Ravi – Day 1 could have been considered a failure, as we didn’t get where we were supposed to. But no! The Rally is about (admittedly, incredibly comfortable) adaptation and we certainly adapted! At some point on this trip, that will mean camping up somewhere but we decided that could wait till another day! We needed our beauty sleep, because today we were taking on the Nürburgring. But I’ll get to that in a mo! We went to sleep in Brugge, and appeared to wake up in the late ’80s…our hotel was definitely a little dated! But the sleep was good and the food was good, so we got through our continental breakfast and got into the car for Day 2.

I’ve never been to Germany (or Belgium) so I didn’t know what to expect. But the first thing to say is that both countries appear to be very green – loads of trees lining the motorways, and in Germany the trees turn into huge forests. Germany also has really good roads. I suppose it has to, since everyone hurtles along at over 100 mph – the speed unlimited Autobahns hold a special place in the hearts of drivers, but being in it in a Micra with the accelerating power of a shopping trolley was a pretty hairy experience! Should I take this overtake? I know I’ve got a mile of clear space behind me but I think that Mercedes might crash into the back of me while I’m trying to get past this lorry. To their credit, the Germans didn’t have road rage. To their discredit, they didn’t even look towards our car or smile at us. Bad Germans…

Approaching the Nürburgring the roads got smaller and hillier and, bizarrely, there seemed to be a huge number of trucks coming in the other direction. Were we in the right place?! Suddenly, the trucks were replaced by super cars and we knew we were nearly there! We passed a massive (and packed) camp site on the final approach before turning off to the offices of RSR Nürburg. These guys say they will give you a supercharged car and instruction to make the most out of your time at the ‘ring. What they don’t say is that they first scare the living hell out of you with the most frightening safety video I’ve ever seen! We went into the briefing room, excited but a tad apprehensive. Harvey has done this track hundreds of times on Gran Turismo 5 and knows every corner well. The first thing the safety briefer says? “This is nothing like the game”

Jonathan, our cheery Kiwi safety briefer, then went on to tell us about the history of the track and some vital stats (80% of corners are blind, 300m elevation change over the course) and kept the session fresh by mixing in video clips of horrendous crashes – flips, spins and write-offs galore! Once we’d all gone white in the face, he finished off by insisting we should try and have fun out there. Thanks, Jonathan!

We headed out with our instructor for the day, Erik, and a Renault Clio Cup – a sporty version of the car that 18 year olds love to start on [Ben: That’s a massively unfounded statement… ]. With Harvey behind the wheel, we set off on 12 miles of glorious German road. The Nürburgring is a public toll road where you can rock up, pay your €28 and take your lap on the track, and while we were going around on the instructed lap we were taken over by Alfas, BMWs, Porsches…basically everything! We don’t have any pics or videos from the track as they forbid filming – apparently it encourages racing behaviour!

Once Erik had taken us round once, he left us to it – one lap each, quick as you like. Ben (a.k.a Captain Slow) went first and immediately concluded “Good God, it’s a bit quicker than my Clio”! He took the track well, being brave through corners and accelerating hard out of them. He did so well, in fact, that I was feeling a little queasy in the back. After Ben, it was me, and as soon as I got on the track all the apprehension dropped away. I loved it! I took a good line through a few corners (the ones I could remember from the previous two laps) and only got confused once where a sharp left-hander appeared out of nowhere. No issue for me, but the guys started the nervous laughter nonetheless. Finally, it was Harvey, unleashed this time. And he flew! Ben and I held on for dear life as he thrashed the Clio around the track with fury. Hard acceleration, quick braking and sharp turning meant this was a tighter lap than mine or Ben’s and (we presume) a much quicker one as well. As he rolled into the pit lane at the end, we all had a mixture of kid-at-Christmas and adrenaline-fuelled fear on our faces, but it was obvious that this was an awesome idea and that we would definitely be coming back! For me, the hard thing was concentrating on so much. Cornering on the right line in the right gear and at the right speed is hard enough, but add to that the other cars on the track and trying to work out what they are doing, and it’s exhausting!

We popped back up to the office and got some pictures with the guys, before Jonathan stuck a massive RSR Nürburg decal on the car in half the time any of us could (the man has a natural flair for decals!) We said out goodbyes and headed out very slowly and carefully towards Frankfurt (where we we feasted on Turkish kebabs) and the end of Day 2

Because we had decided to stay in Bristol the night before, Saturday needed to be a very early start – 6am, actually! The early hour was made much better by the very swift production of some bacon sandwiches by Harvey – the breakfast of champions, and the last British breakfast we’d be having for seven weeks! We rushed around like headless chickens trying to get our stuff together, and managed to get the stuff in the roof rack with a little bit of repacking. Soon enough, it was 8am (we wanted to leave at 7!) and we were ready to go. Bye bye, Bristol, hello…Tesco’s car park. Not one mile from our start point, we had to stop and fix the tarpauline on the roof rack! It wasn’t as tight as it should have been so with all the flapping about, it had already acquired a nice hole – but at least none of our stuff had fallen out of it!

