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...............

85 Days Remaining

Well it's been a while since I've blogged last so I thought I'd give some updates. The visa applications for Russia, Kazakhstan & Mongolia are in the post as we speak, so fingers crossed I haven't made any "school boy" errors on the paperwork. My bank account is now officially £210 lighter that before, and the beauty of it is I get none of that back if they decline my application, what a great system, you could just take everyone's money then reject them for no particular reason.

Anyway, that's one of the last big ticket items that needed ticking off my to-do list. In the post this week arrived some bargin basement roof rack bars for the swift off the good ol' eBay. So that gives us something to fix a roof rack too, I've found a website that does the car stickers for our sponsors farely cheaply so that'll give us as much of a margin on the sponsors contributions as possible.

I have also recieved yesterday the first corporate sponsor cheque in the post, which is great, it all helps, another is in the post on its way so that's abother bonus. Hopefully my workplace will be able to sponsor some more, and then its up to us to squeeze every penny out of friends, family, workmates, random people on the street and pretty anyone we come across.

I'm hatching the idea, though I've avoided it to date, that I may set up a bands night either at a venue in the city, or at Kingston Uni's student union bar, and make a bit of money on the cover charges hopefully, so watch this space, and we'll see how it develops.

Another unexpected result has been the post-rally travelling plans, which originally involved catching the train form Ulaan Baatar to Beijing, China and then catching a ferry to Japan and travelling around Japan. This PLan is still in action, but there has been the addition of a small stop off on the way home to the UK, you may have heard of it, its a little place called the United States of Hell Ya! The plan is in the planning stage, as is the case with many a plan. But it seams to have evolved that with the exception of the train to Beijing and Japan, that I will now be driving the across the all Northern Hemisphere landmasses pretty much. My partner in crime will be Owen Coomber, a member of the Mongol Rally 2009, he's in team Xtreme much of the plan is fluid at the moment, so there's the likelyhood of multiple changes and detours but the general plan is buy a $200 banger in the US and then drive it across the US, if it breaks down then buy another $200 banger, and so on, and so forth. A car much like the one to the right, which I spotted in Alaska and thought at the time "What a legendary rust bucket to drive the horendous amount of miles across the states". Little did I know that I may well be doing just that a year later. We'll see how it goes...but it has so much potential it seams mad not give it a try!

102 Days Remaining

The Eldon House
Originally uploaded by stringberd

Only 102 more sleeps until the adventuresome event begins!

Another weekend of adventurist carnage was had in Bristol, myself and Mike managed to rock up at the very very nice pub by the name of "Eldon House" Great Beer, Great Staff, and a very homely pub. Needless to say we got there early and started the festivities with some food, and then proceeded to get royally battered with the other rallists. All in all a good time though, Mike wasn't fairing well on the Sunday morning, but my trademark hangover cure seamed to work, it consists of orange juice (fresh with the bits, no less), bacon sarnie, Paracetomol & nurofen.....then the piece de la resistance....National Lottery Scratchcards!!! It works in only the way that drugs, alcohol, fried food & gambling can! I'm still adement that the gambling is the key ingredient, the drugs are just for effect haha

Then on the sunday Benedict Allen, one of the first tv adventurers, who pretty much started up the genre, gave a talk to us about various expeditions that he's undertaken.

He was funny, in a way that only a publicly schooled, tweed wearing 40yr old can....and needless to say his life have been threatened on more than one occasion by various means whether it be bandits, starvation or disease. All round a jolly good chap!

Then after my fill of tea & cake after the talk from our fellow adventurer, I was graciously offered a ride back home in the newly purchased Skoda "Felacio" as Owen my driver has nicknamed it....it proved itself well as Mongol Rally stead so hopefully it will see him and his team through, my payment for the journey involved a ginsters pastey and a bottle of lucazade from the local garage, and after a few sat-nav based detours it worked out pretty well, and I arrived back not to late, so I could get my beauty sleep.

Other than that, we'll be sorting out our visas for the trip over the Easter period, so i'm sure that wont be as simple as we all may wish it to be, so I'll keep you up to date on any further mis-adventures...

Cheerio!

125 Days Remaining

IMG_1446
Originally uploaded by pezz361356

I'm a bit late uploading the blog for my exploits in New York, needless to say it was a rocking time in the city that doesn’t sleep, Mike joined me in this hop over the pond, there was plenty of photo’s over the 5 days, a couple of the nights we were out at different bars with various American rally teams. The US teams were all great, they were very friendly, most were a bit nuts but all in all we hit it off pretty well. They all have plans for their vehicles such as paragliding off the back of their ice cream truck etc...

The start of the trip was a bit manic, we woke up about 6.30am on the Thursday morning, Mike had stayed over on the sofa, so we grabbed a shower, and headed off to Victoria to catch the train to Gatwick airport. We’d managed to pre-book the tickets and god £3 cheap singles to the airport, all was going well until we had to get the tickets from the machines within the station, with 10mins till the train departed the machines said they couldn’t access our details so we waited in the queue to speak to customer services, now I’m pretty patient, but these guys were sloooowww! We got the ticket guy and he insisted on printing off about 5 tickets each then making us sign all the documents and he was in no hurry, Mike got his ticket first so he went to check the platform for the train, all this with 2mins left to go. Once my ticket was printed I ran to the concourse and couldn’t see him, so tried ringing him, as I’m ringing I run to platform 19 for the train presuming he’s already gone there. I get to the platform and can’t get hold of him so I get on the train hoping he’s already on it. Just as the doors close and the wheels take their first movements I look out the door window only to see Mike rooted to the platform with an angry face. Needless to say, not a good start, after a slight delay he catches the next train without any issues and meets me at Gatwick, he was not a happy bunny, but as I explained I couldn’t be sure where he was so I got on, in the hope he was already on board. Oh well, we’re still fine for check-in. We wonder through to the departure lounge and set up shop in the Wetherspoons there. I grab some breakfast and a Kopparberg then a nice shot of Jameson whiskey with ginger ale which was a free taster.

