Peking to Paris 2007
The diary

Conclusion

John and I feel very honoured to have driven the oldest car ever to drive from Peking to Paris via Mongolia and Russia. Gypsy has done us proud and demonstrated that a 60hp Mercedes would have been capable of the challenge in 1907.

Were there times when I wondered whether we would actually succeed?
Yes! Lots of them - as almost every day, especially in Mongolia and Russia, brought new problems and challenges. The most difficult aspect was the demanding schedule of the mileage that HAD TO be covered EVERY day. We had 5 weeks to complete what Prince Borghese accomplished in 13 weeks. Yes we had tarmac roads in Europe but Mongolia would have been similar for the participants in 1907 as they were for us, in fact the ruts and ‘washboards’ created by the lorries probably made the surfaces worse than they would have been in 1907.

The arrival at the Place Vendome in Paris was very special with the whole family and Adela being there to welcome us. The gala dinner at the Grand Hotel attended by more than 700 guests was a fitting ending to the endurance rally with over 70 awards being presented. I felt extremely humbled to receive one of the two Blancpain watches ‘Spirit of the Rally’ award and touched by the address given by Heidi.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us in our amazing experience and adventure!

Tim

You will find all the albums from our journey in the drop down box below.

Our final day – the shortest day of all, by quite a long way, at 176km. The journey was a little wet but generally straight forward. I was very pleased to enter the Place Vendôme in Paris where we were met by the whole family, Adela and also a friend -Terry Potter. The girls did me proud by managing to obtain and present me with a magnum of Mumm champagne - which was how Prince Scipione Borghese was also met on his arrival in Paris 100 years previously!

The following morning came and we were about to set off – we waited from 6.30am to 7.15am with no sign of anyone and were just about to leave when a man came rushing towards us with the two tyres Herman had promised us! In the end it turned out that we didn’t actually need these tyres and in fact the one that we had recently fitted got us to Paris, and all the way home to Jersey – it was extremely comforting though to know that we now had the backup of three tyres again rather than the one we thought we had…and you just know, sod’s law (the irony of fate!), that if we hadn’t had those spares we would have undoubtedly needed them! Thanks very much Herman!

The run from Koblenz to Reims was extremely nice. Koblenz is a very picturesque 2000-year-old town situated on the Rhine. Our route took us down by the Rhine through some very pretty towns and villages. The last time I had visited Koblenz was as a young man when I hitchhiked around Europe with a friend – it brought back many memories and reminded me how the lovely the area is. It is certainly a place I’d like to return to and spend a couple of days with Pat.

Just when we thought it was safe to get back into the water having three spare rear tyres…our luck all of a sudden changed! We had a problem on the road from Potsdam to Koblenz with a rear tyre which we had to change. Then when we arrived in Koblenz that evening the new tyre we had just fitted, having done only approx 250 to 300km, was already showing signs of the cords being cut and the beads coming away from the tyre – so we had to change this one – which meant we had had to use two of our three tyres in two days! This reduced the confidence we had had over the previous few days to a slightly more concerning aspect.

We were met in Koblenz by Peter (of the Mercedes Benz Stuttgart Museum) and Herman (of the Technik Museum Speyer www.technik-museum.de). Herman Layher gave us an extremely warm welcome and was ecstatic to see a 60hp 1903 Mercedes still running on beaded edged tyres with non detachable rims – he couldn’t believe we had come from Beijing without altering the tyres to a more practical aspect. I explained our concern over the rear tyres and he immediately made enquiries to see whether he had some 880 x 120 tyres. A lot of people in the USA and Europe have changed beaded edged tyres to – either straight sided or a different size so I wasn’t overly optimistic that he would be able to find some – however by the end of the evening Herman assured me he had found some and that they would be there for the following morning…!

