Location: Hammamet (N36.24236 E10.33664) Click to view
Miles travelled: 96 miles
Weather: 29ºC Sunny all day then Thunderstorm in the evening
Today we mostly listened to: Elbow – Seldom seen kid
Our main mission today was to find the Land Rover Dealer (N36 43.665 E10 14.390) so that we can take Monty there first thing tomorrow to get the clutch, which doesn’t seem to be getting worse but isn’t getting better either, fixed.
After deliberating over our two “official” Tunis maps we found a route and set off. Unfortunately these maps are a bit like the ones you get at theme parks showing you where the rides are and therefore not exactly accurate. There are roads on them that don’t exist and roads that exist that aren’t on them, so we ended up driving around for an hour or so looking for it.
We eventually found it and drove in. The security guard helpfully told us that contrary to the website it was actually open today but only before 12 (We got there at 1pm) and that, again contrary to the website it’s not open tomorrow (Sunday)……..Gggrrrrrr. This means we’re definately going to be late for our Libya border crossing because we now won’t even be able to get into the garage before Monday. We decided to phone our Libian tour guide to check whether we could be a day late to the border, he confirmed this would be fine. Crisis averted (we should probably worry less!) Having already done Tunis we head to the coast to a place called Hammamet which isn’t too far from the garage but is far enough from Tunis for a change of scene.
Hammamet is a town on the East coast with a very nice beach. The Medina is quite nice but the rest of it is a bit shabby and geared mainly for tourism so feels a bit deflated out of season. Nevertheless it’s on the coast and has a beach so we stay.
We’re now at a camp site just out of the town (N36 24.239 E10 33.667) in quite a built up area. It appears to be the olive tree garded of a hotel that the owner has opened up for campers. We have the place to ourselves which is rather nice.
We popped out and picked up a courgette and aubergine for dinner which Charlie made into a really nice vegetable curry.
Once dinner was finished we played scrabble (I won!) and watched a huge thunderstorm pass overhead. Despite the rain it really made for a great evening. I was extremely content sitting under the awning playing scrabble and watching the lightning, the half bottle of Gin we got through with our Gin & Tonics (with limes from a tree next to the car) may have helped too though!
