Introducing Michael Bailey

While the guys have some down time in Budapest and Les prepares for the next stage of his journey on his own I thought I would introduce you to the latest member of the team .... Michael Bailey.

Mike is married with two daughters and 4 grandchildren. A Career Army officer, REME, 1954 to 1977 serving in the UK and Malaya followed by 15 years as a management consultant on contracts in the UK and the Sudan.  Change of scene in 1990 he developed a wedding and portrait business in the Christchurch area.  He retired from the business in 2002 to carry out all the administration, for his wife's ladies fashion boutique in Christchurch.

Sydney Telegraph photograph of the Works prepared Rover 2000TC taken in Western Australian Outback

He was also an early member of the British Army international rally team from the mid 1960's to the mid 1970's.  Experienced in all the UK International Rallies and a member of the two car team on the 1st Daily Express London to Sydney Marathon in 1968 in a Rover 2000TC, in 1970 as a member of the 3 car team entered in the Daily Mirror World Cup Rally to Mexico in a Peugeot 504 and in 1965 as a member of the first crossing of the English Channel, Dover to Calais in an Amphicar and onward drive to the Frankfurt Motor Show, the event was featured in the ITV and Salvage Squad.

Crossing the English Channel, Dover to Calais in an Amphicar

Mike's more sedate interests now include photography, long distance walking and oil painting.

He says he's much looking forward to the Jimny Challenge, which he will join on May 9th on the stage from Novosibirsk, (Russia) through Mongolia, back into Russia and on to Vladivostok to catch the ferry to Japan and flying home from Japan on the 11th June.

What the rest of the team DIDN'T know about ........

...... before Les left on his crazy journey.

The journey is broken up into stages. Les is the only one driving the entire journey, for the rest of the journey he's joined by various other old geezers. All these old geezers have got together on numerous occasions, discussed what sections they want to drive, trained together in the art of tent erection, first aid etc (we still wonder if they'll give each other the kiss of life when it comes to it) packed the Jimnys, test driven the Jimnys, chewed the fat over the whole project and until the night before Les left no one (not even me -Maureen) knew he had 26 days where there were no other old geezers driving with him. It was just Les on his own!! He had kept that very quiet, I had been asking him for probably two weeks prior to them leaving who was doing each stage and he kept telling me it was all covered.

Unbeknown to the rest of us he had arranged a hungarian driver to drive the other Jinmy for these 26 days. They'll be driving from Budapest all the way through to Novosibrisk entirely on their own. That's Budapest in Hungary, through the Ukraine, into Russia, out of Russia into Kazakhstan, then back into Russia again.

Needless to say Vi (Les's wife), Carol (his Daughter) and myself had a panic!!  How could he have kept that to himself, why didn't he tell all the rest of the guys that no one was covering that section?? Why didn't he tell me so I could put it out there and see if there were any other old geezers mad enough to take the challenge?? The problem at this late stage is, it is impossible for anyone else to get their injections, visa's weren't a problem they can be obtained pretty quickly. What to do??  Should we do anything??  Les went off happy enough with his own arrangements should we interfere??  Of course we should we were worried.

We spoke to the guys already driving the other stages, but they couldn't do it, they asked around to see if they knew anyone else crazy enough to do it without worrying about injections etc but we came up empty handed.  All the while Les is still saying he's perfectly happy with the arrangements he's made.  We had one last shot ....... the cameraman Gary, who joined at the last minute had no reason to rush home from Budapest so lets ask if he can stay on.

Yes he could BUT.

His passport will run out before they got to Novosibrisk. The backup team (Me, Vi and Keith) envisaged our input would calm down after they left ..... NO .... it's increased 10 fold!!  MEN!!!

So we set about organising, through Tayfun at Scott's Travel, how we can get Gary's passport renewed and get the relevant visa's before they're due to leave Budapest on April 14th. To do this we're relying of the guys to fill in paperwork, organise photos and find a post office in Poland where they get it all Fed exed back to the UK. Well surprisingly enough they did manage to do MOST of it ...... they forgot to put Gary's Passport in with all the paperwork ...... we thought it might be to good to be true!!

Les at the Post Office in Gdansk

In the mean time, they've met up with the Hungarian driver and everything is organised.  So what do you think about all that????

Driver, Max, in the red shirt, looks very nice in the video they took of him.

