Around the World Rally

Michael Greenwood and Tom Hayes

Report 1 Day 1 - Monday 1st May Had no problems before start apart from not enough time to do everything that needed to be done before leaving. But even if we had had another week we could have still found more things to do. At the Royal Mint we had a repackaging exercise and it looks as though this set a trend that will continue, they are all at it now. A rather vague Stirling Moss waved us off and in the newly arrived sunshine we set off for Dover with a passage control at Lenham. We had quite a crowd to send us off at the start but that was nothing like the crowd awaiting us at Lenham. We could hardly get through the passage that the crowds allowed us. We had our card stamped and set of again. Soon we were in Dover, in plenty of time for the ferry. The crossing was calm and we almost went through the French authorities without hitch but they insisted on looking at the passport but not in them. He seemed rather suspicious of my old blue one. The run down to Chantilly from Calais went without hitch apart from the French Sunday drivers out on a holiday Monday. We found a problem with the second fuel tank, it seems as though the mechanical fuel pump on the first tank is more powerful than the electric pump on the second tank and the second one gradually fills up. We siphoned some out and put it back into the first tank. The hotel for the first night is a beautiful old chateau, Le Chateau de Montvillargenne. I'm sure that this has been chosen deliberately to impress us and maybe help us to ignore the lesser abodes to come. But I must say, it looks as though we are really going to rough it. We have not lost any time today.

Day 2 - Tuesday 2nd May France - Chantilly At breakfast we made up a couple of rolls to take for our lunch later in the day. We checked the oil and set of towards Senlis. The weather is dull and overcast. Chantilly is a very nice area with many lovely old chateaux. It is located just northeast of Paris. Our route is taking us southeast, heading for Dijon and the border area around Switzerland. In Senlis we saw a man taking a dog for a walk, the man doing all the walking. On this section there seem to have been some new roads and roundabouts built since the road book was written and this led to some confusion as to the right way to go. The route is taking us down through Provins, Vulaine and on towards the Juras. It is notable mainly for its bright yellow coat of oil seed rape. As we start to climb up into the Juras we are passing through classic wine country, passing through places such as Nuits St. Georges. Coming down the other side we are passing through more beautiful contryside as we head towards Aix les Bains for the night stop. It is about 8pm and we have arrived in the square where the locals have arranged a parking space. The brakes don't seem to have been working very well and the throttle is sticking. We fix the throttle and fitted the vacuum hose we bought earlier in the day from a Spaniard working in a garage in some out of the way French village. This was bought so that we can take the servo vacuum from a different place on the inlet manifold. We end the day grabbing a late sandwich in the bar of the hotel

Day 3 - Wednesday 3rd May France - Aix les Bains We can't be bothered to wait for breakfast at the hotel and we are going to sneak in up at main control, they have a much nicer hotel, what a surprise. We failed to find the bridge referred to in the route notes and consequently took a detour through Aix les Bains on the way to getting on the right road. We are still heading southeast. Today we will go through the Frejus tunnel into Italy and on towards Turin. Found batteries for my camera yesterday, so that is working now. The brakes seem to be much better and as we expect them to figure heavily later today that has boosted our confidence in them. The Frejus Tunnel control is at the far end and we can see that we will get blocked in with cars parked all over the place, so we move right up to the other end. It means walking back to the control centre but that is better than not being able to get away on time. We are now heading up into the mountains again, climbing towards Sestrieres. This is a very well known ski resort and the Winter Olympics were held here once. My experience of skiing here is that if you come with nice new skis you will go home with very old looking skis. We continue on through Fenestrelle where there is a Passage Control and then on through Pinerola passing South of Turin. This is the Po valley which is very flat and totally different country to earlier in the day. We lost our way again temporarily around Alba but we were soon on our way again to Cartemelia. Near here was special stage on which we boiled our brake fluid and this left us without ant real braking until the evening in Santa Margherita when we had time to bleed them. The route takes us past Genoa and we end up at the Grand Hotel Mirarmare in Santa Margherita which is very grand although the Imperial Palace which is Control Headquarters is even more grand, surprise surprise!

