We first heard of the overland trip to China and beyond in the aid of charities when we stayed at the Waterloo Hotel  over the weekend of 4th’7th May.

My wife and I were celebrating our 56th Wedding Anniversary, expecting a quiet weekend but then we met the Honda Bikers. We were invited to join in their Saturday and Sunday night celebrations which we did with pleasure.
It was on the Sunday that we learnt about Team Phoenix and were pleased to be able to add a small donation.

it is my intention, if possible, to follow your progress on our Screen.

Best wishes and Good luck

Marion and Brian

Fashion Show in aid of Demelza Hospice Care for Children

It won’t be coming back…

Individual members of the team have taken on separate responsibilities for the trip. Paul is now CC of all things mechanical. If it moves, has a propensity to break or seize up, then it’s down to him. That includes the replacing of cam-belts – and the repair of punctures – the fitting of light bulbs and re-fixing those loose bits of trim.    Oil pumps, fuel pumps, foot pumps and plug-gaps. Wheel bearings and track rods. In layman’s terms, all the oily bits. If we had it, his responsibilities would also include the maintenance of the air-conditioning system.

Another heavy responsibility is that of CC all things IT, Planning, Routing, and Logistics. Communications – and Spreadsheets.  Finance, and Sponsorship.

It includes anything [and everything] that doesn’t involve any form of pushing, pulling or getting wet feet. Guess that’s me.

 Finally, there’s Ade. The Wirral Contingent; the standard-bearer for all our friends north of Watford Gap.  He’s an avid born-again biker – and a biker who’s already got extensive experience in the administration of First Aid. He’s the obvious ‘team choice’ to be the one to go on a more intensive two-day course on ‘Adventure Survival’ and ‘How to fix broken bones with a toothpick and a piece of string….’           The countdown continues!

Having a vehicle on the road in full Rally livery is undoubtedly paying dividends. It has been seen - and reported upon - in the local Parish Magazine, and as the bonnet fills with signatures and messages of goodwill it gets easier: most are happy to drop unwanted shrapnel – and surplus car-park money – into the Official hospice collecting tin in exchange for a short loan of the indelible marker kept in the door pocket expressly for the purpose. We even give our supporters a choice of colours – red, blue or black. How many autographs will the average bonnet hold? More than you’d think: even indelible marker starts to fade when exposed to prolonged daylight! Finally, back to the graphics – the important public face of the car. We’ve been ‘given’ a sheet of authentic aircraft decals, something that may help to explain the large red notice fixed to both doors – Lift Handle to Open – and the JET FUEL ONLY sticker that takes pride of place on the filler cap. It even warns that ‘additives will be required for sub-zero temperatures’.

Thank you, Dogcam!

With potential trouble looming in Iran, the decision has now been taken for my team to cross from Turkey into Russia by way of the Black Sea. This will negate the need to enter either Iran, and will also close the doors on Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – a shame, because two other must-see’s that will fall by the wayside are the Gates Of Hell at Darvaza and the Russian Space Centre at  Baikonur.

 Another valid reason for undertaking such an adventurous jaunt is much more difficult to define: there comes a time when suddenly the prospect of doing something way out exceeds the desire to plod on day-by-day waiting for retirement and the eventual, inevitable slide into a ‘nice’ residential home somewhere.

Mix in a number of  informative and entertaining blogs from the 2011 contenders [www.returnoftheyak.com] and it’s a done deal!

 Unfortunately, their superb Skoda Fabia failed to make the finishing line, but shrewd planning ensured the Yak that had been carried – on the roof – all the way from Goodwood actually made it to the Finishers Party! 

Isn’t technology marvelous!!

UPDATE: It’s there!  It says ‘Andrew’s Page’, but really it’s ‘Ade’s Page’. Just an administrative hitch that make no difference at all!

WHO’S GOING TO BE THE FIRST TO HIT THE ‘Donate’ BUTTON?

 Fruitymedia.co.uk kindly wrapped the bonnet at short notice, and PWMC lent us a HUGE revolving orange light [in case we break down on the way to Sevenoaks, perhaps?]  We’ve also got our first four Bonnet Signatures. Just 996 to go!

 In the Sevenoaks area tomorrow evening [Friday 25th] and at a loose end?  Come and say hello….

Thanks Guys… Shame you couldn’t have thrown your sound system in as a part of the deal!

