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On the 24th July 2010 This is our Everest will be embarking on one of the world's last great adventures, the Mongol Rally. This charity event will take us from England all the way to the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar. We will need to cover 10,000 miles across some of the world's most hostile and unforgiving terrain. For the rally This is our Everest have decided to support the and the amazing work they do in helping to improve the quality of life for Mongolia's street children. Please look through the website for more information on the team, the charity we are supporting, our amazing sponsors and to  keep up to date with our preparations. If you would like to make a donation to the Christina Noble Children's Foundation then just click on the JustGiving link on the left.

Final Stats and Final Thanks

So here are the final stats for This Is Our Everest's Mongol Rally 2010-

Number of days on the road: 36

Number of miles driven: 7823.6

Number of countries travelled through: 13 (England, France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia x2, Kazakhstan, Mongolia)

Number of times pulled over by police: 5 (Rich 2, Ian 2, Tom 1)

Longest continuous driving stint: 36 hours

Number of new clutches: 1

Number of broken suspension springs: 2

Number of cracks in fuel tank: 1

Number of punctures: 3

Number of major border crossings: 6

Shortest border crossing: 4 hours (Kazakhstan)

Longest border crossing: 50 hours (Mongolia)

Number of nights spent sleeping in the car: 4 (1x at Romanian KFC car park, 1x in corner of angry Ukrainian Farmer's field, 2x Mongolian Border)

Number of times held at gunpoint: 1 (Once was more than enough!)

Total amount raised for charity online: £4315.79 (so far!)

Amount car was bought for in UK: £1450

Amount car was sold for in Ulaanbaatar: £2250

Profit made on the car after thrashing it across a third of the world: £800

Proceeds towards Mongolian charities from sale of car: £1400 (estimate)

Therefore the estimated total charity proceeds of our adventure: £5715.79

Ian, Rich and Tom would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributed towards this adventure. To all the people who donated via our website, gave us money towards the purchase of the car, the people who helped us with our collection days in London, our sponsors who gave us equipment or media coverage and anyone who followed our adventure. We really couldn't have done it without you and we wouldn't have had such a good time doing it either. This really was an adventure of a lifetime and one we will never forget. Thanks again,

Ian, Rich and Tom

This is our Everest - conquerors of the 2010 Mongol Rally

Ulaan-by-car!

WE MADE IT! After about 5 weeks we rocked up in Ulaanbaatar on Thursday 26th and officially handed over the Terios on the 27th which led to a rather large Formula One style champagne celebration! The last few weeks of the trip had been amazing so will relive them for you now by going back afew weeks to the last blog where we had a nice day off in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, which was a suprisingly modern city, some of the buildings there wouldnt look out of place in Dubai! The next day we left the sophistication of Astana and headed for the slightly more desolate Semey which was used by the Soviet union as a site for 456 nuclear tests between 1949-1989, needless to say we didnt touch much of the local produce there! However we did meet up with afew rally teams who we headed out with to the Russian border the next day, the border itself was relatively pain free, however one team we were with forgot their customs slip which meant an extra few hours wait! Once through the border we drove into the night until we reached our desination of Barnaul where we rested up and got the cars ready for an assault on the Atlay mountains.

