The Great Wall .....

After a 5am wake-up call, we loaded the car and went for breakfast.   In rallying, breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day, because it's from the breakfast buffet selection that you make your DIY lunch doggy bag!   We arrived for breakfast at 6.30am and from what was left, we realised that we were getting rusty .... we ended up with 2 dry baguettes for our mobile lunch.

Finally, after months of planning, car building and form filling we eventually arrived at the start line ... which was alongside The Great Wall of China ... as you can see from the piccies below.

The traffic on the way to the start had been horrendous and this caused the start to be delayed by an hour and, worse still, all the timings for the day had to be cancelled.   So the day became a transit leg to tonight's hotel in Daihai, China.

After an hour or so, the traffic started to thin out and the never-ending stream of lorries began to disappear, meaning that we could at last open the taps on Fugly and see how 6 weeks at sea had effected him.   I am pleased to report that, even on 93 octane fuel, he didn't miss a beat and pulled strongly.   But he did get through an alarming amount of the aforementioned fuel!

Way in the back of my mind, it re-ignited the concern that we may not have the correct fuel tanks for this job.   In any event, it's too late to make any changes now.    As I mentioned in an earlier post, we'll find out the correct answer soon enough.

While on mechanical topics, I've noticed a minor oil leak from the gearbox spline that connects to the propshaft but at this moment in time it's really not a worry.    All-in-all the car's running very well and feels very strong.

When we arrived at the hotel, Ces started working through her daily maintenance sheet and then asked a somewhat tricky question.  

"If the jack is pumped up all the way ... and it still can't lift the car ... does that matter?"   

To say that I became anxious would be an understatement ... until I realised how tired we both were ... and that we simply needed to move the jack nearer to the rear suspension hangers ... and Fugly rose off the ground.    Breathe in, breathe out, relax!   Not the easiest thing to do when it's still 28 degrees!

Tomorrow, we head to another city in China ... called Erenhot ... still enroute to Mongolia.

Total distance today was 398 kms and tomorrow will be 509 kms.   The distances are growing all the time.    I already feel quite tired and it's only day one!  
(take courage Clive, day 1 is always tough ... adrenalin, excitement, etc ... you'll get trail-hardened shortly, and then you'll be loving it ... shame that Clive can't see my words of encouragement cos he's still in internet-constrained China ... Peter)

Later people.

CD & Ces