Next blog we'll let you know if we manage to pull off a miracle and get Gary a new Passport and visas before April 14th.

Hi guy's, my apologies for not making contact sooner, but what with the excitement of finally seeing an end to preparation and actually starting the journey, focusing on getting things right at the beginning I haven't had time to get something typed up for you. However I have been told by Maureen that if I didn't do something pretty quick I will be in trouble, trust me you don't mess with Maureen, so here I go.

I think you are ahead of me in as much as Maureen and Keith have feeding the web site with up to date info so what I have to say will fill in the gaps so that you get a picture as to what has been going on. Sunday was absolutely perfect, I had hoped that there would be a good turn out but it was far better than I expected. I tried to make sure  I said hello to everybody, but if I missed anybody out please except my apologies.  Thanks also to Vi my lovely wife, Maureen, Keith and Penny, Alun, Guy, Robert, Trevor, Alan, Glyn, Roger, Graham, Mike, Roland,Keith, Julian and everybody that helped me bring the project together.



Well guys I started this article with the full intention of bringing you up to date but it is 12.30 and I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. We are driving to Gdansk in Poland tomorrow from Leipzig, about 650 kilometres so I had better get some sleep. More soon.

Les


Somewhere in Poland

Great send off for The Ultimate Challenge

The Novotel at Southampton really looked after us well on Sunday morning.  Lovely bacon butties, pastries, tea and coffee to keep us all happy and smiling in the cold.  A great atmosphere as the crew chatted with all the people who came along, gave interviews to both the TV stations there filming, and to Viewpoint Productions who are putting together the While We Have Time film.

Les was in his element being a star, but the final goodbyes with the family did bring a tear to the big guy's eye. Julian Clegg read a poem put together from extracts from poems from famous travellers which was really lovely.  You can see that here

So after a couple of hours of good hearted ribbing, performing for the cameras, emotional goodbyes, they were finally on their way.

The first day's travel was thankfully uneventful, as after two years of build up Les could really do with a rest if truth be told. The second day they were at Nurburgring and as all men are really still little buys, got all excited about taking the Jimnys around the track. They were probably the slowest vehicles on the circuit, but that didn't stop them being the happiest!!

I still don't have pics of that yet despite nagging them all today, but will not give up and as soon as I get them they will go up online.

Thank you to our main sponsor - Suzuki GB

It’s taken over 100 years for Suzuki to become one of the world’s leading car manufacturers. The Suzuki story has been one of commitment and continuous technical innovation. Their history shows a pioneering spirit, from which ground breaking technologies continue to emerge. The Suzuki brand has embraced creativity and enthusiasm and 50,000 people in 196 countries continue to surpass customers expectations. Having said all that, Suzuki as a company is one of the smallest of the modern Japanese success stories. Their support to The Ultimate Challenge however, has been anything but. Their involvement in the project has gone way beyond that of a typical sponsor.

The Jimny, chosen by the Ultimate Challenge, is one of the longer running vehicles in the Suzuki stable and has an extensive, loyal fan base. Les chose the Suzuki Jimny for three reasons. Firstly their robustness and reliability, he wanted to do the journey with standard vehicles that have only been prepared to protect the most vulnerable parts, so other than that they will be using the standard off the shelf Suzuki Jimnys. Secondly, they didn’t like the idea of doing the journey in big luxury 4x4’s with all mod con’s, basically a cushy journey. Thirdly, and probably the most important, if we sustain damage, break something, or it just stops, we will probably be able to fix it, with the help from the Suzuki worldwide dealer network that is!!

Suzuki as the main sponsor for the Ultimate Challenge have been outstanding in their support. Not only have they provided support for the vehicles, but they have lent weight in the crucial area of PR and the growing media interest is due mainly to Alun Parry and Jade Wells. And the support hasn't been limited Alun and Jade, it has extended all the way to the MD in the UK Mr Yoshinobu Abe as the photo shows. 

Beyond the UK, Les, in addition to his full itinerary, will be visiting major dealerships across Europe, Japan, Canada and North America where they are also joining the fund raising activities. In Bensheim they've raised 1000 Euros and will be presenting that to Les when he visits. We really can't thank them enough for the support and guidance they have provided to The Ultimate Challenge.