The mountains themselves had beautiful scenery, probably the best road on the trip as it wound its way up and down the snow capped mountains. The first night we camped with around nine teams on the bank of a huge glacial river, the second night the rest of the convoy were allured by the comfort of a small hotel however our team decided we wanted to camp again and had a great time making an awesome fire! The next day we got up nice and early and drove out of the mountains to the Mongolian border, little did we know of what would await us. After a full days wait on the Russian side of the border we eventually got to the Mongolian border thinking we were almost through, however we were told we would have to wait in a compound for the night as the border was closed. Little did we know we would be in that compound for 50 hours! A very sorry two days were spent living in snow covered compound, getting very cold sleeping in the cars and getting frustrated at the Mongolian border guards for being on facebook all day when the should have been processing our cars through! So eventually, after arriving on Monday morning we were released from the compound on Wednesday afternoon, as soon as we were realeased we sped out of the border straight into the breathtaking Mongolian landscape. We stopped for food in Olgi, and then camped up for the night beside a lake with afew other teams. Next day we travelled through the Mongolian mountains and conquoered our first river crossings until we got to the Ger Village in Khovd, where we had afew drinks with a number of rally teams and sampled the horse-inspired local Mongolian music. After a very cold wash in the river (very good at getting rid of a hangover) we headed for the next town of Altai. Unfortunately this was the point were the Terios decided it had had enough punishment and afew hours into the drive we got a hole in our fuel tank, cue an attempt at patching up the hole. This held up for about 20 mins and then the petrol really started to flow out but we decided to carry on, however whilst this was going on we managed to drive over the one bolt in the Gobi desert and shredded the tyre. Cue a very hurried tyre change whilst still trying to save some of the petrol coming out of the tank! After this we decided to camp up for the night with the 4 other cars in our convoy who we would stay with to the end.

Hoping for more luck the next day we made a better attempt at patching the tank and promptly got two more punctures within an hour. After another long day in the Mongolian desert we eventually got to Altai and stayed in a hotel, we woke up next day to find 3 of the other teams had all the stuff stolen from their roofracks. Joy. The only saviour to the situation was that we found the 'Mongol Rally Auto Service' a garage specially for Mongol Rally teams and the guys there did a fantastic job of re-welding our tank, replacing our 3 punctured tyres and also telling us that, completely unknown to us, we had snapped both of the rear suspension springs! We got the car fixed and headed out of town towards Bayankhongor, at this point the roads became a series of dirt tracks and we managed to go quite a way off course and ended up in a town where even the locals couldnt find it on the map, after a few more river crossings we camped up for the night. Next day we had a bit more luck and reached Bayankhongor and the other teams fixed afew more problems they had picked up after a night in a hotel we set off for the last town before Ulaanbaatar, Arvaikeer. Just before the town we came to the first bit of tarmac we had seen in Mongolia, which was a particulary momentus occaission as this piece of tarmac would take us all the way to Ulaanbaatar!

After spending the rest of the day visiting a Mongol Rally funded library we headed out of town and camped up for the last night, cue a cook off between all the teams and a small pyrotechnic display to use up all our remaining petrol and butane canisters! The next day we got on the tarmac and drove the last 400km to Ulaanbaatar, we were ecstatic when we arrived however little did we know the worst traffic congestion in the world centres in Ulaanbaatar and this led to another 2 hours battling our way through the mental locals in an attempt to find a hotel. Next day we emptied the cars of all our stuff and drove them the short way to the finish line (we still managed to get really lost!) at which point we had a large amount of celebratory drinks and sprayed each other with afew bottles of champagne! Since then we have been soaking in some of the Ulaanbaatar culture and sharing stories with other ralliers. Yesterday myself and Rich visited the Christina Noble Ger village and spent a day visiting the kids of the village who we had raised all our money for which was a really rewarding experience and made it all seem worthwhile. Tom then flew out this morning and me and Rich are flying out on Thursday, which will bring this amazing adventure to a close! Our Terios will be going to auction in the next day or so and once this is done we will post the vital statistics of our rally up here. Finally a huge thanks to our sponsors and everyone who has supported the team and followed us on our travels, we couldnt have done it without you! See everyone back in the Uk soon.

Thanks again,

Ian

P.S Tom and Rich say hi

Back on the road!

Well we are into the third week and we are still in the game! Last time we did an update the Terios was holed up in the Ukrainian Kwik fit, the outcome of which was that thankfully the car was fixed however the price we were quoted recieved a substantial 'foreigner tax' and the price went up to $450. We spent over an hour haggling with a Ukrainian man the size of the three of us combined and after alot of blood, sweat and tears we got the price down by a whopping $36. With an overall feeling of delight to be back on the road (albeit with slightly lighter wallets) we sped out of Odessa. After being stuck in a tiny hotel room for three days going nowhere once we started driving we just kept on going which culminated in a marathon 36-hour straight drive across Ukraine and Russia until we reached the Kazakhstan border! Just before the border we met up with a team called the Desert Beagles, namely Jay and Matt, and their fantastic steed Shanequa the Suzuki Swift, who we have been convoying with ever since. After meeting up with these guys we filled up our jerry cans and food supplies ready for the difficulties of the barren and wild landscape of Kazakhstan. We promptly got to the first town of Atryau and ended staying in the nicest hotel we have stayed in so far!

