Mongol Rally 2004 & 2005 Blogs & Photos
 
 
 
 
17/3/06
Thought i would have a bit of a tidy up and stick up a few updates.
Firstly the 2006 rally is about to start taking entries, I'm most jealous not to be going but i think twice really is enough.  If you're tempted then nows your chance.
 
Secondly the spanish daily paper El Mundo recently featured an article on the rally, and surprisingly enough used one of my photos.  Quite fun really, although i was slightly surprised at the one they evcentually used.  Anyway the article is here. It is of course in Spanish, but if you go to (the very apt) babelfish and put the address of the El Mundo article in then it will produce a slightly wonky translation.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
There are some fantastic rally photos, taken by Stephen Edwards, at  www.drivetomongolia.org. You can also see our gallant car covered (well, dusted) in snow in Ulaan Baatar the other day.  As far as i am aware the cars, which have been donated to Save The Children, are still sitting in a car park waiting to be sold.  It seems rather sad, i just hope enough of the money trickles down into the places where it actually helps.
 
Another very good 2005 site is the Mongol Mini.  Again some great pictures, stories and other excitements such as a FAQ.
 
Finally the Mongol Rally now shelters under a new umbrella, the Institute of Adventure Research.  As well as organisng the rally there are a variety of new and even dafter adventures planned, including the Rickshaw Run and the rather intruiging Mystery Rally.  They've also got a few interesting charity and sponsorship plans.  More fun in the same vein, I'm doing my best to ignore it.
 
1/10/05
The first part of my account is now up, it will be familiar to anyone who got the emails I sent back along the way, with the odd embellishment here and there and hopefully less spelling mistakes.  Once I have got the other accounts straightened out I will illustrate them all with a few photos.  Click here to go there
 
I've also stuck up all the text messages we sent to the main rally website along the way, recording our progress, as a slightly quaint alternative account of what went on.  I can't quite work out if it is an utterly pointless endeavour or not.  The Text-trickle
 
I've been adding up the spoils of our sponsorship drive, and although we don't have a final figure yet it looks like we have raised over £5000, which I am rather chuffed about really.  Thankyou everyone for being so generous.  A thankyou/news letter is in the pipeline somewhere, unfortunately there has been a bit of an air-lock preventing a speedy exit from said pipe.
 
28/9/05 More photos
I've finally got hold of our photos from the first half of the rally, sorry it has taken so long to get them up.  Some of them were taken by Chris and Dave of team Buzzwagon, with whom we travelled for most of the way.  Click here to go there
 
19/9/05 Photos finally up
The first batch of photos are now up.  They should hopefully add some seasoning to our tales.  I still need to get hold of the back up CD to get the pictures from the first half of the trip, but they will eventually appear too.
click here to go to photos
 
5/9/05 We made it!!!
Just a quick update to say we made it, car just about intact, all the way to Ulaan Baatar, and are now back home, safe and well.  Actually i think Harry is now in Sarajevo, but the important thing was escaping central Asia.  We have had an absolutely fantastic time, hairy, frustrating, exhilerating, tiring but very rarely boring.  I was going to try and get some pictures up ASAP, but British Airways have very helpfully lost my bag.  It may be next week now, along with an account of some description and anything else that occurs to me as being worthwhile.  
Final distance - about 9000 miles
Time taken - 27 days
Countries navigated - 17
Most useful thing lost along the way- the roof of our car
 
 
27/7/05 The Final update...
I'm off down to London tomorrow for the final preparations so this will be my last update before we get back, with any luck not too soon!
 
Thankyou to all the the kind people who have sponsored us so far, i'm enjoying some of the car parts suggested.  These include the undercarriage, salvage, various wheels and windscreen wipers and my favourite so far 200 dipsticks!  It is hugely appreciated.
 
We have set up a justgiving site for save the children, a little late in the day, as we felt they were missing out a bit.  www.justgiving.com/savechildren for anyone who would prefer to donate to them than to send a cow.  We will split other donations as evenly as we can.
 
A few entries for the competition have also hobbled in, it seems we will have to go souvenir shopping after all.  The best so far...
Mekanik Men
Betty the car flapped her bonnet in surprise as everyone looked up her skirt.  :-)
 
If you need to get hold of either of us during the next month our phones should work, texts rather than calls will be appreciated by our bank accounts, and we will check our email as often as we can.
 
Next stop Mongolia!
 
The Launch Party(s)
The Rally launches from Hyde Park on Saturday 30th July, be there at 12 to see the cars leave at 1pm!  Everyone welcome, indeed everyone must come.
 
There is also a BBQ/final chance to go to the pub the night before (Friday 29th) at the Ship in Wandsworth, to which everyone is welcome.  If you are strangely fascinated by the prospect of meeting some ralliers then this is the place to come (we will probably be a bit preoccupied by non functioning cars/non appearing visas/last minute attacks of sanity come Saturday.)
See the official site for more details
 
Follow us along the way
I'm not sure if i will be able to update the site while we are away (although expect lots of stories and pictures when we get back)  I will send update emails to anyone whose address i have as and when it is possible.  There are great plans afoot on the main site however: We will be able to text updates to a special number and they should immediately be visible online.  Not sure yet where they will be, best to look there for details.  Our team, as you may have guessed, is called the Infinite Improbability Drive.  www.mongolrally.co.uk
 
Other news 26/7/05
Harry and I have been busy trying to get ourselves sufficiently organised to be able to leave.  We now have all the important visas, with the exception of Turkmenistan. We are still waiting for the application for this to come back from Ashgabat, before we actually give them our passports, but hopefully it should be fine.  Other problems include our V5 car documents, which will not be back from the DVLA in time, so we must get a temporary equivalent.  
 
We also had a very useful trip down to Canterbury to get the car looked over by a man who breaks Suzukis for a living, we just try not to break ours too often.  He was a great help on many fronts, and gave the car a very good report, which was a huge relief.  Thanks Lee!
 
We looked over a few of our maps for the first time last night, its starting to hit home just what we are letting ourselves in for with this route....can't wait to leave now but it really is a fantastically long way.
 
I'm also very dissapointed to see nobody has entered the comptition yet, perhaps nobody actually believes we are going to get there (or perhaps its just not a particularly appealing idea) ;-)
 
We have a car!!
Click here or see under the vessel for details
Otherwise we are cranking up the sponsorship drive and removing all our hair playing with the visa application conundrum (luckily there's a fair bit stored up)
 
 
 
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