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This was a long day for us. We hammered North as fast as we could go. It was a Tuesday and Stuart wanted to head on to Egypt. We knew were looking at a long wait for a cargo ship, and Stuart wanted to be communicable during Christmas. It didn't take three to watch a truck, so we raced the truck. The roads slewed through huge sections of the desert. One would not know that we were only 40 miles from the Nile. Rock formations and sand stretches appeared and disappeared, but generally we travelled through low jebel. The fan tunnel fell off and we were now in serious danger of overheating. To combat this we drove even faster.
The increased airflow cooled the engine. Then disaster struck. I dropped the fuel cap and spare keys in the sand and forgot about them, In the rush to get back to find them, the corrugations undid the rear door and all of our boxes quietly fell out over a series of kilometres. A Bedford packed with Sudanese chaps stopped and gestured frantically at us. When we got closer they explained our predicament. Now we had to drive slowly along the track looking for our toolboxes and other items. The Engine rapidly overheated and we had to stop. When the engine had cooled and we had picked up a considerable amount of tools, oil and food it was dark. One of our shock absorbers had pulled free, and our exhaust bolts were unwinding. Stuart took over the wheel again and expertly drove us through the night to within four miles of Halfa. Here we found some soft sand and flopped for the rest of the night.
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