Navigation

It looks like we might end up queing for visas at the embassy - I discovered the letter that was meant to have gone (special delivery) a week ago for my Mongol visa in a pile of papers - not sent yesterday!!

I was wondering why it had taken so long! So the tight 3 week schedule just got so much tighter I now have just 2 weeks to get the visas for Mongolia, Kazahkstan and Russia - which is not good!

I do have the Letter of Invitation (LOI) for Russia though! So its not all bad.

Well what a mess my partner for the rally decides to tell me yesterday he isn't going - irational feel of the Mongolian tree spider or somthing like that!!

So where do you find someone who is stupid enough to agree to drive to Mongolia in a Morris Minor with you at very short notice!?

What do you say?

So this is pretty much how the conversation went:

Jim: 'Hi fancy a drive in the country.'

Target recruit: 'erm watch the catch?'

Jim: 'Could take a few weeks'

Target recruit 'Where exactly can take a few weeks to get to?'

Jim 'Mongolia'

Finnally it has dawned on my why people take 2 a penny nasty little japanese cars on this voyage of adventure. It because they are 2 a penny and that means you can get spare parts anywhere in the world and fast. Martha doesn't exactly give us that luxury!! We have spend days trying to get the essential spare parts for martha - and this before we start on the 'would be nice to have' spares which might well be even harder to find.

We are also really late on the visa front - but Martha has this in hand now as she is the most organised of the team.

Last night we took Martha for her an off road trial in a secret location in the yorkshire dales! It has to be said she did very well a lot better than we had anticipated. The poor turning lock, heavy steering that is a little bit loose and the loloping suspension seemed to combine for not a bad drive on the tracks that we took her on and they were pretty rough - not as bad as some we have seen pictures of in Kazahkstan and Mongolia but pretty rough.

The big question will be if she can handle a few 1000 miles of that sort of terrain!?

Great news today - we have managed to get a local printing company to support us with our printing needs.

Newton Press become our latest sponsor with their pledge to follow our rally in their newspaper and a commitment to print our business cards and raffle tickets for us.

Oh yes we are having a raffle as well. Some great prizes have already been pledged from local companies but its too early to release the list just yet as we have a few more we are waiting for confirmation from ..... watch this space!

So loads of rally teams have gone to Wales this weekend to try out their cars and have a good old fashioned pagan party - but I had to work (Martha was gutted!)

It all worked out for the best however for 2 reasons:

Martha is doing great and it seems that everyone wants a piece of the action with several of the advertising spaces on the car now sold and pledges and actual charity contributions starting to roll in!

There are still spaces left including the boot / bonnet and roof (believe me we will make sure it gets in some of the shots!)

Graham Mack at TFM has featured us again on his breakfast show and it is really helping. He has opened so many doors for us by focussing the attention onto us - its great for the charities.

I am starting to panic a bit about the visas as we havent got any yet and the Russian, Kazahk and Mongolian ones could all be a little tricky.

So the press have been really good to us - Graham Mack at TFM did a great interview with us and really talked everything up although he did make the whole thing sound a little scarey for the first time!

We have picked up a few more sponsors since the last blog as well. Thanks to all who have contributed especially Barclays Bank for their generous contribution!

We will get the 10,000 mile page up and live very soon!

Wow,wow, wow!! What a day - don't know where to start!

The Northern Echo ran a great peice on us - Thanks! Lot of people saw it and the the phone started ringing Tyne Tees ITV came down to get some film of Martha and thankfully she started (first time - strange how she doesn't do that when I am cold and its rainging and the other alternative is to walk home.

Then later in the day Century radio called and did a radio interview!