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Mongol Rally 2010 begins!

The culmination of 328 days of planning and excitement came to fruition yesterday - for the day saw the three intrepid explorers (ha!) set off from the family county of Somerset, and began to make their way to Goodwood Race Circuit…

James spent the previous night at his mum's, and Nick & Will went to Banwell to spend some quality time with his dad. Will then had to drive to Bridgwater to do the pick up in the morning, and we went for a short detour to Taunton, just to pop in to the Ministry of Defence Hydrographic Office (James's dad works there). We said hello, and attracted the attention of a MOD photographer. Turns out, we looked so cool in Pete the Saxo, that we're going to be in their next internal magazine. 15 minutes of fame? Pah, we've had hours of it already!

Meeting back up with Mackey, we set off on our long drive to Goodwood (near Chichester). Mackey, bored of the monotonous duel carriage ways spreading across the country like a spiders web, decided to revisit his childhood/adolescence and visit the New Forest. As it turns out, we all enjoyed this little detour; the driving was good, long open roads with some cracking landscapes, and even visiting the High Corner Inn where Mackey once worked and lived. (Mackey basically giving us a tour of the place much to the bemusement of the current owners). We even had a coach full of Germans recognise us in our team kit. Well, probably recognised the logo on the car and our jackets - still, shouts of "Looka, itz zee Islanders shweina Mongolia" were heard in the bar. (I realise that sentence makes no sense, but it was a German sentence with those two English words!)

On the way, we did make a couple of stops; we made a stop off at the retail emporium that is Matalan. After all, the clothes we'll be wearing won't be coming back in any wearable condition, so a minimal spend was preferred by all. Apart from a terribly James May'ish shirt that we spotted that would look hideous on Mackey. James played the "I buy it, you wear it" card, and now Mackey is sporting the 40-year old, mid life crisis look with ease. Lunch was a picnic style at Cheddar Gorge, a most excellent half an hour in the sun trying to work out whether a white object on a precipice half way up the cliff was real, or fake, or a corpse. Having come to the conclusion it was either of the latter, we gave up on it, until about 15 minutes after, it started moving. That was the highlight of Will's day - we filmed it all.

We arrived at Goodwood at about 7.30pm - first ending up in a lovely cul-de-sac, having used a slightly wrong postcode, and then mistakenly trying to get access to the track, despite our camp site being a mile down the road. Having eventually found the right place, we were graced with an open field of about 30 vehicles, a BBQ stall and a number of white portacabins. These later proved themselves to be the best portable toilet system you've ever seen. Clean, tidy toilets and urinals; even shower blocks with hot power showers. They were plentiful, they were spotless, they were fantastic. God knows why i'm describing the toilet facilities in such detail; perhaps as my last camping experience was Glastonbury a few years ago, and I harbour many a dark thought regarding those same facilities.

We set about pitching our tents in the middle of the neatly arranged field, quickly discovering the ground to be harder than the majority of elements. Each of our three Gelert Solo tents came with 10 pegs; from a total of 30, we have about 12 left unscathed and in a relatively straight line. Still, we learnt from other teams who resorted to using a Philips screwdriver in each of the 4 corners!

Teams streamed through the field gates throughout the evening and night - every few minutes, some sort of incredible vehicular contraption joined our ranks and set up their living quarters for the night. It was very good to meet some of the teams we'd talked to for the past few months on the internet, all equally excited and panicking, sharing hints and tips where we had them. 
The atmosphere of the campsite was a jovial one - teams made an effort and dressed up in weird and wonderful things (such as the four animals..). Lots of Norwegian heavy metal played out from Ambulances and Micras, and footballs were carelessly kicked around between posts made up of the camping fire extinguishers. There was even a Rolls Royce, once owned by Sir Jimmy Saville, bought by a team on eBay (and cost £100,000 when new!)

Our day, no, our week was a long one - we've so far travelled many hundreds of miles, and by midnight, we felt time had gotten the better of us. We retired to the three coffin-sized tents, nestled in between Pete the Saxo and Team CakeOrDeath's vehicle. Tents just aren't the most sound proof of rooms - every conversation across the entire field was heard, as well as the continually arriving teams. An ice cream van's alluring melody isn't quite the lullaby you might expect, and I think we got to sleep somewhere between 3 and 4am.

For some reason, I (James) woke at the ungodly hour of 6am, wide awake with anticipation/apprehension/child like excitement about the day ahead. Today was the day - the launch of the Mongol Rally 2010. It seems I was the first up from the entire Mongol Rally contingent, and as a result had the use of those virgin pristine showers. (Last time I mention them, I promise). Will was stirring as I got back to the car, but Mackey enjoyed a lie in, eventually rising after the entire camp site. Packing up our tents and campsite was another first for us - we learnt some valuable lessons there, and even repacked the car, reducing all unnecessary space and weight.