Day 4 - Thursday 4th May Italy - Santa Margherita Leaving Santa margherita behine, we are heading for classic wine country. We pick up more fuel near Viarregio and then, passing near to Pisa head inland for Florence. The rally organisers state in the route booak that we can see the leaning tower as we pass by. A glimpse of the top of the tower is more like it. We are passing south of Florence going through Poggibonsi and then onto tuscan Chianti and Rufino country on the Western side of the Appenines. We lose some time on the special stages here and coming down the other side of the mountains towards the Adriatic we place a further heavy toll on the brakes. We are now heading for Forti through more wine country with lots of vineyards. We stop in Forti for some lunch before heading down the Autostada to Ancona where we are to catch the ferry to Ignoumenitsa in Greece. This is a nineteen hour overnight voyage, so we should get a good night's rest on the ship. We did a bit more fettling of the car whilst waitin on the dock to board the ferry.

Day 5 - Friday 5th May Adraiatic Sea - Sailing between Albania and Corfu How time has flown, sitting here just before breakfast on the Superfast ferry heading down the Adriatic towards Greece, it does not seem as though four days have passed already. The ferry trip takes 19 hours and it is a very nice ship, very large and looks quite new. The sea is calm and the sun is shining. We are just passing Albania on the left, sorry, port side and Corfu on the Starboard side. We are due to dock in about two and a half hours time and we are running three hours late for some reason. This means that there will be quite a lot of night driving this evening. Leaving the dock, we drive straight out and head inland towards Metsova. The countryside is very different here. The road is very mountainous and quite narrow. It is quite slow going, especially when coming up behind a big lorry. The road has many hairpin bends and there are plenty of chances to fall off the edge through careless or stupid driving. We see many wild goats and shepherds with small flocks of sheep. At one point there was a tortoise crossing the road. It is a miracle that he survived with all the lorries and rally cars travelling that road. A special stage near Panaghia proves to be very hard on the car even though we take it very carefully. After that we press on towards Servia. It is dark now and, because of the late start we will not be able to finish before midnight. Just past Servia we lost our way when we could not find a cart track in the night. Eventually we decided to take the easy road through Kozani and then on to Thessalonika. We found that several other competitors had done the same but we still did not arrive until after midnight. Tomorrow in Thessalonika is a day of rest (some hopes) when we can catch up on some of the jobs requiring attention on the car.

Day 6 - Saturday 6th May This is a rest day. I suppose in theory, that means that we should be able to find some time to do some sightseeing or other such diversion. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The first part of the day was taken up with doing some work on the car. Later in the morning I went into the hotel to watch qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix. Saw an advert for shampoo by Michael Schumacher with him ending by saying 'Because I'm worth it', in Greek. I took a few photographs down by the quayside and then later in the day. After the main heat was gone, went back to work on the car. We had to adjust the voltage regulator. Thessalonika is a large port, which must have some tourist attractions, but unfortunately we did not have time to get to see them

Day 7 - Sunday 7th May Today will see us cross into Turkey. We stop for petrol on the way out of the town. The road to the border is very twisty and along the way we see many small herds of sheep or goats. These herds have about 10 to 15 animals and seem to be looked after by small boys or old women. Very often there appears to be no habitation nearby. Very often we see the odd person out in the wilds with no towns nearby. We are put onto a detour with a graded road which was very dusty to drive along. We have a special stage on which we lose five minutes time and then it is on towards the border. The border crossing is an absolutely chaotic place which for a non-Turkish speaker would be very difficult to negotiate. You have to go to one office to get a paper, show car documents and passport and pay 1,000,000 Turkish lire, go to another to get the paper stamped and pay another 1.5 million lire, go to another and another, all the time paying these millions of Turkish lire and getting papers stamped. Fortunately, we had two people assisting us through all this maze of bureaucracy , one of them was the officer in charge of the border crossing station. The road on both sides was cultivated as paddy fields for the first 100 kilometres we entered Turkey . The style of housing has changed and all the houses have overhanging upper floors which make the houses look top heavy. We passed through some areas with many badly damaged buildings from the earthquakes and large camps of pre-fabricated single story houses for the re-located people. The run into Istanbul was trouble free apart from the large traffic jam at the last motorway toll-booth before entering Istanbul. It did not affect us as much as the later cars which had to queue for up to three hours at the toll booths. The hotel tonight is the Hilton which is very plush.

