Drive shafted !

As of 20th August:

Before leaving the mighty Astana we headed back to TGI Fridays for an american style breakfast. Following George's mongol rally mantra that 'every meal could be our last meal so eat as much as possible' we each had 2 breakfasts which left us in an uncomfortably full state (So much for losing any weight on the rally!?)

We tried our luck at another mechanics as we headed out of the city. It turned out were able to reinforce the bendy bodged leaf spring to the extent that we then became lopsided in the other direction. We did however find that now we were able to float over the potholes like a 4 tonne butterfly, where previously we'd been more of a beached whale at the mercy of the road..

 

The guys from Chapeau Noveau (who we hadn't seen since our night out a couple of days back) waited for us on the outskirts so that we could continue our convoy. We were almost with them when another calamity struck! As we were driving along at a steady 100 km/h our back left wheel simpy came off and if we'd seen it in time we'd have seen it overtake us on the other side of the road as our wheel bearing and brake drum smashed down against the tarmac. Rick heroically kept us on the road and the exposed brake drum did its job in a rather unusual way and stopped us even quicker than usual as it grinded against the road! Luckily the wheel did not hit any other cars and we found it about 250m down the road with the help of someone who'd seen it hurtle past them. With a little help from the Chaps and another team they had picked up, the wheel was reattached and we were back on the road, minus a few wheel nuts and in a paranoid state about further wheel flying off at any given moment. We think that although they didnt take the wheel off at the mechanics they must have loosened the nuts and fogotten to do them back up. Luckily nobody was hurt so we didnt hold a grudge.

 

Our new three car convoy didn't last for long and the new guys, clearly frustated with our slow pace and regular wee stops, overtook and didnt look back. That night we found a beautiful camp site at the shore of a lake and went to bed without dinner (still full of TGI fridays!). Our camping spot didn't look quite as nice in the morning with a toilet (AKA a poo-hole shed) just up the hill and a lake that smelled even worse... The next town was Pavolodar where we found a irresistible restaurant called 'The English Gentleman' which offered us a Business Buffet - not sure how we fitted the criteria, especially Tom (AKA Ray Beers from Chapeau Nouveau) having spent the last few days in his natural environment - under a car bonnet, and having failed to wash.

In one of the early blogs John had done some research and unearthed a fact about a certain 'Semiplatansk' region in Kazakhstan where 500 nuclear bombs were detonated during the 1970s/80s by the Soviets. We were blissfully unaware that this was exactly the same region where we'd arranged to cross the border on our VISAs ('Semey' in English)... Uh Oh.

We immediately bought some foil so that the key body parts could be protected from left over radiation whilst driving through the region (basically we made some tin foil pants to sport whenever we had to get out of the ambulance). Instead of rushing through the town of Semey we managed to get completely lost and directions from the locals sent us back towards Pavolodar. Eventually we summoned up the courage to ask in a police station, who for a small cigarette based donation, drew us a little map which got us on the road to the border. By this point we were so starved that we decided to take the radiation risk and stop for eats at a local cafe. Our request of 9 'meat dishes' and 1 vegetarian dish yielded a good meal for all except Neil the vegetarian who received a plate of sliced cucumbers and half a tomato covered in mayonaise.. Vegetarianism hasnt really taken off in Russia yet. After some serious discussions about bears and the possibility of seeing some (and then having to fight them off) we got back on the road and headed to the border. A hundred miles or so from the border we decided to camp in a truck stop which upon closer inspection turned out to be a bit of a dive.. We removed a needle from the ground under our tents and pitched them. We all must have been tired becuase despite worrys about Hepititus B and Bears everyone got a good nights sleep. 

The next morning Tom had a look under our ambulance to figure out why it was making some rather perculiar clunking noises and veering to the right under acceleration. He returned with some dire news.. At first he thought our drive shaft had snapped but we then resolved that it was just badly worn because the coupling housing had split and the grease come out. Not good news either way. We hit the road again and attempted to drive without accelerating too much or turning the steering wheel too much. Not as hard as it sounds on the straight kazkah roads, especially since the worst potholes were behind us it seemed.

