February
5 1953 (Thursday) Land Mileage 1195
After
the usual morning routine, breakfast, washing and packing, we were on the
road by 07h00.
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| Packing up in the morning |
The dust was quite appalling, and the first
sand dunes appeared in front of us. Cameras had to be brought out
and we made a short stop to record this part of the journey.
While
we were doing this, the trucks from the previous night had pulled up close by and
filmed us with large cine cameras as we went on our way. What they
were up to, none of us knew; maybe we would hit the big time film studios
yet! We passed several signs marking small wells along the
way, but we had already planned to carry on to El Goléa where we could top up
with fuel and water.
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| Dad adjusting the stays that held up the water tank plus extras at El Goléa. |
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| It did not take long after 14h00 for the locals to see what were up to! |
We arrived here just on 13h00, to find the
place was literally asleep, until 14h00. At that time, a little Arab
boy appeared from nowhere and with considerable sign language explained where
we could find petrol, sold us two eggs and then, sitting on the front of the
Land Rover, he guided us into the "market square".
Here we bought twelve oranges and managed to find another egg; three
between the four of us, quite a feast!!
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| David and Dad negotiating the cost of some food for us. |
In
El Goléa, we had to report to the Military Commandant; they took our names and
address, not that the latter existed at this stage; the Land Rover was in
fact the only address we had. Whether he ever understood anything we said, we
can only surmise!
We
had a cleanup with some 'wet towels' which we were carrying with us, watched
intently by the little Arab guide, who was very fascinated. We gave
him one and much to our surprise, his towel was spotless after a clean
around the face; ours were certainly not after the dust we had travelled
through. He, riding on the front of the Land Rover yet again, then
took us to where we could fill up the water tank. Somehow or
other, the hose slipped and the little Arab drenched everyone within a short distance,
which included David. Screams of mirth carried through the air and it was
a generally amusing time to all who had witnessed it. While
this was going on, an Arab with a badly infected arm approached - he
obviously hoped Dad could deal with it. The medical aid kit came
out and Dad did his best at cleaning it up and putting a bandage on, to try to
keep it clean. The next "patient" to approach in hope of treatment was a one-legged elderly man; he just pointed to the missing one; to this day we still wonder if he thought
my father was going to miraculously produce a new leg for him!
It was only at 15h00 that the petrol station opened, and here
the two trucks that had been filming us earlier, also appeared for
fuel.
We were soon on our way after this, not wishing to waste more
time and we managed to put another 46 miles on the clock before deciding that
we should stop for the night. We had travelled over a hard lake bed
which was characterised by small dunes and boulders. It was
wonderful being able to stop at any stage. All one needed was a
small area of firm ground and that was the stopping point for the night! It was all fairly barren and camping anywhere did not prove to be
a problem.
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| Breakfast and wash-time using a small bowl and sharing the precious drop of water! |
February
6 1953 (Friday) Land Mileage 1359
On
the road again by 07h20; the sun was already shining and the weather at this
stage seemed very pleasant. The trucks appeared again and
waved us down to let us know that we should pick up water at Fort Miribel, as
the water there was excellent. Fort Miribel was built in 1894, after the capture of El Goléa in 1891 by
French troops. It was an advance look-out post, intended to protect El Goléa against
incursions.
We followed them to the Fort,
which we discovered to be occupied by the Foreign Legion; their transport was by Land
Rover - where were all the story-book horses? The directions which
we had for this part of the trip were to pass a white cairn, where there was a
new well and thence we were to ascend to a plateau.
After 16 miles, we were
to pass a ruin on the right and then 6 miles further on there would be a small
hut on the right. Following the trucks had made this part pretty
easy.
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| Fort Miribel |
We picked up water and topped up again with fuel and
discovered that the trucks belonged to a French film crew, who had done the trip
on several occasions!
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| Waiting for Dad to fill the water tank up again. |
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| Waiting in the queue for fresh water |
We left ahead of them, after taking a few
photographs, but as everything around was such a brilliant white, we wondered
if they would ever come out! The trucks passed us yet again a few
miles out of Fort Miribel, and after this the drive became very
boring. We were crossing the Tademait Plateau, the true Sahara, and there were
literally miles and miles of nothing but hard little black stones; not a heap
or a bump in sight. It seemed to go on and on and we were all
becoming very restless and bored when finally out of the blue, a beautiful view
unfolded in front of us and we had a very steep winding descent from the
plateau.
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| Sahara after the Plateau |
We could see for some considerable distance and the
trucks were again in view, parked at the bottom. We stopped at the
top to record the view on film and to appreciate the change in
scenery. After the descent, the ground remained hard for a short distance,
but suddenly we found ourselves in heavy sand; this was how we imagined the
Sahara Desert would be! The track was quite good and,
with low tyre pressures, we managed to make our way forward without any
problems.
After
passing a landing strip, we pulled into In Salah. We were by
now 851 miles from Algiers and having gone over the mountains, we had dropped to 900 feet above sea level. This was
the first time we had a serious language problem, trying to explain that we
needed fuel. Suddenly we realised that the problem was in fact that
the garage fuel pump was not working, and we had no choice but to fill our tank
with the spare jerry cans of fuel; there for just this sort of
emergency! They kindly gave us a bucket of water to wash in;
obviously by this time we looked (and probably smelt) as if we needed
one! We found that the sand really stuck to one's skin and it was
very refreshing to get rid of some of it.
We had a very interesting chat to a French soldier who appeared, to find
that he had been serving with the forces in England in 1942. How nice to
speak to someone who understood us! We only got away at about
17h00, so after a 2 mile trip found a spot to settle down and really have a
good clean up. The sand had seeped into every nook and cranny and
the Land Rover was in need of a good sweep out. We then tried to
rid ourselves of as much sand as possible before having a meal and going off to
‘bed’.
To be continued :-)
I have put this section of my life story on Kindle if you should be interested:-
See
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