Launch - Woburn Safari Park

Saturday 10 Jul 2010 11:48

Lost already. Found ourselves at...

via SMS by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

Lost already. Found ourselves at the front of the convoy out of woburn safari park. We turned left and everybody else went right. Ended up lost in the country side 5 min into the rally! Back on the m1 now heading for Dover.

Egads. Talk about a farcical start. True to our usual form, we were late getting away from our flat in Brixton, leaving approximately an hour later than we intended.

Due to some issue with getting a licence to hold the event, the launch had been switched from Highbury Fields in north London to Woburn Safari Park in Bedfordshire. This meant we had to drive 50 miles in the wrong direction just to get to the start of the rally. We got stuck in traffic, both on the way through central London and on the M1 itself, and eventually limped into the park an hour late. I guess you could say we'd have been on time if we had left when we were supposed to. It didn't exactly fill us with confidence that we'd make it to Ulaanbaataar in time for our return flight, when we couldn't even get to the outskirts of Luton successfully.

We missed the parade lap through the safari park itself, and as a result had to sit and wait whilst everyone else completed it and lined up next to us for some speeches by a rally veteran (David Treanor, who wrote a very entertaining book about his experiences, "Mission Mongolia") and the charity staff.

My sister came along to wish us safe travels, along with my nieces and nephews, who had provided such wonderful van cleaning assistance when we took Genghis up to Gloucestershire a month earlier. It was great to have family there to see us off, and the sun shone on our excited chatter as we listened to last minute advice from those in the know. Most of all though, after all the build up over the previous 10 months, all we really wanted to do was get going. We were handed a voucher for two free beers should we decided to stop off at the Western Mongolia Campsite in Khovd when we got to Mongolia - and the very thought that they were expecting us to get that far set our pulses racing. We resolved we would stop off there, and savour the beer when it came. It seemed a very long, almost unreachable, way away.

Go Help were making a promotional video of the launch, and as the first klaxon eventually sounded to tell us to make our way to our vehicles, the producer came up to me to ask if I'd mind speaking to camera. I was getting a bit nervous that we should be back in the van and starting to leave, and responded in single-syllable monotone to his questions, upon which he said "err, well, we'll let you get back to your van", before the cameraman had even arrived. One of the things that made me really want to drive to Mongolia was seeing a promo video of the Mongol Rally a few years previously, with excited people wishing a last farewell from their vehicle as they drove off into the sunset on the trip of a lifetime. And there I was, in that same position, only to be too boring for telly. J does make it to the video - sitting with my niece. I was elsewhere at the time, trying to stop my youngest nephew climbing into the hippo enclosure. The producer moved on to All Weasel No Beaver, a couple of immensely cheery & likeable Aussies, and they ended up having probably the starring role in the whole video - they came out with the best line anyway. The clip is below, if you're interested (cos, you know, I'm not. Sniff).

And then! We were off! We trundled from our parking spot behind a beast of an ex-army Land Rover ambulance, only to see it peel off almost immediately and wait for us to drive past. As we later discovered, this was because the film makers wanted to have them say something to camera as they left. We, of course, weren't required and found ourselves at the front of the rally convoy leaving the safari park. So far so good. Then, without warning, the safari park employee who was leading us stopped and waved us past, and we were on our own. We hadn't bothered turning the sat nav on, and as we reached the exit from the park I suddenly realised I hadn't a clue which direction I should be going. Taking a stab in the dark, I wheeled left and hit the open road....... then watched in dismay as every single last one of the other ralliers turned right and disappeared from site. 5 minutes into the rally, and that was the last we'd see of pretty much any of our fellow participants.

No matter. Steppe By Steppe was Go on the 2010 Mongolia Charity Rally!!!

Our fellow ralliers - the last time we'd see any of them

Genghis - resplendent in his livery and raring to go

Team Steppe by Steppe - trying not to look like we're bricking it

The kids check out our amazing equipment packing

The happy trio - relaxed, confident, grimaces in place

Saturday 10 Jul 2010 06:48

sms blogging not working. Sorry...

via SMS with map coords by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

sms blogging not working. Sorry for all the rubbish test posts. T-minus 1 hour to departure!

Well, we woke up on time. Wonders will never cease! I still couldn't work out whether or not the SMS blogging was working or not - as evidenced by my apologies for a post which seemingly had not only appeared on the website, but also plotted our coordinates correctly. I was perhaps a little optimistic to state that it was T-minus 1 hour to departure at 06:48 in the morning, however.

Saturday 10 Jul 2010 00:03

51 27 09:00 06 43 downgraded from...

via SMS by Tony Edgar of Steppe By Steppe

51 27 09:00 06 43 downgraded from iphone to shit nokia for the trip so testing the text blogging again. Launch in a matter of hours. I should be in bed.

This blog post was a first attempt to use my basic Nokia to update the website. The numbers are attempted GPS coordinates - putting them in correct format at the beginning of the SMS message would mean that our position was plotted on a map and only the text would appear as the blog post itself. As you can tell, it took me a while to get the hang of it.

SMS was the only means we had of updating the blog between internet cafes en route, as we had decided against taking a laptop. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it would be top of our list if we do anything similar in the future again.

