Pictures from the training weekend in Yorkshire

Charity Rallies (Charlie, Ryan & Sophie) organised a training weekend for us up near the Castle Howard Estate in Yorkshire towards the end of June. They'd arranged for Sam from the Royal Geographical Society - a man who had led numerous overland expeditions all over the world - to show us some basic hints and tips on surviving (and helping our vehicles survive) in the great outdoors.

It was a great opportunity to meet some of the other teams and learn some new skills - although we didn't do the more strenuous day's off road driving in Genghis as, minus sump guard, we didn't want to risk hitting a rock and having him die on us on the Yorkshire moors, before we even reached Dover. The fact that we didn't even know what a sump guard was until a week beforehand was irrelevant - now we knew what could break and how, we were determined to take steps to avoid it. We did, however, manage to try out our newly purchased pop up tent and folding chairs - part of a camping set promotion in Argos, who I believe (although am not 100% sure) kitted out both Ewan McGregor & Charlie Boorman for their "Long way round", and Roald Amundsen on his trip to the South Pole in 1910.

This was when things started getting properly real - we were able to share preparation tips, discuss lack of sponsorship and see the sort of roads we might encounter in Kazakhstan and beyond. We also got to know our fellow ralliers and the guys from the charity, and it was great to know we were doing it with, and for, such a lovely bunch of people. 

our pop up home for the trip gets its first trial run - Genghis watches on

Genghis lines up alongside Lost In Transit for the photo op

All Weasel No Beaver get a crash course in Ford Ranger maintenance

The view from Charlie's ex-army beast, on the Yorshire moors

Lost in Transit practice towing Darting All over the World out of a ditch

Sam & his Landy show us what real overlanding is all about

Sunday 27 Jun 2010 21:44

Aeroflop

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

Huge thanks to everyone who came down to the Prince Albert on Friday night. Had a brilliant send off; the 5am finish was testament to how much fun was had! Ended up quaffing champagne at one point thanks to a generous benefactor - it may have put potential sponsors off though, as our fund-raising wasn't particularly successful! We had a great night in any event and it was touching that so many people came out to send us off.

We booked flights back from Ulaanbaatar today so we now know exactly how much time we have to get to Mongolia and when we'll be back in Blighty. Brief excitement as Opodo suggested we could come home for £370 each lasted as long as England's World Cup chances when we tried to buy them - only to be told they were "no longer available". Gutted. We ended up getting the tickets for an extra £200 per person, which has blown a massive hole in our budget. At least we won't be stranded in UB at the end of our adventure!

Thursday 24 Jun 2010 22:34

Home straight

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

Time for a quick update on a reasonably eventful week in SBS-land. First of all, thanks a million to Charlie, Sophie and Ryan for organising the overlanding weekend up in Yorkshire - got a lot of great advice and was great to meet some of the other teams. I am a little concerned though, as our 500-mile round trip over 2 days meant I was a zombie at work on Monday - which doesn't bode well for the road ahead! 

A quick glance to your left will tell you that we've pretty much hit our fund-raising target! Am amazed and stunned at everyone's generosity - thank you to each and every person who has donated to Go Help. To have one of the major milestones achieved with over 2 weeks still to go beyond our wildest expectations and means we can focus on equipping the van and taking care of the kind of dull admin that is necessary to make sure our bills are paid etc when we're away.

If anyone is in the area tomorrow, we are having a fund-raising / leaving do in the Prince Albert, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton. Hopefully we'll be able to get some more money for the charity and perhaps people might feel able to contribute to some of our petrol expenses as well. Unfortunately, Brixton being the kind of place it is, there is a strong possibility that 75% of the population has buggered off to some music festival in Somerset for the weekend; however given that we are combining our night with the regular and popular Offline club night we're hopeful there may be a few people in through the door.

Finally for now, we appear to have finally got some equipment donated to us! The power of the internet connected me to receptive companies as far afield as Worcester and Manchester who loved what we are doing and have promised us a tyre repair kit and a new wing mirror respectively. I will of course give the relevant people a proper write up once in the very near future, but in the meantime - thank you. You wouldn't believe what a boost your generosity has given us.

Two weeks on Saturday!!!! Waaaah!

Thursday 17 Jun 2010 17:23

Van prep

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

Alex washes the roof of the van

We took newly-monikered Ghengis (surname "Van", original I know) on the road for the first time last weekend, up to my sister's house in Gloucestershire to give it a scrub and get some advice on looking after it on the road.

