**WE FINALLY FOOKING MADE IT!!!!!!**

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Thats right after 47 grueling days, 14 countries, 9010 miles, 13 police stops, 5 police fines (one of which was negotiated down from $150 to a biro, which wasnt even new) 2 crashes, aprox 12 broken parts of our car (only one being life threatening), 5 bouts of the big D each and countless hangovers the mighty cunning linguists stormed in to Ulaanbaatar on the  afternoon of the 2nd of september!!!!!

Along with the mini, panda and subaru muz and ciaran have made it all the way form London to the capital of Mongolia. To all of those who said we wouldn't make it we laugh at you, HAHAHAHA!!!!!

Muz and Ciaran have had such a good time over the last six weeks and will deffinatly be doing something similar to this in the future. If any one feels they would like to do the mongol rally then you should certainly go for it as we had such a good time. Even if u have no mechanical knowledge like us it will be all good, well only if u do it in a Fiat Punto called Penelope.

The last blog i left was in Averheer if thats how its meant to be spelt. The 3 other cars in the 'crisis' convoy where being bodged in a mechanics so they could make it to UB, over 400kms away. We intended the trip to take a day and be in Ub on the 1st as we thought it was all tarmac. We found out that infact it was tarmac for 250kms approx and then the standard mongolian dirt track for 60kms then 60kms of brand spanking new tarmac. Therefore we thought it would take 2 days. So after the first lot of tarmac we camped up for our last night in the wilderness and to finish off our large amounts of vodka that were in the back of the cars. We had a great night, building a camp fire and then jumping and dancing over it. One of the group, not me or george, decided to cover his back in petrol and do a roll over the fire, the video is rather funny and going on youtube. As well as a sing song and a water fight the last night camping was very enjoyable, but im rather glad that i dont have to put up or put down a tent for a long time to come.

The next day we pushed on across the rubbish tracks and due to the horrible state of the panda and a very careful auzie driver the 60kms took much longer to do than expected. A few hours after setting off we found some cyclists who had just cycled from UB and we asked them what the road was like. To our astonishment, well not really cos mongol roads are so bad and the builders are rubbish, the 60kms of lovely new tarmac was off limits to cars for some stupid reason. This is a normal thing in mongolia, the road workers lay the tarmac and then dump huge pills of rock and dirt across the road and dig ditches down the side so you cant get on.

We ran in to some before Averheer when we lost the panda and mini and they took a different valley after a lunch stop. I went out to find them and led them on to tarmac only to find that the tarmac at the edge of town was bloked, so we got to work with shovels and filled in the ditch. This was all in view of the police check point, so the coppers came over. But instead of telling us off they started picking up rocks and helping us. One of them even moved an arrow sign to tell people where to get off the road ha.

Back to the last 60kms of tarmac. The fiat Punto with muz, ciaran and the 2 girls, claudia and irene raced off ahead of the convoy to start work on the mounds of dirt as we were trying to speed to the finish line before some friends we had met on the rally had to leave. With the prospect of cheesey chips, a burger and cold beer we doned our high viz vests and hard hats and got digging.

The idea of the finish line meant that we were through the blockads in quick time and past the road works on the brand new un blocked off roads only for the mini to get a puncture. So after 5 days of solid dirt tracks and desert the first decent road with no pot holes and the mini gets a flat. After a quick change we were on our way bombing along the gorgeous almost kissable road. We entered the city of UB only to be met by the hell of mongolian rush hour, and after not seeing a traffic jam for weeks i was rather nevous and so resorted to useing my horn and my broken exhaust to the full. Then about a kilometre from the finish the head car, the mini, trys a cheeky off road path to get round the traffic and knocks off his exhaust. Which sadly made the mini much louder than Penelope. This was good fun as both our car and mini were making such a loud racket that we squeezed past people as they looked on in amazment, i guess the big red telephone box on top helped to. At one point the mini and our car were at the lights and we both revved as people were crossing the road and scared loads of mongolians.

With hazards on and screeching tyres the convoy crossed the glorious finish line, being met by the london bus and spanish ambulance as well as loads of mates we have met on the trip. We parked up and started the celebrations. After the finish line photo shoot we all got some champers and beer and had a big car spray and a sing song with everyone standing on the cars. This caused a big sence and we created a pretty big crowd but also attracted the police ha. At one point i fell of the car and ran up the bonnet to get on the roof and put my foot through the windscreen which was rather funny as we had been trying to subtely smash it for days.

All had a wonderful night out and far too many beers!!!!

The next day (3rd/yesterday) we had an english breakfast which was just heavenly after 11 days of goat and horse meat.  Then we had to take our car from the finish line to the adventurists 'compound' so that i could get back my 400 pound deposit and we could get our finish line gear like t-shirts and certificate. Driving the rush hour traffic was not fun so i decided to chill out and turned Penelope off but then for some unknown reason she decided that she didnt want to start when the lights changed. This was odd as the car had been a treat for over 9000 miles for her to die in the 1 kilometre that seperates the compound and the finish line was odd and very sad for us. We had no idea what was wrong with her so we left Penelope parked up and went to get help as we were leaving at 530 am the next day to fly home. Our main man Ben the convoy wiz kid mechanis, or the doctor as i like to call him wasnt up for helping so now as i write this, even though im in Moscow airport, our beautiful Penelope is in the hands of our trusty (we hope) mongol rally mates who will get her to the compound so she can be sold for charity and i can get my dosh back.

