51 Days Remaining

I have gone on a bit of a shopping spree since the last post, I am now the proud owner of much camping/hiking equipment....well perhaps not that much but I think the essentials and catered for!

In a Generation game-esk voice: The first item for you all today is the Eurohike Colossus Transporter 60+15 Litre Travel Pack this monster travel pack has everything, the main bag had a hidden handle which pops up so you can use the wheels to cart it around, or simply unzip the back and there's a multitude of clips and straps to pretty much surgically attach it to your back, pwerfect! As if that wasnt enough the back also has a zip on/off day pack so if I'm in a hotel/hostel etc... I don't have to cart the whole bag around, I just take the essentials.

My second purchase was some walking boots, now obviously comfort is everything when it comes to travelling, I don't want to spend half my trip with a walk similar to that of a polio victim, so on that basis money would have to be spent, thankfully Millets had a deal whereby the shoes were half price when brought with the bag, so these little puppies ticked the right boxes, and with only 2 sizes in stock (one being mine) I took that as a sign from the travelling gods that it was ment to be. (stay tuned to hear my bitching an general moaning if these go badly wrong and endup being worse than walking barefoot through the Gobi). So I went for Hi Tec Men's Vibram® Altitude Ion-Mask™ Boots

Next vital item on the list was the tent, much umming and ahhhing was had over this, seeing as a good chunk of the travels will not be footbased, size & weight shouldnt be huge factors, eitherway I wanted the most minimalistic tent possible so I wouldnt have regrets when lugging it around China & Japan. So with this in mind, after much searching I bit the bullet and bought the Colman Rigel X², I'm yet to test it, but weighing less than 1kg and with good reviews I'm confident it'll perform. |I'll be testing it next weekend in Wales with as many of the rally teams that choose too turn up, so expect a bit of feedback on how that goes, I'm expecting my revelry and drama (we've got to get the car there first....).

The last item that has been decided upon, but hasnt actually been bought yet (a friend is buying it for me as a present), but I'm sur you will all agree is the height of coolness is the Lippi Selk Bag! for those of you unaware of its coolness, its an all in one sleeping bag that has both arms & legs so you can wonder around in freedom around the campsite, at home, to the shops well anywhere really... I'm sure much driving will involve screwing up the tent and just siting down in the car and driving off, I see this as both a valuable timesaver, as well as a prized accessory! Bring on the fun!!!!!

Stay tuned people, the fun and games are only 51 days away! Mayhem and Frollics are ahead!

Oh and by the way, register and click on the left hand bar "follow" this blog to make me look popular, go on you know you want to! I'll give a special present to all those that follow the blog...You'll just have to wait an see what it is....and no, its not any form of nudity....am I going to lose some followers now?!?

57 Days Remaining

It's just over 8 weeks until we set off from Goodwood, every day now people ask "when are you off on the rally again?" and every day brings about a bit more excitement. It's funny how many people say thing such as "wow I'm so jealous" or "That's one thing I regret not doing, travelling, so hopefully we'll be able to keep a regular enough blog of the travels, and have plenty or footage/photo's to document the entire trip for everyone to check out, and perhaps make people a little jealous

My employer has vouched to match any charity contributions from my work colleagues, so that will also go on to help us meet and hopefully beat, the £1,000 target for the Mercy Corps, we've almost made the 50% marker on our justgiving site, so hopefully with the increased momentum of the event getting ever closer, this will start to ramp up to a decent wedge of cash for the Mercy Corps.

Paul (my team mate) has had his Vaccinations for the various ailments we could come down with on the trip, Mike (my other team mate) & I are awaiting appointments with our respective GPs, so hopefully we can get most jabs on the NHS, but there will always be some we've got to pay for i.e. rabies, which the jury is still out on whether we truly need this.

We're looking forward to an off-road weekend in Wales in a couple of weeks time. This will be a good opportunity for the various teams to meet up, and see how we can tackle the various valleys and obstacles that the Welsh countryside has to offer, with only enough engine power to run an electric pencil sharpener. Photo's will follow, most likely of myself pushing the car as Paul wheel spins it deeper into a bog of some sort haha

Otherwise, the only other thing that has happened in the last few weeks is the arrival of our roof bars for the swift, these will allow up to fit a roof rack of some description, so far the leading idea is a shallow shopping trolley with its legs cut off, we'll see how this scrap heap challenge task actually pans out.

Over & Out,

PP

69 Days remaining....

Well time is lessening and the list of jobs is now rapidly growing for the rally fun times. The latest priority item on the list is vaccinations for my travels. It's come to light that there's more than a couple jabs required for my exploits, including an expensive run of rabies jabs....I'm weighing up the cost - benefit ratio of rabies.

My general thoughts were that I affectively have 3 types of protection from rabies:
Firstly, get the jabs, these are only 3 jabs in the arm, not as it used to be with 5-7 jabs into the abdomen, "needles to say" (you Alan Partridge fans out there may get that reference) I wouldn't ever consider paying to be stabbed in the abdomen.

Secondly, I'll be car based for the vast majority of the trip, so can either run the offending animal over, or at the least use it to get away quickly. Though quickly might not be an option with a 993cc Suzuki swift that has just covered a years mileage in a couple of weeks, but I'm willing to bet it'll be marginally quicker than a gamy disease ridden animal.

Thirdly, Is to kick either of my team-mates in the shins and run faster than them both as the snarling dog, wolf, camel, mongoose, or other native Kazakh/Mongolian creature comes chasing us down....

The plan as they say is foolproof! And we're just the fools to test it!

On a similar note, it also came to our attention that Mongolia has other attractions as well, other than various nasty diseases, poverty and possible death.....the country also has very much wild wolves and to top it off the Bubonic plague! YEY!

So, on that note I'm putting it all to the back of my head and not thinking about that, I'm going sort out the highly improvised roof rack for our car (consisting cable ties & a shopping trolley!) and source a not too battered CB radio to have some fun with on the rally.....

Stay tuned amigos...............