36 Days Remaining

Well a good chunk of the remaining travels has now officially been booked!

The story goes like this....

After a few fruitless searches online for some flights which had flexible conditions (so I have the option to change the dates if need be) I had started to get a bit worried! The flights from Japan to the West Coast of the US, then from New York back to London, were all batting in around the £2000 mark, now that completely blew my travel plans out of the water. As I was walking past the STA travel in Victoria, I thought, what's the harm in going in and asking them?

So I sat down and a guy called Charlie proceeded to try and understand my travel plans, this involved then alot of fine print checking and investigations on the conditions of various packages and deals. Eventually he decided that round the world tickets and such like were no good to me, and I wasn't flying out of the UK and I wouldn't need to return to Japan.

This left only one remaining options, searching for individual flights and connections, all in all after much button pressing and 45mins of pondering, he came up with a solution! In his words "I've got some good news, and some bad news"

I figured hit me with the good news first, so "the good news is I can do both flights for only £850 there or there abouts"

So, I'm sat there thinking that's affordable, and fits in my budget of the sub £1,000 I was hoping for!

Then there's the bad news, "you've got to have a stop over somewhere!"

So instantly I remember my 12 hour stay at an airport in Hawaii and the brain numbing boredom of watching CNN on repeat as they followed Obama on his campaign trail....but least they had biscuits and fruit juice!

So I say "how long is the stop over?"

The reply "4 days?"

I have a sudden thought that that's not so much a stop over but more like a mini-break, the only question was what back water dismal destination would it be? Somewhere in Siberia perhaps?

"it's a 4 day stop over in Tahiti?!?"

My response whilst having a grin that went the entire circumference of my head "and there's a bad side in this situation where?"

Needless to say I'm booked and ecstatic to be adding Tahiti to my list of destinations this year! WAHOOOO!!!!

I'm sure things won't go entirely smoothly so we'll have to wait and see, but for now I'm like a 6 year old on Xmas eve! I'm flipping crawling the Walls!

37 Days Remaining!

Nice action shot
Originally uploaded by pezz361356

Wow well it was an interesting weekend, and I think for the first time it really hit home just what we're undertaking!

Team Swift ventured down to the Breacon Beacons in South Wales for some off roading fun with the other ralliers on this years Mongol Rally.

It was an extremely wet weekend, but that did nothing to dampen the spirits and indeed thirsts of our fellow ralliers!

The weekend consisted of an off road track, alcohol, music, dancing and a whole load of hand break turns! Perhaps not all that the same time mind you, that would be unsafe....

The car did get stuck at one poitn but a couple of equally interesting cars managed to drag us out and to safety, and luckily the car is undamaged, or at least it seams!

There's plenty of photo's of the weekend on my facebook & flickr pages so feel free to check them out, and I'm sure there'll be more to follow in the near future as events unfold!


p.s. My new boots stood up to the challenge and as such were indeed water & mud proof and a perfect fit! I'm most happy with them! I'm waiting to pick up the Selkbag so that'll be cool to try out!

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!