In July we reported that Wilmslow resident Nick Scott was about to set off from Goodwood on the trip of a lifetime with his pal Ben Dean, from Derbyshire, to take part in the Mongol Rally.
I was therefore delighted when Nick got back in touch this week from Vietnam, to tell me about their epic journey.
After leaving Goodwood on 24th July, Nick and Ben drove for 36 days, wracking up an impressive 15 countries and 9,674 miles in their Hyundai, which became known as 'The Porsche' amongst other ralliers - due to the fact it seemed to be the quickest car on the rally, had a vintage Porsche paint job and had started life in Wilmslow, which the others considered to be Porsche central.
Nick told me "I am not quite sure what I expected of the rally before setting off, partly because I was rushing around right up until the last minute sorting things out so I couldn't really give it much thought, but it certainly was a real eye opener and a privilege to travel through the countries we did.
"Iran and most of the 'stans' are notoriously troublesome for visas so it was quite an honour to see these places, especially the more remote areas outside of the cities. Turkmenistan for example only sees about 1000 tourists per year."
On the way they encountered the freezing mountain passes of the Russian/Mongolian boarder to the 45 degree heat of the Iranian desert, and the immensely wealthy suburbs of Istanbul to the disturbing poverty of Hungary. They also experienced the wide open spaces and endless skies of Mongolia, the carnage of the Tehran traffic, the warmth of the Iranian people and having a rifle pointed in their faces by an angry Mongolian. From seeing their meals killed in front of them to living on noodles, they pretty much sampled a bit of everything.
Nick explained "Through Europe we were largely on our own but after we left Istanbul, around 8 days in to the rally, we made a concious effort to meet up with other teams as the Iranian boarder loomed. Safety in numbers I suppose, as we had heard stories of corruption at the crossing point. Luckily we ended up convoying with a group of 4 cars which we stayed with all the way to Mongolia and became thoroughly good friends with."
Nick said "The definite highlight for me was Iran. I had a lot of preconceptions about Iran from what I had seen on TV, or read about, but I cannot sing it's praises highly enough. The north where we were was beautiful, and my arm was physically sore from having to return waves to people for pretty much 4 days solid, and my face started to hurt from having to smile all the time! I think the people there were just so happy to see westerners prepared to visit their country and not be put off by our misconceptions. I would definately go back there.
"Uzbekistan was also a great place with friendly people and such interesting history, it really felt like we were on the Silk Road route when we passed through there."
Along the way they encountered a few interesting challenges, most of which involved using their diplomacy and humor to diffuse situations at boarder crossings. On the whole though, the biggest challenge was actually the Mongolian Roads.
Nick said "I don't think I can do justice to how crazy the Mongolian roads are but I think the best thing I can do is not even refer to them as roads. It really was like doing a proper rally from as soon as we arrived in Mongolia. I can now see why there is a rally statistic which states that 90% of the cars that left England make it as far as the Mongol boarder but then less than 60% make it to Ulaan Bataar! The rate of retirements shows how harsh the terrain was on the cars.
"Thankfully our Hyundai and all the work we had done on it beforehand stood us in good sted and apart from a puncture we were fine. We had a very close escape in Mongolia with a massive rock which nearly destroyed our sump but luckily we survived. Which is more than can be said for our convoy. From having 5 cars, that one nasty rock wrote off two cars, destroyed the sump on our sister Hyundai, which set them back 3 days, and nearly wrote off another. In fact, Ben and I spent more time fixing other peoples cars than our own. By the end we were owed a few beers in Ulaan Bataar but that just added to the experience."
"From repairing someone's suspension with old scaffold, to having one car literally held together for the last 200 miles of the trip by a 50 year old screw driver (it drove like a snake with the front and back doing completely different things just pivoting around the screw driver!!) we became quite big experts on bodged repairs.
"There were also some pretty hair raising river crossings where we were certain the car would drown but thankfully some inventive uses with 'balloons' came in to play and stopped the engine from flooding."
Nick and Ben managed to raise £1000 in cash for the Christina Noble Foundation in Ulaan Bataar and because their car was in such remarkable condition when they arrived, it sold for $4,000 in Ulaan Bataar, all of which also went to the charity. Cars in Mongolia are extremely expensive so their old Hyundai actually sold for 5 times what they paid for it in Bolton.
When they arrived in Ulaan Bataar Nick and Ben cracked open the champagne which they had smuggled all the way from England, and had kindly been donated by The Cheshire Smokehouse in Mobberley. "Ben and I felt like Formula 1 drivers spraying that all over the jubilant crowd" added Nick.
Ben returned home after the rally so they only had a few days to enjoy their success together in Ulan Bataar, but Nick ended up staying there for nearly two weeks on his own due to problems sorting out a Chinese visa.
Nick said "I'm hoping to be away for maybe another 8 months or so, but that is obviously subject to my budget.
"After the rally, I headed to Beijing on the Trans-Mongolian Express and then spent the next 10 days cycling 1,240km from Beijing to Shanghai. And then, sadly I had to catch a bus most of the way to Hong Kong (it's a long story but essentially I wasn't allowed to cycle over one of the longest bridges in the world, The Hangzhou Bay Bridge, and the detour was a further 300km!) before cycling the remaining 350km to Hong Kong.
"In total I think I've covered around 990 miles so far on the bike. That is quite a bit further (over 100 miles) than Lands End to John O' Groats by way of a reference point.
"The floods in Vietnam meant I had to re-think things a bit as I had intended to cycle on to Singapore but I've left the bike in Hong Kong temporarily to meet up with some friends in Vietnam."
Nick is now hoping to raise some money for the Seashell Trust in Cheadle so he has set himself the target of cycling 5,000 miles during the course of the year - this leave him another 4,010 to go!
"I think I might try and do it by cycling between major cities, the first of which will be the 600 miles or so between Sydney and Melbourne in the new year. I'm doing a number of mountain bike races in Australia and New Zealand too, climaxing in the Oceania Championships in March. Hopefully I won't embarrass myself too much!
"Who knows, London 2012 when I get back!"
We wish Nick all the best with the rest of his amazing adventure, what a fantastic achievement and we hope he keeps in touch.
