Calum's Road in The Gambia

Despite her devastating illness, Stella was always thinking ahead and trying to find ways to assist her local community in The Gambia. One of the things that had been bought to her attention was a stretch of road 7.5 kilometres long, which leads from the villages surrounding Stella's camp to the nearest town of Kuntaur, which is on the North Bank of the river.

The village women use this road daily to get to the rice fields, and it is the route to the nearest secondary school, health clinic and market from which they can both buy goods and sell their produce. Most of the road has been washed away and during the rains and for some months after the rains, this road is under water. This causes great hardship and people have to remove their clothes and carry them on their heads as they wade through seven kilometres of water. It is dangerous for children going to school and must be very disheartening if you are sick and need to get to the clinic. People have been known to put off the visit until it is too late and this has caused unnecessary deaths. We have also treated several horses and donkeys that have sustained injuries whilst trying to pull their carts along the submerged road.

Sadly, despite her best efforts, Stella was unable to raise sufficient funds to rebuild this road before her death and on Christmas night, though she was very ill, she asked me if we would ensure that the road was built. I made my promise, though I was rather daunted by the prospect, particularly after I had received some of the quotes for the road!

I discussed it with several people including Professor Max Murray, who is a Trustee and a friend. He had recently read a book called Calum's Road, which had inspired him, and when he heard the story of this road, he immediately said that of course it was possible and of course it could be done and he advised me to read Calum's Road.'

During our subsequent conversations the road became known as 'Calum's Road in The Gambia' and it will be built, inspired by Calum and in memory of Stella.

The road is estimated to cost £130,000 - £150,000 to build. It will be built with community involvement and we hope to start it next dry season roughly a year after Stella made her request to me. If anybody knows of any company or organisation that may be willing to sponsor a part of the road or even fund raise for it, we would be very glad to hear from them.

Donations can be made to The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust (Calum's Road) HERE.

The rehabilitated horses and donkeys that belong to the Trust will be playing their part in fulfilling Stella's dream by helping to carry materials for the road on their carts. Calum's road took twenty years to build, let's hope that we are able to build ours more quickly.

We would like to thank the following people for their support for Calum's Road in The Gambia:


Mr. Mostyn Mr. Lock Mr. Selbie Mr. and Mrs. Law Helena Clybouw	Mairi Macdonald Mairi Leach Professor Max Murray Roger Huchinson Hazel Macaulay

Map Showing location of Calum's Road. Please click on image to view larger version

For a BBC video of extended footage of the trip from Raasay to Gambia please click *here

Johnny McMaster from Skye, who is a motorbike enthusiast, is arranging for a sponsored bike ride from Calum's Road in Scotland to Calum's Road in The Gambia. They are planning for 10 of them to raise £2000 each, which is an astonishing total of £20,000 which will be a big chunk of road!

Their trip is planned for January 2010 and we wish them all the luck they deserve with this project. Thank you all so much, we shall be waiting in The Gambia to give you a typically warm Gambian welcome!

If you would like to sponsor Johnny he can be contacted by email at Johnny McMaster. Full information can be found on the 'Calum's Road to the Gambia 2010' website

On the 15th November, 2008, a team of students and instructors from the Gambia Technical Training Institute (GTTI), led by Peace Corps Volunteer Bill Meyers, came to survey the road. This team worked incredibly hard to complete the task and were ably assisted by many members of the local communities who cut down vegetation to ensure clear site lines. If this first team of volunteers are setting the pace for future teams, they will be a hard act to follow as their dedication and hard work was very impressive.

We are also looking forward to a visit from the technical director of the National Roads Authority, Ebrima N'Jie and his colleagues in the very near future. It is hoped that students from a chapter of 'Engineers without Borders' will be coming in January if they can raise sufficient funding to look at the road and give us a better idea of the final costs involved. We are extremely grateful to the GTTI and Peace Corps for their participation in this project.

Inspired by the efforts of Calum MacLeod of Raasay, (whose story I am sure you all know), the people of the villages near Kuntaur in the Gambia are building their own road supported by The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust.

If the answer to any of these questions is 'YES', and we hope it is, please join us by emailing us your details and ideas for FUNDRAISING events to Hazel Macaulay

*The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust is not responsible for the content of external websites

June 30th, 2009 - Yes, as the title suggests we're in Mali and what I had planned to write in my head for the last few weeks is in reality going to be cut by half; as I struggle to hack out the most basic of sentences on this French keyboard:

So greetings all and hooray for the first update on what has so far been the trip of intense times!

A month has passed since we left, yet it feels far more. Yesterday we bunked in the first room with a roof and a bed this whole this time - a cheap Catholic mission - which most importantly had a shower: yes; running water is the most grossly underappreciated thing in our conveniently modernised lives, let alone water that doesn't leave you with "gippo guts" for many days.

We've dropped our motto of staying far, far away from big cities, to find visa's in Bamako and to get our fan fixed; after an explosion of water on the road into the crazy city of scooters.

For amusement's sake I will list the trials and tribulations we've had with Valcor the Constant (or 'Constance' as the zebra striped gelle-gelle (kombi is known) as they were pretty much our major experience of the beautiful Guinea;

Day 2: Front left wheel bearing mangled beyond recognition. Nigerian parts anyone?

And the days that followed: 3 out of 4 piston rings broken. None in Labe so the local post (bush taxi armed with our money going to Conakry, gets met by the man we 'coincidentally' met at the mechanic. Since it takes 9 hours to get there we only get the part 3 days later. Did I mention we are offered accommodation - at a price of course - with the above mentioned man. Day 2 we realise we are living in a brothel where we beared staying for 10 days until it became fundamental that we get the hell out of there!

