Welcome to England Mate

First day in England. We trained from Gatwick airport to stroud, outside of Bristol to get to Oliver’s house. Lugging 2 bags and a back pack each full of rally stuff was no easy task. In and out of train stations, up and down stairs. We finally made it!

When we arrived Oliver was chasing sheep around in the front yard. One had escaped and he was rounding it up. Solid first impression.

Oliver has been a critical part of our preparations for the trip. He has helped us secure, buy, maintain and insure our Mongol Rally car. He is a good man. After showering him with gifts we went to the pub.

Oliver is a bloody legend!

The English country is really nice, a pleasant surprise. Oliver’s house is apparently 400 ish years old and very nice. It’s been an amazing home base and has made getting into the routine very easy.

We have spent the days driving around organizing spare parts, tools, vehicle ownership documents and getting lost. Brits drive rather aggressively, so adjusting to that as well as being in the wrong side of the car and road took a day or so.

Parts shopping took us to a few auto wreckers in Gloucester. These are small yards just jam packed with parts and smashed up car bodies waiting for you to come take what you need. The best part about these yards was the characters that work there as well as frequent these establishments. Let me tell you, some were straight out of the movie Snatch.

July 14 was Matt’s birthday. We celebrated by going to a proper English country pub for dinner and a pint. Then to a few more for more pints. There was also some fantastic debate about space travel with some of the pub locals. In between these pubs we were lighting off fire crackers, getting bitten by dogs, and finally staggering home through grassy hillsides littered with glow worms! Apparently very rare. Happy birthday indeed.

We decided to get our roof rack welded to the car as it was much cheaper then buying roof rack attachments. Upon arrival at the welders. He told us that we should be bolting it straight to the roof because all the vibrating on the rally will break the welds. So that’s what we did. Problem solved!

The major excitement was that our V5, ownership document, was “lost in the post” and we had to reissue a new one. The new one arrived the day before the rally begins. Phew!!!!!

After loading and stickering up the car. We put on the camera mounts and away we go. Off to the Mongol Rally registration/BBQ/start line.

Here we go…