Testing iphone update

Just testing update from iphone

Off to Oz!

Hey people, just because we’re back from the T2 Rally, doesn’t mean we’ve been sitting around doing nothing!

If you take a look at the Entry Info page, you’ll now see that we’re preparing to accept entrants for next years T2 Rally. If you’re interested in grabbing a place, then leave your email address and we’ll keep you updated!

We’ve also been busying ourselves planning a few more adventures, making various contacts and generally expanding our empire. We’re all pretty excited about some of the stuff we’ve got planned.

I’m off to Australia tomorrow to take part in the Postie Bike Challenge. It starts early Sunday morning, so I’ll once again be switching on my tracker then, and you can see my progress via the LIVE TRACKING link.

Catch you all when I get back, in the meantime - take care and have fun

Timbuktu…. some other time!

Well, having spoken to a few friends at Mountain Madness on Tuesday/Wednesday, the general consensus seems to be that if I even get into Morocco without a full V5 and insurance documents (they didn’t arrive before I left), then every cop would pull me for speeding, then fine me at least triple for not having adequate documentation. After that, I probsbly wouldn’t even get into Mauritania or Mali as you need a V5 (or equivalent) in order to buy a lassier passez (or however it’s spelt). That’s ofcourse, ignoring the fact that I’d be on my own, with 2 tons of jeep, in the sand. Nope, seems it wouldn’t be much point continuing towards Timbuktu under those circumstances, so I’ll just go to Timbuktu some other time (some other time being after the end of the Bamako rally in February. Bamako to Timbuktu isn’t very far at all).

As for this rally  - I’m now finding suitable places to go/stay for next years rally. Found an amazing place on Thursday. Gotta make the best out of a bad situation, right?

After that, I’m heading into eastern Europe. I want to go through the Montblanc Tunnel, and I’ll head a bit east from there, then come back up north through the bottom of Poland and into Germany, Holland, Belgium, France (again) and back home.

Hopefully, I’ll be home in time for V festival

Back on the road!!

Maybe that’s a bit premature, but I spoke to the garage about an hour ago, and the car is ready. I’m just waiting for a taxi to take me there to go and pick it up.

I’m kind of gutted it wasn’t ready yesterday, I wanted to go to Tudela to see the festival and the bull running. I guess there is always next year.

I got a text from Dave and John yesterday afternoon, they’re now in Mauritania.  

 

Update from Spain (again)

I went to the garage on Wednesday, it’s the Pamplona main Suzuki dealers workshop. I had an interesting episode of charades with Reuven that works there, but in the end, we got there. The radiator is badly damaged, so it’s being replaced, apparently beyond radweld or even repairing at a specialist rad shop. Still not convinced that the rad is the source of the problem, but I guess if I’m taking it into the desert, then the cooling system needs to be in tip top condition. Reuven mimed to me that he couldn’t see any other problems other than the radiator, but couldn’t be sure…. anyway, it’s promised to be fixed by Monday. In the meantime I’m still stuck at this hotel in ‘Transport City’ (it’s as bad as it sounds).

Luckily, the Repsol garage across the road has an amazing deal - last night I bought a 2L bottle of Coke, a 2L bottle of mineral water and a 1L carton of the finest cheap vino tinto (Don Simon) all for a massive total of €4,25!

If the car is fixed on Monday I intend to drive across the Pyrenees to  Llavorsi, where I know I can seek some advice from a few people who are a lot more experienced at this than me. I’ll probably be there for a day, and then continue south-west towards Seville and Algeciras.

It looks like I’m going to have only about 4 weeks to get from Algeciras to Timbuktu and back - ideally all the way back to Faugheen, although at this point in time, realistically - I think I’ll be happy just to get back to Europe, where I can leave the car somewhere safe (to collect later) and fly back home. I have a tight deadline as I have a flight to Brisbane on 4th September for the Postie Bike Challenge.

Still in Spain…

I´m still stuck in Spain.

So far, from what I can gather, there isn´t a local Daihatsu dealer, so the jeep has been towed to a Suzuki dealer in Pamplona. There now appears to be some confusion over authorisation to even get a diagnosis of what is wrong with it (´it´s the water pump…. WATER….PUMP…. agua… pumpo…. si?´. Apparently, according to Spanish law, they need my consent - but I speak ´poco de Español´ so I can´t really communicate that over the phone… I´ve told the RAC I fully consent to a diagnosis, but they´re having problems passing that on… and all the time I´m stuck in this hotel, which whilst quite nice, and having internet access, is in the middle of a services, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do all day :-/

It´s frustrating, as I know it´s the water pump, and I know a part like that costs only around 20 quid. It should only take an hour to fit - any competent mechanic could do it. It´s been 4 days since I broke down… WTF!?

Moral of this story is - don´t buy a vehicle and take it on a massively long overland journey without first having enough time to buy a few spares for it (including a water pump). Oh, and take RadWeld and Gun Gum.

Pump and circumstance

First things first… I didn´t end up taking the SJ410. It just wasn´t ready in time… at some point either myself or Greg will get round to updating you all with the story of us frantically trying to put the jeep back together in time.

I didn´t take the KTM either. I decided that it was too fine tuned to deal with large stretches of motorways, and would likely explode before we even reached the ferry at Poole.

With just 2 days to go, myself and Greg were busily scouring Ebay, AutoTrader, GumTree and everywhere else we could think of in order to acquire a suitable vehicle at such short notice. However, we were able to find something suitable in the shape of a 1990 Daihatsu Sportrak. 509 quid sealed the deal on Ebay, and I picked it up from Portsmouth only a few hours later.

