It all began on the 31st July with the passing of the baton (in our case truck keys) in Moscow’s Red square as the new stage 2 crew of Dave Orders, Ben Haselett and myself surprised the stage 1 crew after their mammoth over night drive from the Latvian border!
It’s been almost 4 months since stage 2 finished yet my memories of it are still as fresh as ever. Of all the countries I have visited in the past 6 months Mongolia has been my favourite. With Russia definitely being the most surprising! In order to sum up stage 2 quickly I thought I would list my highs and lows from each country
Russia
The highs;
1. Being waved on and saluted by most Police patrols, and when we were actually stopped we were sent on our way with a smile and a good luck message!!
2. The friendliness and help we received from normal Russians without whom we would never have found our way out of some towns or found a bed to sleep in.
3. Sleeping in a dormitory with 50 Russian girls after sitting in a traffic jam for 4 hours in Nishny Novgorod.
4. The official photographs of a Russian wedding being taken on Martha.
5. The sheer beauty of Russian Siberia with its stunning Mountains, Forests and Glacial Rivers! Read more →
On the eve of the FTFE’s voyage from New Zealand to North America, Squadron Leader Steve has asked me to provide a few lines of reminiscence about the now dim and distant memory of Stage One of the Follow That Fire Engine Challenge. Rather than providing yet another blow-by-blow account of the London to Moscow trajectory (those who are interested can take at the daily blogs on the interactive map below, updated regularly by yours truly folks!), I will give a few of my own personal reflections on that first leg of this journey of lifetime.
Some thoughts:
Thought # 1: Despite being the first, FTFE Stage One was the hardest yet.
This may not be a popular view among the other FTFE team members (Ben B, Ross Chris and Steve aside), but I would like to take this opportunity to assert that, having followed each and every daily update from the subsequent stages, the London to Moscow leg most definitely provided some of the sternest challenges that Martha et al have faced – and I am not including the unfortunate 36 hours at the Russian border in this assessment.
A common complaint of our initial FTFE followers when reading the first in this series of blogs was that we didn’t seem to be enjoying ourselves very much at the beginning. This is not strictly true… as I will explain shortly…. but Stage One was certainly a short sharp shock to the system. Not for us the widescreen landscape and sense of freedom that the chaps experienced in, let’s say, Mongolia. Europe, with its concentration of populations and cultures left us disorientated as each day provided a fresh linguistic, dietary and cultural challenge. Add to this the self-imposed requirement to cross as something like 15 borders in our 12-day stint (Slovenia being the least pleasant – an 8 km crawl through a badly ventilated single lane road tunnel), the daily unknown of finding accommodation in the middle of high tourist season, and the somewhat optimistic route plan, which meant that every day consisted of more than 12 hours behind the wheel. Not for us the carefree visits to the local zoos or extreme sport attractions, the pleasant strolls around local beauty spots or the laid-back barbecues with friendly locals. Want to know what Stage One’s only gesture to tourism was? That’s right amigos, we visited a concentration camp… Nothing against that you understand – visiting Auschwitz was a chillingly unforgettable experience – but it does help to demonstrate that FTFE Stage One was arguably shorter on fun and games than subsequent easy-life legs! Alright, I am being deliberately provocative here, but I believe that Team Leader Steve will back me up in this argument… right Stevie??
Low point: Leaving the lovely Abela’s and beautiful NZ in a rush
No point: Steve talking to the Chinese crew in Chinglish, surely that makes him more difficult to understand!?
Sporting point: they have a basketball ring on deck, Steve is a very happy boy
Huge Fact : You can fit all the land in the entire world into the Pacific. It is that HUGE !!
As I write we have just boarded the Hoegh Beijing, our home for the next couple of weeks. We’re waiting to leave Auckland Port to cross the Pacific to Mexico. We need to leave the ship in Mexico and meet Martha in Grays Harbour on the west coast of the US. Due to the unprecedented nature of what we are doing, there are no USA customs procedures in place so attempting to disembark the ship in the USA could fail, the outcome; Martha is driven off the ship in the US… myself and Steve are stuck on the ship and head off towards Japan, not so cool! So Mexico for us, the USA for Martha. We have no real idea of where in Mexico we are getting off so fingers crossed it won’t be too nasty. A little adventure awaits. The good news… we still get to cross the Pacific and more importantly cross the date line and equator on board a ship! I believe there is a ceremony for both, wish us luck!
2011, space age right ? Why on earth are we not circumnavigating the world on a hover board? In some ways I feel a little let down by the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World. By 2011 it was suggested you could pretty much pop to the moon for a long weekend. Saying that, our little adventure would not be possible without the internet, the monster innovation that no-one predicted. The mere scale of our challenge has required correspondence with a ridiculous number of people in locations far and wide all over the world.
