I PROMISE WE ARE NOT PIKIES!

29 Mar 08

Day 28

Hun - Benghazi

920km

I slept like a log and we were up and ready to go by 9am.This was our longest drive yet as we headed north to Gadaffi's home town, Surt, out of the desert and back to the rugged coast line. There was vast amounts of nothing again, with a flat horizon and dead straight road for miles. The only amusing thing was watching cars piled 3 times as high as themselves with all sorts of things from wheelbarrows, TV's, suitcases and fridges. We had a great wood fire cooked schwama and again ended up driving into the night into Benghazi were we camped like pikies in the parking lot of a huge posh hotel for 5 LD.

30 Mar 08

Day 29

Benghazi - Apollonia

?km

What a great campsite last night on the seafront in front of this massive hotel. We camped in the car park amongst all the fancy cars! Left the camp at 9ish and our first real stop was a ruin on the sea. Andy and Noeleen went to have a look around and we chilled outside, had lunch and tea and a walk on the beach. As usual we had trouble finding a place to camp. Fathi found this 'villa' for 50LD for the 4 of us. Conjuring up great images we took a look inside after driving our cars down a bank and through knee deep grass to get to it. The main room 'lounge' had a TV in the corner and mattresses piled high against each wall. The bedrooms were the same with only one single bed in one of the rooms. The place had not been cleaned in ages and was full of dust with a scattering of litter and the whole place reeked of smoke! The girls left shaking their heads and Andy and I took this as the cue to discuss alternatives with Fathi. A good thing Fathi knew of a hotel in Apollonia that we could free camp at. It is great on a little harbour. Made a great tuna piela for dinner, looked at photos on the laptop, had a few beers and turned in at about 11pm.

PEEPING TOM - CAUGHT

31 March 08

Day 30

Apollonia - Cyrene

15km

Very strange morning this morning. Got up and made some coffee while Se went to the loos in the hotel. When she came back she said that she felt like she'd been watched. We didn't think anything of it until Noeleen came back and said that she'd caught a guy watching her. Andy had caught him and notified the manager. So we called the police and the owner and the little weasel was fired on the stop and taken away by the Libyan police for 'another punishment'. After that was done and over Se, Noeleen and Andy went to Cyrene and I went fishing! There was a small fishing harbour in front of the hotel and a few locals were fishing for mullet. I went out onto the break water and fished out into the open water in front of the harbour. There was nothing moving and after about 3 hours I called it a day and went back to the car to have some lunch. After the others arrived back we did some blog stuff and I went up into the hotel to use the internet to reload our Tunisia photos. After the peeping tom incident we decided to leave the hotel and went up to a youth hostel where they let us camp on the sports ground at the back. Had potato soup for dinner and turned in early.

LAST DAY IN LIBYA

1 Apr 08

Day 31

Cyrene - near Egyptian border

?Km

Our last day in Libya . I don't want to leave! Libya has been such a great place. Once again we were pressured to pack up quickly, after a great hot shower, by the guides. We've done a ridiculous amount of mileage here and I'm missing leisurely mornings but we had a fair way to go so were on the road by 10am. Stopping at Tobruk's Knightsbridge Graveyard was a sobering yet pleasant stop. The graveyard is well looked after with commonwealth funds and is done beautifully with palms and red hot pokers growing in the sand between the 100's of gravestones. I was surprised how many South African soldiers graves there were from a battle in Nov/Dec 1941 in WWII. The common wealth countries soldiers lay here from NZ, Aus, UK and SA.

Stopping in Tobruk we had a great restaurant lunch of chicken and spicy salads, corns salads and parsley and tomato salads. Apart from lunch we got a very uneasy feeling about Tobruk with some unsavoury characters lurking around so we headed on to another gravesite for German soldiers in WWII, before arriving at our 'campsite' at a petrol station 15km from the Egyptian border.

Fathi and Ahmed surprised us with 2 huge snapper fish they had bought so we had a delicious fish braai at the petrol station. Some guards asked us to be careful with the fire but were otherwise unphased. Ahmed and Fathi stayed with their army friend while we had our last night in Libya!

LIBYAN HIGHLIGHTS OF LIBYA

1. Akakus Mountains

2. The Lakes

3. Dune driving

4. Leptus Magna

5. Camping in the sand dunes under stars

6. Friendly hospitable, welcoming people - very genuine.

7. Cheap diesel!

LOWLIGHTS OF LIBYA

1. Litter and rubbish everywhere

2. Expensive hotels