Why We Got Here

TopGear. Basically. The allure of a Golden Envelope containing some bizarre adventure, followed by a turn to camera delivering a casual “How hard can it be?”

After realising that no lab-coated producer was going to be handing me an envelope, I decided to take matters into my own hands. After a certain ‘Fracas’ in 2015 I rewatched Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor’s Long Way Round, to fill the void quickly forming. I then vividly remember just researching Automotive Adventures, Rallys, Road Trips and lo and behold I found the Mongol Rally; this was the start of a seven year ‘what if.’

For seven years I enthusiastically talked to friends about the idea of buying a set of cheap wheels and just going for it, but these conversations would always end the same way: “I can’t really imagine getting that time off of work” or “It’s a nice idea but unrealistic” etc. I’ll admit most of these conversations happened in the pub, but where else is better for ideas of adventure to start? All the while I was surrounded by a lack of finances, friend commitments or my own will to take the plunge. While bored I would scour Autotrader for cars for under £1000 to imagine what I would take on my own TopGear Special. Fast forward to the end of 2020 and after being enveloped within the disarray of a global pandemic I was feeling restless, so I signed up for the 2021 Mongolian Rally solo. This event was then swiftly cancelled as well and another year passed of hopelessly dreaming about desert wastes, 1.2 litre engines and no A/C.

The end of 2021 approached and I receive a fated email; the 2022 rally is a go and I have team space reserved for my stupid, going it solo self. I received this email at a service station just outside of Gloucester; Megan and I were on our way to live in a yurt for a few days, so I turned to her and asked if she’d like to come along (A pretty big question to ask someone you’d only been dating around 6 months). She said she’d think about it.

The answer was yes, I had my first teammate. The second, my best friend of many years decided to come in an instant. He asked if he could come along after I’d told him my plan, I said yes. He can’t drive - it is a full proof plan. We had a team, we had a plan and we had a schedule. The cogs started turning for the preparation of the Mongol Rally 2022: dates were set by the event organisers, charities were contacted and vehicles were decided upon (Megan's own Ford Fiesta in fact).

Then the Russian army invaded Ukraine.

The Mongol Rally cancelled once again, but this time was replaced with a much shorter, 3 week long event called the Poles of Inconvenience. With Megan and I both having received 8 weeks off from work from our employers (and David not really caring either way) we weren’t satisfied with the replacement event so we did something about it. Along with two other teams we’d met in the run up to the event, we all requested our refunds and created our own event: The Long Loop Rally.

The story then descends into route planning and decision making, which doesn’t come under the umbrella of WHY we got here so I’ll save that for another time. For now I leave you with that brief summation of the road to now. As for the The Long Loop Rally and the trials and tribulations ahead… How hard can they be?