Day 30, Monday June 25 - Mikolajki to Gdansk

On Day 30 we arrived Gdansk, in the afternoon and whilst ordering some cappuccinos’ at the bar a voice behind me said ‘make mine a beer’ I half looked and assumed it was a participant but then did a double take and it was Steve! Steve Butler, an old friend of mine [Sam’s godfather!], who had accompanied me as the co-driver/navigator on Gypsy on a Louis Vuitton Rally in China (a little more luxurious than this rally!) in 1998 – who had come out to see how we were getting along and visit us in Gdansk!

Day 29, Sunday June 24 - Vilnius to Mikolajki (+Border)
Day 28, Saturday June 23 - Riga to Vilnius (+Border)
Day 27, Friday June 22 - Tallinn to Riga (+Border)

All of the above days were pretty steady, driving wise. Our confidence was now high - we weren’t having any tyre trouble; we had three spare tyres for the rears; and we were driving on Western European-type roads so there was no problem with the road surface.

Day 26, Thursday June 21 - St Petersburg to Tallinn (+Border)

We departed St Petersburg at 6.30am in the rain. It took a long time to clear St Petersburg even at this time in the morning due to heavy traffic! It was a short day distance wise, about 400km, but involved the border crossing from Russia to Estonia which took us about 3 hours to clear border control – compared to others, this was exceptionally efficient as a number of participants in the rally took between 8 – 9 hours! We arrived in Estonia late afternoon – there was such a stark contrast having left Russia and gone into Estonia – it had the feel of a Western European country. The people were noticeably different – lots of smiling! Although we didn’t get into the town of Tallinn it made me think that I would want to visit it at a later date; and at a more leisurely pace!

See our photos from day 26

Reflections - memories from earlier on in the Rally…

Michel Laarman Antonius Poelsma (Car 6) left Beijing with their 1911 Knox only firing on 3 cylinders and in truth I did not think it would make it out of China. It is with full credit to Michel and Antonius that not only did they make it out of China all the way through Mongolia and through the 25 days of the trip so far into St Petersburg and are still in the group going strong. Such determination deserves to get to Paris – well done to both of you!

For those of you who are aware of the facial expression of Daniel Ward then there is no better image than one that was created a few days ago – both of our cars were to leave at approximately 6.30am - after we had let Daniel and David guide us out of the city we proceeded to overtake them with a nonchalant wave! A few miles later Gypsy was pulled over to one side by ANC (Police), this was usually a routine procedure for the police officer to have his photos taken by the car! However on this occasion the police officer was not satisfied with this and wanted me to produce all the necessary paperwork. It was at this moment that Daniel and David overtook us and Daniel beamed the eminent smile of satisfaction with the wave of his right hand which one could only express as ‘Toad of Toad Hall’! This maybe an uncaptured picture to everyone except me but will remain vivid in my memory forever! Thank you Mr Toad!

Day 25, Wednesday June 20 - Rest Day St Petersburg

We had put an old set of driving chains on Gypsy because we knew the terrain in Mongolia with the sand and dust would have an incredibly high wear factor. However we were surprised and alarmed not only by the wear factor, but also that we had a number of rollers break up on the chains. We had organised for two sets of chains to be sent out to St Petersburg but our huge concern was whether we would actually make St Petersburg before the chains broke!

St Petersburg was such an important destination from the aspect of obtaining the crucial tyres, new chains and generally psychologically was a big milestone as well as being able to prepare the car for the final leg (and of course meeting with Pat for the rest day or at least the part we weren’t working on the car!).

Day 24, Tuesday June 19 - Moscow to St Petersburg

The alarm went at 4am! We had a long day of approx 700km and we had to fit a tyre and have some breakfast. Then we started our drive at 6.30am to St Petersburg (having already done this return journey by train and plane the previous day!) – apart from being long it was a good day and we didn’t exceed out self-imposed limit of 50mph again.

We got into St Petersburg at just after 9.30pm to be welcomed by Pat and Adela - who had also been successful with their tyres! A huge sigh of relief as it all could have gone horribly wrong and we wouldn’t have had any spare tyres!

