Lemur Attack Force » The Rally Part 1: NZ to Poland

Mostly written on or around July 21st, 2012, the night before crossing into Russia

Dane’s fiddling with making noodles while I lie on a real bed in an hotel room that we’ve taken for the night (at jaw-dropping expense, considering) in Rezneke, Latvia. About 63 km west from the Latvia/Russia border.

The last week (for that’s how long we’ve been on the road) has been…interesting.

Having successfully left NZ – aimee was in a complete state on the day of leaving, and spent much of it vibrating gently – we landed in the UK. Thankfully, we got to start the Rally by spending a couple of days beforehand with our wonderful friend Tony and his partner Isabelle in their stunning house in the Cotswalds. The surroundings, and hospitality, were phenomenal, and it was all very relaxing.

Also, a massive thanks to our sponsors, Face Limited and Viva Mexico, as well as all the private individuals and organisations who helped us out!

From there, it was down to Goodwood on July 13th to camp overnight before the UK launch, known as the Festival of Slow.

It had been raining when we got to the UK (although mornings were fine), and this trend continued. Which meant that we camped in a giant soggy marsh on the 13th, and the rain all night had Dane dreaming of drowning in the tent :P

The Festival of Slow was pretty cool, although methinks the foul weather did dissuade many people from coming along. Nonetheless, though, in a wonderful display of fortitude and friendship, our friends Melissa, Mike and Grace came down all the way from London to see us off. Due to various issues, they made it but 15 minutes before we started the lap around the trap from which everyone then hoofs it to Europe, so great timing, and so heartwarming to see them!

NZ to UK photos from the Mongol Rally 2012

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From Goodwood, we had originally planned to take it very slowly along the coast to Dover (we had an 11:15pm ferry), but instead spent a couple of hours in a Halfords parking lot in Chichester trying to do something about the tailpipe and muffler, which had died spectacularly on our drive down to Goodwood. Not a major mechanical fault, but the sheer noise of the exhaust, plus the rattling of various things (the muffler had sheared completely from the exhaust pipe, and the tailpipe was only just hanging on to the muffler) was rather unpleasant.

A few tubes of quick-drying exhaust putty and JB weld-type stuff later, we set off for Dover, the car mercifully quiet again. Sadly, this was not to last – from what we can tell, the putty designed for this purpose simply burnt away. Never mind, we decided, we’re on a tight schedule, and we’ll fix it after the Czechout.

So yes – we made it to Dover an hour plus early, which meant I could show Dane a Wetherspoons (it’s all we could find for a beer)* and we got a slightly earlier ferry.

Exciting, as it was my hope that, rather than simply pulling over in Calais and crashing, we could get a bit further.

We did – Dunkirk, where we then got stuck. A wrong turn ended up with us, after midnight, running very low on fuel and unable to find a petrol station which would take our cards – they were all unmanned, so there wasn’t anyone with whom to speak.

We ended up parking behind a hotel somewhere and sleeping in the car, me extremely unhappy after a 14 hour day or so, most of which had been driving. Dane was, to his credit, very patient with me :)

Next morning, we found an ATM, took out many Euros, and tried fuel again. Same thing, though – the machines only took cards, and not ours. Finally, we found a lovely woman at a station, to whom we gave 50 Euros and whose card paid for the same amount of fuel.

The kindness of strangers can be a marvellous thing.

We successfully escaped Dunkirk, and then it was off through Belgium, the Netherlands (a surprise, that – we hadn’t realised we’d go through it), and Germany. And then some more Germany, on the autobahn. This was when I realised that the Jimny is somewhat…unstable…at speeds.

Ah, yes, and did I mention that it was still raining? It was.

Anyhoo, as we were passed by almost everyone on the motorway as we did 100km/hr or so, we started to experience the huge difference in motorway rest stops displayed by the Schengen Zone.

France was, well….impossible to find fuel or people in.

Belgium was fantastic. Friendly people, free wi-fi, beautiful surrounds: Dane’s fallen somewhat in love with the place :)

We passed through the Netherlands so fast we don’t really have much to say on that front, although a giant Carrefour we passed and which we’d hoped would have groceries, failed to be open. On a Sunday, late morning. Which was somewhat odd. (Although, perhaps it was in Belgium, after all…).

