A real hit with the Ladies (Guild)

Posted by Bob at 28th February 2010 at 11:18

Not long after completing the rally we were asked if we'd give a talk to the local Ladies Guild about our trip. Not having done anything like that before we were a bit nervous but agreed, and it was organised for February (which seemed like a long way away back then!).

In the days running up to the talk we collacted a load of our photos together and wrote some notes for us to follow, but we were determined to try and do most of it ad-lib rather than reading straight from a script.

Despite our nerves it all went really well and was all very well homoured. They all seemed genuinely inteersted in our stories, and we had a few laughs at some of the stranger situations we had gotten into. We got some great feedback from the ladies, and also got some more sponsorship money which was great. We also surprisingly got asked if we'd be intereted in speaking at a few other events, so we'll have to see what comes of that!

So Thank You to the St. Margaret's Ladies Guild for inviting us to talk and donating money towards our charities, it was a really fun evening!

Going once, going twice...

Posted by Bob at 27th October 2009 at 23:07

I was just looking at some other teams' rally photos on Flickr when I came across this little beauty! It's our beautiful car Alice, all cleaned up and for sale in the charity car auction in Mongolia.

As you can see she's looking a little different, most of the advertising has been removed and she's had a bit of polish by the look of that bonnet. The flames look as good as new, just shows what 10 cans of spray paint and a lot of elbow grease can do!

Thanks to Flickr user "mrlukephillips" for posting up the photo. Looking through some of his others you'll see lots of the other cars there waiting to be auctioned, the money from which will go to further help the official rally charities. This was taken back in September, so hopefully she went for a decent price.

It's a little sad seeing her again with all her war wounds cleaned up, but also nice to think that she might still driving around Ulanbataar turning some heads. Who knows!

Bob

Changing Faces

Posted by Bob at 24th September 2009 at 14:55

And the winners are...

Posted by Bob at 1st September 2009 at 22:27

Thanks to everyone who bought tickets for our Mongol Rally Mystery Prize Raffle. The votes have been counted and the results are in, or something along those lines anyway. Here are all you lucky lucky people who walk away with some great* prizes...

Main Prizes

Bottle of Bells Whisky - Y. Turner

Lanson Champagne + Chocolates - M. Rolson

Boots Sweetie Jar - J. Pickering

Foot Massager - K. John

Jacob's Creek Gift Set - P. Parr

Bottle of Caliza Wine - J. Lawrence

Botanics Bath Salts - C. Stinton

Next Body Butter - J. Pullinger

Heroes Chocolates - P. Parr

Heroes Chocolates - J. Fowler

Party Barbeque - J. Thompson

Taste The Difference Chocolates - K. Flowers

Bonus 'Mystery' Prizes

One from each country we visited (well, to be honest, we didn't get a chance to get one in two of the countries so we bought three prizes from Mongolia instead which is even better!)

Hand Painted Chess Set (Mongolia) - K. Flowers

Flag Mug (Kazakhstan c/o Mongolia) - S. Barry

Bottle of Whicky (Russia) - L. Redmond

Bottle of Vodka (Ukraine) - J. Holland

Bottle of Beer (Poland) - J. Pullinger

Skoda Car Model (Czech Republic) - D. Boothroyd

Toy Music Box (Germany) - K. Waites

Sweets (Netherlands) - J. Lawrence

Sweets (Belgium) - S. Barry

Playing Cards (France c/o Mongolia) - G. Twells

Congratulations to everyone who has won something, your prizes will be winging there way to you in due course. And thanks again to everyone for taking part and parting with some of your hard earned cash.

Bob

* opinions may vary

Win goodies from our trip!

Posted by Bob at 26th August 2009 at 19:55

Last chance to enter our raffle and help our charities!

As some of you will already know we hatched a plan before setting off on the rally to run a special raffle when we got back. The idea being that, as well as a host of already attained prizes, we'd pick up an extra mystery prize in every country we travelled through. And so we did.

So, on top of the fine array of wine, chocolates, whisky, sweets etc. that we already have to offer, we now have an additional 10 prizes to add to the raffle. And no, we're not telling you what they are yet, they're still a 'mystery'. But rest assured they are some of the highest quality souvenir ~~tat~~ merchandise we could find! And don't forget, although these prizes may not be huge, they have been a part of our journey; travelling with us from their country of origin, all the way to Mongolia (expect a light coating of Gobi desert dirt for added authenticity).

We will be drawing the raffle this coming weekend (29/30 August), so if you'd like any tickets please just drop either of us an email, text, phone call, Facebook message or carrier pigeon and let us know so we can reserve them for you.

Tickets are just 50p each, and every penny raised goes to the Children and Young People's Protection and Development charity.

Prizes include

Bottle of Whisky • Boxes of Chocolates • Foot Spa • Lansom Champagne Gift Box • Jacob's Creek Wine Gift Box

plus 10 mystery prizes from the rally

Bob Twells
bobtwells@yahoo.com
07740 335587

Lee Tuffnell
lee.tuffnell@googlemail.com
07813 793114

Finish Line Photos

Posted by Bob at 22nd August 2009 at 13:47

You can now find a new set of photos titled 'Mongolia - The End' on our Photos page covering some of the finish line party. The selection isn't great as they're mostly from mobile phones, but worth a look!

Bob

Rally Photos

Posted by Bob at 20th August 2009 at 09:51

I've been busy trying to collate all our billions of photos from the rally. Unfortunately both our cameras packed up within 20 miles of the finish line, so we have no hard evidence that we completed the rally yet! But fear not, we asked some other people to take our photos and email them to us so hopefully in the next few days we'll be adding some photos of us on the finish podium.

In the meantime you can view cut-down sets of photos on our Photos page, or our larger set on my Flickr account page here, where you can also add comments if you're a Flickr user.

Enjoy!

Bob

SMS Update

Recieved by SMS (Location: Ulaanbaatar - Mongolia) at 15th August 2009 at 13:26

We made it! Just arrived at the finish line to a very welcome beer, barbeque and live music. Can't believe we're actually here, and neither can some of the teams we met along the way who knew of our car troubles. Alice pulled out all the stops for the last 24 hours, despite being down to only 3rd and 5th gears! Time to chillax and get some proper grub. Will update properly with photos tomorrow. Thanks for all your words of support along the way!

SMS Update

Recieved by SMS (Location: Altay - Mongolia) at 15th August 2009 at 00:28

This is getting real nail biting now! Alice decided to offer us only 3rd gear. When we couldn't get her over a pretty small hill last night we got quite disheartened and a bit frustrated at each other so decided to sleep for a couple of hours and try again when the sun rose. Sleeping in the car is no fun, we can't move the seats back or recline them at all! Sun has now broken and she took the hill with ease after a 10 mile run up! Still only 3rd, 4th and 5th gears, but we're on the move again for the final sprint!

SMS Update

Recieved by SMS (Location: Altay - Mongolia) at 14th August 2009 at 03:30

To our surprise this morning Alice is moving! She makes some funny moans and groans and pops out of gear a lot but she does move. I think this is our last chance with her, it's like that last red flicker of Terminator's eye. Let's just hope it's enough to get us to Ulanbataar! Despite our growing frustration with him we have to give the mechanic credit. Two days work, rebuilt and patched our gearbox twice, gave us accomodation and food, and all for 150 dollars. Plus he just insisted on buying one of our Pith helmets... for 100 dollars! Bargain! Next stop UB we hope.