Day 22, Sunday June 17 - Niz. Novgorod to Moscow

Today was a day of about 400 plus km and we departed at 6.30am driving in the rain for the first few hours. We were determined to keep the speed down and let Gypsy cruise at 45 mph, a maximum of 50 mph to try and maintain a stable journey. Approximately 60km from Moscow we stopped at a petrol station for fuel and oil – upon checking the car we found a bulge in the near side rear tyre - the strain from the bulge meant it was only a question of time until the tyre would split. We were about 60km out of Moscow and we had no other choice but to continue at, what we decided, was a very steady rate of 20mph to cover the remaining distance.

It was about 1.30pm when we found the problem with this tyre and before we proceeded on our journey to Moscow my thoughts raced as to what we would to salvage this problem. We had had tyres sent to St Petersburg and as far as we were aware, although our personnel in the UK had been trying with difficulty for a number of days, the tyres were still awaiting clearance from customs. My only other thought was that I have another car back home that has the same size tyres on the rear of the car.

I called Chris [Tim’s youngest son] at home to ask him if he could remove the two tyres from this car and give them to Pat [Tim’s wife] who was travelling out to St Petersburg with Adela [John’s partner] the next day. This was undoubtedly a risky procedure from a number of points of view – two 880 x 120 beaded edged tyres is no small hand luggage and to be carried over by two ladies was not going to be an easy task. They were going via Schiphol, Amsterdam which meant they had to re-load there and then eventually try and clear customs in St Petersburg – which meant they could in fact struggle to Russia only to have them withheld by the airline or the Russian authorities. Chris and Pat fortunately agreed to help us out with this contingency plan!

After slowly making our way to Moscow and having had a shower and my thoughts moved to the question of obtaining the tyres that were sitting in St Petersburg. Until we were able to obtain at least one tyre for the rear we would be unable to leave Moscow – I enquired as to the overnight train services and left the hotel in order to catch the 11.30pm sleeper train due to arrive in St Petersburg at 7.45am the following day (700km in distance)...

Day 21, Saturday June 16 - Kazan to Niz. Novgorod

This was a shorter day of about 400km plus. We were nervous because we knew we had no spare tyres for the rear (I mention rear because there are different sizes for the front and rear tyres). We set off at about 6.30am, the weather was good - we had only got about 50km into our journey and all of a sudden the near side rear tyre came off the car and I saw it rolling diagonally away from us into a field which brought the car to a holt! We had to find the tyre because obviously we didn ’t have any spares and the extra concern was that even if we did find this rolling tyre it may have been ruined which would have stopped us permanently wherever we had been. We searched the field high and low for about an hour – John eventually finding the tyre just to the side of field – fortunately the tyre didn’t seem to be damaged so we fitted a new tube in the tyre and continued the journey.

We were now only the Sunday away from Moscow and we felt that if we could get to Moscow where we were to spend Monday as a rest day – we could then either continue our journey, on the rest day, to St. Petersburg or try and do something about getting the tyres sent from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

Day 20, Friday June 15 – Perm to Kazan

Today is a journey in excess of 700km so we set off at about 6.30am. The day was going well until about 200km from Kazan when we had a rear tyre blow out! It was ruined and had fractured around the bead – so we proceeded to fit another rear tyre. By this stage we had already fitted four tyres to the rear – two of them being new tyres and two being used; and we had fitted two new tyres to the front. It was difficult in getting new tyres from Dunlop/tyre supplier before actually leaving the UK. They tend to make the beaded edged tyres in batches and if the supplier has sold out you have to wait for the next batch to be made. Fortunately, as all the tyre suppliers were out of supply, I had kept some tyres in stock (with only signing up for the rally six months in advance there wasn’t time to keep buying from the different batches).

