So close...

The lads are camped about 400 miles from Ulaan Baatar. They are both well but unfortunately the car isnt. Lots of problems with the fuel/engine (?) which is causing big delays. They are trying to get the problem fixed so they can limp the final few miles to the finish line.

Made it to Mongolia

Arrived in Mongolia this morning. Landscapes breathtaking. Roads ok. Now in Olgi and heading onwards. Eating lots, all is well.

Back on the road

A few bugs are not stopping us. Back on the road, mongolia tomorrow. Military style planning now underway to complete our mission. Over and out!

The Life of E'wn

Whilst Cedric is spending another day with Helga (I think he is growing attached to her now) and I have some time I thought it was about time I gave an update on how our little E'wn is doing and what it is like to have driven him 8,600 miles across deserts, mountain ranges and the odd river.

It's hard to explain the experience of driving E'wn words.  Apart from the noise which I have mentioned earlier it really is seat of the pants driving but at low speeds (max speed is 60mph).   Keeping him on the road is a real effort since the steering wheel can turn almost half a turn in either direction before the wheels follow.  Add in the effect of a side wind litterally blowing us off the road (E'wn makes trucks look aerodynamic), and puddles on the road (seem to cause the car to veer off course drastically) makes keeping a straight line more like a Krypton Factor challenge.  Unlike most cars we don't have to worry too much about speeding, the needle we watch more closely than the speedo is the temperature gauge through feer of overheating. Through muliple scientific experiments Cedric discovered that to keep the engine temperature under control we need all lights off and the interior heating on full.  So yes, we spent 3 days driving across a desert with our heating blasting out.  As for entertainment whilst driving, well... there is the road and thats about it.  The radio won't work while the lights are on, luckily we can't have the lights on due to the heating, but unfortunately a bent Kazak traffic cop helped himself to my MP3 player so no music for us either.  Describing the ride as a little bumpy would be a slight understatement. Cedric and I are both smaller having lost several vertibrae over the last 5 weeks. 

Some of the minor problems we have had so far include...Drive shaft broken (the Helsinki hold up), leaking fuel tank (there is a petrol trail from London to The Mongolian border, if anyone lights it you see our route from space), coolant leak (on going and very irritating), unable to start (two hours of attempts failed to get him going, needed a tow.  Half a mile later he rawed into action), semi-blocked fuel line, almost lost the alternator (nearly fell off), exhaust snapped in two (now fixed with both Peaches and Pineapple tins), right back suspension pretty much dead, seat bolts snapped (yes, that was while I was sitting in it), front light falling out, various nuts and bolts lost or coming loose or about to fall out, oil & water in air filter box, flat tire, transfer box mount sheared, both wing mirrors fail to hold position... and there is more, I've just wiped them from memory.

So all in all he is doing quite well, keeping us entertained both on and off the road and is still going even if we temporarily aren't.  He certainly gets a lot of attention and at pretty much every petrol stop or town people sign/write rude workds in Russian on the car, look under the bonnet, gasp then laugh as they shake their head in bemusement and walk away.  This is coming from guys driving 1970's clapped out Ladas.  I just now hope we all have another 1,500 miles in us!!

So near and yet so far

Before I report on our adventures of the last few days (more adventure than we would ideally have liked!) I can report that Cedric is doing extremely well and is almost fully recovered from a pretty nasty stomach infection.  It is amazing what a needle in the bottom from an enormous and scary Russian Helga can do for the immune system but it seems to have ridden him of the little bugs that caused us a fright over the last 2 days.

After our Migration Card problems in South Kazakstan we headed quickly North for the Russian border hampered only by the exhaust pipe splittling in two resulting in the already pretty noise car making a horriffic racket.  Despite us both wearing ear plugs we couldn't stand it any longer and found a garage to weld the pipe back together.  I've seen the odd welding kit before, but never one like this Frankenstein contraption, plugging it in was achieved by sticking two bare wires directly into the mains, and winding it up to get it started.  Here's me thinking the sparks are only meant to fly after you start welding!  The youthful 135 yr old welder did an excellent job (without gloves and with some very dodgy glasses) and it seemed that our ears could be unplugged and we could continue in peace.  100 miles later, the ear plugs came out as the weld split... an excellent $40 that was!