Day 8 - Monday 8th May Today is a free day in Istanbul. Tom has arranged that we can use the garage facilities supplied by the local classic car owners club. My plan is to drive out there first thing in the morning, do the work on the car and then come back to the hotel and possibly do a little sightseeing. Several cars set off following a member of the car club and we went on a hectic drive through Istanbul to somehwere on the outskirts. There had obviously been a misunderstanding by some of the crews because, unfortunately, the facilities offered turned out to be an exhaust/brake workshop who expected to work on the cars. I went back to the hotel and worked on the car there, finishing about lunchtime. Brian Rhatigans's car was having a new gearbox fitted but Terry was having trouble so I helped him fit that in the afternoon. In the evening we had a reception with some entertainment from some local belly dancers.

Day 9 - Tuesday 9th May Today will take us further East out of Istanbul and further into Turkey our target being a hotel up in the mountains. There were more camps for the displaced earthquake victims on the early part of the run. As we climbed into the mountains we passed through villages whose houses looked as though they had come from the middle ages. They were built of timber with mud infill ad thatched roofs. The Swiss MkII Jaguar was back with us. He had blown his engine in France, got the car back to Lausanne, rebuilt the engine overnight and caught up with us in Istanbul. We pass many small herds of goats or sheep, all tended by a lone woman or child. The men all seem to be in the cafes and on the streets cheering us on. As we climbed further and further into the mountains, the scenery became more and more spectacular until we came over a brow and the scene before us was breathtaking. It was as though we had come upon a hidden valley. A beautiful lake stretched out below us and on the far side, the only sign of habitation, was the hotel, our destination for the night. As we reached the hotel we saw another 1955 Chevrolet in perfect condition. It was a red and white Bel Air, the convertible version of our car.

Day 10 - Wednesday 10th May Much of the early part of today's run is above the snowline. There is none on the roads but plenty on the surrounding peaks. Our destination for tonight is Samsun, which is on the Black sea coast. There is a short timed section (10 mins) which we manage reasonably well. There is a Turkish soldier at every junction along this part of the route which leads to much speculation as to the purpose of them being there. In Hononu there are field guns sitting by the side of the road. Just before entering Samsun we had a small altercation with the police. They saw us overtake a car and waved us down but just as we stopped and they saw it was a foreign car they waved us away. Later, as we approached the hotel, we were again pulled over but they just wanted to shake hands and say something in Turkish. We found that here we had been re-allocated to another hotel a few hundred yards away which was not quite up to the Rally Control standard. Brian Rhatigan's car had problems here and the local Mercedes Benz dealer looked at it overnight.

Day 11 - Thursday 11th May The route today will take us further up the Black Sea coast to Tirebolu, where we will turn inland for a special section into the mountains and then back down to the coast to Trabzon where we will spend our last night in Turkey. On the first part, driving along the coast road, we were stuck in a queue behind a police van, so we had time to note the giant loaves of bread in the bakeries and the little roadside barbecues with gangs of men hanging around them. The women, in traditional Muslim dress, never look at the cars going by and many of the houses are built on stilts as though the area were subject to flooding. We pass many roadside businesses producing wood and marble products which look beautiful. After Tirebolu we head up the valley of the Dogankent River. It is impossible to describe the breathtaking scenery along this valley. As we climb higher and higher we pass great gorges with sheer slopes and fantastic cascading waterfalls. In one place we had to drive under one of the waterfalls. The time control had been moved from Dogankent 57km further up the valley, leaving us with a very short 13 minute section to the summit. This was a very steep and twisty section where we lost 9 minutes. After the time control at the summit, it looked as though we had an easy run down to Trabzon but we soon discovered that the distance shown in the road book was wrong. The easy drive turned in to a very hectic 60 km run down another spectacular valley to the coast which we made with a minute to spare.

