west coast africa with kids?

[travelfor4]

Need some advice from those who've been there -

We're (still) working on planning for a RTW (hope to leave within the next 12-18 months). We're a family of 4 in a 4x4 - mom, dad and 2 (cute blond-haired) girls who will be ages 10 and 7 at the time.

We definitely want to do africa as part of the trip - we'll have somewhere between 6 and 9 months for that segment. We're starting in france, and want to head down at least to ghana overland, then back up from SA to Egypt and on eastward. (We're starting in paris, and would like to show the kids ghana since hubby was born there when his parents were there doing aid work.)

The question is whether to do the ghana - SA portion overland, or to continue trying to look for a shipping company to ship that portion.

Those of you who have done the west coast - would you recommend doing it with kids? The kids in question are well travelled (20+ countries), and quite adventurous - they've conquored pretty bad roads in places like madagascar and indonesia with no complaints (though our then-toddler didn't really like the cold bucket baths we subjected her to in sulawesi!) - and enjoy new experiences and are quite comfortable roughing it. They're also good at listening to instructions, most of the time - so could be convinced to not head off into the bush in Angola b/c of the land mines ...

They seem to have fun wherever we go, and like nature and culture and antiquities and all that ...

But I can't tell from all of the blogs whether the west coast is basically one 2+ month slog through bad roads with not much else going for it, or whether it's something that is really incredible despite the slog through bad roads and mind-numbing bureaucracy.

Would those of you who have done it, do it with kids?

Thanks for any and all insight!!

Best,
Brenda