Alan Butler - Ultimate Challenge International Speaker

Alan Butler, Heaven Can Wait I'm Busy Trustee and crew member has been away on holiday for the last month. Part of his time away was spent in New Zealand visiting his son and daughter-in-law and their children. He had been there a few days when his granddaughter asked him about The Ultimate Challenge and why he was taking part. He explained what was happening and that it was all about raising money for children less fortunate than ourselves. She seemed content with the explanation and it was left at that. 

The next day his granddaughter him if he would come to the school in two days time to talk to the children and tell them all about The Ultimate Challenge. It is not the sort of thing Alan likes to do but to pacify his granddaughter he agreed and thought no more of it. Two days later he was working hard relaxing when his granddaughter came up to him and said, Grandad, you promised that you would come to school today to talk to the children. Anyway, he didn't think much about it as she dragged him to the school together with the rest of the family.  What the hell he thought, talk to them for half an hour, anything for a quiet life. 

He got to the school and was met by one of the teachers and made welcome.  He tried to explain that he was happy to talk to the children and asked what classroom he needed to go to. They gave him a strange look and guided him along a corridor to a door at the end and opened it for him to walk through.  

To his horror he had walked onto a stage and was facing 500 children all eager to hear all about the journey around the world. He nearly fainted from shock.  Before he knew it they that introduced him as Alan - Indiana - Butler, shoved a microphone into his hand and pushed him to the front of the stage. 

He stood there for what seemed an eternity wanting to speak but couldn't because his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.  Eventually he freed his tongue and started talking and it is said that he gave a good presentation. 

Alan now thinks he is a professional speaker and every time he tells the story it gets expanded, we have all heard it many times. 

Note of caution ....... if you're proposing to see us off on the 31st DON'T ask Alan how he got on in New Zealand!!

Les Carvall

Last personal blog from Les before he leaves the UK

Hello everybody, Maureen has been on to me about contributing to the blog, she is right of course, I haven’t contributed as much as I should. I'm not making excuses but I have been running around like a headless chicken for months now as we have a preparation team of one, that’s me. The guys help out where they can, but it seems like I have various parts of the project that I would call spinning plates on sticks and I'm running up and down a line of these plates on sticks giving each one a spin when they start to wobble, trust me when I say I have had some serious wobbles but no breakages.

It’s raining at the moment so I can’t work outside on the vehicles, my lovely wife VI has locked herself in the cupboard in case I got bit amorous so nothing was happening there. The only thing left is to bring you all up to date through the blog and keep Maureen happy at the same time.

We have been working on the project for best part of 2 years now and with the help from everybody out there and Maureen, who manages the Press and PR, my good friend Keith who looks after the web site and tells me what buttons to press and talks me through how to use the electrical equipment that we have for the journey, we're almost ready to leave. The guys taking part with me, Alan Butler, Glyn Maher, Roger Winkworth and Graham Higgins, make up the 5 guys now, including myself. It only seems like yesterday that I decided to take on this mammoth challenge, yet here we are. We have 15 days to go before we start our journey. It’s a credit to everyone.

I mentioned about the series of wobbly plates, we had two training days 12^th & 13^th February, it was really good we covered most things first aid, equipment familiarisation, putting up the tents for when we are camping, loading of the vehicles, maps and route, and so on. It was on the second day that one of the guys who had joined us recently, suddenly informed us that he could no longer take part. When someone decides to pull out of the project it leaves a hole in the route and itinerary where he was taking part, and when you are short of people in the first place it’s difficult to reshuffle everything to make it work. I guess when you are putting a project of this size and diversity together, and bearing in mind those taking part who are in their 70’s it's more than likely that not everybody will be there at the start on 31^st March. But are we down hearted, no we are not.

Let’s push to one side the things that go wrong and let’s smile! And look at what’s gone right. The vehicles are ready and fully equipped, at the moment the crew is ready, we have most of the paperwork in place, I have had more inoculations than I care to mention and we have in place an interesting itinerary as we travel through Europe. So IF NOTHING UNFORSEEN HAPPENS we will be ready to go on the 31^st March, departing from the NOVOTEL West Quay Road Southampton at 11.00 am. If you are coming to see us off to make sure we go, be there by 10.00, there is a reception.

Me, I'm a bit battle scarred, but still smiling and ready to go. Heaven knows what lies ahead of us but I will promise to keep you posted as to how we progress. Keith and Maureen have organised the web site so you can see where we are and there will be updates on Twitter, Facebook and the blog, so keep checking in as we travel around the world.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the 31^st.

Les