the effects of a lot of weight on the back - the sooner I get a good fat passenger up front for balance the better!

Tonight in Soria with Ana and Oscar (and Naas the dog) who send a big ¡hola! to anyone reading who knows them.

This blog is the diary of a journey through the Sahara undertaken February-May 2007. The most recent post is first.