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.
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