Although prior to leaving on the rally I had arranged to have some tyres dispatched to St. Petersburg this still seemed a long way to go from 200km out of Kazan with no spare tyres left. Luckily the rest of trip to Kazan was pretty uneventful.

Day 18, Wednesday June 13 – Rest day Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg looks like a big, modern city although we haven’t had much time to look around as we needed to do further repairs to the radiator shell. I went to a local garage called ‘DATADOT’ where they spent a number of hours repairing the radiator and the radiator outer shell. At the end of the repair neither Yakov or Andrev, the owners of the garage, would accept any payment – it is really very much appreciated the help they gave us.
All the people in Mongolia and Russia have been extremely helpful – offering facilities and help to a number of cars on the rally.

It is an endurance rally so I realised when we signed up that it was going to be no picnic! I went on a 12 week fitness regime of going to the gym and eating extra healthily – to try and lose weight but mainly to get fit and prepared for the rally. ‘Prepare for the worst and expect the best’ I kept telling myself and John – there have been times through the Gobi Desert and Mongolia which we couldn’t have prepared for and in preparing for the worst we vastly underestimated. This journey would be testing for any modern day car but for a 1903 it was driving the impossible. We are not only driving the car and enduring the distance but having to respect the age of the car as well.

We have met a number of participants who have had problems and been camping out for a couple of days and waiting for transport – to pick their car up or repair it. We are really pleased that we have managed to keep going and catching up with the group was a real achievement. I take my hat off to all cars in the ‘pioneer crew’ (pre 1921 cars) - Daniel Ward and David Ingleby, in the 1908 Talbot, seemingly progress with ease – their philosophy is get up early in the morning and keep going. I praise both Daniel and David with their approach.

Also the 1907 Itala of David and Karen Ayre – David is doing all the driving which no mean achievement and indeed it is no mean achievement for a lady passenger to be part of such a rally on an open car – I personally feel the pioneer team have held their heads really high.

To date we have had to change 3 tyres – due to two having bulges and one blowing and us having to repair it on the side of the road. However the beaded edge tyres (which if you recall I was concerned about) have well exceeded all my expectations – we have had no problems through the Gobi desert and all of Mongolia. We have also had to replace the clutch on the side of the road, repair the fuel tank, the radiator, replace the clutch and chain…but we are almost half way!

Day 14, Saturday June 9 – Started from a small village called Ongudai, about 250km from Russian border

We went over to the police compound where we could strip off the radiator and radiator shell in order to get repaired. At about 8am a man came into the compound and all the police jumped into action (it turned out later he was the chief of police) and he dispatched the radiator shell to one particular area and the radiator to another area and about 4hrs later both came back sufficiently repaired.

We were now two days behind which meant we would have to drive the group’s three day schedule in two days thus giving us some 1,700km over two days. Actually 1,700km in two days in a modern car on a modern highway may not seem too much – but I can assure you in a 1903 Mercedes it is tough. To give you some idea, you will no doubt have seen photos of Gypsy (no windscreen, no side panels etc etc) you would presume that no one would want to sleep in that co-driver’s seat but we were so tired that that’s where we were catching up on sleep so we able to drive later.

Day 13, Friday June 8 - Altay to Khovd
HOLY COW! Khovd to Border Camp

We were getting into the routine of waking up at about 4am, stowing our tents etc and leaving at about 5.30am so we could drive for about 14hrs and then as the sun was going down we would find a suitable site to pitch the tents – the landscape here was virtually like prairie land. We felt that by maintaining this type of speed and routine we could catch up with the rest of the party on their rest day. Unfortunately this was not to materialise!