We managed to get the majority of the clay that coated the inside off - a legacy of its previous incarnation working for Justyna's employer, Concept - with the help of two very willing assistants, Alex and Shannon. A huge thanks to them for all their amazing help - a future in car valeting awaits if the whole  'primary school' thing doesn't work out.

Shannon cleans the inside

On Sunday, we had a masterclass in rally car maintenance from local Legend, Mike. I don't have the words to describe how helpful he was - he looked the van over, gave us tips on what to check and fix before departure (installation of a sump guard and replacement cam belt being the two key points) and proceeded to teach us a litany of tricks to help on the road. Just a flavour: 

• protect the air filter in dusty conditions by stuffing the hose with foam
• detach the air hose and place it on top of the engine to be able to drive through water
• press the "big red button" to restart the engine if it cuts out after hitting a nasty pothole
• manually pump the diesel into the engine if you run out and air gets in to the system
• remember fuses, bulbs, and batteries for the key fob - without it the immobiliser will kick in

Chris and Mike fix the back door handle

I stared at him in slack-jawed awe, scribbling furiously onto a pad, and feel 1000 times more confident about the road ahead now. He was even decent enough to give us his mobile number should we get stuck in the wilds of Kazakhstan - fingers crossed we don't need to use it.

The evening ended with a demonstration from Mike and my brother-in-law Chris on puncture repair. We were planning on stocking up on multiple spare wheels but with the magic of darning kits and Oko I think we'll be just fine.

Huge thanks to Mike, Chris, Alex, Shannon, Cameron (for additional sponge-work) and Julie, for all the help and advice. If we make it past Kingston-upon-Thames, you can rest assured it's largely down to you. 

Tuesday 15 Jun 2010 18:02

Visas. Done. Kind of.

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

I picked up my Russian visa today from the application centre in central London! Unfortunately, my amazing levels of organisation let me down yet again, as I forgot the receipt proving I was entitled to pick up Justyna's passport as well. It currently remains, nestled in a part of EC2 that shall remain forever Russia, until she can leave work early enough to pick it up. Sorry team mate. 

Once that's sorted, we can relax in the knowledge that we can at least make it to Mongolia - we (will) have documentation for Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, the 3 key countries which make up the majority of our trip. We still have the Uzbekistan visa to sort, our Letters of Invitation having been delayed until the end of the month, but that gives us time to keep an eye on the deteriorating situation in that part of the world. As much as it is a dream to visit Samarqand and Bukhara, we have to be sensitive to the situation and display a bit of common sense into the bargain. Here's hoping - obviously not just for our sake - that the bloodshed of recent days in Kyrgyzstan comes to an end quickly and peacefully.

The Russian visa application centre is a bit of a let down. It reminded me of Lambeth council customer centre. Go in, take a ticket, wait for your number to be called. No mystique at all. Compare that to the Uzbekistan Embassy in Holland Park, where you're met with the expected surly bloke behind a hatch who refuses to return your passport unless you've brought the correct bank giro counterfoil (there are two. Both identical. Don't even think about trying to fob him off with counterfoil 1 though. He will notice and send you away to come back tomorrow with counterfoil 2). The Russians, by contrast, even contrived to be helpful when faced with my flustered reaction to the news I couldn't pick up Justyna's passport. They were reasonable. They tried their best, offered suggestions, but we couldn't find a way round it. That's not what I signed up for. Where was the surly bureaucracy? Anyway, J managed to collect her passport the following day, and any potential crisis was averted.

The situation in Kyrgyzstan was more concerning for us at that point. Anti-government demonstrations had turned ugly and there was something approaching civil war between ethnic groups kicking off, which seemed to be spreading to Uzbekistan as well. Our original route saw us travelling down through Kazakhstan, into Uzbekistan, across to Kyrgyzstan and then back out into Kazakhstan. Bishkek was a guaranteed no no due to the violence and the fact that the neighbouring countries had closed their borders, but we still hoped to make it down to Uzbekistan for a flying visit to the Silk Road cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. The whole endeavour was scary enough without putting ourselves knowingly into danger though.

We managed to get new tyres on the van. Well, one new tyre. All £15 worth of it. I tried my best to sound like I knew what I was talking about when I visited Zak's Tyres on Ferndale Road in Brixton - after all, I was a man, with a white van, and had it on good authority that the two front tyres were bald to the point of illegality.