Then, Germany. Aaaah, Germany. There must have been a rest stop every 5 km or so, many offering stunning surrounds, wi-fi, motels, fuel, coffee, and every other amenity you could think of. Sadly, a few that we tried to get to late evening on the 15th were tricksy and we missed their offramps. As a result, we eventually ended up pulling over and ‘carring it’ again in a somewhat dodgy one near the Czech border. I was, again, somewhat tired and ratty at that point, but yes :P

One thing, though – considering how fast autobahns are supposed to be, we did spend an awful lot of time stuck in three giant traffic jams thereon – two accidents (sadly) and one roadworks.

At the time, we were unimpressed. We were soon to learn to look at things differently, however.

Less than 36 hours after the Rally start…the Czechout

The 16th dawned not raining, and we missioned into the Czech Republic, but not before meeting a team at the next rest stop on from the one at which we’d crashed, and which had had a few teams parked there overnight. This was the second night that had happened, heh.

Anyhoo, we drank coffee, were regaled with stories of Rally dramas so far, and then headed off to Klatovy for the Czechout party at Klenova Castle.

Czech countryside is pretty lovely, and we got to see a bunch of it due to more roadworks which had us take a rather circuitous route from Pilsen (the birthplace of pilsener) to Klatovy. In Klatovy, we also had a minor detour moment as we stupidly followed signs to Klenova Castle only to be turned around and told to take another route in. Said detour also disrupted a number of workmen doing some road resurfacing, and we could see that it was going to be a long day for them with other Rally teams making the same error we had :)

Anyhoo, we got to the Czechout – it had been raining earlier, but had mercifully cleared – and set up camp, and then I missioned back to Klatovy (12km) to pick up our friend Kelly. But not before Dane had kicked the tailpipe off (leaving the loose muffler), as he was pretty sure the road up to Klenova would do it in anyway when I went over it again.

And then, the Czechout! Also the Europe launch of the Rally, it promised to be quite fun. One thing, though – the Europeans got to get their photos officially taken by their cars! Why not us UK starters, hmmm? Anyway, the evening consisted of large amounts of beer and food (ft meat, meat and some more meat), and dancing up in the castle grounds itself. With some 1,000 or so people, there was not shortage of fun conversation or, in the word of one Scots Rallier, ‘shenanigans’. (Tip: never mistakenly refer to a Scotsman as an Irishman. I know, I know, but yes. Thankfully, he took it quite well, considering).

Once the castle was done, people moved back down to the camp area, where a big dancefloor and amount of doof-doof had been set up in a ruined building overlooking the countryside. More booze and conversation, and I was even persuaded to dance briefly – considering I was wearing my selk’bag at the time, it must have looked quite funny (update: it did. There’s video of it :P).

Not long after, I had an attack of the olds and went to sleep, but made sure first that Kelly was in safe hands and having fun. And she was – there are stories of all sorts of funness, which I’ll leave to her to tell.

And yes, the Czechout experienced the sort of chaos it does every year. There are many, many stories of assorted dodge, but the one that had us giggling most at the time was: member of an American team (team name withheld) does her ankle in at the party. Teammate and husband packs her into car and attempts to rush her to hospital. They get pulled over for having illegal (US) plates. Husband cheeks police, spends night in jail. Wife at least gets her ankle taken car of :) That night we also heard about a team who’d been involved in a head-on collision in France. Thankfully they were fine, but the car was totalled, meaning their Rally was over :(

Next morning, it was wake up, groan at the hangover, and take Kelly into Klatovy to catch her bus. Which we almost missed, as I took a wrong turn. Eek. I bind her fond farewell, and went back to Klatovy to pick up Dane (who had been packing down our tent in the just-started rain) so we could begin our trip up north.

From the Czechout, it took us two days to get to our next stop – Radom. The intervening night we camped in a gorgeous stop – next to a lake, at a place called Autokemp Olešná, Frýdek-Místek on the Czech/Poland border.

In what was to prove the crapness of our timing (an ongoing theme currently), we got there 15 minutes after reception had closed. This had happened to us in Germany, too. This time, however, there was no gate blocking our entrance, so we drove in a bit, and went to the restaurant to ask if we could make some sort of plan.

The nice man behind the bar simply shrugged his shoulders and said to camp there anyway, which had us buying a beer from him (and sitting inside, smoking!!) while we looked at the lake. Gorgeous stuff :)

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