Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

The next morning we had a little look around the site we'd spend the night in, Jason spending quite a while pulling off little bits of bark from birch trees. He's quite into his outdoorsy stuff and likes to get hands-on with nature when he gets the chance.

Eventually the pockets couldn't hold any more, so we packed up and shipped out, heading northwards back to the coast, still circling the base of Ben Hope, then stuck to the plan and headed back on ourselves to Tongue and took the old road around the water. Its easy to see why they took the time to build a causeway, the round trip must have taken us about an hour, and driving over the causeway takes 5 minutes!

We pulled into the local recycling station to empty out some rubbish and Jason got chatting to Gordon, the chap working there. Talking about shopping and supplies, apparently most of the locals take a trip once a month to Thurso or Inverness to get the shopping in - must be a round trip of 100+ miles! Either that, or he said they eat a lot of venison!!

Leaving Gordon to his work, we headed westwards around Loch Eriboll. No idea why this one is a Loch and Kyle of Tongue is a Kyle - they both open out into the sea, they're both a similar size and shape, and within about 15miles of eachother?? The scenery was very diffferent to Tongue, much more rugged and mountainous - apparently its one of the deepest inlets on the northern UK coastline, and lots of our larger ships would drop anchor there and 'hide' during WWII. There was also a great little derelict house with its own jetty which looked like it could be a fantastic location for a dive school cum B&B, running trips to the not-so-far-away Scapa Flow... But we'll have to save that for another day :-)

We stopped at a lovely little secluded beach about 3miles from Durness, the furthest north any road will take you without the aid of a ferry (which isnt running this time of year!) so that Jason could take a few photo's. I stayed in Moglet with the engine running, having a nice little daydream about nothing in particular. Right up until the moment Moglets engine pitch started to drop and she made very definitely unhealthy chugging sounds. I reached over and revved her up a bit, trying to get her to smooth out, but it was to no avail. Seconds later, she coughed and spluttered and the engine died. Oh dear. Jason was still scampering about on the beach somewhere, and there I was, sitting in a vehicle which I had no idea how to even start! I'm such a girl sometimes... So, I did the only thing sensible, I turned off the ignition, cut the trip switch to everything electrical and waited for the cavalry to return :-)

Looking on the upside, it was a fantastic location to have a breakdown! As you can see from the picture above, Moglet either has a blatant disregard for a lack of road in front of her, that's me driving her and having a go at parking up, or maybe its Jason turning her round (while the engine was still working!).

When Jason arrived back at Moglet, he was naturally surprised to hear her lack of engine burble. When I explained what had happened he naturally tried to restart, but no joy. There was plenty of energy to turn her over, and she would occasionally fire up and start, only to splutter out a strangulated cough and die again a few seconds later. After a couple of goes, she wouldnt even do that much, so it was looking more and more like a fuel problem. Which was odd, seeing as we were carrying nearly three tanks worth at the time!

First things first, we did what everyone in such a situation should do if they can - we clambered into the back and had a cup of tea and a think!

We both agreed that it sounded like a fuel problem, although that was about the extent of my technical assistance. After popping the bonnet, Jason initially noticed the little glass reservoir which contains the filter which all fuel for the engine goes through appeared to be full of flecks of what looked like paint. So that was taken off and (very!) carefully cleaned - if that breaks, its a total showstopper and we aint going nowhere! Spares have since been ordered, just in case... This was replaced, Jason then spent a good couple of hours bleeding air out of the system using a dinky little pump half buried inside the engine block, while I loitered with a jiffy bag and copious amounts of kitchen roll to soak up the diesel bubbling out of loosened seals, along with keeping the tea flowing. After what seemed like an eternity of pumping, there were still bubbles coming out of the filters, although the flow had reduced considerably. It was time to fire her up and see if things had been fixed. Fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed, Jason turned the key, and Moglet started up! And then died again :-(

Meanwhile, I think its fair to point out that at least 10 vehicles had passed by us by this point, its pitch black, we have the bonnet of Moglet propped up and we're both peering inside intently wearing headtorches, and not one bugger stopped to see if we were ok! Hmmm...

Back to square one. There's no denying that she still had power and there was plenty of fuel, it just wasnt getting to where it was supposed to be, and more importantly it seemed like air was being sucked into the system as fast as Jason was pumping it out. So he went back to the source and was going to take it step by step, from tank to engine and everything he could see inbetween.

At this point, someone actually stopped! We didn't get his name, but very many thanks to the very helpful bus driver who pulled up next to us to see if he could offer any help or advice. He was as stumped with the facts as we were, but he gave us the names and numbers of two chaps in Durness, a couple of miles away, who he thought could probably help out - not mechanics as such, but living in such remote places, people tend to be a jack of all trades and they apparently knew their diesel engines. Suddenly we felt like we weren't all on our own, and we had a bit of a lifeline if we needed it. So thank you very much Mr Bus Driver! :-)

Once he'd driven off, Jason decided to have one last play and pulled off the hose which connects a tank to the engine - the inside of it appeared to have a few bits of crap and grit in it, and there's every chance the washer inside wasn't prodiving a good airtight seal as the engine tried to suck up fuel...could this be it??!! A little while spent cleaning this bit up, he plugged her back in, pumped the air out some more (which appeared to run out much quicker this time), turned the key and she spluttered into life! And kept on chugging away happily!! Hurrah!!!

By this time it was full dark, and with the possibility that she might stop running again, which we didnt really want to happen on a single track coastal road in the pitch black, with gritting lorries steaming up and down every hour or so, we decided to stay put for the night and roll on out to Durness the next morning...