Visa hassles

Mark and I picked up the car from Stewie’s last Thursday and while we didn’t drive it very far, Mark made the comment “I think we've run out of things we could do to the car!”.  The car, apart from a final pack, is ready to go.  We will go for one more drive before we call it ready.

The major work is now applying for visas for some of the countries we are going to visit.  We haven’t been able to do this until now as we had to wait for ‘invitations’ which the ERA have organised for us.  Now we have invites for China, Mongolia and Russia so the paperwork fun has started. 

The Mongolian one looks the simplest so we’ve left that to last and started with the Chinese one. First visit to the consulate, in Sydney, didn’t go well last week. We went to the wrong office – it didn’t deal with visas.  We were re-directed to one in the city, and our 2^nd try involved taking a number and waiting. After about 45 minutes I was called up and a lady took all the paper work. Hopefully Mary will be able to pick them up next Tuesday while Mark and I go for a final test drive.  

If the Chinese visas happen as scheduled, Mary will then high-tail it across to the Russian consulate  at Woollhara and apply for Russian visas. Applying for a Russian visa is done by filling in a form online, submitting it to them, then printing it to send in with your passport.  The online quiz asks a lot of questions not normally asked. Names and contacts for last 2 employers, full itinerary with hotels but best of all, every country you have been to in the last 10 years and for us, that’s a lot.  Besides all the countries we did on London and Cape Town and Sydney to London, both Mark and I have been going lots of places in between times.

This is page 3 of the Russian visa application. There were 45 additional entries on a separate sheet to cover 10 years of travel.

So this week should see the car ready once and for all, visas starting to come in and the carnet submitted.  The Carnet is like a passport for the car.  It’s done via the NRMA in conjunction with the RAA who have reciprocal deals with motoring organisations in the other countries.  At least we don’t have to go to multiple organisations for that one.

Road test

Last Thursday/Friday was to be our big test prior to shipping.  We picked up the car from the workshop and went for a drive with the aim of testing that everything worked as expected and to try camping.  There will be eight days of camping in Mongolia where there just aren't any hotels.

The weather was pretty hot.  We went west from Sydney and after a bit of gravel around Lithgow we found ourselves very dusty, and the engine running hot and having vaporisation problems.

We then headed for Parkes where we found a caravan park!  

Mark (ever cautious) took a cabin as well as a camp site.  He hasn’t camped since he was a boy scout and that’s a long while ago. I suspect our patch of green grass in Parkes is a bit more  friendly than the Gobi desert but the organisers tell us that camp spots there will have showers and food.

We ate at the local Services club and as we walked home it started to rain!!  We did stay in the tent all night and the only thing we used from the cabin was the pillows.  We will need to make some provision for that.  We managed to get the tent back in its bag and it wasn’t that much bigger than when we got it out.
We had been here before in Classic Outback trial and in Sydney to London but this time we had time to look at the wild life.

Highlight of the trip back to Stewie’s workshop was the size of the kangaroos in the forest south of Parkes.  

The pictures are of one who hopped along a fence line beside the car and it wasn’t the biggest we saw.  It could have headed off into open spaces but didn’t bother.  It was doing about 40 KPH and easily cleared 3 fences that were in its path while we were watching.

And there were dozens if not hundreds of these very large 'roos.

So...

Car back to Stewart for:
  1. Dust sealing,
  2. Check why its running hot.
  3. Work on a list of trivia mainly about packing and securing stuff.

I reckon we are ready but we still haven’t been given a shipping date.

Getting Ready

It’s the end of February.  So, 3 months before we fly out.  Not sure when the car leaves but well before then I hope.

Our car, a 1973 Datsun 240Z,  has an interesting background - it was built for the 1995 London to Mexico rally and in the hands of Ross Dunkerton (5 times Australian Rally Champion) came 2^nd.  The car also competed in rallies from Panama to Alaska in 1997, and a Sydney to London in 2000 before being bought by Mark in 2013.

The Z in the 2014 Sydney to London Rally

We went down (to Sydney) last week to pick it up from Stewart Wilkins who has had it since the Alpine rally.    While you might expect the car to already be “rally ready”, there are a few things that had to be done for Peking to Paris (or P2P as I call it now).  

It has been built to strictly comply with CAMS and FIA rules but the P2P regulations specifically ban shock absorbers with external canisters and fibre glass panels. So, they had to go.  The diff cooler is also gone.  It took up a bit of space and given we are desperately short of space – it’s gone.

We have a new GPS as specified by the organisers and a tracker.  I’ll let everyone know the details of that when its setup but basically the car will be trackable on the internet with updates every couple of minutes. I have a new tripmeter, a Monit.  The faithful old Terratrip is no more. Best feature of the Monit is that it is also a fuel gauge.  It’s also GPS enabled, so promises to be accurate.

The biggest change (to Mark's dismay) is probably the reduction in horsepower.  The engine has been changed to run on low octane fuel which is the only fuel available in places like Mongolia and this has sapped more horsepower than was ever expected.

We had a practice pack on Wednesday as we prepared the shipping list and it’s hard not to get a bit excited.  The cause of our space problem (besides it being a small car) is that we have to camp out each night on the way across Mongolia and sleeping bags, tents etc take space!

So this week we will do some on road testing then it’s back to Stewart for a final spanner check then --- the car is ready.

What's it all about?

The 2016 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge starts from the Great Wall outside Beijing on Sunday, June 12th, and finishes with a drive into Paris on Sunday, 17 July. The route will cross 10 countries, including China, Mongolia and Russia, and cover nearly 14,000km.

(Click for a look at a bigger map).

The organisers have billed it as "The Greatest Motoring Adventure in Historic Rallying" with 120 cars now taking part, including Mark Pickering and his co-driver/navigator Dave Boddy, from Newcastle (Australia).

When Dave gets a chance (which mightn't be too often), he will bring news of how they, their car (1973 Datsun 240z)  and the event are going....