KEY POINTS:
"First we'll breeze across Europe to Turkey, then we'll hit Iran and the 'Stans. That's when the Rally will really begin..." At least that's what we told people before the Rally started.
To be fair, Europe looks pretty small on a map, at least compared with Kazakhstan. But as we approach Istanbul - completely exhausted after 3,400km of near continuous driving - we have become more circumspect when we discuss distances. It is dawning on us just how far 16,000kms is.
But it's not just the distance, it's the means. As you can probably tell from the photos, our beloved car - "Oddy" - is a heap of junk.
The radiator bleeds precious coolant and consequently, if we drive over 90km/hr the engine overheats.
The engine mounts are so worn that when we turn right the car shudders violently (Oddy is not an ambi-turner).
Finally, despite his Czechoslovakian namesake, Odradek is English born and thus a right hand drive car. Unfortunately, of the 18 countries we aim to pass through, only the United Kingdom drives on the left hand side of the road. This means that the driver sits on the wrong side of the car. To make matters worse, as New Zealanders, familiar with driving on the left, we must constantly be reminded to "hug right!"
So, on the deceptively long roads of Europe, when we were not inventing Christmas cracker jokes, the M3 mechanical brains trust developed a number of strategies to combat our car's inadequacies (The unabridged manual Surviving Really Good Roads with a Really Crap Car will be available in all good book stores for Father's Day):
1) Before setting out on a long journey, punch holes in your bonnet. This is air-con for your engine and looks cool. Stick a few in your muffler for sound to match.
2) When a bus or a truck overtakes you, try to keep up with it. Imagine you are Lance Armstrong and it's the Tour de France: Get into that bus' slipstream and draught to minimise engine effort and fuel consumption.*
3) If there are only three of you, rip out the unused backseat. This is dead weight and a waste of space. Put an old jerry-can there instead. (Does anyone reading this - that's you Mum and Dad - know whether it matters if jerry-can lids don't quite seal properly?
4) Put racing stripes and stickers all over your car to make it look choice and rad. Also be sure to fit a leather steering wheel cover for extra purchase when turning left.
5) Pack a Frisbee. This will entertain you every hour when the temperature gauge begins to soar and you are forced to pull over to the side of the road to allow your car to cool down.
6) If you're driving on the right (wrong) side of the road, hug the right. In fact, don't just hug right, really spoon it. Get so close that the lunatic, insanely aggressive drivers encroaching on your lane from both directions can pass with relative safety.
7) Finally, on those rare occasions that you decide to overtake* (in our case a donkey drawn cart or a stumbling drunk), to compensate for the driver sitting in the wrong seat, get the co-pilot to put his or her head out the window to check for oncoming cars.
* Extra for experts.
Alas, despite this formidable list, as I write from the co-pilot seat, Marta and Chris are discussing yet another frisbee stop - even though we are only ascending a very minor gradient at 65km/hr. The temperature gauge has passed halfway in its inevitable climb, and we haven't even started on a proper mountain range or desert!
Yet, for some reason, team M3 remains confident - no matter how many mechanically minded old men shake their heads at us. It's almost like watching the All Blacks play in the World Cup. Despite all indications to the contrary, we can't shake the feeling that in 5 weeks we will be cruising into Ulan Bator... just not very quickly.
Winning Christmas cracker joke: What did Santa Claus say to Mrs Claus when she complained of strange noises on the roof at night?
Don't worry it's only rein, dear.
Vital Stats:
Average speed while driving on 120km/hr roads: 85km/hr.
Number of vehicles that passed us in one hour today: 346 (thanks for counting Marta)
Vehicles that we passed: 9 (including a combine harvester, a c1960 Fiat Bambina and a bus that may have been stopping for petrol).
Run over dogs in a 10km stretch of otherwise incredibly beautiful Serbian road: 4 (we don't understand this either).
- Matt Kennedy-Good
Click here for photos.
Click here for the team's website.
