The Rainbow Run Newsletter - No. 8 September 2011
Greetings to everyone involved or just interested.
It’s been a while since Newsletter No. 7 but I am a great believer in “if you have nothing to say, say nothing”. Well we have a couple of newsworthy items so here I am.
Glynn Jones
For those of you who didn’t know, Glynn was medivac’d back from Banjul with Guillian Barre syndrome. This is a very debilitating disease and potentially life threatening. The happy news that I have to report is that she is now home after some weeks in hospital and on the mend. For the full story have a look at the website.
Another newsworthy item is from Brittany Ferries. They have published their timetables for next year and have agreed to keep our costs to £250 pounds for a Landrover and two passengers. This will include accommodation and my contact in the organisation, Caroline Kennan, is negotiating with her bosses to include the cost of food within the £250. I will let you know as things happen.
Please remember that this price is for a vehicle and two passengers. If you have more than two travelling in your team there will be a cost, to the team.
As the date and time of this sailing marks the start of the run, I am sure you will be interested to know places and times.
Depart Portsmouth Arrive Spain
2200hrs Thursday 8th March 0730hrs Saturday 10th March in Santander
This sailing ensures we can sail on the same date we leave home, negating the need to find an overnight stop prior to sailing. It also means that we can get a full day’s driving in, on the day we arrive. An added bonus is we get to spend two nights aboard. RV1, Day 1 will be 2000hrs Brittany Ferries check-in car park SZ 635-988 (50.78615°N, 1.10078°W)
One word of warning regarding the ferry crossing; for those of you who suffer from sea sickness you may want to take precautions before we sail. We will be crossing the Bay of Biscay and we will be at sea for two nights and one complete day. The Bay of Biscay can get rough and I mean really rough. I have known hardened sailors who want the world to stop so they can get off.
There is a solution to motion sickness and it is called Scopaderm. They are only available on prescription and you will need to go see your GP to get them. The upside of them is that there are no side effects. They are a small “plaster” or patch that you put behind an ear and it anesthetises one semi-circular canal. Two hours after and you can stand the boat on its beam ends and you won’t care. Despite spending a working life at sea, I will be placing a patch behind my ear before we sail, just in case.
The only downside to the Thursday sailing is it is midweek. If you are planning a big send off from your home, not many people will be able to attend at 1200hrs on a Thursday lunch time. Let me know what you think.
State of readiness
Inoculations by Dagmar Bancroft
Now is the time to start thinking about the medical preparations that you need to make in preparation for travelling through what is part of Africa and a medium to high risk malaria part of the world.
Inoculations you must have:
Hepatitis A
Typhoid
Yellow Fever
Diphtheria, Polio & Tetanus Booster
Inoculations you may consider:
Rabies
Yellow fever is only supplied by some medical centres and may cost you £60. Once you have been inoculated you will be presented with a Yellow Fever card. This needs to be with your passport so that if an immigration official needs to see it, it is to hand.
Rabies is expensive at around £100 but it is not the painful experience it once was. A course of three injections and again not all medical centres supply it. My advice is don’t bother with Rabies. Carry a big stick.
You need to apply for a European Health Insurance Card in case you need medical assistance in Europe. You can do this at www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ehic. Once you have the card, ensure you take it with you. You need to present it at the time of treatment. In theory it will give you free medical treatment in any of the member states and the card is also free.
I need to have a talk about Prophylaxis or an Anti-Malaria regime. More specifically the regime I am recommending for the duration of the run. Having said that, you need to check with your GP that it is OK for you. If not, I am sure he will make alternative recommendations.
We will be taking a drug called Doxycycline. It has to be taken two days before exposure, daily for the duration of the run and for four weeks after your return to the UK. An eight week supply will cost in the region of £15 per person. If you decide you would like to take Doxycycline then I can order it for us all, in bulk. Please let me know at dagmar@therainbowrun.org.uk . Failing that you will need to source your own supply or consult your GP for alternatives.
Paperwork
You will need several bits of paper to take with you. You will need an international driving license. This is a document supplied by the local (main) post office. You will need a passport photograph and it will cost you £5. I was never asked to produce mine on previous runs but apparently some countries will not recognise a British license.
