Quick recap of events thus far

7.7.2013 — Sunday — Ian Arrives in London

7.8.2013 — Monday — Matt Nelson arrives in London around midday, meets Ian at his hotel. Together they walk to the Visa Machine to try to work out Ian’s Russian Visa. The rally folks assure us that they will bring his passport, complete with Russian Visa, to the UK rally launch.

We walk back to the hotel through Mayfair, gather our belongings, which we stored at the hotel, and head to dinner with Nick, Angie, and Max. After dinner we head over to Rob K’s where we crash for the night.

 

7.9.2013 — Tuesday — Excitement in London. We retrieve our car from Japanese Trade Center. After a long process of acquiring a registration and insurance, we are released onto the unforgiving streets of London. Roads are small, drivers are speedy, signage is poor, and intersections are unintuitive. Managing this on the wrong side of the road with a lefty stick was pretty crazy. Once we found gas and M1 (the highway north to Edinburgh) the sailing was smooth save an hour-long accidental detour into the labyrinth that is Leeds. Never go to Leeds. Weather was perfect. Scenery was magical and shire-like.

 

We are not very nimble in the cities. We arrived in Edinburgh late, and had a very hard time finding a room. The whole city was completely packed. No vacancies. Ended up spending two nights in two different hostel rooms at the same hostel.

 

7.10.2013 — Wednesday — We wake in Edinburgh and head out to eat a full Scottish breakfast, complete with Haggis. We purchased a package of tours: Edinburgh city tour, castle tour, pub crawl. We did a lot of walking, learned some history and folklore, and even a little scotch tasting. The castle looks impressive as catles go, but there is not much to really see inside of it. After the castle tour, we went in search of dinner. We asked a hostel employee for a bangers and mash recommendation. We were confidently directed to a place known for their traditional scottish fare, but it ended up being the only restaurant in town that didn’t have bangers and mash. The Pub crawl was pretty fun. Met lots of people. All the usual shenanigans.

 

7.11.2013 — Thursday — We had big plans to catch the sunrise from a little bluff in town, but we slept through all alarmage. A surprising amount change scattered about our room. Wasting little time, we begin our drive to Inverness. The drive was pretty amazing. Again, the UK portion of our trip featured perhaps the greatest weather ever known to this part of the world. We arrived in Inverness in the afternoon. We checked into our little hostel on the edge of town. Nice little beds, the comforts of which Matt Nelson would never know. The place was more like a residence, with a couple small bunk rooms and a small private room. One public toilet and shower.

We drove off to Glen Ord to taste some scotch. After our tour, I handed Jon Hay’s reigns over to Matt, so he could get his first taste of the lefty stick. Pretty amusing scene. All of the lurching and revving right as we were leaving a distillery. But we made it back to our place in one piece. Jon Hay was a good sport.

We spent the evening in downtown Inverness. We ate dinner at the restaurant which appeared to be the most popular among the locals. The mussels and venison were great. The waitress directed us to the most popular night spot, where we watched live music and chatted with the locals into the wee hours of the morning.

 

7.12.2013 — Friday — This day was pretty effing awesome. We executed perhaps the best day drive available to man. But first we went to Halfords and haphazardly filled our car with whatever rally supplies we could think of. Tire weld, jerry cans, water jugs, lawn chairs, fire extinguisher, lots of EU requirements, spare bulbs for our car, zip ties, duct tape, oil, wiper fluid, spare battery.

We headed straight for the Isle of Skye. The place is unreal. Scotland at its best. High cliffs over the sea, tiny one-lane roads. It was from here that we finally began our trip toward Mongolia as advertised. It was on this Isle that our car selected her name. “Jon Hay” she wanted to be called. So it was. And is. We went on a hike, and stopped for a couple photo ops, but were pretty much in the car most of the time. Stopped for a bite in the town of Portree, then set out for St. Andrews via a lovely national park. It was quite a tour of central scotland.

We stayed in a public room of a hostel in St. Andrews. We went out with a couple of Matt’s bschool friends, Mark and Dan, who were golfing there the following day. It was perhaps the worst night of sleep we’ve ever had. Beds were super unformtable, the sheets were rubbery and induced sweat, and it sounded like a flock of loud seagulls were fighting all night outside of our window. And then there was the snoring, which is the hallmark of any great night in a dorm-like setting.