The car, the Aerobars and the ‘special’ £36.00 fittings needed to join the two together met for the first time yesterday – a meeting that ended in total disaster.  The bars didn’t fit, the ‘special’ bespoke fittings didn’t fit either, and after prising the rubber strips from the roof with the end of a blunt screwdriver there were no apparent fixing points lurking beneath.

An early-morning trip to a well-known national chain of Motor Factors followed, but they didn’t know how to do it either. They suggested – albeit politely – that I took it back to Hyundai…… 

Thirty minutes later not only was I in the Dealer Principles office looking at a draft of the artwork being applied to the car’s flanks on Tuesday, but was also being told not to worry about the bars – that they’d fit them for me.

A result… but then, a sign-written Hyundai Accent with a wonky roof box would do little for their credibility, so perhaps that was the reasoning behind their decision.  ‘Before’ and ‘after’ pictures should be posted by the middle of the week!

‘It is apparent that your organisation believes in synchronised organisational paradigm shifts and your extensive exploratory research points to a sound knowledge-based strategic innovation. Your organisation also believes in implementing ‘balanced incremental concepts’ and by upgrading your static model you now have the additional facility to offer subjective optional relative processing. [SORP]  However, you need to address the issue of the on-message rebate regarding your homogenised monitored capability.’ 

Guess that’s a YES then!

UPDATE #1      We’ve done a sensible deal…..  The playing cards should be available on November 10th at £7:50 + p&p for a boxed pack. Ideal Stocking Filler for christmas!

Twenty-five adults paying a tenner each to splash paint around!

UPDATE:  18 turned up, and we netted £135 after costs. Thanks all!

UPDATE: Maps turned up the next day. First Class service from Stanfords!

UPDATE [A]: Turkish Road Map now arrived…….

Into Mongolia. We soon learned that there are four border crossings and, as is typical, our first choice – the one to be found at Mondi for no other reason than the name was instantly recognisable – turned out to be barred to third-country nationals. Are we really in the remit of being ‘third-country nationals’? Back to the guide-book and another possibility soon presented itself. Slightly more westerly – and therefore a little nearer to the UK – is the border post linking Tsagaannuur to Tashanta, but once again confusion reigns. The excellent index found nestling at the back of the book shows there to be two Tsagaannuur’s.

The first is spelt all as one word; the second is quite clearly detailed in the index as Tsagaann-Uur.  Back in the metaphorical driver’s seat we squirm around to check out Tsagaann-Uur, to learn that it is located in an area that’s very well-known for hot springs. We’ll be OK for a bath, then. The township is described as having shops and a guanze - otherwise recognised as a tearoom or cheap restaurant. However, it goes on to advise that in 2006 the road bridge to the eastern approach was washed away, and to date it hasn’t been replaced. The descriptive, Lonely Planet text states that ‘the river crossing is now a bit dicey’.

However, we’ve now encountered yet a third problem that needs resolving. On the accompanying map but a few pages away, Tsagaann-Uur has been spelt as Tsagaann-Uul.  An L, not an R. The Lonely Planet guide has been put away until we can cross check with that other favourite, Google-Earth!

Route up dated

Press page added under About tab.

The wait for the Official Mongol Handbook seemed to take forever before it was finally released – and appointment could be made with a potential sponsor to discuss the acquisition of a suitable sub-1200cc vehicle.  Great – but then we had to wait another week for him to return from holiday.

When we finally got around to meeting him in his office we really didn’t expect him to rummage around in a desk drawer – Arthur Daley-style – to grab a handful of worn keys before being led out into a muddy car lot to view a large selection of eight-year old hatchbacks – and to be fair, he didn’t.

 What he actually did was to tell us that he’d get back to us.  So, as I said, it looks as if we’re stuck in the mud for another couple of days, but at least it would appear that we’re pointing in the right direction….

The next issue to be tackled is that of Sponsorship, and there are a number of ideas being kicked around: before saying too much it would be rather nice to know whether there are any other Rally 2012 participants based in Kent or the South-east area of England. After all, we would be better working together as a united team rather than treading on each other’s toes as individuals!

Information: It’s important to keep the local population ‘on-the-boil’, particularly if they’ve pledged money to the cause. To this end Team-Phoenix have negotiated the use of a twenty-foot strip of a High-Street department store window to display a detailed map showing the route, a map that will be updated every couple of days with a ribbon – or something similar. It also helps to raise the profile of the shop and the progress of the team; the rally happens to fall at the same time as their Summer Sale!

