A look back at FTFE’s smashing and cracking 24 days in China
With well over a year of research and hard graft behind it, we had always thought that of all the borders we are crossing, the Mongolian/China border was the “big one”.
In order to comply with Chinese regulations and to ensure we could successfully enter China with Martha we hired a company called NAVO. To comply with the regulations it meant having a guide with us for the entire time and NAVO selected Sun Ji for this task. It was Day 54 and Sun Ji was there to meet us at the border. As he joined we had already been surrounded by some very interested Chinese border police who Ailsa was impressing with her Chinese.
Sun Ji had been at the border for a couple of days finalising the paperwork which had started a year ago. After a spot of fun with the customs officials, we were through in no time at all. We were so incredibly shocked, relieved and confused that the crossing was met with complete silence as opposed to the usual hysteria. There was still further official paperwork to complete, but essentially, we had successfully rolled into China. The first foreign fire engine ever to do so. Another first chalked up for FTFE.
There had been quite a lot of press coverage about how bad the traffic had been around Beijing with tales of a huge traffic jam and people being stuck in their vehicles for over nine days. We came across three lanes of traffic about 250km out, and when I say traffic I actually mean thousands and thousands of trucks. Sun Ji suggested we take to the hard shoulder and try and squeeze past some of the worst of it. With sirens blazing Martha seemed to develop her own personality and nothing was going to stop her, or get in her way. She pushed, nudged, bullied, and cajoled her way through over a 100km and we were tired and exhausted when we rolled into Beijing at 3am. Read more →
A blog from Barham (Back in OZ). Day 134 “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving…” Albert Einstein
I must have started trying to write this blog a thousand times. It is now very late even by my standards. However in this instance the delay is not due to having to write in the back of Martha as she hurtles along. I am now safely back in Blighty on a comfy sofa, tea in hand, laptop on my lap with a rapidly emptying biscuit barrel. It is because I still can’t quite comprehend what the hell just happened.
England saved the first test in Brisbane. I realise the third test is now underway but even so. To see the English cricket team bat with the mental strength of their Australian counterparts on foreign soil and smash numerous records has left me immensely proud but lost for words. Steve and I had the pleasure of witnessing this on Day 134 and my penultimate day on FTFE at the WACA in Brisbane and in its own right will go down as incredible experience. Singing with the Barmy Army to the glum faced but amused Aussies to the tune of Yellow Submarine, “Your next Queen is Camilla Parker Bowles” amongst many others as England dominated the day will live long in the memory of this proud Englishman. Read more →
Day 126: Were you the man asleep on the dog, and missing an absolute sitter for our hat-trick
Melbourne to Sydney 875km
A couple of my favourite things are coffee and chocolate. I think we all can wholeheartedly agree with Julie Andrews that Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens are also right up there but bare no relevance to the expedition so I will focus solely on coffee and chocolate. In fact chocolate has no relevance either, aside from the fact that I love it. I was hoping to eat less on this expedition and I have, not that you can tell. I will make up for that when I’m back. So I’m left with coffee. I was hoping to drink less on this expedition but I haven’t. I will be even more addicted when I’m back… Read more →
Every so often you get a comment along the lines of, “sounds like a bit of a jolly to me” and the best to date which was said to me and Steve today, “what a great idea for a holiday”. I think on the face of it it they are very fair comments. Five people turn up in a fire engine with big smiles and lots of chat on an adventure of a lifetime. I myself have always jokingly told Steve on numerous occasions it is a glorified driving holiday which thankfully still just about raises a smile. However once you have explained what is involved the expression invariably changes from one of almost scepticism to a fascination and sometimes excitement and disbelief of what is involved. Read more →
A busy morning for the crew was followed by a long drive south down the Stuart Highway to Marla where on arrival food and sleep were high on the agenda. Marla is a truck stop and hugs the highway like a UK service station, and is no bigger, so after a check in process that seemed to last forever the crew were finally given keys to the only motel in “town”.
On inspection it was clearly still under construction as the attached video shows but there was no option. It was the last room. I thought it was wonderful and didn’t know what the fuss was about. Bathroom doors are overrated.
In life you can’t wrap yourself in cotton wool and worry about the if’s and maybe’s. You would be safer if you never left the house but that is crazy as life is for living. In fact the health and safety brigade have pushed things so far the other way that I’m sure you could sue if it rained and you got wet. I’m not a great fan of flying but it would never stop me from flying to get somewhere. The chances of something happening are less than getting into a car. It would be irrational not to get onto a plane as it would be not to drive Martha through central Australia for the very real threat of being ambushed by a gang of knife wielding delinquent Kangaroos. No for me there remains one last bastion of anarchy that flies in the face of health and safety and that is the ocean or to be more specific the shark. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-shark. There are magnificent majestic creatures, natural born killers, top of the food chain and I respect them. They own the ocean and the coastal waters that surround the incredible Australia and I deem putting myself at their mercy to be an unacceptable risk. It would be like playing frisbee in a minefield or playing Russian roulette and I won’t be Russian to do either of those. If they got me they wouldn’t need to eat for a month. It is my problem not the shark’s .
In March 2009 after Steve spoke to his father for the first time about the expedition there was one man Garth Moore recommended Steve speak to first, Simon Rowley.
This has proved to be excellent advice on a countless number of occasions as Simon and his company Fire Aid International have proved invaluable to the expedition on so many levels.
Simon has devoted so much time, effort, advice, expertise and materials to the expedition and has also used his national and international contacts to assist FTFE with great affect.
I was wide awake at 7am which was odd because firstly I was in a double King Size bed which deserves a lie in in its own right and secondly I was very tired. This expedition lark surprisingly takes its toll, how I can’t really answer that but it just does. I made the executive decision from my executive room to get up and survey my estate and took an early lengthy morning stroll to the bathroom. En route I had plenty of time to ponder about the usual things that trouble me greatly namely world peace, nuclear proliferation and Petronas tower tickets……Petronas tower tickets! I still have honestly no idea what reminded me of these but in order to do our planned visit of the the towers later in the day we would need to purchase tickets in advance that morning!
We left Panang Beach on Phuket island in heavy rain that did nothing to wash away our disbelief at what we had seen the night before…I didn’t know places like that existed. It was a relatively short drive but the tricky conditions meant we didn’t roll into Krabi until mid afternoon but it wasn’t long before we had checked into our accommodation and were ready to explore. The ladies hit the markets, but not before they were asked if Martha had a toilet (a luxury camper van she is not!) and came away with some rather fetching t-shirts but Michelle’s magnificent fluoro pink watch stole the show – check the photos.
“Without Globalink’s support and expertise the expedition would have been impossible” Steve Moore, Expedition Leader.
On Day 1 of the expedition, when Martha left the UK for France, crossing the English Channel was simple. Pre-book tickets, turn up, roll on and roll off!
If only the other sea crossings could be that easy. There are four, to be precise, that need to be in place to successfully circumnavigate the globe; namely Singapore to Perth, Brisbane to Auckland and the two monsters that are the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans… anything but roll on, roll off!