As we were crossing into Russia in the late afternoon the weather turned to rain and mist and the daylight was beginning to fade. There are no fences for cattle in Russia – they cross roads and graze wherever they wish. As we were coming into a village called Ongudai (our translation from Russian so please forgive if not 100% accurate) a cow decided to cross the road and we had absolutely no ability to avoid it. The impact lifted the cow completely into the air and in doing so damaged Gypsy’s headlights and her radiator which meant we lost all our water and completely put us out of action. [See very fun blog written by Steve Butler in reference to this! – Sam]

Fortunately there were a few local villagers around - one of them was an English teacher and although her English wasn’t particularly good it was better than our Russian! They agreed to tow us to the a village 15km away where there was a ‘hotel’ and ‘garage’ facilities – we had to give them some of Gypsy’s petrol to do this! The ‘hotel’ in question would be more accurately described as a doss house – the actual rate was 250 roubles per night (£5) but they obviously saw us coming and actually charged us 600 roubles (£12)! They said we couldn’t leave Gypsy outside the hotel as it would be dismantled by the morning so they agreed with the local police station that we could put it in their compound over night.

Just a note on our amenities here - Eastern Siberia is very primitive – for example they have no toilet facilities - only external holes in the ground. Thinking about this in the winter really concentrates the mind!

See our photos from day 13

Day 10, Tuesday June 5 - Altay
GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!

Waking at about 5.30-6am, as the early starters were beginning to depart, we knew that we didn’t have a choice and would have to take a day out for repairs. The rally has scheduled such an arduous driving programme that losing a day is a really tough call to make but we felt that once the repairs were done we would be able to catch the group up on their next scheduled rest day (Day 14).

We went to the local village and found a workshop (actually that’s a bit of an elaboration really it was just a shed) where we could work on Gypsy and repair the petrol tank. Whilst dismantling the body – in order to take out the petrol tank – an American lady who was working in Mongolia came into the workshop to help with the translation.

She spoke to the owner of the establishment and explained how we needed to weld the petrol tank to repair it. Now in the West the only way to safely complete this procedure is by taking all the proper precautions including degassing the tank, if any fumes are left in the tank any nearby heat is likely to cause an explosion. This was not so in Mongolia!

The owner stated that he had welded many petrol tanks and he knew exactly how and what to do – his procedure was in fact (instead of draining the tank) to insert 10 litres of petrol into the tank and then hold a flaming torch to the nozzle of the tank (where you would put petrol in) light the fumes and hold the torch there (which was being fed by the 10litres of fuel in the tank) whilst his electric welder welded the tank!

I have to say that when John and I witnessed this horrifying event we were on the opposite side of the road to make sure we were well clear of the petrol tank! However it succeeded (thankfully!) and I have photos to prove it (which I have been trying to download to you – that’s another story – but hopefully you should have them by Moscow at the latest!).

After this drama we were only able to set off very late into the afternoon and covered about 50km until we pitched out tent in the middle of nowhere to enable our own bodies to refuel! So started the tuna and balsamic vinaigrette diet which was to last for the next 5 days!

See our photos from day 10

Day 9, Monday June 4 - Bayankhongor to Altay

We refuelled early in the morning and managed to buy a second hand battery from a local which we placed on the floorboard by the navigator’s feet. The terrain from Bayankhongor to Altay was certainly no better than previously, in fact it was probably worse – Gypsy was having to operate almost as a 4x4 over ruts, bridges, rocks, and gullies. This kind of terrain would shake any car to pieces – you can’t drive any more than 15-20mph which is hard work when covering over 400km!

An additional problem driving at these low speeds caused was that we had fitted an alternator which was driven off the drive shafts - but these only gave a charge to the battery when we were moving in excess of 28mph. On normal roads this would not present a problem but over the Mongolian terrain it meant we had no charge going to the battery and a heavier than normal discharge through the use of the compressor.

By the afternoon our battery was sapped and the second was virtually drained – fortunately one of the service support crew passed us so we got one of their emergency batteries. With one problem controlled we then had to contend with Gypsy’s chain coming off! We had decided not to oil the chain when we travelled through the Gobi desert as the mixture of sand and oil is very abrasive which would rapidly wear the chain – however if you don’t oil you have metal rubbing against metal which is also very wearing – Catch 22!