The next day I drove it to Pembroke to catch the ferry to Ireland for the launch in Faugheen (more on that later) and on the Monday, after we had been to Hay-on-wye (more on that later) I drove it like a man possessed to get home in time, finish my packing and to get to Poole to meet the rest of the guys to catch the ferry to Cherbourg.

So far things haven´t been too eventful - hypermarche carparks have become the location of choice for en-route maintenance and bodging.

Yesterday, crossing the Pyrenees my water pump decided it had had enough. There was also a small leak in the radiator. Whilst we could fix the leak in the radiator with an egg white (really, we have video evidence), there wasn´t much we could do about the water pump - so it was time to call RAC European breakdown (having a Barclays Additions Plus account is marvellous!).

A few hours later, the mechanic was with us - as far as I can tell in broken Spanish, and a mixture of charades (try doing ´water pump´in a game…) we agreed the water pump had died, and we´re now holed up in a hotel (all on the RAC!) until the garage can replace the pump (hopefully on Monday).

Until then, we´re chilling out planning our route, recharging our batteries (both literally AND figuratively) and washing our stinky smalls.

With luck, we´ll be back on our way on Monday afternoon  - whereupon the live tracking should start moving again. If it doesn´t, it means things have gone horribly wrong, and you can expect another update. Actually, the mechanic has a rather nice Nissan 4×4 in his workshop…

Why oh Wye?

Yesterday was a tale of Woe-in-Wye.

I’m not having a real good time lately, am I? It seems bad karma has been stored for a while to be unleashed upon me just days before we start this rally… I don’t know if that’s a sign that I really shouldn’t be doing it, or just making the whole thing more exciting and more of a challenge - after all, it’s not an adventure until your plans go wrong

Anyway, yesterday started off fairly well - I went to Race Spec in Tewkesbury to pick up some bits for the KTM, and also to get some body armour (better to be safe as possible when being pitched over the handle bars…). Got all my bits, and then realised I was only 60 miles from Hay-on-Wye, so got Greg to text me the address of the council offices whilst I made my way there.

Unfortunately, I got stuck behind Miss Daisy driving a truck, so didn’t arrive till 5.00, by which time the Council offices were closed. Still, I took a few hours looking around the place that will be our “official” start next year… it’s a small quiet town, and something like Humphrey will certainly not go unnoticed.

As I got in the car to start my journey home, I noticed something wasn’t quite right - when I got back out, the front passenger side tyre was hanging off the rim… not sure if the tyre had been slashed or it was an unfortunate bit of glass or something, anyway… luckily I found me spare is a full size tyre and not one of those (waste of) space savers. 2 local boys helped me change the tyre, pints were consumed, and then I was on my way again.

Not a good day - hopefully tomorrow will be better!

I’m off to the Horizons Unlimited meeting tomorrow, so will be speaking to many people, trying out all of the comms and gadgets we’ll be taking on the rally, and generally giving all of my kit a pre rally test.

 

 

Musical vehicles

Not a good day today. Having conversed with the other teams, it seems that there are problems with vehicles, carnets and visas. After much hair tearing out, we appear to have resolved the issues at hand, however - it now means that ALL teams are taking the Western route, Team PSM are now taking a Nissan Micra, and I’m now taking my KTM 525 (that’s a motorcycle, incase you didn’t know).

As this is my blog entry, I’m going to talk about the changes to my plans. After the decision was made to take the western route, I decided to switch vehicles to the KTM. Reason being that early next year I’ll be doing the same route in the B2 Rally (in the SJ), and didn’t want to be doing it twice. The KTM is designed for desert racing, so it should be a real hoot - especially safe in the knowledge that I have 2 mechanics to hand should it decide to misbehave. It realy was the chance to grab an opportunity that won’t come along too many times.

BUT…

It now means I’ve got only about a week to get the KTM road worthy and prepared. Luckily, it’s not in too bad a shape. It needs indicators wiring in, a horn, mirrors and a few other things bolting back on that I’ve stripped off. It also needs the race exhaust changing for a road legal one. Once the MOT is done, I can then go about finishing my prep work - fitting the ASV F3 levers, rotator clamps, pivot pegz, etc etc. Still, shouldn’t take longer than a day or two.

With the prospect of 6 weeks in the saddle, I just hope that Renazco seat is worth what I paid for it

Thoroughly exhausting

It’s been a while since I made an update, so thought it was about time I did so.

Last weekend was spent mainly driving all over the country to collect parts for the SJ.

Saturday I drove to Berkshire to collect a toy for something that we’ve got planned for after the T2. There will be more information about that in a few months. 

On Sunday I drove to Cumbria to collect a roof top tent (the Oasis model from Trekking.fr). I can’t enthuse enough about how great this thing is. Forget about your 50Kg Eezi-Awns and similar. This little sucker weighs 19Kg, and because the base is essentially a hammock, it doesn’t need a heavy plywood base and mattress that can also go rotten. I love it, and even Greg was suitably impressed by it.

On the way back from Cumbria I passed through Derby to collect a full stainless exhaust system for the jeep - a bargainous 50 quid on Ebay - new too! It’s a thing of beauty - I’d much prefer to mount it on a wall than under the jeep, but needs must…

Other than that, I’ve bene busy with preparing the infrastructure and other backend gubbins for next years T2 website. It’s gonna be awesome

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