Days 2,3,4 & 5
After driving into the early hours of the morning en route to the beach party in Romania we managed to grab a few hours sleep at a motel outside arad. We have a 10 hour drive ahead of us to make it for tonight, over and out.
Day 1 - London to Amsterdam
Having arrived fairly late on Saturday to the Rally launch party and missing registration it was an honour when the adventurists approached us on Sunday morning asking us to lead the Rally procession. With both the car horn and ice cream jingle broken we felt naked, but just like with our hangovers that morning we persevered, rammed our stuff in the van and drove into position to start the rally. We, the Eddie's Boys, the first team to start the rally, drove through the centre of the rally car park with eyes of the entire Mongol rally upon us. Before us stood the start ramp, the beginning proper of the rally and as we began the incline we stalled - Literally falling at the first hurdle of this adventure, no doubt a sign of things to come. Once on the other side we followed the police escort through Battersea park. With no means of making loud noises beyond smacking our flimsy glass fibre body work we did what all rally teams would have done - attempted to start a car anaconda by swerving from side to side. The success was immediate as the cars behind us followed suit but it was short-lived. The police car stopped and an officer came out to lecture us about how we were disturbing the fine inhabitants of battersea park with our hooliganism - Jobsworth ****! As we approached the end of the circuit through the park the police van peeled off and told us we were on our own. Leading the rally then became rather comical as we had misplaced the map the organisers had given us about 10 minutes before and had absolutely no idea where we were going. We phoned our good friends from the London to Mongolia limo service for some directions and forged ahead. It went well for around 10 minutes before we looked behind us to realize we were alone. Without the map we will never know whether we went the right way that eventful day. The drive from London to Dover was boring as was the ferry ride. Arriving in France we realised we hadn't actually planned a route through Europe in any way and just decided to head to the first place that came to us - Amsterdam! All was going rather smashingly until we were hit by torrential rain. The van having only been in a drivable state for the past 48 hours meant waterproofing hadn't been top of our priorities. However the previous owner had clearly thought it was a needless luxury and failed to seal the gap between the fibre glass body and the windscreen. The result was a wet driver!
Now it's time to get to the Czech out party and buy some bathroom sealant
Over and out,
Eddie's Boys