Crossing the border into Russia we met a rally team driving a London Cab stuck in no-mans land between Kazakhstan and Russia.  They had left Kazakhstan but their Russian visa was yet to start and so they were stranded for 5 days in a 10m square section of what they deamed "Taxi-stan". They weren't helping their chances of finally getting into Russia by playing the National Anthem and The Great Escape at full blast each morning to the extreme annoyance of the Russian border guards.

At this point both Cedric and I had a "funny tummy" and had to have the odd emergency stop whilst driving, but nothing more than standard Travellers problems.  We drove up to Barnaul, a large town on the Edge of the Altai region of Russia in the car which was now sounding more like a Jet Aircraft than a 970cc Suzuki to such an extent pedestrians covered their ears as we approached.  So there was nothing else for it,  a tin of Peaches (minus the peaches) was moulded around the pipe, removing the odd decibel from the exhaust pipe and resulting in a nice caramelised peach smell for the next 50 miles.

Two days of driving and 500 miles later and on Sunday night we arrived at the Mongolian border ready to step foot on the hallowed Mongolian soil only to find it closed for the weekend. We camped there for the night with a few other teams and at this point Cedric's condition worsened.  Yesterday (Monday) morning it was clear that we had no option but to head back to a large town and find a doctor.  With Cedric in increasing pain and running to find a tree by the side of the road every half an hour we drove back to Byssk, 400 miles and 10 hours away to seek help.  It was at this point that the car and the weather decided to do everything in their power to prevent us getting there.  Firstly we were hit with the recurring problem with our fuel line which results in it temporarily getting blocked by some rubbish in the tank.  The engine doesn't like this and stops, the only current remedy being to disconnect said fuel line and blow, with the aid of a foot pump, the rubbish out of the pipe.  This happened twice on the drive back, both times in pouring rain.  Then we got our first flat tire of the trip... perfect timing!

Finally we arrived at Byssk, found a hotel and got a doctor who quickly carted us both off in an Ambulance to hospital.  Well I say hospital but it could easily have been a prison.  I will never complain about the NHS hospitals again whose floors are absent of rubbish and (at my last visit anyhow) there are no flies and unidentified rodents running around!  After much searching through a Russian-English dictionary (anyone know the Russian for diarrhoea?) Cedric was kept in overnight and given the magic injection and is now pretty much better, if a little lighter. 

As for what is next, we don't know.  We will see how Cedric feels tomorrow, work out the options and decide on a plan of action, will keep you posted...

(A massive thanks to everyone who has posted messages below and who we have been in contact with over the last few days, your help and support has been very much appreciated, we are both very grateful!!)

Update on the boys

Just spoken to Paul. Following a few days of stomach problems, they are taking a slight detour to a big town so Cedric can get checked out by a doctor to be on the safe side. It sounds like they have got the right medicine now but just want to speak to a doctor to make sure everything is ok. Will update blog when I hear anything more from them.

For Cedric's parents = Paul has his phone with him if you wanted to call him.

Message from the road

"In Russia, limping to Mongolian border. Car and us broken. Exhaust patched with a peaches tin. Fuel line semi blocked. Wish we could say the same for our bowels."

Sand, sand and more sand...

Survived the road of death, 200 miles of deep sand and dust across kazak desert. Visited Aral sea after night under the stars. 100 miles north of Aral.

A Night in the Forest

Skipping back a few days we had a particularly interesting time in Russia, not from encounters with locals which normally provide us with more entertainment, confusion and rapid searches through a dictionary as one can in 5 minutes, but this time with a dark, spooky night deep inside an dense Russian Forest.

We had started out our journey from Vladimir, 180km east of Moscow with a bit of rather pleasent sightseeing and picture taking in the bright sunshine and mid afternoon we left heading east with the aim of getting a few miles under our belt and camping wild onroute. The journey started badly with some dodgy navigation thanks to our trusty Russian road atlas such that we ended up on some backroads driving through dense forest. By backroads, these aren't the type you expect from experiences in the UK, no these resemble more like off road moutain bike tracks with potholes large enough to swallow the car and still have room for a few large lorries for dessert. After an hour it started raining hard, then harder still until visibility of said potholes was lost and we were appropriately playing Russian Roulette with the steering wheel, hoping not to fall down any. Then the lightening started, no thunder, just lightening all around us. Several times it hit a field just to our right creating fireballs rising from the earth and making our hair stand on end. We were now also swerving fallen trees as well as potholes in the middle of the road.

