Less than a month!
Less than a month!
No longer do we have the luxury of counting down in months, weeks and days. Currently, we are only now able to use but the latter two; the concept of months to go, along with the planning potential associated with such long spans, is no more.
Things do seem to be coming together though, it seems. The car is almost at the rally ready stage, or as far as we can take it. Perhaps a slight issue with rear ride height, after noticing the rear wheels were rubbing on the arches whilst rallying up a 30% incline... any ideas what we can do to fix that? Although in better news, we added another sticker. James thought it would be a good idea, whilst overtaking anything on the Autobahn, if we could explain what we were doing. What better way than put our website address on our rear bumper? Our only hope is they manage to make a mental note of it, before we speed away towards the horizon.
Space is fast running out, and soon to join both petrol/water/patience in the "Most valuable commodity" group. We're quite sure we can reduce some packaging of some parts, stow the varying sized filters like Russian Dolls, and keep our personal belongings down to a strict size (about 65 litres each). In a worst case scenario, it looks like we'll just have to take everything out, try out some new efficient ways of arranging everything, and maybe start prioritizing those spare parts...
The ethnic clashes between the Kyrgz and the Uzbeks continue with 400,000 being displaced and over 2,000 being killed. This is now being classed as a humanitarian crisis, and the tension between the countries mean we need to keep a close eye on the goings on - especially if borders might be shut..
On a brighter note though - The Islanders have been touched by the amount of donations that are coming in at the moment, and we send our sincere thanks to everyone who has been so generous. We'll write more about this tomorrow, including individual thanks, but it really does mean a lot to find so many people supporting the cause and a worthwhile charity. We also recieved a lovely letter from a Mrs M Walters, who herself travelled extensively across the old Silk Route some time ago. Mrs Walters had called us a few weeks ago, and had a great chat about what we were to expect, and a parcel arrived yesterday; inside, a map (our first so far!) and the Long Way Round book (as it contains some rather useful details about a portion of our route). Our thanks to Mrs Walters - it's nice and reassuring to know that people are thinking about the challenge!
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