AS we headed for the border in convoy we were caught by a sneekily hidden police officer and his hand held camera doing 77 km/h. Our speedo definately said we were doing 0 km/h but we weren't going to argue. We weren't actually sure what the speed limit was meant to be either but after talking to the guy the subject sooned changed to what we were up to and then to jokes about Toms beard and the football he could see in the back of the ambulance. Whether he was just a nice guy and let us off or we were under the speed limit, we got away without trouble.. Still haven't had to use a single bribe !

We reached the Kazakh border at about midday and it turned out to be the best border crossing yet! The guards seemed to be enjoying themselves, probably due to the presence of a fullsize ping pong table in the border station.. We parked the ambulance outside and before we'd even got to the passport desk Rick and George had been extradited into the ping pong room to play the best of the guards in an East vs West ping pong showdown. Unfortunately for us, even Rick's mantle of Junior County Table Tennis champion wasnt good enough and they lost. Probably a good thing though as immediately after that we then had to get our passports stamped, which only took two seconds now that the guards had their victory in hand. The guards even escorted Rick to the front of the queue! (He must have heard about Rick being an ex-champion). The entry back into Russia took a tad longer but again we had no real trouble and after filling in a few forms had made it back into the Soviet motherland.

Whilst playing american football in the parking lot outside the border cafe Josh through a long play and rick missed it resulting in the ball glancing off an angry russian mans car which then caused a certain amount of shouting and tension but thankfully it didnt escalate - probably due to the Super Mongol Wonder Squad's collective testosterone count. The angry russian man was the first to fulfill the silly preconception I had of all Russians. None before or since have joined him.

We waited while the Chap Nov boys inspirationally bodged their exhaust system with a sweetcorn can and a jubilee clamp as it had actually come completely off at the engine and was making a ridiculously loud noiseand back firing at random.We met and swapped stories with another convoy of teams (about 5 cars altogether!) before heading off towards Barnaul. We stopped in a supermarket to pick up some dinner and got some photos taken with impressed locals whilst still holding our shopping then drove on looking for a suitable camp site. We drove down a dirt track off the main road before deciding it wasn't any good. Whilst Rick executed a textbook three point turn we heard and ominous noise and then lost all drive to the wheels.. The worst had happened. We had failed in nursing our drive shaft back to health with some careful driving and it the coupling had completely come apart and was slightly mashed up. The chaps from Chaps helped us push the ambulance back to the road and into a nearby layby. Our morale was as low as it had been all trip. We were all trying to be optimistic but hope of ever getting back on the road let alone to the finish line was beginning to fade.. Tom had another look under the carriage and broke the news to us that our mongol rally was most likely over...

  

There was nothing else to do but set up camp next to the layby. So thats exactly what we did. We cooked up a storm and the few beers we'd bought previously at the supermarket helped to ease the pain of losing our drive shaft a little but we were still all a bit shell shocked by the recent events. At least the 'Last Supper' was a success.. Sausage surprise and pasta. Hmm.

 

The next morning we awoke with a feeling of dread still hanging over us and tried to boost morale with an inpromptu pineapple chunk spear fishing game. We asked the bloke in a nearby petrol station the best way to get back into town and he suggested just getting a tow from a passing lorry. As we packed up camp he came over and decided to have a stab at fixing our drive shaft. He rolled up his sleeves and got under the van. His plan to lock the broken drive shaft in place and transfer power to the remaining one through the differential by jamming any old metal bar into the coupling failed miserably. 1 completely bent socket wrench and 1 snapped wheel wrench later we gave up on that plan and resigned to the fact that we'd have to get towed back to the nearest town 40km back the way we'd come.. We had an emotional goodbye with the Chapaue Nouveau boys and waved them off. They'd been good to us but had a rally to attend to...

We managed to flag down a passing lorry (a huge double carriage one) who was up for towing us back to civilisation where we could form a contingancy plan. Whilst being towed the drive shaft coupling started making a truly aweful racket and then suddenly became jammed. The ambulance started to swerve in one direction dangerously as the steering was compromised.. We desperately tried to notify the drivers of the russian lorry that was towing us but to no avail, they were too far ahead of us and in a cab no doubt as loud as our own. Josh and George had to battle with the steering wheel to keep us in a stright line while we beeped our way down the road, with Rick waving violently out of the windowto try to get their attention. Luckily for us we passed a police checkpoint and although the poilce did absolutely nothing the lorry slowed down sufficiently enough to hear or see us panicking and pulled us both over into the hard shoulder. 