The V5 for the vehicle you are travelling in. The V5 is the new style “Log Book”. It must be the original document. A copy is not sufficient. The registered keeper must be present in the vehicle and be able to prove who they are (International Driving Permit).
As the vehicle departs the UK don’t forget to post off the “permanently exported” (green) portion of the V5. This enables you to re-claim the unused portion of your Road Tax.
Fiche. This is probably the most used bit of paper you will take. There is a new fiche supplied by Chris Scott on his web site. If anyone wants a copy, I can email it to you. I have added a French translation to Chris’s document as I think it needs it. Every government official (and his brother) will ask you for papers and will be happy with a fiche ranging from a traffic cop to immigration officers. I will be taking 50 copies.
Please remember that the fiche contains quite a lot of the information necessary to assist identity theft, so be careful who you hand them to in European countries.
Packing a Landrover
The first decision you need to make is how you intend to sleep on the trip. If you have a roof top tent, a ground tent or you intend to have the security of sleeping in the vehicle, will have implications for how you pack it.
The golden rule is “heavy stuff on the bottom, light stuff on top”. Another rule is “everyday stuff on top”. It can be a bit difficult to reconcile these two rules but you need to bear them both in mind. It’s no good putting those heavy jerry cans on the bottom when you have to unload the whole thing to re-fuel.
If you decide to sleep inside the vehicle, then you will need to leave room for sleeping. If you decide to sleep outside the vehicle then, of course, you can fill it to the top. Bearing in mind that the biggest mistake made by people is overloading the vehicle. The maximum gross weight of a Landrover 109” is 1000Kg! The vehicle itself weighs 740Kg, so the most you can load is 260Kg.
In 2006, the first time we made this journey, we left in a Landrover weighing 4820Kg. Fortunately we only broke the chassis once. Landrovers are immensely strong and are very forgiving but the additional weight will manifest itself as terrible fuel consumption and a bone shaking ride. Best to stay within the limits imposed by Landrover. A good indication is the shape of the springs. If they are smiling, everything is OK. If they are flat or worse, pointing down, you need to lighten the load.
Everyday things like clothes, maps, drinking water, food, stuff you need to lay your hands on repeatedly should be near the top and clearly identified. A good thing to take with you is a supply of stuff sacks. You can buy these things from outdoor suppliers and are great for throwing things like dirty clothes or empty cups into. Things that tend to accumulate on the floor and in nooks and lead to a cluttered environment that you have to live in.
Which brings us neatly on to the “Grab Bag”. A grab bag is a bag of your choice, mine is my small rucksack. Whatever the bag, it should contain everything you need to survive for a day and to get home. Water bottle, money, passport, some food and of course your walkman. Keep it to hand so in the event of an accident, vehicle fire or any unforeseen event, you can grab it and run. Hence the name. If the flames are getting closer you don’t want to have to stop and look for your passport!
This is by no means a definitive list of things you need to pack or where to put it all. It is meant as a means of getting you to think about how you are going to do it. I can tell you from experience that throwing it all in the night before you leave does not work. At best it will detract from the great experience I am sure we will have. At the worst you will lose stuff or be unable to find it when you need it.
Just a small proviso on what various African policemen will ask you to produce when they have stopped you. Officially the needs are the same as for driving in France but in practice, if you can produce the item he is asking for, will reduce the ability for him to ask you for an “on the spot fine”. Hi visibility vest, one for each occupant. Fire extinguisher. Warning triangle, one for the front and one for the back. First aid kit. International driving licence. Jack and spare wheel.
Fuel And Water
Tom Sheppard, author of Vehicle Dependent Expeditions (a Bible for those travelling in a vehicle) says that “fuel equals distance, water equals time”. Each vehicle is expected to carry 20 Litres of drinking water per person. Millets sells 20 Litre plastic jerry cans for not much and as a minimum, take one per person. If you can fit more in, make it more. Also take lots of squash. Once the temperature goes up you will need to keep up the fluids and it is easier to drink gallons of squash than plain water.
Quoting from Vehicle dependant Expeditions again; In an open topped Landrover, travelling at a constant 50mph exposed to direct sunlight you need to be drinking 5 litres of water an hour! That is the rate at which, under those circumstances, you will be evaporating fluid. Not that we will be doing this but you get the drift. Also take loads of mineral salts. Dioralyte is one brand name. Little sachets of powder that you mix with your squash to make it taste horrible.