This is what I nonchalantly told the 16 year old kid when he asked "what can I do for you boss?". Well, I failed to mention that I'd no idea what I was talking about and was trusting one of Justyna's work colleagues' assessment. "Front two tyres need replacing, not sure about the back two".

"Oh yeah? What's wrong with this one then?", he asked, prodding the front left tyre with his foot.

"Err, nothing. Is there? You tell me"

"Nah, it's fine mate - you only need one on the front right."

"Oh. Thank you for your honesty, young man. I'm going to leave now so you can't see me turn red, and let you get about your masculine business".

Without wishing to spoil any potential cliff-hangers, not only did our second hand tyre last the whole way to Gloucestershire and back that weekend - it is, for all I know, still attached to Genghis as he cruises the mean streets of UB. Not bad value for money.

Saturday 12 Jun 2010 12:01

4 weeks to go

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

Cripes. 4 weeks from now we'll be sitting in Highbury Fields with our little Kangoo, ready to embark on the trip of a lifetime.

How's it come round so quick? We signed up in October - we'd loads of time to get organised! Needless to say, the worst laid plans and all that.... I'm trying to stay calm as I work out what is left to do - what we don't manage to sort before departure we will leave to the Gods of fate and adventure to decide.

This weekend sees us off to the country to give the van a run and make use of my sister's farmyard to give it a right good clean. Before that though, we've got to get some new tyres that might see us halfway across the world....or at least Gloucestershire.

Mission Control

Our spare room became a hot bed of all things Rally in the months leading up to departure.

The slick professionalism of our outfit can, I think, be summed up by this shot of our maps. At least we managed to get them sort of joined up and in the right order.

Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh & Mongolian maps

Mongolian Embassy, Kensington, London.

The Mongolian flag outside the Embassy

Entrance to the Mongolian Consulate

Long Way Round promo shot of Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman

The first embassy I went to, which as it turns out (fortuitously) is the recommended first port of call for anyone planning this trip.

I worked on the premise that ultimately, that's where we needed to be, so it made sense to at least have a visa for Mongolia and then we could work out how to get there in the event we hit any snags with other countries. I have to admit to a bit of condescension as well, in that - of all the countries we were passing through - Mongolia might be happiest to have us visit and we would therefore have less trouble getting a visa. As it turned out, of course, we had no problems whatsoever getting the visas we needed for Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan.

Thankfully my work was very understanding about the whole trip, and the end of May & June saw me criss-crossing London, visiting embassies in plush areas such as Kensington and Holland Park.

Saturday 29 May 2010 14:35

1 down...

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

Picked up our lovely, shiny, new Mongolian visas from the embassy yesterday! Can't stop looking at it.... Things are vaguely under control on that front now, and for the first time in about 6 weeks I'm not panicking that we might end up running out of time. We need to go to the Kazakh embassy next week, our Uzbek LOIs should be with us by Friday to allow us to get that visa the following week, and then our Russian visa support is due to arrive in mid-June, leaving us a couple of weeks to get that one sorted. It almost seems like we managed to plan it or something! 

Must take the opportunity to say thanks to David from STANtours, who has been great at quickly responding to my at-times-inane questions. Highly recommended if you need any help obtaining support letters or planning a trip in Central Asia.

DVD Box set bonus material

The following blog post is unpublished on the Charity website, for reasons best known to my 32-year-old self. This, therefore, is the first time it's seen the light of day.

7 weeks to go...

UNPUBLISHED

  by Tony Edgar on 23 May 2010 at 08:31

So, 49 days from now we should be somewhere between Hannover and Gdansk, en route to Justyna's parents for the night.

It's hard to believe the rally is nearly upon us. I'm feeling woefully unprepared, hence sitting in the flat trying to tick things off the list whilst London basks in 28C sunshine outside. Figure we'll be sick of the sun by the time we reach UB in early August, so am not too despondent.

A quick update on how we're getting on:

Fund-raising: Almost two-thirds of the way there now! People have been incredibly generous; every email I've sent out has resulted in another small flurry of donations to the cause. I'm a little concerned that we may not keep up the momentum and hit our target, but plans are afoot for a fund-raising night at a local pub which may help swell the coffers.

