Days one to four

Coming from Kendal, Cumbria, we started a little further North than most. After an early breakfast (around 7 am is considered early for someone who has spent 4 years at uni) our parents waved us goodbye with some final reassuring messages along the lines of “try not to do anything stupid” along with “just be wary of those Eastern European girls”.

And with that we’re off, months of planning, cutting bureaucratic red tape and the occasional pint behind us we’re free on the open road next stop Goodwood.

Just outside Kendal on the bypass towards Milnthorpe we agree that the tarpaulin on the roof is the single most irritating thing we’ve ever experienced and agree to pull over to remove it.

Fifteen minutes after this we pull over at Carnforth and call my dad to get him to bring my laptop which we had planned to hold all the camera data and write this very blog on, which I’d forgotten. So having seen the father rather sooner than I had previously intended we’re off and free on the open road.

The remainder of the journey is relatively and perhaps pleasingly uneventful, other than a pleasant brief stop for a drink at my old housemate’s house in Oxford (as in I used to live with her, she isn’t old and balding…).

We arrive at the designated meet up at the Goodwood Race Circuit at around 5 o’clock if my memory serves me correctly, only two hours behind schedule. A relatively quick and painless registration procedure later and it’s on with the mingling and small talk.

There’s a lot of meeting other teams, discussing routes/dates/times which happen here. Nothing too eventful, so I shall move on. Oh I think someone was sick near our tent and I remember hearing some racist Australians at some point in the night.

I guess DJ Penny Metal is worth a mention as well to be fair to her. An unorthodox DJ who seemed to play the same twangy song with a beat for about nine hours. OK if you’re in to that thing I guess..

Day 1 : Goodwood, UK to Bonne, Germany: Sunday Even earlier start than the day before which was a shock to the system.

An entertaining start to the day as we attempt to break in to a The Lost Saxons’ car (with their consent) as one of the teammates appears to have left and be uncontactable and they’ve taken the keys with them.

We came very close, but failed only to later find on that the AWOL teammate had driven to McDonald’s at 5 in the morning and fallen asleep in the car park.

A short drive to the Goodwood Race Circuit later – which involved our toilet seat falling off the roof rack only to be picked up by a rather startled looking BMW driver – and we’re parked up in Bay 43 awaiting the starting gun. Errm, anyway, this section isn’t overly interesting, I hope there’s better to come.

We meet up with Team JellyTot offering out free Jelly Tots from a Perodua – an 800cc beast. There’s a few drag races including a supped out Robin Reliant pulling wheelies (he had to refill the engine after revving too much in the car park – he had also cut a hole in the floor so as to be able to see when pulling wheelies).

Let’s skip to the start of the rally about an hour later. We’re held up as one of the teams breaks down mid lap and spills oil on one of the famous apex’s.

“The lights went out and we’re go go slow” with everyone staying in formation for a few scenic, sweeping bends, but with the excitement of the rally to look forward to, we all soon got bored of that. Some ferocious driving ensued with teams entering corners three abreast.

The crowd oo’d and arr’d as more drama occurred than in many an F1 season was played out in front of them (perhaps I exaggerate a little, but it was fun).

Leaving the track we came to our first major obstacle – left or right? Naturally the very concept of convoying to the ferry all together was soon out the window and we found ourselves on our own heading towards the M25.

Eager to reach an early ferry to make good headway into Europe before nightfall we ploughed on seeing fleeting glimpses of rally cars.

Midway along the M23 we reach our first standstill. A hefty collision, which we later discover left three people dead, put us two hours behind schedule, but all things considered it could’ve been a lot worse. As we pull up to the ferry queue 20 minutes before the departure of the final ferry we can catch without paying a £250 fee, we meet with many other ralliers who have all been making their separate ways.

A short hop across the channel, spending the last remaining English pounds we could muster on what would potentially be our last reasonable meal for some time, and we are driving on the continent for the first time.

Remarkably, and it’s worth taking note of this if you’re thinking of heading this way, there are no petrol stations between Calais and Belgium on the main road, which left us alarmingly low on fuel by the time we stopped. This actually turned out for the best, something which has repeated throughout the trip, since other teams must have been as equally underprepared fuel-wise as we were and we latched on to quite a convoy at the garage lead by Papu of Team Ndanka Ndanka.

