Preparations for the rally.
Preparing for any trip that is over a month long, involving a new bed most nights, some in hotels (of varying standards) and other nights camping, requires quite a bit of thought. Especially when you add in the need to keep weight down. In a rally, especially a desert on, weight is one of your enemies.
When we did the rally the first time in 2019, I asked pretty much anyone I met who had done the rally, or been connected to the rally for advice. When you have never done something like this before it is very difficult to imagine the variables, and there are certain elements as a woman you have to prepare for as well.
At a base level you need to ensure you have essential comforts: warm clothes, dry and warm bedding, plenty of water and snacks to keep you alert. A hat to wear on your head at night while camping, warm socks, insect repellent and loo roll for those side of the road stops (yes a small spade too!). During the rally days, especially in the desert, you are up against the clock and so any breaks are as fast as possible and minimal fuss.
For those who take the rally super seriously, usually two men on a team, everything is about weight and reducing what you carry. They will bring the minimum of clothes to change into, the minimum of camping gear and spares, and usually they are dab hands at fixing their own cars. They take only what they need and no other creature comforts. We had one car in 2019 which was experiencing mechanical problems part way through the desert. That night at camp they removed everything from their car to reduce weight to an absolute minimum. Out came an extra wheel, any spare tools, additional water bottles, surplus screws and even coins from their wallets. When you have to, it is amazing what you can do without.
By contrast, there was a Turkish couple in a Mercedes who had not done the rally before, he was an experienced driver but his wife had not even done navigating before. They had a mattress strapped to the top of the car, they were packed to the gunnels, and she came out each of the preparation days in full make-up and Instagram ready.
“That’s not going to last,” I thought to myself. Was I referring to the mattress, their rally chances, her makeup routine or, even, their relationship?! Boy, was I wrong, they did really well, never seemed to get lost and she wore her makeup every day. So, it shows you that everyone’s rally preparation and comfort needs are different.
For our preparation this year we are paring down on the clothes and shoes. Last time we had installed a mini fridge, but this blew our electrics on the first day - AB did a great job navigating without our monits – more on navigation equipment in another blog - until we got to the first stop and changed fuses. We have better systems for storing our gear, including a rack for the shock absorbers. You can read about the work we have done on Eleanor here.
Below is a list of the other things we have done to prepare.
1. Giveaways. It is nice to have something to give away to the crowds of people who line the streets or visit the cars parked at the end of the day. Last time we had a card about the car, pens and Amigo bars to hand out. This year we are doing the cards again and keyrings, and the common use of QR codes has meant we can keep the information on them brief. Each of these also has information about the 4 Day Week.
2. Paperwork and prep folders. This year I have prepared two folders of information for us. The first is a general folder for the whole trip. It covers the details of our trip not specifically car/rally related. Our flights, train tickets and also research I have done on the places we are going to and what to do there. Last time we were so focused on just getting to the rally, we did little research on where we were going. This timeI wanted to be much more prepared. One of the issues I have about rallying over touring, is that you spend your days driving, at speed sometimes, past very interesting places and arriving late afternoon or early evening too focused on the day, the car and the rally to connect with, or even stop and look at, some of the incredible sights. An example is Datong. There are interesting elements of the city, but there are historic places to the north, south, east and west. We will not go past all of them, but if we are going past some of them, I would like to take 2 minutes to get out of the car and at least look and take a photo.
Our folders for the Peking to Paris 2024 Motor Challenge
The second folder is all about the car. The picture on the front is so we can put this in the windscreen when we are displaying the car. The QR code means people can easily learn more about the car and 4 Day Week.
3. Branding. We also will have various branding elements. We have shirts which we wear each day and logo stickers for the car. These have our Classics 4 Charities and Barnes & Lockhart logos, and this year we are promoting the 4 Day Week and so we have the 4 Day Week and 4 Day World logos. We have 5 New Zealand teams on the rally this year and so one of the team has been very organised and we have a team logo for the car and NZ team shirts as well. When we collect the car we will be able to attach these and show you the result.
4. Driver Licences. We got ourselves international drivers licences, as an extra to our New Zealand licences. Many places in the world you can rely on the NZ version, the international one is used in some of the less developed places. However, driving in China is not something you can easily do on an international drivers licence, you need a local licence. Many westerners do not drive in China as a consequence. I will cover how we manage this in my next blog.
5. Visas. The only two places we need a visa for are China and Azerbaijan. The latter was a simple online process which took two to three days to approve. The Chinese one is a bit more complicated, however, we had letters of invitation from the company who are managing the logistics for the rally, it has all the places we are going to and shows we are driving out through the border with Kazakhstan at Horgos. For Andrew’s visa, this went through without a hitch, despite the same information provided, they rejected mine, because I did not have a return flight I could evidence. The delightful Trish Seeherr from TS travel managed to get me a flight from Urumqi which I submitted, but I also gave an update on the explanation restating the driving component and that I would not be taking the flight. Fortunately, this was enough and my visa was issued.