We hit the road again early heading in the direction of Aktobe and all was well for afew hours untill the tarmac road stopped, to be repalced by gravel roads. At this point we asked some locals if this was the right way to Aktobe, who promptly told us by frantically pointing in the opposite direction that there was a road but that is was best to go back and go a different way. With some British grit, determination and stubborness we thought we have got this far so lets carry on. Almost straight away the road became a maze of two foot deep pot holes and it ended up being better on the dirt road which ran alongside! Due to our stubborness it took us two days along this road to get to the next town of Aktobe. As soon as the relief of finally reaching our destination had subsided we were told by some teams that we met that we had to register in Kazakhstan otherwise we would face either A. Large fine, B. Arrest, C. Deportation to the embassy in the capital, and D. All of the above. We only had five days in which to register and found out on the fourth, which was of course a Sunday and the immigration office was closed! Cue a mad rush to the next town's (Konstanai) immigration office where we were confronted with a registration form which was handily only in Cyrillic. Thankfully we met Sergei, a Russian guy who very generously filled out all five of our forms and got us registered into Kazakhstan with 5 minutes to spare! After buying Sergei dinner to say thanks for saving our bacon (and wallets) we got out of the town, pulled off the road and camped up for the night.

Next day we got up really early and drove 700km to the capital, Astana. Here we decided that after our marathon drive afew days earlier and camping for the last few days we would have a rest day in Astana. This rest day promptly gave us an excuse to meet up with a few teams and hit the Kazakh nightclubs till 4am! Today we enjoyed our first lie in for ages and now for the rest of the day we going to rest up and stock up on supplies ready for our assult on the rest of Kazakhstan, abit more of Russia and the wilds of Mongolia! We are not too confident on the number of internet cafes in Mongolia so not sure how many updates we will be able to do but keep checking the Spot satellite page for updates of our position!

Hope all is well at home,

Ian

Still CLUTCH-ing on....

Well it has been one long and eventful week. The rally started with a bang on Saturday when the team along with a few hundred others set off from Goodwood. It was a great day and we had a fantastic send off.

However, things started to go wrong from this point as we almost completely missed our ferry due to being stuck behind a Green Godess or 2, but we made it in the end thanks to rich doing his best impreesion of Nigel Mansell. Day 2 actually went very well we covered hundreds of miles and managed to get all the way to Nuremburg. Days 3-5 were pretty uneventful in rally terms - lots of driving on unfamilar roads but highlights included a 'lock in' at KFC, night driving in Romania, Bucharest at rush hour and ascending the Transfagasaran highway.

Friday evening was when things began to heat up so to speak, our first border crossing followed very quickly by our second. Both of which were just as painful as each other, Moldova was expensive and Ukraine took ages. However, after jumping through lots of hoops we managed to make it into the Ukraine. Here we meet up with loads of other teams and slept in a field, only to be woken up by some 'aggressive' ploughing in the morning.

On the Ukrainian roads the Terios did start to struggle - the gears became incredibly heavy until finally the clutch died and I had to drive without it through Odessa, twice, a bit of an experience. So we have just dropped it off to CTO 24 the local kwik fit who we think are putting in a toyata clutch for an 'agreed' 300 dollars, hmmm, lets see.

So all in all a busy week, 2000 plus miles, 2 ferry crossings, the biggest potholes we have ever seen and hopefully a new clutch.

Speak soon, keep checking for updates

Tom

Newtown, UK

on our way to goodwood!