Getting back on the road, the drive to Goodwood was pretty and uneventful, with the British countryside coming out in its finery to remind us what we were leaving behind. Clear skies and rolling green hills quickly turned into motorways and rain. Endless, unforgiving rain. On the minus side, our stuff was getting a bit wet up top, but on the plus side, it gave Ben a real chance to test out the car, fully laden, in difficult conditions.

10 miles out of Goodwood, we overtook the Sambi family on the motorway (how random!) and this led to the first of many spontaneous convoys we’re going to have on this trip, as we headed together to the most bonkers event we’ve ever seen. Arriving at Goodwood, we were greeted by a ‘Russian border guard’ who made sure we had bribing materials and then forced us to dance before letting us enter the car bays! We were one of the last groups in, so we rolled past the full set of cars before parking up, seeing things like the Polo Bear (a Polo that had been kitted out top to bottom in white fur) and an amazing team who had a team member in a wheelchair – this thing is going to be hard enough to two working legs, so we’re just in awe of the courage of that team!

Grabbing the registration materials, we walked past Mongolian wrestlers, musicians, more ‘border guards’ and a man in (just) a thong – this was obviously going to be a mad morning! The Dubocks and Gognas arrived soon enough and brought with them the rains. We all ducked for cover under the garages and then broke into the biggest picnic ever – sandwiches, samosas, home made pie and champagne…it was brilliant!

Harvey taking Over – It was a mad mad morning! We were given stickers and Ben and I fiddles, fondled and caressed the stickers neatly (with some air bubbles) onto the car. The car was looking epic now – plastered in a garb that screamed that we were about to do something Amazing. Obviously, when you’re about the head out to the great unknown with just a few tents, some cash and some basic tools things can get quite emotional and there were a lot of tearful goodbyes.

Eventually, it was time to go. We got in our car, the parents rushed around throwing last minute garb into the car. We were excited! We lined up the car to get on to the track for our celebratory ‘slow’ lap around the epic Goodwood circuit – but then disaster! In our excitement we were flicking our ginourmous Air Horn on and off and it stopped working! We were in a Queue of cars now and minutes from hitting the track – so we popped the hood and had a really quick look under the bonnet! There are 3 fuses which run off our 12V battery, one for the rally lights, one for the in car cig lighter and another for the air horn. I checked the fuse for the horn – and yup – completely gone. So I swapped the fuses over and hey presto  – the air horn was alive again. Just in case you’re wondering why it’s so important – it’s a bloody loud horn and you’re about to leave on a 10,000 mile journey, Yes – we needed it.

We all got back in the car – and within a few minutes we were on track. Luckily we were one of the first to set off. To our right were hundreds of parents and well-wishers  waving at us, cheering and generally being very excited! It was basically like the first scene from Titanic (but hopefully with a happy ending!). The man on the tannoy was shouting out things, car horns were going off all over the place. It was pandemonium – and suddenly we were released to do our lap around the circuit!

Ben here now- we cruised serenely around the course, horn blaring, weaving gently around the grand old racetrack. Within a couple of minutes we saw the first casualty of the rally – a car had pulled over with its hazard lights on to reclaim some lost luggage! Relieved that this wasn’t us – we powered on and all to soon were leaving the track, back onto the local A road. This presented our first navigational issue – in the excitement to start we had not sorted out our route to Folksone. We had no idea where to go! A quick and cunning solution printed itself- we should follow the cars in front that were turning right. After a mile or so, it seemed that no one else knew where they were going either! The entire convoy doubled back on itself to go back passed the  bemused marshals at Goodwood!

As its a long way to Mongolia, we decided that it was important to have frequent breaks – so stopped in at Ravi’s friend Georgie’s for a cup on tea in Brighton (10 miles from Goodwood). Extrapolating this tea/mile stat we will drink 800 cups of tea, or about 10 bath tubs before we get to Ulan Baatar. As we all like it – this bodes well!

After Brighton- we pushed for Folkstone . On a very delayed channel tunnel, we bumped into two more rally teams. We felt smug that we had booked a Hostel in Amsterdam and they were winging it. When we hit the road on the other side it we realised that there was no way we could make it to Amsterdam before 2am. This rubbed the smug look off our faces- we were now in the same position as the other teams – but 90EUR down. With some googling by Harvey, we found a guesthouse set outside Bruge (and deep in the 80’s), we had a bed, were more than knackered and hit the sack.