 

We had a look at the drive coupling that was slowly shattering our mongol rally hopes.. it was completely mashed. The socket was so bad that a section had completely sheared off (were talking some solid steel here..). It looked mangled! The russian lorry drivers helped us to remove the drive shaft completely and handed it to us. One last trophy to remind us of what could have been..

So it was here we found ourselves.. On the side of a dusty Russian road. Roped to the back of a big Russian Lorry. Mangled drive shaft in hand. Team morale equally shredded..

TO BE CONTINUED...

Good(wood) Bye !

ORIGINAL: "Made it to Prague, czechout party was incredible last night and SMWS looked pretty good as sexy scuba divers. Ambulance is running like the beast that she is except the starter motor which is not running at all. Not a problem though as we have perfected the push start! Off the ferry, into moving traffic... no biggie. Going to tear it up in Prague tonight, more to come soon x"

UPDATE: A fair few things happened betweenus leaving Goodwood and getting to Prague and I'm sure they'll be of interest to you but at the time of the Rally we had a lot of miles to drive and not so much free time in locations of internet availability so after reviewing the blog thus far I have decided to elaborate on previous accounts and fill in the details..

Looking back, we drove up to Goodwood on the morning of the launch party horribly under-prepared. When we arrived fashionably late and saw the extent to which some others had prepared it filled me with nerves. The assortment of cars and ambulances stocked to the roof with spare wheels, air-intake scubas, off road tyres and GPS systems was incredible. Apart from the standard legal requirement of having ONE spare wheel, the only other spare parts we had were a tescos £2.99 wind screen wiper blade and a old wing mirror that came with the ambulance. The guy who sold us the ambulance had kindly thrown in a full set of 4 spare tyres but we'd left them in East Sussex because by not taking them we had so much more space in the ambulance for cans of rice pudding, badminton raquets, spice racks and footballs (Oh i forgot to mention it in the list of spares earlier but we also had a spare football incase one got a puncture).

If you look closely at the above picture you'll be able to see that the car on the left has a total of 6 spare wheels.. *Gulp*Every year a very significant number of people don't make it to Ulaanbaatar, hence the challange, and at this stage I was comparing our "crapbulance" with everything around it and thinking.. "If anyone's going to breakdown on the way to Dover it has to be us!". I couldn't see how we could even stand a chance of making it all the way if half of the uber-prepared folk around us weren't going to.. Our preparations had mainly focused making a spice rack to hold our spices in, buying plastic storage boxes so everyone would have somewhere to keep their clothes and attaching a disco ball to the sun roof. And I soon realised that neither of these two things would be of much use if the ambulance broke down (apart from being able to quickly remove our clothes and spices from the ambulance so that it could be scrapped..).

 

Our preparations included making a spice rack to hold our travel spices.. It took 9 man-hours.

Somehow by arriving two hours late we were given a position at the front of the queue to do our victory lap of goodwood and before long they had open the gates and we were taking our place on the grid. We ended up in a good position near the front surrounded by other ambulances and emergency vehicles, all cranking out their sirens and blue lights. Trying to supress any siren-envy i had we attached the small amber flashing light I'd gotten off eBay to the roof to dazzle the crowd, and that it did. With a cheer from the crowd and a bang from the start gun we were off ! It was a textbook racing start. Im pretty sure we got some wheel-spin as the Mongbulance rocketed over the start line. We weren't able to hit 60mph at any point because of the safety car but I'm sure if we had she'd have done it in about 3 seconds.

Now I'm almost certain that it wasn't meant to be a race but by the time we'd rounded the first corner people were jostling for position, weaving from one side of the track to the other and it was on! We got overtaken by a load of Irish fellows in another ambulance and it spured me into action. A series of daring high speed overtakes and out-mannouvers later and we finished in thrid place out of everyone after having taught Zach Smyth and the Bristol Sand Crew in their White Goddess exactly what a textbook outside overtake looks like (sorry boys!). After the adrenaline of the lap we were directed straight out to the main road. I felt shocked that that was it and now we actually had to drive to Mongolia.. I didn't feel the least bit ready. Obviously the two ambulances in front felt the same way because they pulled over and stopped before the road. I looked round at Josh and George and said something epic like "Er shall we go then?". To which one of them replied "You know your mum brought up a spare tyre in case we changed our minds and wanted to take it? Maybe we should go get it?". We had one last chance to take a spare part of actual use with us... I answered "Er too late for that... We'll be alright" and pulled out onto the road.

