The End
We've made it!!! I write to you now from Ulaan Baatur.
The previous few evenings however have not been without event. Our ever lasting convoy with the Wolverines continued and we had a messy evening celebrating Jamies birthday with the Paramongols (a lovely team of Romanians). Jamie tried to poo on Dobby, Mim threw up purple noodles and Will rolled Tom around in his tent. Good times indeed, but a slow drive the next day commenced. Sadly we had been blighted with 5 punctures in 2 days and when the last one came, we thought it was rally over, we had no tyres left! Luckily some lovely Italian guys gave us a wheel and Dobby trundled on, albeit slowly and carefully on its new undersized wheel. After meeting up with a team of Scots we all enjoyed a nice 3-way pull (hopefully not that last of the trip) over a river and then didnt enjoy the half hour argument with the tractor driver who tried to charge us twice what we offered. After camping up in the middle of the desert we enjoyed a dinner of ration packed risotto (kind of like baby food mixed with toothpaste) and had some fantastically cooked tinned horsemeat courtesy of our brothers from the North. Those Scots will eat anything...We all were pretty tired so went to bed and our own Mim Patel decided to go on a wander through the desert for signal. This all seemed very funny until after an hour in the cold with no lights he realised he was completely lost and couldnt find us. Luckily he had learned some navigation using the stars from Bear Grylls so then got even more lost by walking towards the North star ("Because thats the bright one isnt it?". However never fear as help is always at hand in Team Trekkers when someone asks for it and soon William 'Dumbledore' Collier was armed and ready for action. After hearing strange yelling sounds in the distance, Will arose from his slumber and cowered outside his tent with a golf club and his sheepskin hat for a good half hour before waking up a grumbling Tom. Despite Toms insisting that Will was hearing things [ "maybe the horse meat was spiked with LSD mate" ], and Mim was probabaly just on the phone to Mummy, Will drove off into the night full beam ablaze to search for his lost comrade.Soon enough a truck with it's hazard lights on emerges from the distance and in the shadows a tearful Mim comes running forth in his swimming trunks. After a tearful thank you and an explanation of how his life was "put into perspective by the near death experience" (too be fair it was bloody cold), he told us that he had flagged down a truck and had been crammed between 15 mongolians in a four seater, a mile and a half away from camp. Will awaits his present in the post Mr. and Mrs. Patel.
The next days driving was our last one off tarmac and it was littered with bumps and scrapes, culminating in Mim smashing the exhaust manifold, making Dobby billow smoke from under the bonnet and sound like a real boy racer. That evening we camped up and enjoyed a couple of beers with The Cats, Team Bear, "The French" and The Wolverine. It all got a bit messy when a local turned up on a bike and started handing out Mongolian snuff and Team Bear brought out some homebrewed, underfermented Russian pine kernel vodka. Still, we managed to finally cook some good pasta.
Our final days camping came the next day and we enjoyed some quiet beers on a ridge looking out over the plains. We watched the sunset and all snuggled up to watch Back to the Future (part 1, and it is very good by the way). It was a very peaceful evening....and then Will and Tom threw chairs at each other (ROUND @). But its all okay now....again.
Arriving yesterday after our slightly relaxing camp in the Mongolian mountains we cruised along the smooth last 200km of tarmac roads straight into the less than underwhelming finish line, no cheerleaders, fireworks or trumpets (we were all a bit excited about this), but an orange sign on the side of a building. Our glorious trip sadly finished with us pulling into a grotty car park and being handed a piece of paper asking us to register the car. Thanks Adventurists. Tom was happy though, he got a certificate for his wall. We saw ourselves as gallant heroes and helpers to the people of Mongolia...but it turns out that actually they all hate ralliers because we fill their city with crappy old bangers that are half broken down. And so now we are getting some good food in us, enjoying an actual bed and marvelling at the amount of dirt that we see when we have our first showers.Theres not much going on in UB, but we can go and watch Mongolian Smurfs 3D or fire an AK47, so im sure we will find something to do before we fly home (the 7th).
Although we will not pretend this journey is largely to satisfy our adventurous natures, it is also on behalf of two fantastic causes: The Christina Noble Foundation (a charity based apon helping orphaned homeless Mongolian and Vietnamese children)and Help For Heroes (Providing support and care for the victims of war injuries). If you have enjoyed our blogs admired our determination or are feeling generous then pop onto our website and donate or search on justgiving under 'team tekkers' or 'team trekkers'
We would also like to say a MASSIVE thank you to **all** the people who have supported us throughout the trip and especially our families who have been a constant source of support and guidance throughout. Without everyone that helped, this whole challenge couldn't have happened, and we wouldnt have reached our fundraising goal, so you all have our gratittude there.Â
and so now we would like to say a few last words, from the great Albus Dumbledore:
"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
Thank you.