So we left everyone behind this morning and got a taxi to the airport, our only form of transport for the last 6 weeks that wasnt the fiat, it felt strange and to our amazment after 9010 miles with no punctures on the worst roads you can imagine the bloddy taxi gets aone on a perfect road!!!!!!  We made it to the airport and left Mongolia for the joy of a Airoflot flight to moscow and then  10 hour wait in moscow airport for our flight tonight to get home.

We have had such an awsome adventure and i personally am missing it already and planning what i can do in a few years time on a similar thing. I was thinking a cement mixer across africa, good idea?????

We are sad its over as we had such a laugh and met some amazing people and had the experience of a lifetime, yet we cant wait to get home to see everyone and eat properly for a while.

much love and cheers so much for the support we were given xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hey guys seeing as muz sent a txt i thought id write a quick blog. At the moment we are waiting in the last town before the finish in UB. its called Averyheer maybe. As some of you may know we have been convoying from pretty much the border of Mongolia with several cars. the main core of the convoy has been the mini with the phone box on top with ben and lewis inside, the panda with bj and andy inside and the subaru 4x4 mini van with 'shaggy' and 'scooby' driving. as well as these wonderful people we have had the pleasure of passenging claudia and viking 2 lovely ladies who crashed in to the mini back in tajikistan. as well as these lot we have had a london bus, an ambulance from madrid and a micra. Today the panda is getting some springs for the suspension put on as for the last 100kms yesterday they pretty much had no suspension so had to drive at abut 5mph. yesterday the fiat (us) and the subaru stopped off for lunch with some people who helped out lewis in last years mongol rally. we were meant to catch up with the mini and panda but they must have taken a different valley and only just met up with them in the city we are in now after dark. the subaru crack a seal on the bottom of the engine but its should make it to UB after some handy bush mechanics worked on it. Due to the broken cars we are going to arrive in UB tomorrow istead of today. Then it will be time for many drinks and stories. We are intending to fly back on the 4th but not sure bout the flight situation. Fingers crossed we will see u soon xxxx

hey everyone at home we are still alive muz is goiing mental about wanting use the internet so keeping this brief. we are in khovd in mongolia all is good with the car. got a hangover. not sure if anyone is actually reading this shit so i feel like an idiot for writing this 3 times as mongolian interent isnt that great!!! xxxx

Hey everyone at the homestead hope all is well in sunny old england. George and me are in the city of Cheliblinsk we have been here for longer than expected as we had a problem with our russian visas, we arent very good at this visa stuff. Anyway when we were in Astrakahn down south near the lovely war in Georgia we were meant to get our visas registered but there was some problem and they weren't returned from the department of immigration so now we have had to wait out the weekend so that today the hotel in Astrakahn (The Azimut) can fax through to our hotel in Cheliblinask the registration slip. This is vital to our onward journey as we will have to pay a very hefty fine at the Russian border if we do not have a registation slip from a hotel that is within the first 3 days of being Russia. All very annoying and complicated just hope when we get back to the hotel this evening it will be sorted. On arrival in Cheliblinsk we were impressed by the nice looking buildings which i think goes some way to explain Ciaran's crash. Basically on Saturday as we were driving in to the city I decided to run a red light, well it wasnt really a consious decision. In my deffence the sun obscured my vision and therefore i thought the light was yellow. Anyhow we were hit side on by a yellow minibus that is called a trolleybus out here and is the main city transport. This was at about 7ish in the evening. The driver was very angry even though he only had some scratches on his plastic crappy bumper and we had a huge dent in our side and my ego. We then had to wait around while the road police known to us as the ANC police or 'Nazis' due to the amount of times they have pulled us over wanting money or prezzies. When the coppers finally rocked up muz went to try and get a hotel and a shower and other such niceties while Ciaran stayed to sort everything. In England if there is a little accident like the one we had then all that would happen is the swapping of insurance details and we jog on, O NO in Russia it just can't be that simple. The police turn up and then start drawing a diagram of the street and where the cars have ended up with all the tram lines and everything in this very detailed diagram. Then the guy drawing the picture has to go and measure the distances between everything and i mean everything even how wide the road is and the distance between traffic lights for some insane reason. Finally when this is done Ciaran had to follow the coppers to a 'police station' in reality it was in a very dodgey area and for a couple of seconds i thought they had brought me there to rob me or worse. Imagine the garages you see in england in the housing estates except with crap lying around everywhere and half demolished buildings. Somehow they had made one of those buildings in to a police station where i spent the next 2 hours or so waiting for them to fill out the forms and things of this nature. At one stage i was thinking i was going to be spending the whole night there as everybody else started leaveing which was rather worrying. In the end the whole investigation was concluded with the fault pointed in my direction which i knew from the beging but didnt want to admit it incase i was fined and then i was sent on my a way after several moments of panic and a huge wast of time.

russian friends

We are in the beautiful city of volgagrad, which used to be stalingrad, got here yesterday. We have been in mother russia for 4days and have met the mother today. they have made a huge statue of her with a sword to celebrate russia victory in WW2. went out last night gor rathher merry with some other ralliers and met some lovely russian chicks who have been showing us round volgagrad today which was nice of them. the weather is beautiful, as is our little beast of a car. she is holding up amazingly and is actually fixing herself. for example the radio stopped working as did the speaker, but its all good now. our wheel almost fell off which was interesting. muzzy is hungover like a dog. having a spiffing time. love to alll. xxxxxxxxx