0088 Getting closer and closer ,

29th May
Still in Beijing

3 DAYS TO GO !

At the Great Wall

Ashton arrived safely on Monday night, and was out and exploring the streets of Beijing before I had even got up and had breakfast !  Still nice warm weather here, and looking to remain fine while we make our final preparations for departure, which is great.  There would be nothing worse than a wet and soggy departure - And that would grow our plans of trying to do the entire trip without putting the roof on into disarray, too.  

(Edit.  I can’t scroll down on my iPad to insert other pics so here is the link to them here.  https://photos.app.goo.gl/GqntgVsgDynyLLKq5
When you get into the pics, go to “info” in that little < kind thing at the top, and it will give you more info on the pic.    At the bottom of this page I also say go to the ERA website, but I now can’t get back to the bottom to insert the link, so it is here  :  https://www.endurorally.com  )

0087 In China ,

Sunday 26th May 2019
Sitting in Beijing

Well, after 10 days of being unable to access my blog (or much else) due to internet access problems around the country, I suddenly find I am able to get in and let your all know what is happening.

I have been on a 10 day tour of China while waiting for the start of he P2P.   Shanghai, then a 4 day cruise on the Yangtze through the 3 Gorges dam area which is amazing,   Then to Chengdu to see the Pandas, Xi’an to see he Terracotta Army, and finally up to Beijing where we have been seeing the sights and climbing the Great Wall for the past couple of days.  We even did 431 km/hr on a Maglev train in Shanghai - now THAT was fast !    Now we have 3 days of R&R (these tours are exhausting !) before Ashton arrives tomorrow night, and then we pick up the cars from the port on Friday.

In the meantime I am trying to find a store that sells WD-40 etc !   Trouble is that the traffic here really is atrocious - The sheer volume of it means that it can take hours just to travel a very short distance, so finding the right store first time is kind of important ,

Anyway, all is good and on schedule, and I am just glad to find I can get on here, so hopefully I will be able to get back to post up our progress over the coming days !  Now to see if I can get photos up as well.

0086 Outta here....

Giles has been gallivanting around China for the last couple of weeks (actually he’s been scoping for us and having a well derserved break before the chaos starts!) and finally I have handed everything over at work (BIG thanks to my team for picking up everything!) and now I’m running around doing all those last minute things:
- haircut
- printing off insurance docs that finally came through last night
- double checking the packing list
- printing off the instructions for the Go Pro camera (many thanks to Simply Sports Cars for the loan of these two cameras that’ll allow us to create a video blog)
- restart the Garmin InReach subscription
- load the TravelSIM into a burner phone and check it works (try to find network code - whassat?)
- load VPN onto burner 😀
- test and charge the satellite phone
- buy essentials - coffee and whisky mainly
- test pack
- find it won’t all go in; unpack and try again
- final check
- drive to the airport on Monday (27th May) morning and arrive in Beijing on Monday evening

That’ll all be simple then!

See you on the other side - probably in Ulan Batar in Mongolia as neither Blogger nor Faceplant are allowed in China 😀 Unless that VPN works better than expected!

Just a few reminders:
1/. The daily reports from Syd Stelio, photographs by Gerard Brown and the Spot tracker (we are car #77)  will all be on the Endurance Rally Association website at www.endurorally.com
2/. We continue to raise funds for Beyond Blue and the Cancer Council through the giving links at the bottom of the page - every dollar is very gratefully received, towards our target of $1 per kilometre we’ll drive (so about 15,000!) thank you! and
3/. We will also try to keep Gidget's Facebook page up to date as much as we can here: https://www.facebook.com/austin.healey.73113

0085 Still so much to do !!!

Friday 10th May
Everything takes so LOOONG !!

23 days till the flag drops !  
But only 3 days till I leave.

Half way through May, and the days seem to be getting shorter, public holidays more frequent, and my patience being sorely tested !   And why am I complaining about all the recent public holidays you may ask ?    Easter, Anzac Day, Labour Day - All within the last month, and all fell on weekends which meant that people were taking extra days off to link them together, and it was almost impossibe to get things done !!
And I am sure there used to be 24 hours in a day ?  It seems like there are only about 18 nowadays !   As for my patience, I will leave that up to you to decide after this post !