Logo: we have an official logo! By an actual graphic designer! I've not uploaded it yet, as I want to give the man his dues in a separate post, but I think it'll make people smile as we pass by. I've found a few companies that make van-signage, so next step is to send them the design and get "brand Steppe by Steppe" shoved in the face of an unsuspecting public.

Vehicle: we're still trying to find the best insurance deal we can and finally bring our wee Kangoo back home. Again, I'll post something separately to thank our generous benefactors; they've been amazing and have hung onto the vehicle until we get the insurance sorted out. But the legal documentation is signed off and it's all approved by Mongolian customs, so it's the one bit I'm not stressing over.

Equipment: not got anything yet. Figure we at least need camping gear and a stove, and there's a deal in Argos at the moment for the lot. Not 100% convinced it's designed for the rigours of the Steppe, but we can't afford to splash out, especially when we're planning on leaving it in UB with the charity. Also need to get jerry cans, water tanks, those grill things for under the wheels if we get stuck in a sand trap, a fire extinguisher and a first aid kit to comply with Russian driving laws. If anyone can help out with sources, it'd be amazing.

Visas: the number one, sleep-depriving, priority. We've got the photos, we've got the forms, we've got the contact in Almaty (the incredibly helpful David from Stantours) who's sorting out our Letters of Invitation for Uzbekistan and Russia - we just haven't got any actual visas yet! I plan to go to the Kazakh Embassy on Tuesday morning to hand over our documents. Just waiting to see if any Travel Insurance companies are willing to give us a discount before signing up (as insurance details are required for the applications)

Funds: err, low. Very low. Hoping that we can borrow some money from the bank to help us on our way. Beyond that, may have to flog a few extraneous body parts. Am (probably naively) assuming that a month on the road in Central Asia shouldn't cost significantly more than a month of living and socialising in central London, so the fact we're taking the time off as paid holiday is a huge bonus. There remains, however, a strong possibility we may end up washing dishes in return for a plate of plov on more than one occasion.

Actually, writing everything down makes it seem like it's more under control than I feared. We got a Russian phrasebook the other day and have an entire wall of the flat covered in maps, so we know roughly where we're going and how long it might take (if the good people at Google Maps are to be believed). I also had a bit of a result from my 'asked-to-remain-anonymous' mobile phone provider, who generously credited my account with £25 towards the cost of texting updates from the road. It's things like that that give us the kick up the arse we need to keep at it when it all seems a little bit over-whelming. I've started having a recurring dream where we get to Mongolia in about 6 days and realise we didn't really see anything en route and forgot to blog from the road. UB looks a lot like rural Northern Ireland, surprisingly.

Anyway, will be posting more regularly from now until departure - people keep asking about the website, so I guess they need something to read on it. For now, I've got hotels to find in Samarkand and a press release to write!

Tuesday 11 May 2010 22:34

So that's "second" left at the...

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

Mongolia looks like a piece of cake to navigate! Mind you, roundabouts can be a bit tricky.

Tsangaannuur - Ulaan Baatar: Google directions: 

Head South - 281km 

Turn Right - 1.1km 

Take the 2nd Left (go through one roundabout) - 1,462km

Turn Right - 1.2km.

Genghis - the mightiest Kangoo in the West. Or the East, now.

Monday 03 May 2010 12:00

We can do it too! With...

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

We have wheels! And a dashboard! And seats! And.....well, you get the picture...

We received official confirmation from Mongolia today that our vehicle has been approved! On July 10th, we will purr out of Highbury fields in a pretty dang sexy little white Renault Kangoo van. It's a veritable young pup of a thing - only emerging, blinking, into the world in late 2002 and currently almost as poorly-travelled as its occupants, with a mere 70,000 miles on the clock.

The journey from "souped-up Toyota Hilux Surf" to Kangoo as the wagon of choice for our journey was long, twisting and at times frankly preposterous - much like our eventual route from London to UB will no doubt prove to be. Following the rally meet up in November, we returned enthused and determined to do something huge for charity. Several glasses of Cava later, we'd nailed it: why not take a load of teaching supplies and name ourselves "Ulaan Book Tour" - and do it all in a mobile library?!

It quickly became apparent "why not". Mobile libraries are huge. They only have one seat. They weigh a ton. They cost a fortune. You probably need a special licence to drive one and the thought of trying to get it out of a pothole in the middle of the Gobi desert didn't exactly fill us with confidence.