With a video-loop running in the restaurant of the local garden centre and a Digital Picture Frame running 24\7 in my local pub, it’s all good publicity but to date these ideas haven’t actually generated any hard-cash.

On the other hand, we’ve managed to raise over £150:00 by selling a number of TR-related spares last weekend, and the TRDC [TR-Driver’s Club] kindly donated the proceeds of their raffle to our cause. There are strings attached: we need to take the car, in full rally livery, to their National Meeting at Billing next June, where it appears they’ve got ‘something special’ lined up in the way of another fundraising event. No doubt a fiver to drive the thing around a circular course, or a couple of quid to be photographed alongside it! The trip to Northants will be the car’s shakedown before the Big-Off on the 14th July!

Finally, the car.  We’re still looking….

However, times and circumstances change. Interest in the Classic Car scene was waning and by now we’d also got a nice, low mileage Smart Roadster to have fun in: a car with the ability to double the fuel consumption and at a cost of less than half in the road fund license department. The Triumph languished in an ex-council owned concrete lock-up garage four miles away – a garage that that cost £70 a month to rent from the Housing Association – and yet the vehicle was still costing us nearly £300 a year to insure. It didn’t take a mathematician to work out that one or the other had to go and the Triumph, as much as we loved the sound and grunt of the V8 with its twin-pipes, was the obvious choice. We’d just have to learn to love the Smart’s sparrow-like chirp as the turbo waste gate kicked open instead. 

Unsurprisingly it was the TR7\V8 – named Oliver on account of his perceived drink problem – that made the one-way trip to a specialist up north. We really couldn’t be bothered with advertising the car privately and suffering the hoards of tyre-kickers who’d inevitably crawl out of the woodwork. A clean break: discussions, and a flip of the coin ensured that finally the necessary funding for the Team-Phoenix attack on the 2012 Mongol Rally was available.  It was time to start scouting around for ‘partners’, our preferred name for ‘sponsors’. Of more importance, Team-Phoenix was, in reality, just me. I needed a willing co-driver, and a competent Webmaster…

Erroneously, I’d thought that I’d cracked the Webmaster problem when I hit on the idea of inviting our local comprehensive school to get involved. Now re-invented as an Academy, I made an appointment with their Head of Sixth and suggested they take on the responsibility for the design and maintenance of the web page. 

I also suggested that their Art department might like to get involved with the creation of suitable graphics for our chosen steed, after all, there must be some way of making a ten-year old, 1100cc Nissan Micra – or Ford Fiesta – look more like a gutsy Subaru WRX.  After a week of prolonged sluggish cogitation, they eventually declined my offer. Guess their pupils have more important things to do. A few even like shuffling hand-in-hand along the High Street smoking tailor-mades as they head home….

In the end, the problem of not having a co-driver just solved itself. I stumbled across a mature, self-employed mechanic who had few qualms about closing his garage for up to six weeks next summer, and I also found a Webmaster who was easily coerced to spin our new web for us. We finally had the basis of a sound team, strengthened by a long-term friend who still thinks that it’s an utterly mad undertaking.  However, he’s coming round to the idea now and is actively coming up with good ideas and valuable input regarding the proposed route. I think – secretly – that he’s a hankering to join us in the Gobi!

Back at Registration, after a series of questions – most of which I can no longer remember – I was eventually asked for the long number on my card. It would appear that Team-Phoenix was no longer just a figment of my imagination: the die was cast and it had become a physical entity.

Funding. ‘We’d’ been kicking ideas around, both to fund the project and to secure the minimum of £1000 that had been pledged to Charity. Eventually the idea of sponsorship at £0.005\mile came to the fore – but there was a drawback. Funds could only be collected in the weeks immediately after the event…. 

The back of an old envelope provided sufficient paper to prepare a quick working budget. The £700 entry fee had already gone from my account, but at sometime between ‘now’ and ‘the off’ a further £800 surety needed to be lodged with the Event Organisers – a returnable surety needed to remove a bent wreck from the side of a desert track somewhere east of Iran in the event of it not actually reaching Ulaanbaatar – or one of the official en-route pounds. For ‘en-route pounds’ I suspect they actually mean ‘local scrap yards’.