6. Vaccinations and medical. You have to carry a full medical kit. This includes all the standard things, but also includes a saline drip and a number of drugs and medical supplies you will want if you have an accident and need urgent care. We have two medical teams who follow us for the entire journey and they are there to help with anything that comes up unexpectedly, but we are required to have all our own usual medications. We also topped up on various creams, potions and lotions which can cover most situations, heat packs, cold packs, knee, ankle and back braces. I have packed a couple of tubes of Comvita manuka honey wound cream as well. I have packed hand wipes – usually I will avoid single use items – but here hygiene is more important. We also have face masks, while these will be handy if there is risk of disease, they are more for the dust in the desert. Last time AB got a terrible chest cold and the dust was a real problem for him, fortunately we had packed some masks for pollution reasons. Now, of course, we are so used to having them.
7. Car preparation. Ensuring the car is prepped has to happen before it leaves on a ship to China in February. This year the cars had to leave early because of the issues with the Suez canal. We are only allowed to have car items and our camping gear in the vehicle, you have to bring your other luggage with you. We have three bags of clothes and personal supplies, we have brought with us the oldest bags we have because we will leave these behind in Beijing and change to waterproof bags, which are actually camping and sail bags, we were lucky to have won a fantastic sail bag during the sailing season, it will be a perfect size for our camp bedding. Waterproof is good for the river crossing, but more importantly, they are dust proof. In the desert the dust gets into everything!
8. Car documentation. We have to carry with us copies of the car registration papers, and also authority to drive letters, which allow the shipping agents and also the rally support team to drive our cars as needed at ports. We had the car independently scrutineered before we left with an independent agency who then give us a FIVA card for the car. This certifies that the car meets the standards as described and will hopefully speed up the scrutineering in Beijing. Also in the folder for the car are lists of all the spares and tools we carry. We have tool bags and spare bags, having a list of what is in which bag is helpful when you are tired at the end of the day, or God forbid stuck on the side of the road in some remote spot.
9. Insurance. The insurance for a rally like this is very complicated and is done by a specialist provider who does this work each time the rally operates. First we start with insurance to ship the car out to China, then there is insurance to ship it back from Paris. The complex part is for while we are on the rally. As you can imagine, there are not a lot of insurance companies who are climbing over each other to cover us. We have ended up with a BBB+ provider! I imagine that this was very challenging to arrange this time with the complete change of route and the political instability in the world at the moment. The third part of the insurance is to cover us if we need medical care on route or to be aero-medivaced home.
10. Communications. We are required to carry at satellite phone which we hire for the duration of the rally. We only needed it once last time, when we broke down in the desert in Mongolia, the brake line snapped. We were able to call the mechanic team and, even though we were on the prescribed route, it meant they knew they could need to sweep us up. The car also has a spot tracker on the dash. This sends a signal every 10 minutes so the rally organisers always know where we are. They make this tracking information available on their website and so our friends and families can track us too. You can use this link here. We have separate phones for us while we are on the rally. This allows us to protect our banking and keep our lives a bit more private. It also means we can disengage with our everyday world and concentrate on enjoying the rally. I have downloaded Wechat and other apps which I hope will be helpful. And finally, we have with us our Epirb with us. Just in case.
10. Transacting banking safely. On our new phones we have downloaded a separate banking app with our bank that I have connected to just the one account we will use while away. We can keep a manageable amount of money in this account which reduces our exposure in the event of fraud. Also you cannot transact at all without Alipay and sometimes Wechat. So much is done this way, including being able to hail a car. Cash is very much the last option and only places like hotels take credit cards.
11. Google and internet. Since 2019 China has decided it doesn’t like google and so google maps does not work in a meaningful way. The Apple Maps works well enough, but I am on a Samsung. Fortunately AB is on an iPhone. This has made updating my blog a little more challenging. However, I’m using a combination of google photos uploaded to my one drive and this seems to give me much of what I need. So hopefully, between me and Tori back in NZ, we will get enough updates to you.
12. Pencil case and other supplies. We use a tough school pencil case to keep all the stationery items we need particularly for navigating. We also have a multitool and, most importantly, a corkscrew. It is interesting when we travel to try the local wines. More and more countries have a quite developed wine making industry, so it is great to experiment. We had some great local Russian wine in a lovely little restaurant in St Petersburg.
13. Social media and blog. You are reading this so you have managed to find our blog from one source or another. It has been quite a bit of work putting everything together and I have the support of the wonderful Tori Phillips to ensure the blog gets out and the social media continues while we are driving or out of range.
14. Snacks. And finally, but most importantly, we have English wine gums as our car snack to get us through any long days. We will pick up a few packets of nuts as well, these are great to share over a beer before dinner in the camps.
© Charlotte Lockhart 2024. All rights reserved.