So we kept planning and searching; licence restrictions meant Justyna could only drive a van up to a certain size, and once we were down to two in the team it was clear we'd need something we could manouevre, and conceivably push out of a sticky situation, between us. We also had to ensure we could meet the customs rules on tax exemption - which eventually led us to the perfect solution: a car derived van.

For those who aren't skilled tradesmen or small business owners, a car-derived van is one with the same front end as a car, but a van bit on the back. You probably could have worked that out yourself. Our theory, such as it goes, is that these things are meant for a bit of abuse by white van men up and down the country - if they can survive being revved around building sites and barged through non-existent gaps in city centre traffic, they can surely cope with a bit of corrugated desert track? Also, the space in the back could potentially provide enough room to curl up for a sleep should fear of the Mongolian Death Worm prove too much for us as we travel through the wilderness.

We've been really lucky to get the van we have, and I have to thank everyone involved in making it happen. Our focus was eBay and trying to fix up a 'spares or repair' Ford Escort or the like - to be presented with the opportunity to take such a mighty French steed is beyond our wildest expectations. We've not yet picked it up but the V5 is off to the DVLA and we're trying to sort insurance out.

Pics will, of course, follow once we can post them. Now, just got to sort some corporate sponsorship to give it that authentic "rally" look.

Anyone paying attention to the dates on the rally site blog posts and with capacity for some basic mental arithmetic will have noticed that we only started fundraising four months before we left for Mongolia. That may seem like quite a short time period to try and raise the money in. You'd be right.

You may also wonder at the lack of mention of a vehicle, equipment, route planning, visas and so on - all essential items to tick off the list to be ready to rock for July the 10th. You may think that the absence of any of these things from updates so far would suggest nothing had been done about them. Again, you'd be spot on.

We signed up for the rally in August 2009, and paid the balance of the entrance fee on my 32nd birthday in October 09. From then until March 2010, all we'd managed to do was lose a team member, decide on a team name and raise £300 sponsorship, as a result of sending of one email and a Facebook post.

Organised, we were not.

So - sponsorship. We were completely stunned by people's generosity. We expected that supporters would perhaps stretch to a tenner if we knew them really well - instead they were stumping up £50 at times! It was overwhelming. It really spurred us on to know everyone was behind us and supporting the charity - suddenly we were doing it for them as well as Go Help and ourselves.

Thursday 25 Mar 2010 19:55

People are great

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

I'm pretty stunned to be sitting here a couple of weeks after launching our fundraising, already almost a third of the way to our target.

We've been dumbfounded by people's generosity - in these still-tough times I never for a second expected people to be stumping up such large sums.

Money has been landing with a meaty 'thunk' in our Justgiving account on a regular basis, and even a couple of people I follow on Twitter have seen fit to swell Go Help's coffers... 

People seem to really want to get behind the cause, and whilst I know no one was actually sponsoring me purely because I was running the Reading Half Marathon on Sunday, the knowledge that people had parted with their hard-earned cash after I approached them prior to the race spurred me to the finish despite my right leg feeling like it was going to fall off.

So a million thanks to our sponsors so far - Julie-Anne & John, new parents Im & Si (who should really be hanging on to their nappy money), Silja, Lizzi, Andrew Mueller (buy his books - they're one of my main inspirations for getting out and seeing the world), Gav & Imogen, Helen & Lee, Jennie and of course, me dear old ma....

No going back now we have people's goodwill and quids behind us! Onwards and sideways!

Tuesday 09 Mar 2010 23:07

We got one!

by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

I tried to find a suitable Ghostbusters clip, but to no avail...

So imagine, if you will, a lady in '80s glasses whacking a bell and screaming.... "we got onnnnneeeeee!!!!"

Yup, my mass email of everyone in my Hotmail address book (updated c.2005) has resulted in our first sponsorship!

The beautiful, talented, exotic and wonderful Julie-Anne has sponsored us a whopping £25 for the rally! Well, her and her bogan of a husband John, but I have fewer adoring adjectives about him. As if by magic or design, whilst out running last night (18km, baby), just as my blisters started biting, Smashing Pumpkins' "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" came on my Ipod - a song I for some reason always associate with Julie-Anne. It was like fate or some shit. I don't have a 'song' for John, but am determined to get some Acca-Dacca on the play list for the run in his honour.

The rush you get when the first sponsorship comes in is amazing. It makes it all seem worthwhile. So come on, the rest of you! What are you waiting for? Give Go Help money RIGHT NOW!