Adventure! Travel! Live!

Last Saturday saw my team mate and me get, err, lost in central London. I say "we" got lost, what I mean is "I" got us lost by misreading a map. Of Victoria. A familiar part of a city I've lived in for the past 7 years.

Bodes well for our trip of 10,000 km across 2 continents and about 7 time zones, doesn't it?

More encouragingly, the "Adventure Travel Live" show proved to be really useful as inspiration for our trip. Several of the talks covered overland expeditions and Central Asia / Mongolia, and the over-riding message was "anyone can do it with a bit of organisation - and everyone should do it". We came out buzzing and are in full on planning mode. So far, it's largely entailed looking for a vehicle on Ebay and getting a sore brain when I try to think of what else I should be doing. We have a self-imposed deadline of the weekend for getting the publicity on the go, by which time we fully intend to have a team name, at least.

The organisers of the Mongolia Charity Rally have been really helpful in the past few weeks in working with us to help us stay with them, which is really appreciated. Whilst the cost remains high (we're estimating about 4 grand so far for 'essentials' - where food and accomodation aren't classed as such), it's a once in a lifetime trip and it's 5 weeks on a road trip across half the world raising money for a good cause. It's not like we can conceivably do it for a couple of hundred quid each. We'll find the money somehow.

The one vehicle in the rules we've identified as a possible is the Ford Escort, which I assume is an Escort van. Really hopeful we can get one for under a grand; it's kind of perfect when you think about it. Bit in the back for all our stuff, even potential to sleep in it if entirely necessary, built tough as old boots for all those builders to use, and the same rough size as a car, which means it should be ok to manouevre. Fingers crossed!

There'll be more news soon on the team name, our fundraising and potentially (gulp) a new blog devoted to the blog. Is this the end for STTR? Will anyone notice? Stay tuned to find out!