Car at home – Final thoughts

Having driven the Mongol Rally, we simply couldn’t stop there, so Simon & Oliver (his mate who didn’t get to go on the Rally, but fancied a bit of the return leg) picked up the car in Paldiski, Estonia and drove it in snow ice and God knows what else back to London…

 

Final Thoughts

We are very proud to have completed the Rally, when we started we knew it would be difficult, sometimes challenging and we stuck together through the thick and thin for something quite unique.

Now looking back some 3-4 months and having driven the car from Estonia again I really must say I totally enjoyed my time and must send my heart felt thanks to Shaun who as co-driver in this escapade made it all the more enjoyable. It truly was a pleasure being with him on the rally, and no doubt we might be doing something similar very soon…   As for Peter, sigh, the youngest official photographer on the Rally I’m sure, and being my nephew it was particularly special in being able to take him on such an adventure, and also see how much he grew into it, especially once we had left the European countries.

We all immersed ourselves into the challenge, and met some absolutely wonderful human beings along the way, and I mean truly wonderful people who would drop whatever they were doing and take you to the nearest mechanic, call up their friends to all chip in and help, it was a fantastic feeling to know that there were all these ‘Guardian Angels’ taking care of us along our route, in countries we knew little about and certainly have grown fonder of since.

We managed to achieve our main goal, that of delivering the kindly donated Arsenal shirts to Christina Noble’s Children’s Foundation Ger Village in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.   All 35 shirts were delivered and the kids seemed very happy and hardly believed they were official Arsenal shirts, for which we had to confirm they really are!

So overall it was a splendid 2017 for me at least, the Mongol Rally being the highlight and something I will remember for the rest of my days, as well as bringing home the little car that helped us achieve so much.   Thanks to everyone involved and it was a true pleasure to share it with so many people.

Simon

Mincing about in Switzerland… and oh no, don’t drink THAT water Peter!

Just a reminder, as some people seem to have got the impression this was some kind of ‘holiday’ or ‘jolly’, I advise you to read the below from the Adventurists, and remember during the rally there is NO SUPPORT from anyone officially involved in it’s organisation.

Warning

You may have guessed, but these are genuinely dangerous things to do.

The website is written in a light-hearted fashion but you cannot overestimate the risks involved in taking part in these adventures.

Your chances of being seriously injured or dying as a result of taking part are high. Individuals who have taken part in the past have been permanently disfigured, seriously disabled or lost their life.

These are not holidays. These are adventures and so by their very nature extremely risky.

You really are putting both your health and life at risk.

That’s the whole point.

Finished!

We finished the Mongol Rally on 4th September 2017.   Peter had to return just a couple of days earlier to be in time for his University.

Here we are at the finish line….

Many thanks for all those who supported us – you can still Donate especially now as we have completed the Rally and delivered the Arsenal shirts to the children in Christina Noble’s wonderful Gers Village.

 

Two weeks to go – eek!

With just two weeks to go we are so excited!

Shaun has re-done the map route about 100 times, hardly eaten anything and just wants to get going.

Peter enjoyed his visit to the Russian Visa Centre and admired the way they promoted the culture even in such an unusual setting.

Simon has been desperately trying to get the car finished before we head off, Air con remaining the one biggie!

We haven’t done too bad on the fund raising, but as it’s now upon us we’d like to extend an extra arm out to anyone who wishes to donate to our worthy cause and help us reach our total and the £1000 split between our 3 charities:

We are also excited about the prospect of reaching Mongolia and giving the Children in the CNCF Orphanage our kindly donated by The Arsenal Foundation , Arsenal shirts.

Donate Now

Arsenal Foundation – Shirts for the Kids

A massive Thank You to the Arsenal Foundation and in particular Ray Coventry for providing us with these Fantastic Arsenal shirts! Don’t they look just great! (We’ve got more than 2!)

We will travel 10,000 miles through 18 countries to deliver these Arsenal shirts to the kids at the Blue Skies Ger Village, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia which is run by the wonderful people at Christina Noble Children’s Foundation. These unfortunate kids, a combination of street children and orphans have had a very difficult start in life. We hope that by delivering these Arsenal shirts, and then embarking on a game of footie, we will bring some smiles to their faces and something to remember for a long time.
Pack your shin pads Shaun & Peter!

(Yes, it is highly likely I will pin a ‘Kick Me’ to Shaun’s back but keep it under your hat!)

Donate Now

 

Children’s Liver Disease Foundation

Once Peter was on board, we then got in contact with the Children’s Liver Disease Foundation for an Authorisation Letter allowing us to raise money, and here it is…

The very people who had been so helpful to Peter and his Family when he had been diagnosed with liver cancer at a young age and taken part in ground breaking surgery, with his Father, Mark, donating a lobe of his liver as a ‘Living Donor’. This groundbreaking surgery has made it possible for Peter to join us on our mad choice of adventure – The Mongol Rally!

Many thanks to CLDF for sending us some tshirts and other items we will use in the lead up and on the rally itself to raise funds for them.

We have two other Charities, Cool Earth & Christina Noble Children’s Foundation, so please DONATE what you can to help us and our Charities!

Welcome on board Peter

It is with great excitement I can finally announce that my nephew, Peter Randall is joining the team for our adventure to Mongolia!

You can read more about Peter on our About Us page, but here is a brief rundown. He’s studying Celtic & Anglo-Saxon stuff at Aberdeen Uni and is a keen Aberdeen F.C. ‘Don’. His chosen charity is the Children’s Liver Disease Foundation, for whom he has a special affinity after being diagnosed with liver cancer at a young age and being part of ground breaking surgery, his Father, Mark, donating half his liver as a ‘Living Donor’. The charity helped him and his family through this ordeal and we’d like to help them by raising funds through this charitable event.

We have two other charities we are supporting, please check out the Charities page.

Please DONATE now

Help us raise funds for our Charities and complete the Mongol Rally!

Authorisation Letters from our Charities

For those who require them we are pleased to announce we now have Authorisation Letters from both our charities. The letters confirm that we are officially allowed to raise money for our charities.

We appreciate the efforts of both our charities in getting these letters to us so quickly when we know they are extremely busy at this time of the year.

They can be found on our Charities page and below.

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Don’t forget to DONATE!

Website Launched

We’ve finally got the website launched, we do hope you enjoy it and most importantly…. please

DONATE!

To find out about us and why we are doing the Mongol Rally 2017 try the About us page.

For information on our charities and the great work they do see the Charities page.

To visualise the route we will take on this 10,000 mile venture view our Route page.

We will have some wonderful photos and videos from our Dry Run in Norway in the coming months, which will appear in the currently empty Gallery page.

Oh.. and did I mention the Donate page?
All help is much appreciated by us and our charities.

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Keep coming back to visit us for more blog updates and news!

Christina Noble Children’s Foundation on board!

We have great pleasure in welcoming Christina Noble Children’s Foundation as our second charity and our personal choice.

We had always wanted to help a Children’s Charity, and CNCF are the perfect match for us. CNCF have a centre for children in need, in Ulaanbaatar  the capital of Mongolia.  This means we will be able to take the kindly donated Liverpool & Arsenal Foundation shirts and other items and deliver them to the kids.

This was our main goal as part of the venture!

The Christina Noble Children’s Foundation is an international partnership of people dedicated to serving children in need of emergency and long-term medical care, nutritional rehabilitation, educational opportunities, vocational training and job placement, as well as children at risk of sexual and economic exploitation.

You can read more about them on the Charities page here.

Simon & Shaun send a big Thank You to Kate & Fiona for all their help so far!

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