To our disbelief we we're leading the Mongol Rally 2010 from the front.

First Place.

Pole Position.

Gold Medals all round... That is until we pulled over for diesel at a petrol station 20 miles down the road and effectively broke down for the first time when the starter motor refused to co-operate with us.

The road to Dover was fairly uneventful.. Josh broke the MP3 Tape player seconds after getting it out and we were over taken by the rest of the rally once we hit the motorway and parked ourselves in the slow lane. At one point I turned and said to Josh "Hmm you know I didn't bring the ambulance V5 with me, you don't think we need it for border crossings do you?" It was at this point that we could have picked it up on the way to Dover.. He told me that it was probably ok and that he didn't see anything about taking it on the website. We drove on reassured, content in the knowledge that we'd saved ourselves 45 minutes by not taking a detour to get the V5 documents and got to the ferry two hours early. This rally malarky was going to be a breeze!

When the started motor failed us again we had to push start the ambulance off the ferry with a queue of traffic behind us. All good practice. Then headed on our way to Bruges. As if the pay-before-you-pump continental petrol stations weren't difficult enough to understand, we accidently chose to fill up using a super fast high-volume truck pump. After 2 seconds of pumping our tank was full. But we didn't realise and thought that the pump was dodgy so spent another 10 minutes trying to put more diesel into our over-flowing tank. Managed it in the end though! And managed to leave the team behind us a puddle of free diesel!

We got lost in Bruges and ended up camping in a public park on the first night of the rally. Class class class. Went and got breakfast next to the famous big tower thing in the morning. Culture culture culture. Once we'd had enough culture we left and headed for germany!

We went through Brussels for another quick culture club and got lost again. Then we picked up a gypsy hitch hiker named Maria in a petrol station just outside of Brussels. She was trying to get to Austria to see a friend. I think she enjoyed her time with SMWS but obviously chose the wrong vehicle for a rapid international transfer. By evening we'd only made it to Frankfurt. We went out for a meal in a dodgy looking german bar. Schnitzels and frankfurters all round. Then we camped in a truck stop outside the city and said goodbye to Maria who had found someone else to continue her journey with (for purely speed reasons - not at all because George had offered to let her stay in a tent with him). Truck stop turned out to be alright and in the morning we got showers and mcdonalds breakfasts before getting back on the road.

Today was the day of the Czechout Party, which meant that we needed to haul ourselves to a castle near Pilsner for that evening. Which we managed to do without too much trouble. We stopped at a few supermarkets along the way, one of which didnt take VISA (!?) so we had to leave a whole trolleys worth of supplies by the till with the famous words "We'll be right back..". Eventually we found one that had a cash machine outside it and splashed out on some of the local Pilsner lager as well as various materials to make our Diving Suit fancy dress with for the party (See Bosh Peter Blog for info on how to make your own). We also tried to buy a 50litre keg and failed at the till when we realised we had to leave a £100 deposit for the keg. Oh well.

We got to the party, set up camp in a field with hundreds of fellow ralliers and got down to making the best improvised fancy dress ive ever seen. The night was outstandingly outrageous. We met a friendly welsh drunk called Gareth whos birthday it was and who we recruited as the seventh member of our elite diving team who we initiated in SMWS style. We're not sure what happened to him but he didn't look so good in the morning and couldn't remember who we were. Shame. There was also a fire show, after which George thought he'd try to get involved and managed to set the leg of his velour tracksuit on fire. His chosen solution to adapt the STOP. DROP and ROLL rule. By Stopping in the middle of a crowd of hundreds of people. Dropping his trousers round his ankles, and refusing to do any kind of rolling whatsoever. I've got to give it to him though. It worked and he survived to tell the tale. Well done George!

The next morning we awoke a little worse for wear and spent the morning clearing up / playing football and recounting stories about gareth from the night before. Then in that afternoon we headed to Prague through the amazing Czech countryside.

SMWS X