Home to Bratislava

After a long & hot drive down we arrived in London around 6pm and headed off to the pre-rally shindig.

The number of cars at Hyde Park the next day was awesome.

We eventually tracked down our passports, but found we were still missing the all-elusive Turkmenistan visa. Assured that permission would be granted in the next couple of days, and we could pick up the appropriate visa en-route, we waited for the off.

We made Dover for 16:30 and were on our way through France by 20:30. Drove through a lightning storm and torrential rain, got lost in Germany and after a 3 hour sleep stop made Prague for 3pm.

Driving through Prague was mad. We managed to get the car grounded on a curb that separates the road from the tram lanes. We scraped the bottom of the car but doesn’t look like any damage has been done.

We got pulled over by a not-so-friendly Czech copper, for driving past a no-entry sign and for driving without our lights on, both accidental may I add. He tried it on at first, asking for 500 dollars (seemed excessive, though maybe that was my misunderstanding), after a while he came down to 500 crowns (about 15 quid) before we offered him 8 euros – which didn’t impress him. I think he got bored so just let us go.

We met loads of other ralliers at Cafe Dinitz for a bit of a knees-up, then hit the sack just after midnight.

We’re in Bratislava just now with 4 other team. We’ll be saying goodbye to Brett and heading for Hungary and Romania shortly.