The reason for my slightly curt & foul mouthed post was alcohol, once again. Friday was spent in a panic - sorting out admin for our absence, tidying the flat, and trying to work out how to pack the van. I shaved my head - partly for hygiene factors (still believing at that point that we'd be wild camping for 90% of the trip), and partly to look more like my passport photo - taken during an ill-advised flirtation with a number one grade cut back in 2001. I didn't want to give the border guards any more excuse to charge me additional 'processing fees' than necessary. It did provide me with an opportunity to try out a mullet haircut, but whilst I thought naively it might make me look more Russian, I didn't have the balls to go through with it.

We had our first reasonably heated exchange during the attempted van packing - we'd not prepared at all and there was no way of getting everything in in a logical, accessible order. Eventually we ended up just sticking everything in a variety of massive cardboard boxes and resolving to 'sort it when we get to Poland'. Thankfully, it was one of the few times we fell out to any extent on the whole trip.

We'd arranged a final couple of beers to send us on our way at the local pub, but time was getting the better of us and as dusk fell I was out in the street desperately trying to apply our sponsor stickers, a map of our route and our all-important logo to the van. An hour late, we rocked up for a final bon voyage with our mates, and were chuffed and embarrassed in equal measure to be applauded, loudly, out of the pub by them, to the bemusement of all the other punters.

We were to be at Woburn Safari Park, the revised launch location, for 10:00 the following morning for a parade through the enclosures and the launch itself, and far too late we went to bed in our flat for a final time, for a few fitful hours' sleep.

Last day at work and fears for the future

I still remember the way my stomach churned every time I allowed myself to think about what was about to begin, during that last day at work.

I was pretty terrified, if I'm honest. I had no idea what the next 5 weeks was to hold. We'd done our research and prepared as best we could - I felt more like an overland traveller than a charity rallier (of course, you should really prepare as the former if you want to do the latter responsibly). But two nagging fears kept bouncing around my mind. 

In the research I'd done into previous rallies and the conversations I'd had with various people, traffic cops & border guards were invariably made out to be corrupt, sleazy bastards who would take any and every opportunity to bribe you out of some cold hard currency, in return for the most trivial of perceived violations. I'd heard stories about them even going so far as to drag people back to the station and show them the cells, the intimation being that that is where they would be spending the foreseeable future if they didn't play the game. What's more, they were rumoured to radio their mates further down the road once they'd tapped you up, meaning you could be stopped repeatedly on the same stretch of road and do nothing about it. 

Many of the veterans laughed this challenge off as almost a highlight of the trip; war stories were forever being swapped about how teams had talked, sped or otherwise wangled their way out of fines, or negotiated their way down from $500 to £5 and a packet of Rich Tea biscuits. Sometimes it took hours to wait for the local cop to get bored enough to start bargaining.

I'm not the sort of person who is good at this sort of stuff. And I was travelling with my girlfriend, so I didn't want to put us in the situation where we were bankrupt by the end of the first week - we had, by our frankly finger-in-the-air calculations, just about enough money to get us to UB and back as long as we had no unforeseen expense. But I became convinced that everywhere east of the EU was swarming with bent coppers just waiting for some fresh Western meat to cruise over the horizon. It was a source of significant concern, and one which I tried to hide from my co-pilot.

Secondly, despite the extensive planning & preparation we put into the trip, I overlooked one thing - vaccinations. You may think this is possibly the most important thing to remember, along with visas to get into the various countries. And you'd be right. My problem was that I'd read the advice on the NHS website, and all suggested certain jabs were 'recommended' for the countries we were going to. None were 'required'. This, to me, suggested it was a good idea to get them if you wanted to ensure you were definitely ok, but it wasn't really a big deal.

It was only when I re-read the information a fortnight before departure that I discovered 'required' only applied to vaccinations you had to prove you had had to be allowed entry to a particular country. 'Recommended' shots covered pretty much everything else you had a chance of catching whilst there, irrespective of severity. Of course, with 14 days until the off, it was too late to do anything about it, so when I wasn't stressing about the local constabulary, I was trying to work out how to avoid dogs (rabies) and trees (tick-borne encephalitis) for the entirety of our trip.

We had another session of drinks in the Regent with some of J's mates on the Thursday night, when we also received our van livery from our friend Wojtek. We couldn't afford proper stickers, so he printed them on high quality shiny paper, and they looked amazing. The only thing they weren't was waterproof. He also made us a selection of Gogol Bordello cds for the journey, my favourite band - and as it turned out these were pretty much the only music we took with us, alongside another CD made for us by J's friend Alex. It provided the anthems of our trip, and several of the songs still make us well up even now when we hear them.

Work was finished, Friday was upon us and beyond that..... the rally.

Thursday 08 Jul 2010 20:03

No going back now

We've reached tipping point - there's no going back now. Justyna and I had our last day at work today - deciding we owed it to ourselves to have at least a full day to try and sort out the van prior to departure.

I spent the day focussed on work - partially because I'd a load to sort before I left, but also because every time I nipped outside for a fag, my stomach contorted itself into knots. Whether it's with nervousness or excitement, I can't tell. It's no doubt a bit of both - the best way I can describe it is that it feels like I am on my way to an interview for my dream job; the one that will not only set me up for life, but the one that will let me finally pursue my lifelong ambition. Not only that, a job I know I can do well at.

It's the disturbing combination of not daring to imagine how amazing things will be if it works out, but the nagging thought at the back of my mind of how shit it will be if it doesn't.

No matter. The time for painful self-analysis is over. It's all us, the kangoo, the road and the experience of a lifetime now. The most important decision I have to make in the next 36 hours is whether we should sacrifice a few hundred miles right at the start of the rally so we can stay in Holland for the World Cup Final on Sunday.

The future's bright.....