Sunday, 6 August 2017

Another successful season & planning ahead for trips in late 2018-early 2019

Hi everybody,

After leaving the UK in September 2016 for another expedition down to West Africa and back, Aminah is home!


Our last trip of the season arrived into Marrakech at the end of May 2017 after the long journey north through Senegal, Mauritania, Western Sahara and southern Morocco. After a couple of days turnaround in Marrakech, Aminah, Zoe & Jason headed to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, crossing the Mediterranean to Algeciras where they began the long drive back to the UK via Spain and France.

Rainy season is now well underway in West Africa, a time that makes travelling in the region challenging at best, so time for Aminah to have a well deserved break back home in the UK.


We'd like to say a massive thank you to Zoe and Jason who ran the trips for OWA this season, they both did a truly fantastic job! With trips in West Africa it's so important to have good crew on board, they're an essential part of any overland expedition, and Zoe and Jason's hard work and enthusiasm is highlighted by the overwhelmingly positive feedback we've received from the passengers that travelled with us. Thanks very much indeed Zoe and Jason!



You can read some of the great comments the passengers from this seasons trips wrote about Zoe, Jason and OWA (as well as previous seasons comments) by clicking on the photo below. Thanks so much to all of those who took the time to write such positive feedback for us. Cheers guys!

Dave the Hat headed up to the Drago workshop a few weeks ago to give Aminah some TLC and a good deep clean, as well as a good mechanical inspection. As you can imagine the road conditions take their toll on Aminah and the mud and dust clings to everything, so it takes some time to get her cleaned up properly. After a few long days and nights Hatter parked her up under cover until our next season of trips begin in late 2018/early 2019.

So what's next? Well, over the next few months we'll be jigging things around a little to take into account what has and hasn't worked well on our trips to date. We're going to start the 2018-19 season slightly later in the year, with our Dakar to Freetown trip starting in early November rather than mid-October. Hopefully the extra few weeks will give the roads more of a chance to dry out!

You can see all of the dates for our trips in late 2018/early 2019 here: 


If you haven't done so already please send us an Enquiry Form to register your interest in joining our trips in the future.

Remember, you can keep in touch with all the latest happenings at Overlanding West Africa via our social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Pinterest and Google +).

We look forward to hearing from you and hope to see you on board Aminah in 2018-19 for another adventure through magical West Africa!

David Oades (Hatter), Al Goodridge, Jimmy C and Aminah

Below is a wonderful selection of photos that our passengers took over the course of the season. If these don't tempt you to visit the region with us then we don't know what will! Many thanks to Mahesh Patel, Zinzi Speear, Kath Donaldson, Knut Ovrebo, John Stenson, Melanie Smith and Jim Stolk - your photos really do show off what a magical region West Africa is to visit!