Egypt
New Stuff from the Explorer School
See the above page for lots more details about desert driving.
- Travel: Welcome To The Sahara
New Stuff The desert is one of the mysterious places on earth where normal rules about living are suspended and even inverted. There is no water- yet we need water for life. There are no crops and trees and yet these are essential to make shelter and...
- Travel: Camping In The Western Desert Of Egypt
Thanks to Ben for posting my article about the task of preparing for a holiday which includes several days camping in the Western Desert of Egypt on his All About Egypt website. He has organized it into 5 sections, with photographs: Desert travel http://www.all-about-egypt.com/sahara-desert-travel.html...
- Long Range Desert Group
Egypt Daily Star News (Peter A. Carrigan) More slightly off-topic themes - this time it's the Pharaohs' Rally, but the author has made mention of the Long Range Desert Group who are certainly an important and intriguing part of Egypt's modern...
- Still Technically Challenged
Apparently it's not a problem with my ISP (or so I'm told by a call centre operator who read from a script, almost incomprehensibly). I've changed broadband routers, and that's not the problem either. Next it's a matter of changing...
- Brighton's Pyramids Take Shape
http://tinyurl.com/bsuad "They stand up to 45ft tall and are a cut above your run-of-the-mill seaside sand castles. The ornate works, recreating ancient Egypt in 10,000 tons of sand imported from Holland, will feature in Britain's first festival of...
Egypt
Desert Driving #1
New Stuff from the Explorer School
Those of you who have heard of Robert Twigger are probably aware of his interest in travel in the Western Desert of Egypt. He is one of the owners of the Explorer School, which produces this blog.
When people think about desert driving they usually think about getting stuck in the sand. But actually in the desert you can spend as much time driving over gravel, rocks, and vegetation albeit sparse vegetation as you do driving over sand. Hard tyres are fine for hard surfaces but if your tyres are too hard then you will sink when you do finally hit the sand. On the other hand, if they don’t have enough air in them then you are likely to get a puncture when you weave your way through an area of sharp rocks. Many people carry a small compressor to reinflate tyres. A foot pump is not very good because it will get sand in it and chances are it will eventually break. In Germany and France you can get quite effective handpumps which though there are time consuming you can refill the air in a tyre. One of the advantages of driving with a wide tyre such as Pirelli scorpions 10.5 inchx15 tyres such as I use is that you can let a lot of air out of them without there being a significant collapse on the side wall. I often only reinflate my tyres when I am at an Oasis having driven 100 or more road km on tyres at 20PSI. In four years and 30,000km on the same tyres I’ve suffered only one sidewall blow out on tarmac. I’ve driven extensively on sand and on rocky surfaces that are quite sharp and not suffered many punctures. People with narrower tyres than mine, such as 7.5 inchX16 have in my experience suffered more punctures.
See the above page for lots more details about desert driving.
- Travel: Welcome To The Sahara
New Stuff The desert is one of the mysterious places on earth where normal rules about living are suspended and even inverted. There is no water- yet we need water for life. There are no crops and trees and yet these are essential to make shelter and...
- Travel: Camping In The Western Desert Of Egypt
Thanks to Ben for posting my article about the task of preparing for a holiday which includes several days camping in the Western Desert of Egypt on his All About Egypt website. He has organized it into 5 sections, with photographs: Desert travel http://www.all-about-egypt.com/sahara-desert-travel.html...
- Long Range Desert Group
Egypt Daily Star News (Peter A. Carrigan) More slightly off-topic themes - this time it's the Pharaohs' Rally, but the author has made mention of the Long Range Desert Group who are certainly an important and intriguing part of Egypt's modern...
- Still Technically Challenged
Apparently it's not a problem with my ISP (or so I'm told by a call centre operator who read from a script, almost incomprehensibly). I've changed broadband routers, and that's not the problem either. Next it's a matter of changing...
- Brighton's Pyramids Take Shape
http://tinyurl.com/bsuad "They stand up to 45ft tall and are a cut above your run-of-the-mill seaside sand castles. The ornate works, recreating ancient Egypt in 10,000 tons of sand imported from Holland, will feature in Britain's first festival of...