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Cape-to-Cape racer enters Africa

Volkswagen’s Touareg is now well into the African section of its world-record bid from the northernmost tip of Europe to the southernmost tip of Africa.

The crew is aiming to do the drive in 10 days which - if you check some early flight schedules - is probably quicker than it used to be flown.

Rainer Zietlow and co-drivers Marius Biela and Matthias Prillwitz are attempting to set a world record of  driving more than 17 000km fro Nordkapp, Norway, to Cape Agulhas, in just under 10 days.

RACKING UP RECORDS

Zietlow is attempting to set his third world record: he holds the records for driving from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska along the Panamericana highway in 11 days and 17 hours and from Melbourne to St. Petersburg in 17 days 18 hours.

The Cape-to-Cape drive started on Sunday 21 2014 and the mayor of Cape Agulhas Municipality, Richard Mitchell, will press the stop button when the Touareg reaches the Cape Agulhas monument in the Agulhas National Park.

Before reaching North Africa Team Zietlow went through Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey.

In Africa the car will cross Egypt, Sudan, Ethopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe before reaching South Africa.

Team Zietlow has been posting daily reports on its website, including a blog with photos and videos detailing each day's stage. The current position of the Touareg is also shown on a virtual mapthat is updated every five minutes.

At the time of this article being published on Thursday (Sept 25) at 11.30am, the map showed the team was currently in a town called Gallaba in Sudan.

The team has pledged to support "Food & Trees for Africa" with the planting of nearly 600 trees around the city of Johannesburg in October 2014, already said to be "the world's most-forested city", "to make the entire project, including the record drive and a scouting tour, CO2-neutral.

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