It would be fair to say that this man is a bit of a celebrity on the rally having answered almost every question on the Facebook group before leaving – he knows all.

The decision was made here that in order to make the Prague party on the evening of Day 3 we would need to travel further than the “arranged” Brussels camp site which no one actually had the address for anyway, and hence we travelled onwards beyond the sunset to reach a pretty, yet rather expensive camp site in Bonne, Germany.

At 2 in the morning it took most of my rather ropey GCSE German to convince the gentleman to let four rather ridiculous cars into the camp site.

Day 2 : Bonne, Germany to Prague, Czech Republic: Monday

Did much happen this drive? Maybe I’ll update this space later if anything comes to mind. Oh we had our first water based porridge and syrup for breakfast, I’m sure/hope what it lacked for in taste was made up for in nutrition.

We also determine that the European Sat-Nav is beyond useless since it can’t actually find Prague, never mind the meet up point.

Oh actually I believe this was the day that rather unbelievably Alex left the fuel filler cap at the petrol station. “an easy mistake to make” according to him, however it should be pointed out that he did this in Kendal with Roxanne just a few weeks ago. Much stick later we let him off and put it down to “shedding unnecessary weight”.

If you are reading this with the intention of doing the rally, I would advise investing in a European sat-nav with traffic, Team Khan (an Italian team we were convoying with) noted a obstruction up ahead on the route we were taking and diverted us towards Nurnburg – unfortunately there was not enough time to do the ring, but arguably we went around Nurenberg!

We reach the Czech Out Party in good time (the autobahns are useful for that) with an expanded convoy of 7 teams, communicating with mixed results through walkie-talkies (they certainly brought an element of entertainment).

The location for the party itself was excellent, an abandoned train station had been converted into a terrific wooden decking surrounded by bars. The entertainment was decent and the drinks were rather cheap. I believe I ended the night helping Chitty Chitty Brum Brum, a team of chemical engineers from Birmingham University, stick their logos onto other people’s cars.

Upon returning to where the tent had been set up earlier on the cobbled street, I was surprised to discover a clear ground with my teammates sleeping in the car. With the best seats taken and a failed attempt to sleep in the driver’s seat under my belt, I decided to take out the roll mat and sleeping bag and kip under the stars. Sleep came pretty easily that night it would be fair to say.

Other teams news; One team has had to pay a 1000 Eu fine for bringing contraband into France (idiots). One team has unfortunately suffered a catastrophic gearbox failure within sight of the ferry and is hence out of the rally.

Day 3 : The day of capitals: Tuesday It’s worth noting where I am sitting as I write this. It is currently day 8 (see day 8) and I am overlooking Cappaeocia (I’ll correct the spelling at a later date), a wonderful town in central Turkey at just after 9 in the evening. The stars look fantastic and there’s a crystal clear half moon lighting the plateau (there’s a better word here). I’ll attach a photo though I’m not sure I’ll do it justice.

Anyway, back to the past. I awake in Prague. A quick repack of the tent later and we’re back in the same convoy as yesterday – Papu at the head.

Papu seems to know all about Vignettes, a road tax for most countries, which you seem to buy at service stations before the non-existing borders. It is worth taking note of this since we had no idea these existed. They cost between 3 and 15 euros and are required for Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary (oo fireworks on the horizon), and Romania.

Setting off from Prague convoying the Ndanka Ndanka, JellyTot and Chemical Brummers, we embark to travelling through three major capital cities and reach Romania before end of play.

We made the decision before the rally, that we aim to spend as much of our time as possible in places we will probably never return to and hence although it may appear a shame to miss out on some beautiful cities, we will likely return at some point, and see them in more relaxing circumstances.

Admittedly we had hoped we could stop off in these places for an hour or so, but with the timings we have its has proved impossible.

t would be fair to say I slept most of the way from Prague to Bratislave (the capital of Slovakie) and having asked, I’m not sure much happened.

It was darned hot as we collected our Vignette, a heat we have grown used to but it was certainly a shock to the system. The lack of air-con in Roxanne can get a little annoying. It’s probably about 20 degrees, but the breeze makes it feel significantly cooler than what we have become used to, amazing how quickly the body readjusts.