Day 12 - Friday 12th May This day's run takes us further up the Black Sea coast to the border with Georgia and we will stay in Batumi. The section to the border crossing was quite straightforward with the sea on our left, the mountains of Turkey on our right and the Mountains of Georgia ahead of us. This is a very scenic area which appears to be very traditional. Many of the women carry firewood on their backs with the men standing around drinking tea or coffee. We cross many rivers as they flow down from the mountains into the Black Sea. We had been warned that the border crossing into Georgia could be rather tedious and difficult but getting out of Turkey was much more difficult than getting into Georgia. After crossing into Georgia we had a short run to Batumi for the overnight stop. Batumi is an old seaside resort which has seem much better times. Everything is delapidated and run down. The roads are in an appalling condition and many of the buildings are in very poor condition. A lot of them look as though they are in the process of being demolished but they are just falling down. There is a stark contrast between those who have and those who do not. The politicians and influential people drive around in new Mercedes and BMW cars and any other vehicles are old Russian or Polish Ladas. There are many well dressed tough looking men with pistols stuck in their belts which the police seem to ignore. We are in the Intourist Hotel which very much has a flavour of the old Soviet Union. Each floor has a concierge which you have to leave the room key with. The bathroom has running water, across the floor, and the water from the tap comes out popping and banging and is a very bright rusty red colour. The tiling had seen better days, I think, maybe not. Some of the rooms have bullet holes in them. We had a reception in the evening laid on by the local bigwig with masses of food and various entertainment, most of which was aimed at apparently praising him.

Day 13 - Saturday 13th May Today takes us from Batumi to the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi. The desolation and dilapidation is very marked. This is a very poor country. Most of the factories are closed and have been for years. They have just been abandoned. The roads are full of potholes. We see many horse-drawn ploughs in the fields. Lots of cattle, sheep, pigs and goats just wander about and the fields seem poorly cultivated. The state of the capital is no better with many of the buildings in a desperate state. We are in the Sheraton here which is a very nice hotel and are met by the daughter of a friend of Tom's who works here for the EU. We also meet another EU worker who is Georgian and he took us to a local restaurant in the evening. The EU workers have special radios fitted to their cars incase of being kidnapped which has happened in the past. The Gergians are very friendly and quickly arrange for work to be done on some cars that need special repairs.

Day 14 - Sunday 14th May We do some work on the car and go with some other cars to a local workshop. You could not imagine in your worst nightmare the conditions in which these people work but they are extraordinarily helpful and can get things done. In the evening we went to the house of our new found friend and had a very nice meal.

Day 15 - Monday 15th May Today will take us out of Georgia into Azerbaijan. On the way to the border we pass petrol stations that consist of one jerry can, many more deserted factories and mostly horse-drawn vehicles. We also see some houses made from bamboo with thatched roofs. After crossing into Azerbaijan, the whole tone changed. The people looked more prosperous and there were many tea stops along the road with the tea being brewed in samovars. There were larger flocks and herds of animals, tractors in the fields. Just outside Time Control 58 we had a puncture and found a nail had pierced the sidewall of a rear tyre. |We quickly changed that and pressed on. We started to climb into the Caucasus Mountain range and here we saw butchers by the side of the road with the meat hanging from the branches of trees. Our destination today is the Caspian Sea port of Baku where we will catch the ferry which will take us to Turkmenistan. Baku is a oil town and there is an obvious prosperity in the area. We have had a lot of bad reports about the ferry and the state of the accommodation, so we await with interest the reality. We board at 6pm and the ferry sails at 9pm. The ferry usually takes railway wagons but on this trip it is only the rally cars. By great fortune we have been allocated a cabin. We have to share with another crew but many just have to sleep in seats.

Day 16 - Tuesday 16th May We awake somewhere in the middle of the Caspian Sea and expect to make landfall at Turkmenbashi at around 2pm. They had gone to a lot of trouble and there were clean sheets on the beds but unfortunately, the communal toilets were completely blocked, so most tried to avoid them. Some twenty hours after boarding the ferry docked and we expected to disembark. It seemed that the Turkmenistan authorities had other ideas but after a couple of hours delay they started to process the cars and crews in batches of ten at a time. Eventually we got on the road again and made our way to the overnight stop at Ashgabad where the following day would be another rest day. The run was uneventful and we were closely monitored by the police.