Eascaping the lightening in one piece, we tried to find a hotel in the nearest town - all oddly booked up for the night so we had no choice to find a camp spot outside the town in the forest. Only by this time it was 9pm and dark. Half an hours driving and we took a tiny dirt track into the dense forest for about half a mile until it was clear, or so we thought, that no one had been there for a long time. Just as we were getting settled into our very dark, forest campspot and were tucking into some hot food, we both froze to the spot when we could suddenly hear faint music not too far away! Now, forgive me if I am weak and feable here, however in London I expect to hear heavy bass music late at night however 50km from the nearest town, deep in the Russian forest on a wet, dark night I don't!

It didn't take long for our fear of partying, drunken Russian mobsters on AK47 training in the woods to get the better of us and we packed up and speedily drove out and continued onwards in the darkness. We took another dirt track, then another until we were once again in the middle of... well... we had no idea as it was too dark and our tourches revealed nothing but trees and according to Cedric, potentially a Wild Boar nest! So in a moment of courage or more likely madness we decided to camp right there and crawled into our tent trying to ignore any odd or unusual rumblings in the dark forest for a well needed peaceful nights sleep.

Message from the road

"Hiding in forest 100km north of Samara - Ran out of Nutella - considering surrendering soon."

Hope Returns

Our fate is now firmly in the hands of a brown and gold clad delivery service called UPS. Today we removed the troublesome drive shaft that seems to have disintegrated over the previous 2,500 miles and have made arrangement to get a new shiny one delivered out to us here in Helsinki. Many thanks to Paul and colleagues at Polden Autos, Ferndown, Dorset once again for coming to our rescue and locating a new shaft for us, without this the rally for us would be completely over.

All we now need is UPS to get the thing out here to us, which hopefully will be by tomorrow noon, collect the bits scattered around the hotel's car park and put the underside of E'wn back together... what's the bet we will have a single nut and washer left over!

Right, time for some sightseeing!

The Arctic Circle and Rudolph

Our visit to Stockholm ended with a gentle stroll around the city before heading back to the car ready to head north, en route to the Arctic Circle. For once, thankfully, the drive was uneventful and we arrived at a peaceful campsite with very friendly owners. A quick meal on the stove and Cedric managed to locate and hopefully fix the potential problem with the failure of E'wn to start the previous day - water in the carburetor.

A long day behind the wheel on Wednesday (Day 5) moved us into the Arctic Circle, suitably marked by a huge sign which Ew'n posed nicely in front of (pictures to be posted asap). We were soon to be presented by another sign welcoming us to Lapland - I hadn't realised that a visit to Santa was on cards. Even more appropriately we got our first encounter with Reindeer strolling along the road on a supposed suicide mission. At first the odd one or two, followed by more and more until we were brought to a complete halt by the crazy animals who didn't seem to notice cars hurtling (or trundling in our case) towards them! With the problems with the car so far the last thing we wanted was to spend an evening pulling Rudolph out of the front grill. Eventually we arrived at a huge campsite late in the evening, had a tasty bbq and did some more work on the car until almost midnight. It wasn't darkness that brought us to a halt as it didn’t get dark at all - we could see perfectly well to try to connect up the two spot lamps which half worked - we only managed to get one to function. Sleeping proved difficult as it was almost complete daylight outside, the sun was only just below the horizon even at its lowest. We camped next to a lake once again and when the morning came around, the temptation was too great to resist and we dived into the pretty cold water for an Arctic Dip!

Thursday (Day 6) saw us move east inside the Arctic Circle heading into Finland. The day started badly with an increasing smell of fuel, one we had noticed previously but now it became to strong to ignore and at one stop late in the day a glance under the car showed us the problem - fuel was dripping from the tank. We drove around a town in North Finland called Rovaniemi looking for a new fuel filling tube which we felt was the possible problem, a place more famous for being the traditional home of Santa! Unfortunately Finnish helpfulness was not of the same standard as Swedish and so at 8pm in the evening in a dusty car park with no tube to hand we embarked upon the large task of removing the petrol tank to try to locate the problem. Inhaling half BP's worth of Petrol fumes in the process we got the tank off the car and found what we suspected to be the source of the leak, a rusted Fuel Gauge fitting. A full tube of Araldite around the fitting was our only solution and we still have fingers crossed it will work. We finally got the tank refitted at close to midnight, started Ew'n up and he fired into action, free of the smell of fuel - unlike us! We found a campsite that was still open nearby and bumped into another 2 rally teams as we were putting the tent up at 1am in complete daylight.