Certainly the first day or so of above 30 degree heat caused issues, although with the windows down and the purchase of a Ciff window cleaner bottle filled with water to be used as a refreshing blast, things aren’t too bad.

We moved the majority of the car stuff to the roof rack to allow for more comfort in the back of the car - it almost makes the back of the car quite cosy.

We fly through Slovakia and before we’ve even changed any currency to whatever they use over there, we’re on the Hungarian border. We make the decision here, which I later regret, to drive past Budapest in order to make Romania in a comfortable time.

The driving in Hungary is particularly pleasant and certainly worth a mention even if it is to be dwarfed by later roads we travel.

Some sweeping bends and lovely mountain scenery – insert photo here – James almost got killed by a lorry trying to set up that photo and as I write this I haven’t actually seen it, I hope it’s worth it.

Leaving the motorway before leaving Hungary we travel through a town miles from anywhere with unfinished roads and seemingly no businesses. Seeing some of the locals makes is really one of the first indications of how far we have come from setting off on Saturday.

We experience our first border crossing since leaving the UK crossing into Romania. All seems relatively speedy, although the place to buy the Vignette is an exceptionally small and run down shack. Come to think of it we could have been sold anything as we spoke in our traditional British foreign accents and mimed what we wanted - all we had to show for it was a hand written receipt with a particularly non-official looking stamp attached.

This night is when we hit our first gem. James found a campsite online in Oradea, a small town near the border, and after travelling through a rather dodgy looking town (prostitutes and drug dealers galore), driving down a road under construction which is the first to test our sump-guard and revving the car to the max to make it up a hill, we reach a camp site.

This time the photo will do the trick. We are welcomed by an outstandingly friendly Romanian who first shows us around and then after we set up our tents offers us some “traditional Romanian welcome drinks” ie 12 shots of Polinka, a 60% Liquor.

Day 4 : Oradrea to Sibiu: Wednesday

wakening (rather rudely by the cockerel pen we were camped next to) we realise the full extent of how nice the camp site is, though I didn’t get the memo about the pose.

I shall continue writing tomorrow since we are awakening to watch the sunrise over Cappadocia. It is said that many people watch this from hot air balloons, so it should be pretty spectacular from our camping location.

If we get up and all goes to plan (lol) then the photo should be lurking in the Day 9 section - see below!

Since the days drive was a “short” six hour drive, we took this one relatively slowly. I am currently writing this in no-man's land between Georgia and Azerbaijan on Day 10 (I’m a little out of order as I’m writing the days sort of as I remember them), it’s eleven at night local time and we’ve been here for some time.

In fact as I write this the team in front have started playing some twangy Georgian music with a heavy beat in the background.

I’ve asked the team and we can’t think of a lot interesting that occurred on this journey, so we’ll move on to the end as we arrive in Sibiu. The night had been organised by a past rallier and on The Adventurists advice we were told to stay at the Ibis Hotel, naturally this was full by the time we arrived and so began the hunt for accommodation.

It transpired that all accommodation was booked up that night, even an extrememly dodgy hostel that was almost certainly the front for a drugs operation according to James.

Meanwhile we caused a stir with the local police after driving into the central, historic, cobbled square of Sibiu. With the use of some international hand symbols we were allowed to leave.

After free-WIFI hopping a few hotels as a last resort we booked an Airbnb (a site where people hire out their places for a few nights), naturally we chose the closest and cheapest. As I mentioned before a theme of this trip is that the unplanned things work out the best.

Turning up to the place we weren’t expecting too much but as we climbed the stairs we began to admire the penthouse pad we had hired for the night. Air-con, beds enough for 15 and more, and most importantly a note “suggesting” we could “sample” the home-brewed Romanian whiskey, wine and brandy.

We certainly took them up on the offer. Arriving at the meet-up bar, we were surprised by the seeming lack of ralliers, but as the rumour of free beer downstairs spread around the Facebook group they soon emerged.

The dangers of pour yourself free beers become apparent when you question which round you’re on, by which time it was decidedly too late. Another late (early) walk back to the accommodation for an early drive in the morning.