Today we had three objectives; to find the FTFE antipode (very very important for completing our Guinness World Record attempt), to get some awesome footage of Auckland for the documentary, and last but not least, to find an outfit for the New Years Eve party theme ‘when I was 11’. How hard could it be? We met cameraman Dave Flynn http://www.inlikeflynn.co.nz bright and early to start our magical mystical tour of Auckland. Everyone leaves Auckland for the holidays (most people don’t go back to work until 17th January!) so we had the roads to ourselves, sweet as!
The first stop was St Heliers beach for a bit of posing then onto Michael Joeseph Savage Memorial Park, named after the first Prime Minster. The cricket set came out for the camera and the last test of 2010 commenced, girls v boys. The boys were taking it all a little bit too seriously as usual but the girls came up trumps, catching S. Moore out twice to hold the car park cricket test title for 2010. Nice one Povey! Everyone knows you’re only as good as your last game Steve Moore. At the park there was quite a lot of interest in the fire engine with people asking if they could take Martha’s picture and excited kids climbing all over her. Whilst Steve was being interviewed in front of the camera a women came over and interrupted, we all thought she wanted her picture taken with ‘celebrity’ Steve. No, she’d interrupted to ask him to take her picture, brilliant! Next we drove to Auckland Viaduct to film what felt like an episode of ‘Wish you were here’. As we strolled around the harbour gazing at restaurants and yachts longingly, Dave was never far behind. Read more →
Everyone knew today was going to be a sad day. We would be saying goodbye to two Follow That Fire Engine so solid crew members. Kate ‘Extreme’ Bartishel has been an FTFE ambassador from the beginning and Chris ‘Danger’ Hallward up-ed his game by securing press coverage for our arrival in Auckland, amazing. These are going to be some pretty big shoes to fill for the stage 7 crew. Some how waking up in tents in Margaret’s back garden seemed to ease the pain, as did our trip to Oliver’s bakery for some of the most dubious breakfasts of the expedition so far; fish pie, cold pizza or cheese and mince pie anyone?
JUST PLAIN SILLY : Why go down river rapids on a raft, that would be far too straight forward. Grab a piece of plastic and chuck yourself down there, that makes makes far more sense. For 2 hours this morning we smashed our way down the Kaituna river, one by one taking it in turns to enter washing machine after washing machine. Exhausting stuff but proper comedy. Not sure if Kate and Amy had much fun for the latter sections as each of the rapid bashings took their toll. Battered and bruised but a great way to start any day …
Leaving stinking Rotorula behind, we heading up the coast towards Whangamata. Jamie has done a world class job as the Route Master General for stage 6. It has been flawless especially during the busiest period in New Zealand, the Christmas holidays. It has been showcase of just how incredible and exciting this superb country is. World class mountains, glaciers, beaches and lakes. With this back drop a ridiculous number of activities to thrill yourself silly. With all this in mind, the big man really let himself down today …. and so did NZ. Jamie and wifey Kate were both overly excited about the Giant Kiwi. Their description of this “attraction”was met with much mocking from me as I have been burnt before with the “big banana” in Australia. To keep Jamie and Kate happy we decided to stop off at the epic Giant Kiwi. From the road it was obvious that yet again, the giant pointless stuff in Australia and New Zealand was a bit silly. Read more →
No Point: Feeling sick as a parrot after my skydive
Day 165 was one of the shortest driving days of stage 6 but for me it was one of the hardest. Most people are aware that I have a rather competitive streak and within the FTFE crew it’s well known that I like winning, dominating, being noisy and excited. So when we arrived Queenstown – the adrenaline capital of NZ people people were a bit unsure of why I didn’t want to throw myself off a cliff, canyon or out of a cable car in the name off bungee related activities. Steve was not sure of whether to publicly mock me, goad me or laugh in my face for not being extreme. Instead of these, he decided to not say anything at all and opted for acting like he completely understood if I didn’t fancy being part of the extreme crew. This was worse than the public goading and he knew it.
We’re getting up at half five? On boxing day? OK then. And this is how it has generally been on Stage 6. Who needs sleep? We can do that later. The journey today is a biggy: Kaiteriteri to Picton and then on to the Tongairio National Park (for Lord of the Rings geeks – Jamie – that is where Mount Doom is). We’re looking at a travelling time of about 14hrs. Good job we didn’t celebrate Christmas too hard . Thank you South Island, action packed adventures in beautiful and dramatic landscapes.
Kate and I only have three days left? How quick was that. Feeling a bit melancholic as I write this, and thinking about the highlights my thoughts return to the good times with the Stage 6 crew. I think we have worked really well as a team with a lot of laughs and banter. Good natured banter, with the exception of an outrageous wide call by Steve during beach cricket on Christmas day. Thankfully we lost the ball, which saved me ruining the day with my petulance. Read more →
. Thank you South Island, action packed adventures in beautiful and dramatic landscapes.
