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THE EARLY DAYS
In our first fifteen months of travelling the Toyota has covered 40,000 miles through 30 different countries without a blip! Thanks to Paul at Footloose 4 x 4.
SEPTEMBER 2006:
Road Trials - France, Spain, Portugal. Rained all of the time so spent more nights in Hotels than in the roof tent!
DECEMBER 2006:
John drove alone to Dubai via Turkey, Iran and ferry over the Straits of Hormuz to arrive Christmas Eve in Dubai and meet Denise who took the easy option with KLM. From there we travelled into Oman and the Mussandam Peninsular. We finally got some use out of the roof tent, camping on the beach. Good vehicle testing driving over the high mountain tracks of the Jabal Akdhar.
MARCH 2007:
Return trip from Dubai to UK - too cold for camping especially in Northern Iran and Eastern Turkey at -20!
JUNE 2007:
Itchy feet and off again to journey through Scandinavia to the North Cape, returning by the Hurtigruten Ferry along the stunning coastline of Norway to Bergen and then back to the UK
SEPTEMBER 2007:
A fantastic trip through Turkey, Syria and Jordan. Visiting Ephesus, Aleppo, Damascus, Palmyra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba and Petra followed by a lazy week on Syria's mediterranean coast at Latakia before coming back through Central Anatolya and Eastern Europe.
JANUARY 2008:
A crazy conversation in our local pub in November led to John and a friend of his circumnavigating the Baltic in the coldest month of the year! Definitely no roof tent on this trip and the Toyota came back with a brand new set of studded tyres.
These trips have all helped to prepare us for our next journey. The vehicle has been over many types of terrain and conditions from the blazing heat and desert sands of the Middle East to the freezing highways around Lapland. We have learned how to keep our tempers at slow border crossings, how to live together in close proximity 24 hours a day, how to make ourselves understood despite the language barriers, how to live out of two very small suitcases and the importance of planning.
We are looking forward to our next trip which begins in May 2008, when we will set off from Panama City as part of the support team for a Friendship Rally of classic cars driving North to Alaska.
Driving 18.000 kms to Alaska, the rally will take eight weeks (Click on the Global Rally link to the right to see the cars and the full itinerary).
Like many others on the rally we have chosen Macmillan Cancer Support as our sponsored charity. We hope that you will add your support by clicking on their link and making a donation to this worthy group of people.
At the end of the rally we will continue our journey by driving North to Prudhoe Bay and then South to Ushuaia in Argentina.
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