We managed to get about 1km within Altay’s campsite when all three of the batteries died – although 1km doesn’t sound far away we were still completely in middle of nowhere. At around 3.30am we saw and flagged down a local 4x4 who towed us into campsite – John and I exhaustedly crawled into our tent in the clothes we were wearing.

See our photos from day 9

Day 8, Sunday June 3 - Khakorin to Bayankhongor

The leak was increasing – we realised that we wouldn’t be able to man the manual pump throughout the day therefore we came up with the concept of using the small pneumatic compressor (that we used for the tyres) into the fuel system. This could then be switched on and off in short bursts to supply air pressure to the fuel tank. This worked ideally but at the cost of a heavy battery discharge - we managed to make campsite at 11pm we suspect on a wing and a prayer (with virtually nil power left in the battery). If Day 7 is called ‘Scott’s Luck’ then today has to be called ‘Apollo 13’ (in reference to all the improvisations and alterations they had to make to get the spaceship back to earth)!

As I arrived at the camp my home (family in Jersey) informed me that the official website stated that Gypsy arrived into Ulaan Bataar on a truck which is obviously completely inaccurate – we arrived under our own steam! I will inform the organisers but at the moment we have more pressing issues!

See our photos from day 8

Day 7, Saturday June 2 – Ulaan Bataar to Khakorin – SCOTT’S LUCK!

After setting off from Ulaan Bataar we discovered another problem - a petrol tank leak! This presented us with a multitude of problems to unravel! Firstly fuel stations in Mongolia are extremely rare, in fact they are a minimum of 300km apart. The organisers had advised we had enough fuel to last for at least 600km – however they didn’t mention that this would be over such terrain where we would have to only use first and second gear. Due to the leak and the terrain our expected range was significantly reduced.

Also we had previously been informed by the organisers that we didn’t require much local currency as they had pre paid for all fuel in Mongolia where we presented vouchers at designated fuel stations. This did not work as well in practise as they had perhaps envisaged. Cars with problems and cars requiring fuel needed fuelling stops prior to the designated stops and therefore needed some Mongolian Tugrik.

Luckily we found a fuel station mid way between the start at Ulaan Bataar and the designated station but although we arrived with thousands of Mongolian Tugrik we only had sufficient money to buy 2litres (£1 is about 2,300 Mongolian Tugrik). We tried offering them euros and dollars but both were declined. Fortuitously a mini bus pulled up in the station and a young lady on it spoke English so we managed to barter with one of the travellers on the mini bus and exchanged some 200 US dollars for the much coveted Mongolian Tugrik! Scott’s Luck – that we found the station, there was a mini bus with an English speaker and someone was willing to exchange cash!

The other major problem with the leaking fuel tank, apart from the obvious, was Gypsy’s pressurised tank system. She uses exhaust gas to pressurise the tank forcing the petrol to the engine and carburettor and of course by losing petrol in turn means it is losing pressure. This meant whoever the co-driver was had to constantly use the hand pump to compensate which is a very tiring procedure!

We arrived at Khakorin camp at about 9pm.

See our photos from day 7

Day 6, Friday June 1 – Rest Day Ulaan Bataar

Although we didn’t arrive in Ulaan Bataar until 3.30am we had to turn our rest day into a working repairs day! Luckily the rest day came just at the right time - we really needed to repair the leaking radiator – one thing you can not afford in Mongolia is to have a water shortage!

See our photos from day 6

Day 5 – May 31, Sainshand to Ulaan Bataar

We rose at 5am to set off and try and make up ground to get to Sainshand so we would be at the Day 5 start position. The rest of this journey, whilst not as bad as the previous day, still took us some time to complete with us arriving at Sainshand mid morning. Nearly all the other cars had already departed for the 5th day journey to Ulaan Bataar. We had a number of things to rectify on the car and it was sometime after noon before we left – one of our concerns was that the radiator had developed a leak and whilst we were carrying an extra 25litres of water running out was a major concern in somewhere so arid.

