A little word from the London correspondent:

A little word from the London correspondent:

I have just run the Gauntlet of the western approaches to London during Royal Ascot week and have now collected our passports from the Mongolian Embassy with magnificent visa stamped in them. This was the easy one the only hurdle the Mongolians put in your way is refusing to use our wonderful postal service meaning submission and collection has to be done in person. Russia requires us both having gained a letter of invitation to appear in person at their visa office to take biometric measurements. Fortunately Kazakhstan recognises UK passports and issues the visa on the border.

Motor insurance is proving a challenge and it looks increasingly likely that we will have to negotiate that on the borders as we cross them. Of course the whole escapade is becoming increasingly more expensive as the pound drops thanks to the Boris and Mike Brexit show.

I am now beginning to realise that this event is imminent, being exactly 1 month away and becoming quite excited.  I have had quite a lot going on  in my life this year and haven’t really got into planning as much as I would like and relying on Gordon to do all the greasy bits and manage the IT side of things.  It all started when I sold my practice a few years ago and was planning to drive the Silk Road in our camper van, Liz put the veto on that and probably with the current state of the world in retrospect a wise decision. The Mongol Rally was an alternative option for jolly jape across approximately one third of the planet’s surface. On this rally we are taking the pensioners route taking more or less a straight line or to be pedantic a great curve avoiding the hot spots of the Levant and Southern Stans.

Neil (The elder git.)

Doing it backwards, that's the blog not the rally

I should have started to say who the Royal we are, well the prime mover in this venture is retired vet Neil Rudram who has more more letters after his name than you can shake a stick at and me, Gordon Kemp a retired Police officer and a passenger in some of Neil's Jaunts to Albania and Morroco.
I, at the moment, am the author of this diatribe, so please blame me rather than Neil for its content, I am sure you will notice when Neil's starts to add to the blog mainly bigger words and better grammer,
The closer we get to the event the more I am starting to panic, this really is a big ask, Neil has to live with me 24 hrs a day for ...well we really do not known how long, it depends on Kevin the Kia as my boys have named our car, luck and a sprinkle of planning and preparation.
Now whilst I have always wanted to visit Russia I didn't really think I was going to see all of it in one visit, well not all but certainly from west to East and a bit more. just to get it into perspective I looked at the logistics of getting back from our finish point and found the plane not only expensive but limited so I had the idea of catching the train back to Moscow when planes would be more frequent. The train trip, just from our finish point back to Moscow would take three days and nights, now I did New York to Florida in 24 hrs so this is potentially three times as far, I just can't get my head about that, I once travelled by land rover to Alabania and had the GPS tell me "straight on for 500 miles" I think Mrs Garmin is going to have a head fit when she starts trying to sort Russia out.
I probably can hear some of you already asking WHY? Well in the spirt of George Mallory because it's there. We are siimplyly doing this because it can be done, alright we could claim some philanthropic reason we are collecting for charity but in reality it's you doing that, Neil and I are funding the trip ourselves all we are asking is for you to make a donation to our just giving site WWW.virginmoneygiving.com/NeilRudram please if your doing it as a result of reading my portion of th blog mention that as to date Neil has raised so much money I am feeling a bit guilty of my efforts.   

welcome to our rally

This hopefully will be first of many Blogs in our lastest motoring venture. The Mongol rally or as I prefer to think of from here to  entirnity and beyond.
The plan if there is one is to take a car of less than £500 value from here to Mongolia which if you are not sure is on the other side of the world about as far as you can travel east having crossed the channel as you can get without getting wet again or for those still confused about 8,000 miles across Russia and some of the "Stans" in our case Kazakhstan. Neil has taken his Scottish traits and come up with a rather rusty and some want tired KIa Pride which has already covered 90,000 miles.
My part has been limited whilst Neil has been doing the hard work of visas and planning I have been getting KEVIN the Kia ready for the off, a limited budget and limited time, means this is limited to bolting on a sump guard and wiring a second battery so we have some lights when camping.