The Big Moment

Friday May 7th. was the day we have all been waiting for. Flora was driven out of the barn for the first time! After a quick tour around the driveway we set out to deliver her to Kenny Butcher to have a custom exhaust fitted. Treacy followed in the truck. All was going well at first but after 35km. Flora ground to a halt and refused to go any further. I should add that it was now 9pm. and dark! We called a flatbed tow truck and delivered her to Kenny at 11pm. The original idea was to of dropped her off and then go out for dinner, needless to say we arrived home at midnight and had peanut butter sandwiches. Whilst I was sitting in the truck in the dark waiting for Lloyd and Kenny to turn Flora around I thought this might well happen on the rally in Turkmenistan or some such country and I had better get used to it!

Success!

Yesterday at 3pm. the engine was cranked and yes she started first time! With a few adjustments to the timing and much tinkering under the bonnet Flora roared into being. There was much jubilation as you can imagine and now we feel that we have a good chance of getting her to the Shipping agent on time. !! I was imagining being at the start at the Great Wall! The next step is to have the new exhaust fitted and then some long awaited time trials!! More photos to follow soon.

TheThe 'Skipper 'with bucket in hand as the radiator springs a leak!!!

VISAS!

Last week we travelled to Vancouver along with a briefcase full of completed visa forms, ready for our 12 photos to be taken etc. Full of enthusiam and patting ourselves on the back for being so organised ! We arrived at the visa agency only to be told that 'yes ' they could handle all our visas for a mere sum of $2800, however I would have to call Ulan Batar in Mongolia and ask for a hotel voucher! they also suggested that we do the same with several of the other countries as well. We left feeling very frustrated and have decided to go with the British Travel company and so we are now re doing all our forms.Very Frustrating!!!

Flora is coming along and we hope to have the engine fired up this week!!

Back From U.K.

We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend with the rally Assoc. it was great to meet with fellow teammembers and after worrying that I would get us lost on the short rally section using the G.P.S. we actually did quite well. We are now back to working on the car! Things we re going well yesterday but today it was discovered that the radiator needed to be re-mounted! just as well as it apparently has a small leak which hopefully is being repaired as I write this. Oh well we will just keep calm and carry on!