We headed off about 9am - the earliest that Goodwood opened it's fine doors, but we were quite keen. Having been comedically harassed by fake Russian Guards, we were given a bay and told to park up. Once again, we spoke to a few of our rally team mates we were already familiar with, and then began the long wait to the launch. Looking around, some teams had visitors; maybe a concerned mother or curious boss wondering what he's given 5 weeks holiday for. Us though, we had to be different - we had an awesome entourage of lots of people:Jo, Steve, Lisa, Jane, Adam, John, Gill, Emily, Sophie, Adam, Jan, Barb, Natasha, Rob, Carolyn, John, Chris, Nigel etc… Family, friends, sponsors etc. Some made the trip from the islands, others traveled from the West Country or London. It was incredibly heartwarming to see those people who made such an effort, and we thank them - it made a big difference. 

Waiting at Goodwood was a long affair, despite the rather genius entertainment provided by the Adventurists, and the comedian from the rally DVD. Some awards were given out, including to the team that didn't have a car, and instead have hired an Enterprise Rent-a-Car (with unlimited milage). Such a collection of cars, all sharing similar bays to our own, was fantastic - 50 something ambulances graced the paddocks, along with hundreds of bodge jobs and genuinely nice cars, doomed to a fate much worse than they'd ever get in the UK.

We were eventually called up to our starting lines on the race track, and watched as the grand stands were full of cheering supporters, generically cheering each and every intrepid team. Of course though, no one cheered louder and more vigorously than our own posse! Will had the honour of driving the lap, and we cruised around in about 5 minutes; somewhat short of Stirling Moss's record of 1 minute 20 seconds.

So, we've launched. We've started. We've set off on what will no doubt be an eye opener to us, and hopefully the adventure of a life time. We are currently heading towards Dover to catch our 7.45pm ferry (along with about 30 other teams - we've dubbed it "The Party Boat"), although as i'm typing this, i've realised I think we've forgotten the ferry tickets. 

Until the next blog…

p.s. will's driving is scaring the shit out of Mackey!!!!!

Continuing on from the above, as internet coverage is patchy. I say patchy, we've resorted to trawling the streets in the hope we find someone who doesn't know how to secure their wireless network.
So we got to the "Party Boat" - the 7.45 Dover to Calais ferry. Now, this thing was big. Proper big like. It had bars, restaurants, shops etc. I suppose just like the Scillonian then, just much much larger. We hit the bar, and quickly met up with our rally comrades. In fact, 90% of the bar customers were Mongol Rally'ers. And by looking at the lone barman attempting to deal with a queue of thirsty Brits, they didn't know about us!

The hour and a three quarter crossing went nice and smoothly; too fast, in fact. But, then the fun began once more - this time hitting our second country of the day, and our first on foreign soil. The CB radios now came into their own - we absolutely LOVE it; coming off the ferry, we stayed in contact with a big bunch of convoying teams. A stop at a service station allowed others to catch up, and another fuel stop (in particular, for the Perodua Nippa with it's 20 litre fuel tank), gave us time to chat, meet yet more people and become acquainted with each other and our routes.

Once we'd passed the Dunkurque turn off, we were left with those teams wanting to push through part of the early hours of the morning, and get a good head way into Belgium, aiming to camp outside Brussels somewhere. The few hours drive towards the Belgian capital were the funniest we've had so far - a convoy of 11 crazy looking and unsuitable Mongol Rally cars, all chatting constantly on the CB (and our unofficial channel 24), including playing some interesting games on the motorway; including creating a square of 9 Mongol cars (3 x 3) across all the lanes. It looked awesome, but the entire population of the Belgian motorway now hates us all.

This convoy was awesome; the creme of the crop of the Mongol Rally teams; Team Wanderlust, Team Cake Or Death, Team Catch Us If You Khan, Team McWhippy, Team Canadian Beavers, Team Domino Pizzas, and others we've forgotten the name of.
Our plan, once people had began to flag a little bit, was to find a field somewhere and set up a hasty camp for the night. As it turns out, this is a lot harder than first thought. Despite the fact we'd passed a thousand fields and a thousand forests, each of which would have welcomed 26 weary travellers, we instead ended up in a terrible little village, the name of which i've forgotten, probably deliberately. While searching for the ideal place to set up, we were threatened with the Police by some angry locals, possibly a little upset that 11 vehicles of rally calibre had woken them up at 3.30am, still chatting and laughing loudly on the CBs outside the streets.

We came across a few possible sites, but none were overly suitable; the best we had found was next to a busy road, and in front of a busy factory. I'm sure the local police would have loved that! Eventually though, Mat and team found a little dirt track we headed down, which opened up into a mini-field of freshly cut grass, shielded from the road by a row of Belgian trees. By 3.30am, this place looked like Eden. Queue a hasty setup of camp, and we bedded down for the night.....

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