 

7.13.2013 — Saturday — Eve of the Rally. We left St. Andrews very tired. We noticed that our GPS beacon failed during the night — no more tracking. Matt drove the whole day. Our destination was Bodian castle for the Rally launch. We were making good progress until they decided to shut down M6 for many hours. So we busted out our lawn chairs and hung out on the pavement of the converted parking lot. A lot of annoying false starts as the kinks were worked out. So that, you know, mostly sucked. It was a funny scene, with people walking their dogs and chatting with each other outside of their cars.

We eventually proceed to London, where most of the roads we wanted to drive on were also closed. We finally made it to the Crapanzano residence in Kensington, where we were graciously permitted to ship our camping gear. We then manage to drive through the heart of London. We hit every single overly-busy central area. The mall, Tralfalger, Picadilly, Covent Garden, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace. Every time we tried to leave we messed it up. Finally, London lost interest in toying with us and released us South to Bodian, where we arrived with a few other stragglers, many hours after we were due to register for the rally. Hopefully that could wait until morning. It did.

The campsite was a riot. Teams were busy drinking beers and fitting supplies to their cars. It was immediately clear that our car was highly underfitted. The other rally cars featured full racks, numerous spares, and skids plates protecting their fragile underbellies. But we also learned that most teams had little idea of the precise route they would take. The general game plan for most teams is drive east, figure out the details later. Se we were on the same page here. Met tons of people.  The ralliers are very friendly and outgoing, and anxious to exchange game plans and establish rendesvous points. Lots of aussies and UK. Only a few americans. The live gypsy band set the tone for a late night of merriment.  We set up our tent on a bit of hill, so Ian slid down into Matt after falling asleep. Cozy. There was one, dominant snorer in the camp.

 

7.14.2013 — Sunday — The Launch. We awoke before dawn to reorg our car and get our inverter working. After the pre-rally festivities (a little long and drawn out) we set off single file through the launch gates. And like that, the rally was underway. Now, driving from the castle to the ferry at Dover did not lack in hilarity. 200+ ridiculous rally cars tearing through the English country side, most of whom have no idea where Dover is. We were banking on following the rest of the ralliers, but most had the same idea. With stoplights and gas-ups, we were quickly scattered about, losing and finding one another, forming caravans that would soon break apart. At one point we were actually leading a caravan. We approached an intersection and noticed that a car in the train had a blinker on, so we followed suit. As long as we could, we followed a car behind us. Eventually we lost him, but without any sort of directions or knowledge of the area, we made it to the boat.

Got on the boat at Dover and arrived in Dunkirk. From there we drove straight to brussels, which was direct and easy to find. We stopped into Brussels to grab beer and a bite, and decided to just sleep there for the night. Our original plan had us in Frankfurt for the night. We went out to The Bison (and some other bar) to drink our fill of belgians for the night. It was Sunday night, so operations started closing down around midnight. Slept in a Marriot. The bed was much more comfortable than we remembered beds being.

 

7.15.2013 — Monday — Headed to Czechout party at Klenova Castle. This is the European launch site, so we expected to meet more of the continentals. Most cars were actually at the UK launch, too. Exiting brussels and atlas-navigating ourselves in the right direction was apparently a very tall order.  Took a couple hours before we got back to Brussels after heading in the wrong direction. In Germany, we spent hours sitting through the second epic traffic jam of our trip. There was some sort of hazardous material spill on the highway, so the roads were closed for cleanup.

The sailing was pretty smooth once we got past the accident. Sailing is the wrong word. We flew, pushing Jon Hay to her limits. But the situation changed when we turned off the highway in the Czech Republic. It took hours to find Klenova Castle, which is not visible from any roads, as the rally organizers assured us it would be. Every time we entered a town on a “main” road, it was liable to spit us out on a different one. Eventually, as night set in, we were able to catch a chance glimpse of a sign reading “Klenova”. We made our way up a hill on some tiny overgrown roads. Then we saw it. The Rally Camp. Happiness. It was at that very moment that they illuminated a spotlight to mark the position of the castle.

 

7.15.2013 — Monday – We did not get far. You’re up to speed. Congratulations.