The list grew. A Passport – costing the thick end of £100 by the time I’d finished having a selection of passport photographs taken. The first set made me look about ninety, so a second set was called for. A different coloured shirt, and a shave. I even brushed what’s left of my hair, all to no avail. I still looked about ninety, but now a smart ninety rather than a tramp.  Before posing for the third set of pictures I went for broke, changing the bold blue lumberjack-check for a pastel-coloured shirt and adding a refined, complimentary tie. This provided a bonus: by dispensing with the open-neck look all those sub-jowl dangly swathes of redundant flesh could be tucked away out of sight beneath the collar. It was a ‘Poor Man’s Botox Look’, but it worked. The face gazing back at me still wasn’t mine, but on the other hand it had lost at least ten years….

Other costs? There was a suitable vehicle to be sourced – say £700 – and the £1000 guaranteed for charity. Add the unknown cost of the various Visa requirements and Travel Insurance for the Elderly – and an armful of inoculations, although at this stage in the game plan ‘we’d’ no idea about which route we eventually intended to take.  The cost of getting the Mongol-Project off the ground was already building, but there was a viable way of funding the project without the need to delve deep into the pension fund. Unfortunately, as solutions go it was a very drastic one – and came with great personal sacrifice…

 However, amid the strawberries and cream, the bric-a-brac stalls and the silver band, the second-hand books and the jigsaws one feature stood head and shoulders above the rest. Adjoining the line of Classic Cars – and standing adjacent to an old, rickety paste table containing an assortment of potted annuals that appeared to have been liberated from a neighbouring garden – stood a nasty yellow Rover Streetwise.

Wearing the lop-sided stance – and the foreboding appearance – of an abandoned MOT failure, the Rover had a pair of part-used off-road tyres sourced from eBay leaning against the faded grey plastic bumper and a map of Western Europe stuck firmly across the windscreen. A thin blue line wormed and wriggled its way eastwards across the map from Goodwood, near Arundel in Sussex, to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, taking a route that passed south of both the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea by way of Turkey and Iran.

I bought the plants – all of them, a mixture of half-starved Cosmos and some ornamental grasses. I also questioned the three lads who were manning the stall about their proposed project and it soon became apparent that any sort of mechanical preparation of the Rover had been kept to the bare minimum, the after-market sump-guard playing second fiddle to the installation of an upgraded sound system.

 Hooked, these professional anglers played me like a fish.  The car was also a recent eBay purchase and apparently something of a real bargain, having just 40K on the clock and wearing a Buy-It-Now price tag of £700.00.  No doubt the vehicle had also benefited from one careful owner before being acquired from somewhere north of Watford by Team-Immaculate Pasta. Why Immaculate Pasta? That’s one question that, regrettably, I forgot to ask!

 At the end of the afternoon I left the fete with my charity account £150:00 the poorer, but richer beyond belief. I’d bought advertising space on the Rover’s bonnet. More important were the words that had been left ringing in my ears. ‘You can do it. There’s still four weeks before the off’. A pipe dream for the young, perhaps: to get six weeks off work in the middle of the summer to undertake a ten-thousand mile Road Trip through nineteen countries was out of the question. Besides, I hadn’t even got a suitable vehicle or any sponsorship. And, to cap things, my Passport had expired.

However, a seed had been sown that either needed nurturing or eradicating with a strong mix of chemical weed-killer. The weed-killer approach didn’t work: you’re never too old and the theory held that over half a century of automotive life-experiences should give me a head start over the youngsters who had more idea of ICE than what goes on under the bonnet. Matters significantly worsened once the rally started. True to their word, a constant barrage of e-mails began to hit the screen detailing their long, arduous journey east – France, then Belgium.  A quick circuit of the Nuremberg track in German. Photographic proof of achieving 109 mph on an Autobahn, notwithstanding the speedometer was indicating a whisker over 120.  Turkey, Iran. Then a whole heap of countries ending in …stan; and eventually Russia and the Mongolian border. Stories of speeding fines and punctures; corrupt police and bolshie border officials.

It was an itch that needed urgent scratching, and www.theadventurists.com was accessed for more information regarding the 2012 event, and the criteria seemed fair. Anything vehicular could be used, providing it was less than ten years old and had an engine capacity of less than 1200cc – unless of course, you chose to undertake the arduous journey in a Public Service Vehicle, a redundant ambulance or perhaps a fire engine. The entry fee was a shade over £700, and a minimum of £1000 was needed for a nominated Charity.  A plan had started to formulate that involved, of all things, an eight-year old vehicle from the nearest car auction…………