Don't pay the ferryman! ...

... and that's exactly what we plan to do! ... well, almost! With some amazing help from Adrian Borley at Thomas Cook and his contact at P&O we now have reduced tickets for the trip from Dover to Calais! We'll set off from the UK a month today! The ferry will arrive in Calais at quarter to one in the morning so we may well end up pushing on through France into Belgium for a bit... who knows!

What other news? Well the visas continue to progress. The Turkmenistan Invite is still being processed, and excitingly the Mongolian visa is also now going through. Because of the timing of including the Chinese visa as well the Mongolian visa shouldn't take long, then all that remains are the Chinese and Azerbaijan visas! Progress indeed!

Our time at Durham ends a week today :( sad times! The good news is Lewis and Adam got the grades they needed to attempt the Masters courses next year and Matt also can now apply elsewhere. Goodness knows what I'll be doing! 

There are a few events coming up to raise money for the Christina Noble Children's Foundation. If you find yourself swept up in one of these then please give generously! It is all so appreciated! After that we should have reached our total of £2000. We are also short of financial support for completing the Rally. If you or anyone you know, either personally or as a business, could sponsor us in exchange for advertising on the car and website then we'd love to hear from you!

The wonderful people from the Cicely Alice Campbell Travel Fund at St Mary's College, Durham, have donated £200 to each of us giving us a further £800 to help us on our way. We cannot express our gratitude enough! We have other leads coming together both charity oriented and business oriented. Hopefully the cars will be covered in stickers!

As things stand equipment is coming together well. We now have maps to take us from Turkey all the way through Asia to Mongolia. However we are still short of quite a bit. If anyone knows a decent place for car insurance that would be fab to hear about! With regards to the car we still need tools, underside protection, spare wheels, spare bulbs, spare shocks, spare filters, spare other stuff I can't pretend to know about, a roof rack and I'm sure many more things!!! We also still need tents, foot and water, water purifying tablets, and our International Driving Permits. 

Apologies for making this update into a list of needs! With a month to go and not much time inbetween when we're all together we are in desperate need of help with the things listed above! If you can help then please give us an email on [email protected] or grab one of us nicely when you see us :)

Many thanks for your continued support! With a month to go I don't think it really needs to be said that we are rather excited!! More updates to follow soon :)

Tom :)

Don't Look Yak!

Things are getting a little tents!

It's June! And what a grey and miserable summer's day sees me writing this update! Oh well...

Things have progressed well since the last blog update! We have now all had our transformations into walking pin cushions and are protected against all the world can throw at us... ish! Unfortunately there was no jab for increasing mechanical skill! Essentially the plan is to avoid rabid dogs...

The eternal visa situation continues. The nice people at The Adventurists informed us that we can now get Chinese visas through them so seeing as we're flying home from Beijing we figured this would be something wise to do! To put it simply, if you can avoid having to fill in that form then do! Seeing as we're driving unaided across 20 countries, we don't have family or friends in China which meant a vast amount of the form being left blank! Still, our passports continue to be more travelled than us! They are currently still acquiring the Turkmenistan Invite and the Kazakhstan Visa. Fingers crossed they all say yes!

Equipment dribbles in as and when we remember to order it! We now have a CB radio, and our friends at 'Long Time No Sea' have one too, so we can keep in touch on the Rally. Myself and Lewis from our brother team went on a raid of the local camping shops last week and we now have most of the stuff for that, although we still need to be getting some tents... Team 'Don't Look Yak!' are now the proud owners of 4 jerry cans, each holding 20 litres. The idea obviously being to really test the weight capacity of our poor Accent! Two will be for water and two for petrol. 

Within the next week The Adventurists will receive our vehicle deposit... a cool £800 per car! In fact that was the price of our car!! Once that is done though our next Adventurist deadline is to turn up to the Rally on the 22nd July and leave the country on the 23rd! Indeed now that our degrees are over on the most part and the wait begins for results the Rally also looms ever closer! We leave the country in a month and a half! Exciting times!

It does mean though that our charity fundraising has stepped up a notch! We are now closing in quickly on the minimal total of £2000 between the two teams. Events are planned to continue raising this. However we would **LOVE **to raise more money for the Christina Noble Children's Foundation!! The link is on the left <----- Please give what you can! It really is gratefully received and a huge thanks goes out to all that have donated so far! You're all wonderful people!

We're in touch with a numer of businesses regarding sponsorship to get us to Mongolia. If you have a business and would like to aid us in our quest then please get in touch on here or at [email protected] We'd love to hear from you! In return we can offer advertising on the car that will be travelling across 19 countries and we will include you on our website and blog updates before, during and after the Rally, as well as in all media coverage we receive! Can't say fairer than that!

For just under a month we'll continue to operate from Durham and in the meantime hope to get our hands on roof racks, tents, maps and all other equipment that will help us get to Ulaanbaatar! If you can help us in any way it would be great to hear from you! It's our first adventure like this and I can guarentee we will never be too prepared!

Many thanks for reading my ramblings once again! We'll send updates soon as things progress :) For now though we rest quivering in the knowledge that it is **46 days to go**!!! 

Tom - Don't Look Yak!

"He who moves not forward, goes backward"

Well it's been a while since an update occurred! It's May now and quite a bit has happened.

Last time we'd just bought the Hyundai Accent... It's with the mechanic now being tinkered with. 

The passports which we sent off weeks ago now are apparently (according to the tracking website) now somehow in both Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, having already been to Russia and Uzbekistan. At least if we don't get further than Dover our passports will be well travelled!

Plans are afoot to make us into walking pin cushions! We have appointments at the docs for Hep B, Meningitis, Rabes, Tic-Born Encephalitis etc... JOY! 

After much Russian terms and conditions we think we've booked flights home from Beijing! The plan is to get a Chinese VISA when we arrive at Ulaanbaatar and take the train to Beijing, spend a few days there, then fly home with Aeroflot... Quality stuff! Reckon it'll be weird moving in transport and not having to drive! 

Fund raising continues to go well for the Christina Noble Children's Foundation. We're well on our way now and a huge thanks to everyone who is supporting us! For more info see the charity tab <--------

We still need financial help for buying equipment, or donations of equipment. This is mainly camping stuff although also includes things like tyres for the Accent. If you think you can help please get in touch ... [email protected]

If you have a business that could help then we'd love to hear from you too! We have advertising opportunities on here and on the cars as they travel across 19 countries. Please again get in touch and we'll take it from there!

I think that's all for now! Will update with more when it happens :)

Thanks for listening to my late night ramble!

Tom

...

Tom and Adam - Don't Look Yak!

Lewis and Matt - Long Time No Sea

 

First the Accent, then the language...


We finally have it! £800 for the car that will take us 10,000km! 

In the end we've gone for a 2002 1.3l Hyundai Accent. Nice and basic to match our mechanical expertise!! Now both our team 'Don't Look Yak!' and our brother team 'Long Time No Sea' are relying on the trusty Hyundai engineering!

The test drive from Wales has been a success with the car still in one piece and the only problem being from a whistling open passenger's window... easily solved by closing the window!

Many thanks to Yestyn over at tradecars-shrops on eBay! So so so much more than recommended!! More details to follow!

Photos of the mighty steed will follow soon! It's an absolute beat!