Once on the US airways flight, there were plenty of spare seats so we could spread out and I even managed to get a slight bit of sleep on the way to our connecting flight from Philadelphia to LaGuardia New York. Once at Philly we went to grab some food & a beer at the bar there. I managed to confuse the waitress royally, by asking for a Cheeseburger with cheese...yeah I know, school boy error, well the burger was nice an fresh, but I got stung by offering Mike a beer, and then the bill showed they were at $9 a piece it turned into an expensive lunch!

We were on a tiny internal jet from Philly to NYC, which reminded me of the planes we used to catch from Guernsey to Southampton. Anyways, we got to NYC a little earlier than expected and caught a cab to Hotel 17, which was our residence for the 4 nights we were going to be there. It had great reviews online and was very cheap, mainly due to the fact you have to share the bathrooms. But it lived up to the reviews, very clean, not too small, very comfy beds & a certain shabby chic; it happens that a couple of films have been filmed there in decades past, including a Woody Allen film. It also has live-in residents that include dwarves & transsexuals, so it had quite the mixture of clientele.

The first day we walked for miles, wondering up to central park, then mainly due to my loss of landmarks got lost for a while within it. Mike tried to instil his understanding of the streets & avenues, as spines & ribs; my brain just couldn’t help thinking that avenues went up/down, streets when left/right. Each to their own I guess.

We went and met up that evening with the Rolling Cones, an American team that invited us to a bar they were having a fund raiser at. They had good tunes, plenty of good people but more importantly they were sponsored by 2 drinks companies. One was a tequila supplier called “Inocente”, which Mike can vouch against that name, after he was hanging out of his arse the next morning, it was far from innocent! The other drinks sponsor was “Jolt”, an energy drink in the US that has been around for ages, it comes in what only can only be described at a WD40 canister only without a straw, I avoided this stuff, purely because those who were drinking it looked like they were under the effect of substances a lot stronger than the average energy drink! We got to mingle with some lovely ladies, as well as some of the rally organisers who flew in from a new South American adventure.

The next day we went to get breakfast, but I relatively untouched from the previous nights events, Mike was not in a good way, the weather was also very sunny & hot, which I’m not sure is good or bad for a hangover. Either way we walked for a good few miles taking photos of the various places & sights, including Grand Central Station, the Woolworth building, ground zero & the Brooklyn Bridge. That evening we had a rally tea party to attend, it was at a really good venue again, with the help of a live old new York style band people unwound and got to know the various teams, we met a guy called Domino the night before but this evening we were talking and it hit us, what a legend he is! I don’t want to spoil any of his stories, but If you get a chance to catch up with just ask about one of his many hitchhiking nightmares &various other exploits.

So, the next day we did more sightseeing & then in the evening we ventured up the empire state building, the views at night are pretty impressive, we paid a little extra to go to the very top as well, that was the 102nd floor, the photo’s are on my flickr account for people to check out, I was annoyed though, because I took my tripod to get good night shots without camera shake, and at the security booth I was told they’d have to hold onto it as it may trip people up. Luckily I kept the camera bracket in my bag and this did the job almost as well, and allowed Mike to use it on his camera as well.

We headed back the next day, with good memories of our little adventure, more than a few good photos & quotes from the adventure and hopefully some helpful friends to give us a hand come rally time.

137 Days Remaining

Manhattan
Originally uploaded by orgutcayli

Not much has happened since my last post rally-wise, but a mini-adventure is on the horizon, something to quench the adventurists thirst! A journey that mesmerises and captivates thousands each year, this voyage of discovery is none other than a hop over the Atlantic, yes two thirds of Team Swift (therefore by majority rounded up to the whole of the team), will be gracing the great “US of A” with their presence, Mike & myself will be jetting off to New York this Thursday! Bring it on!!!

I’ve gotten in contact with another rally team, “the rolling cones”, who have a member based in New York and as such have latched onto them like a parasite, feeding off their planned parties and generally imposing myself on their social life!

So we have a rocking night planned on the 2nd night, which by coincidence happens to be one block from our hotel, so some drunken jay walking is pretty much a given.

Then on the 3rd night there’s a rally tea party event, where you get to meet past rally teams, and drink your favourite brew whilst eating cakes and listening to tales of adventuresome people. This ultimately will lead to a messy night as all these events are certain to do.

That then leaves another night to make nuisances of ourselves in the city that never sleeps.

I have chosen a hotel (http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/travel/07check.html) that may well prove to be either a classic haunt or a complete nightmare; it has an unusual history and shared toilets so bring on the fun!

So until we’ve completed our mini adventure, take care people. Updates of our misadventures to follow...