Friday saw us put our fix to the test as we headed south into Finland and luckily the majority of it seemed to have worked... all apart from a few drips now and then which we may have to live with. We had a great evening last night (Day 7) camping with two other teams in perfect surroundings, rowing and swimming in a lake and taking a midnight Sauna - a very Finnish day!

First 1000 miles completed

Two long days in the car have put one thousand miles under our belts and got us to Stockholm in one piece and feeling pretty pleased with our progress. E'wn hasn't completely behaved himself and is trying his best to confuse and baffle us at every opportunity. His biggest tantrum to date was yesterday morning when we awoke after our first night under canvas feeling very happy with ourselves to find that he refused to get out of bed and start. We pretty much tried everything to cajole him into action, dismantling carburettor, Spark Plugs, repeated attempts at starting but no matter what we did he refused to wake. After two hours of attempts we ran out of ideas and accepted a friendly Danes offer to tow us to a local garage for them to have a look. However E'wn obviously didn't like moving under someone elses steam and fired into action almost immediately. Very confusing indeed - our only guess being that he doesn't like sleeping when parked on a slight angle, he prefers a stable bed like all of us!

The previous day we departed the Ferry from Harwich and discovered the fault with the radio was only that it didn't work when we had full headlights on, half beam & radio works perfectly, full beam.. nothing! No radio at night for us then! We travelled through Holland, Germany and boarded a second ferry of the day into Denmark. Cedric had a very interesting chat with some crazy Swiss guys heading on a fishíng trip where they explained the true reason for their trip was fishing for something other than fish! We found a great campsite and proved that we can put the tents up in under 2 seconds and made our first alfresco dinner which was nicely accompanied by a bottle of red, very satsifying!

After Monday mornings problems with waking E'wn up we drove North from Denmark over the 9 mile bridge into Sweden - a truly impressive sight and we made use of E'wns lack of speed to fully appreciate the structure. We flew through South Sweden only being halted briefly by a suspected Radiator leak which turned out after half an hours to be some water falling from the bonnet onto the hot radiator producing some suspicious steam and drips under the car - yes we are paranoid! Arrived in Stockholm at 10pm to find what looked like a rather nice hotel on a boat but the worst hotel room ever, we could barely both stand in the room at the same time. Dashed our for some food and randomly found a packed pub with some crazy ABBA wannabe cover band playing, a appropriate welcome to Sweden!

Summary to date:
1117 miles completed
3 car scares (radio, failure to start, water leak)
1 night under canvas
1 bottle of wine consumed

Disaster Averted!

Phew! What we thought might be a broken front differential, knackered Transfer Box and screwed prop shafts has turned out to be nothing of the sort and E'wn is now fully functional and vibrationless ...well almost!

After a visit to a garage and many calls to two very friendly guys in Ferndown, Dorset (Paul and Steve from Polden Autos - thanks for all your help and advice) we found the problem to be a leaking radiator hose (not an oil leak), a mis-aligned prop shaft and a loose bolt on the Transfer Box. All these combined to give us the scare on Sunday but a test drive this morning after fixing all the mentioned items filled us with renewed confidence in E'wns ability to get through the miles ahead and provided us with futher familiarity of his underbelly.

Therefore mechanically at least we think E'wn is ready for the trip, he might not be the best looking jeep in the car park - but that is to be solved tomorrow when he is booked in for a full makeover - photos will be added in due course!