We are witness to poor Constance's innards lying splayed out, in pieces and a giant hole where her engine usually lives. No doubt in our minds she now has 4 shiny Nigerian piston rings driving us along for ... watch this space ...

It took 2 attempts to put the engine back together again... in out in out... soul destroying stuff...2 weeks pass.

Continuing: Broken oil pipe, leaking oil filter, dirty fuel filter, massive hole in exhaust, clutch plate absolutely overs, power steering system and pipes (which we had great fun fixing at a little camp spot we found by spot light, African style: shove sheet loads of silicon around and strap with maximum tightness with a strap of multi-purpose inner tyre tubing, then more silicone, being careful not to knock any more rust off than necessary, as it is still keeping the pipe together nicely. Alternator bearing shot, on its way out breaking off the inner switch, leaving us needing to park on hills all the way to Labe, except that the handbrake cable's gone too.

The horn goes intermittently, like today, the lights are good only for spotting owls in tall trees.

We have a new, unidentified noise from the back left wheel, again I say...watch this space.

The road conditions need no introduction. I have no doubt it's as clear as can be on seeing the list of breakage's so I'll skip that bit.

Tom's hair dangles dangerously in the engine parts as he leans in to check out the latest; Caitlin sings to people out the window who bother us in French, scaring them off; Jess continues translating the endless French.

So far we have not managed to lose the car keys, I say as I sit on a wooden bench, with the joys of the sights of West Africa passing us by... men in turbans on motorbikes with sheep strapped to the back or passengers, holding a bench, or a baby, or a bicycle. We pick up our Mali visa's in an hour or so and then head 800km's to Dogon Country, to trek and find a pirouge for a 3 day journey up the Niger to get to the elusive Timboktu.

On Friday 29th May, The Chariot of Calum's Road left the Gambian road for its journey to Raasay in Scotland to see the original Calum's road. The community gave them a rousing send off as you will see from the pictures - please click HERE for images.

Jess and her fellow charioteers hope to be in Scotland sometime in August and they will be welcomed by some of the bikers who will be making the journey in the opposite direction in January. We wish them a very good and safe journey and we look forward to giving them a very warm welcome when they arrive. Good Luck and Safe journey!

A journey of 4,000 miles that binds together the passions of two determined people who never met…

One spring morning in 1967, 56-year old crofter Calum MacLeod gathered up an axe, a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and a Victorian-era guide to road construction. Determined to rejuvenate his community on the island of Raasay, near Skye in Western Scotland, he set out to build a road. Denied public funds, he resolved to the build the 2-mile stretch of road himself, and devoted the next 20 years of his life to accomplishing just that. Piece by piece, he created Calum's Road.

Twenty years later, Stella Marsden's dying wish to her sister was that she complete the road to Kuntaur, a village in The Gambia that had become Stella's home. Without the road, villagers have to wade through waist-high rain waters over half the year just to get to their rice fields, as well as to the health clinic, the school and the market which is their livelihood. Stella's sister, Heather Armstrong, made the promise and, along with the villagers of the tiny African nation, has been inspired to create their own 'Calum's Road'. With no public funding available, they too shall perform the work themselves. Assessment and design work is ongoing and the final solution will most likely involve a combination of raising the road with local earth and providing proper drainage. Heather firmly states, "'Calum's Road in The Gambia' will be built, inspired by Calum and in memory of Stella."

Now, three volunteers - an architectural student, a theatre performer, and a self-proclaimed 'explorer' - are preparing to drive from Calum's Road, The Gambia to Calum's Road, Raasay to raise funds and awareness of the project. The road from West Africa to Western Scotland will link the two individuals and their dreams.

When these three came to West Africa, they thought they would stay a certain amount of time and volunteer with a particular project, Sandele Eco-Retreat & Learning Centre, which works closely with the local community. In time, however, they found themselves extending their stay while becoming involved in other projects. It is the people of The Gambia, one of Africa's poorest nations, that inspired their change of plans. Warm and generous, Gambians are always ready to celebrate and to proclaim, "We are not rich, but we are happy." The time has now come for these three to bring their period in the country to an end, but not without making one last contribution, not to mention one last celebration. The Charioteers will be treated to farewell festivities in Kuntaur, and at the end of their journey, by a ceiligh in Raasay.

Click to enlarge

The Chariot, a VW Caravelle, will travel The Gambia's North Bank road to the nation's eastern most tip, into Senegal and the Parc National de Niokolo Koba, north through Mauritania and the Adrar Mountain region, continuing through Western Sahara and Morocco. After crossing the Strait of Gibraltar by ferry, the Chariot will then travel north through Spain before taking another ferry to Plymouth and beginning the last push of the journey through the UK. The charioteers intend to keep their costs as low as possible by camping and eating local foods, and hope to raise funds through Rotary International, corporate sponsorship and individual donations.

Visit The Chariot of Calum's Road Just Giving page to become a sponsor!

Picture Gallery		Fundraiser Information
Latest News		Calum's Road ...Raasay to the Gambia
Sponsored Bike Ride for Calum's Road		Listen to Isle of Harris - Calum's Road (Capercaillie) Here
BBC Video of the trip from Raasay to the Gambia		The Chariot of Calum's Road: From West Africa to Western Scotland
		The Chariot of Calum's Road - Updates

CALUM'S ROAD