A nice day for a drive

Tomorrow myself, Ian and Rich will head west for Ulaanbaatar and with a following wind we hope to arrive in late August. This said we will need our fair share of good fortune and reliability.

However, we feel that we stand a good chance due to all of the people who have been so kind and have offered and of there support, the latest being TH White who have been really fantastic - lending their support and expertise.

We just want to say a big thanks also to all of our other sponsors and frineds and family who have donated. So thanks guys with your help we have just broken the £4000 mark. Be sure to check back as you can track the team and we will be updating the website as we go. Speak soon.

Tom

The Cars the Star!

Only a few days to go before the off now so very excited and really want to get going! We have been doing lots of work (kind of have to now!) and firstly the car has been fully stickered up and looks pretty fantastic, please check out the photos in the gallery. A massive thanks again to Rosie and Ian Hunter and Henley Sign People for these stickers. In addition to this we have given the car a bit of a service and even made a petrol tank guard, thanks to Dave Joy for all his help with this. We also had a brilliant result with our London collection for Meningitis Research as the final total came in at £1429.27 so thanks to everyone who gave up their day off to come and help us with this.

We have also managed to get all our kit now and Go Outdoors were very kind again as they gave us a fantastic discount in their Swindon store for our last few bits of kit. Also in this busy week we have been featured on the Swindon Town FC website with a brilliant article by professional writer and online broadcaster Chris Smith. (Check out the press page for the article.) Our media fame doesn't stop there though as we will be appearing in the Gazette and Herald on Thursday so keep a look out for that. We will do another blog before we leave with any last minute details.

Ian

It's all GO GO GO...Outdoors

We have been incredibly busy recently as there is now less than 2 weeks before we depart. On Thursday the team along with a few willing helpers descended upon Fenchurch Street and St Pancras stations all in aid of the Menigitis Research Foundation. The money is currently being counted so check back soon for an update. However, we all had really heavy buckets by the end of the day so we are hoping that we raised a big total for a cause that is very close to our hearts.

As well as increasing our charity commitments we have also been finalising plans for our journey. We have sorted maps for the more remote parts on our trip and we have MOT'ed our car. As well as this we have sorted all of our kit, for this we found everything that we needed at Go Outdoors. They were generous enough to give the team a fantastic discount in their Swindon store. So we just want to say a massive thank you again to GO Outdoors.

As well as these bits Ian and myself have been on a St John's first aid course that was brilliant, but lets hope we won't have to use any on the life skills that we learned on the day. Check back soon this week as we will be applying all of the fantastic logos that Henley Sign People worked so hard on and letting everyone now how much we raised.

Tom

A Good Sign

Less than 20 days to go now before we depart! So as im sure you can imagine things are really picking up pace so expect lots of updates between now and the 24th. Firstly this week we would like to say a big thanks to Henley Sign People and in particular Rosie and Ian Hunter for all their hard work in producing the vinyl stickers for our car. We look forward to getting these in the post this week and making the Terios look like a real rally car! For more information on Henley Sign People please click the link below

In other news this week, the team was really pleased to feature in the Swindon Advertiser in order to raise the profile of the team and in the meantime get a bit of publicity for our sponsors! Full details of the article can be found on the press page. Coming up this week we have more injections, our London Collection and a first aid course so keep checking the website for updates on these.

Ian

New Charity!

The team are proud to announce that in addition to our original charity we will also be supporting the Meningitis Research Foundation as part of our rally. As we have raised almost double our original target for the Christina Noble Children's Foundation we have decided we would like to do what we can for a UK charity alongside our continued support of the CNCF. We have chosen the Meningitis Research Foundation as our charity due to their fantastic work over the last 20 years and as this charity is of great personal importance to myself and Tom.

If you are able to support this great cause we have a created a new JustGiving page for the Meningitis Research Foundation which can be accessed via the link on the left of the page. In addition to any money raised through this we will be doing a charity collection on Thursday 8th July at St Pancras and Fenchurch Street train stations.

Further information on the Meningitis Research Foundation and the work they do can be found on the charity pages.

Keep checking the website for further updates coming soon! 

Ian

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