Mongolia

As depature date approaches I'm coming across more and more information about our destination that both intruiges and scares the life out of me. Here are some interesting facts about Mongolia that I certainly didn't know:

- Half the 2.6m population live in tents.
- It is the 4th most sparsely popualted country in the world with 3.9 people per square mile this compares to London at 12,335 people per square mile.
- Livestock outnumber humans 8:1
- Literacy is at 98%, UK literacy rate is 99%.
- In 2005 Donald Rumsfeld was given a horse as a present on a visit, he apparently left it behind ...what a shame it wasn't the other way round.
- The capital city is Ulan Batar, or Ulan Bator, or Ulan Baatar or Ulaan Baatar, or Ulaanbaatar??
- There is 1,581km of paved road in the entire country. We will be covering nearly 2000km within Mongolia.
- Gerbils are considered wild animals and infact the common pet Gerbil originated in Mongolia. They became so numerous there that the Mongolian people could no longer sleep at night because the gerbils were constantly running on their squeaky little exercise wheels (http://my.athenet.net/~hoffmann/biog4.html)
- The most popualar local drink is "Airag" or fermented Horse Milk.

Sponsorship Drive Launched

Progress getting ready for the trip has been steady. Passports are somewhere between the Mongolian and Russian embassies trying to get the relevant stamps, camping equipment has been acquired and we are thinking about how we are going to get back to the UK.

Most importantly we have launched our sponsorship drive, attempting to raise at least £1000 for two very worthy and relevant causes - Mercy Corps Mongolia and Hope and Homes for Children, more details on both of these charities can be seen on the main page.

We would very much welcome any kind of sponsorship, obviously donations but also any people or organisations who would like to take advantage of the bodywork of our vehicle for some advertising. It is very likely that the rally will obtain significant press coverage and indeed the rally has already featured on the BBC and in national newspapers, footage of last years rally was made into a documentary shown on Channel 4. Please contact either myself on Paul.L.Jackson@gmail.com for more information.

The Official Test Drive

Our mighty 4x4 decided to stop working Thursday, 7 hours before the ferry to France for the first official test run.

A quick call to the AA showed that they couldn't do anything about it, apparently the timing belt had slipt 3 teeth. So ferry was missed and Friday was spent taking the car apart. It turned out that the timing belt was fine (thanks AA) but one of the carburator's butterfly valves had got stuck.

All fixed, rushed to the (new) ferry, which turned out to be 4 hours late due to bad weather and then spent another 90 minutes in the water waiting for a berth. The beautiful stench of the English Channel was combined with that of everybody onboard vomitting resulting in an aromatic arrival into Calais. Ultimately reached home Saturday evening after a series of traffic jams but most importantly "E'wn" had suvived his biggest test yet!

Thefollowing days and nights were spent fitting new seats, fixing the transfer box, cleaning the cooling system and many more engineering feets. Came back to uk Monday night with what can only be described as a new car, a car ready for the rally and with 1,500 miles under its camshaft.

The Official Route

We have finally settled on a route that we will aim to follow during the trip. Following the points mentioned previously the map on the left shows where we think we will go.

Not sure if that is actually where we will end up, but hey ho - time will tell!

We will try (if technology and connectivity allows it) to add an indication of where we actually go!

A car is born...

After much frantic ebaying, success was finally achieved and "Ew'n" was purchased for the bargain price of £536!

The Suzuki SJ410 with a 970cc engine that has driven over 130,000 miles over the 23 years of its life will carry us 10,000 miles further from London to Mongolia.

Which Way to Mongolia?

Reality has started to bite and a quick glance at an Atlas has reveled a plethora of potential routes we could take.

Options:
The Crow Flies Route - Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia

The Ewan M Route - Follow in Ewan Mcgreggors tracks on his Long Way round (don't know what they are, but Charlie carries a bit of weight and so I'm sure we'll find them)

The Cold Route - Scandinavia Over the Baltic, Russia, Mongolia

The Dodgy Route - Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and lots more Stans.

The Very Dodgy Route (aka - not a chance) - Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and lots more Stans.

Decision:
It must be something to do with us being born on the shortest day of the year that the attraction of driving into the Arctic in the summer and across vast landscapes of nothing but lakes and mountains was too much and we plumped for heading north. Other key objectives of the journey:

Go into the Arctic Circle - in July, will the sun set?
Avoid Moscow - too busy
Go through Kazakhstan - are they really all like Borat?
Visit Lake Baikal - contains a fifth of all the worlds fresh water, a sight we have to see!

More details need to be flashed out but this has to be a starting point!