I have to say that today was my lowest point of the journey so far as I had fears that with these problems and with the journey ahead we would not make Ulaan Bataar. This was critical as I knew we needed a day for repairing the radiator and other maintenance on the car.

By late afternoon with relatively little ground covered we checked with the organisers as to transport availability however we could not make contact with the service support team and therefore completed a temporary repair and continued. Parts of the journey became slightly better and we were able to increase the 20-25km that we were limited to travelling at over most of the terrain.

We eventually arrived in Ulaan Bataar 3.30am – the morning of Friday 1st June. Both of us were glad to get into bed (not together!) that evening, I can assure you! I had told John during preparation for the expedition – I was planning for the worst and hoping for the best – however the events over the previous two days had shown me that the worst I had in mind was vastly underestimated.

See our photos from day 5

Day 4 – May 30, Erenhot to Sainshand (plus Border)

One hundred and thirty cars crossing the border from China into Mongolia was quite an experience in itself especially with the Chinese authorities being so pedantic – all numbers on the forms and cars had to match before we were allowed through. John, as the co-driver went through a different section to Gypsy and me. We were pulled over! Well to be more accurate I had been cleared but the official wasn’t happy with the paperwork correlating to Gypsy – this went on for the best part of half an hour. They couldn’t match the number ‘1903’ on their paperwork with a number on the car – eventually when I explained it was the year of manufacture they let us through!

As we were waiting for the other cars to cross into Mongolia we met a couple of cyclist who had cycled from London to Mongolia and were now crossing into China – in 1996-97 the same couple – Richard Fergé and Stani Martinkova – had cycled from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, the southern most tip of South America (as close to Antarctica as you can get). I have to say that although I felt the challenge we were taking on with the 1903 Mercedes was fairly daunting – this couple made me feel like I was taking a walk in the park!

Arriving in Mongolia was a huge culture shock – although previous days had been rather arduous and long on the participants and cars we were certainly not ready for what was to come. Immediately after crossing the border we were in the Gobi Desert where there were no roads or tracks, even with the GPS co-ordinates you had to make your own track. The cars could be miles apart, sometimes you would see one in the distance but you could go for hours without seeing anything but an infinite horizon of desert – it became disorientating after awhile as there is absolutely nothing to focus on.

Gypsy is a fantastic car – however one thing she doesn’t like is bad terrain. Going through the terrain in the desert twisted and shook her and therefore the pace we could move at was dictated by what Gypsy was prepared to travel at without shaking herself to pieces. Therefore for the time control, which was scheduled for the afternoon, we were already extremely late.

During the evening as we were continuing to Sainshand a sandstorm hit us and driving became extremely difficult as there is absolutely no protection (ie a completely open top car with no windscreen or side panelling) on Gypsy – however we pressed on but unfortunately at about 8pm we came off track slightly and ended up putting Gypsy’s axles in sand. So the next two hours were spent with us digging her out and using the ‘waffle boards’. Thank goodness we had put a shovel on board!

We had just about completed and were on our way to solid ground when the ‘cavalry’ arrived in the form of two or three other participants and two of the organiser’s vehicles. They assisted us in the last push that was required to get Gypsy back onto solid ground. We all then continued towards our destination until about midnight when the organisers decided we should pitch tents and stay until the morning.

Everybody laughed at me when I was packing Marks and Spencer tins of tuna into our weight restricted car and I had made Pat’s special balsamic vinaigrette in a plastic container labelled ‘engine oil’ in case the Chinese authorities wouldn’t allow food products into the country – however having arrived at the campsite a couple of tins of the tuna with some of the balsamic mixture were gratefully received!

See our photos from day 4

See our photos from day 3

Day 2 – May 28, Datong to Siziwangpi

See our photos from day 2