Heat exhaustion is not very nice and if left untreated will bring your trip to an end pretty quickly. Spend an hour digging a vehicle out of soft sand and you will need not only fluids but mineral salts as well. Dagmar will be the bane of your life under these circumstances because she will be nagging you and making you drink the stuff. She is German and will not take “not thirsty” for an answer.
There will be water available at most places along the route. If you take the risk of drinking it, it is a personal choice. I have no problems with drinking local water, after all, the locals drink it. I do however take a supply of steritabs and dose the local water before drinking. I also ask the locals if it is potable before attempting it. As a general rule, they will know.
Try to keep a jerry can of water from home for the duration of the run. If someone does go down with a dose of Ghandi’s Revenge put them onto known good water so that the problem is not compounded. Also remember that if you have the runs, you are losing body fluids in a big way, so even more to drink.
Fuel is a bit more difficult question to answer. In 2006 it was a long way between supplies. We carried 4 jerry cans and used them all the time. In 2009 there were a lot more garages along the way and despite carrying four jerry cans, we only used them once. And that was because we chose to go for a long period “off road”.
Now that there is a tarmac road almost all the way from Morocco to The Gambia, there must be the infrastructure to go with the road. However, we will be travelling the old Atlantic Route, with all the on/off road driving that goes with it. If that means we can just turn left off the Atlantic Route and find a garage, I don’t know.
I, personally, will take four twenty litre jerry cans of fuel with me. If they are not needed, Shine can use them. If we do need them, so be it. I have been collecting plastic twenty litre fuel cans (from Stena. Main engines on ships use a lot of oil) for the past six months and have a ready supply of them now. If anyone wants some, let me know.
Wood Park Weekend Saturday the 26th and Sunday the 27th of November 2011
Jumbo James from Wood Park off road driving school in Pembrokeshire has again offered to allow us to have a weekend at the school. The point behind this exercise is threefold. It will give us the opportunity to meet one another. It is also the perfect opportunity to test out all those modifications you have made to your vehicle and to see how well they work off road. For those amongst us that need to brush up on our off road driving skills there is mud and tricky geography galore.
The plan is to meet at the school SN 056-233 (51°52'30.1"N, 4°49'27.5"W) on the Friday afternoon/evening and spend the night under canvass. On Saturday morning we will have a practical on changing a wheel. I know this is old hat, but how many of us have done it on soft ground? After that there will be some recovery and towing practice.
After lunch Dylan will give a presentation on preparing your Landrover to go 5000 miles and Norman will present a few ideas for packing the vehicle. If there is anything you would like to ask, we will do our best to answer any questions.
Then we get down to the good stuff. We will drive a prepared course. This course will be difficult and has been chosen so that we will get stuck! The aim is to see what we have to do to get un-stuck and a little practical bog snorkelling. With this in mind, bring clothes that you don’t mind getting filthy and bring plenty of them. If you want to travel home in something clean, you will have to bring it.
Saturday evening is a communal cook-in. Everyone will be expected to cook from the vehicle and there will be a prize! It will not make your fortune but you will have the satisfaction of knowing that your menu was the best. Beer and other alcohol beverages will be allowed. A communal fire /come BBQ will be provided and you can cook on it or you can cook in the vehicle, your choice.
Sunday morning
Will be more of the same. A second prepared course with lots more scenery that will ensnare us. I will have to hand all the recovery gear necessary to get unstuck and if we make a real job of it, Jumbo has a tractor. He also has a pressure washer so that those who have a distance to go can get rid of most of the mud.
By lunch time, early afternoon we will be winding down and making moves to return to our day jobs. Please be aware that Wood Park is a working school and we will be expected to move around the pupils (if there are any) and not get in their way. I am sure that they will not believe their eyes and will stop to watch but all we need to do is try to give them priority.
If he can, Jumbo will also devote some of his time to us. He is donating his time to the run and is a font of knowledge of all things off road. Last year he had us abseiling in a Landrover. Yes, near vertical drop and using hand power only we lowered it on the end of a rope. Have a look at the bit of film from last year’s Wood Park escapade.
All in all, this event is a great weekend. Lots of fun with a serious aim. I am sure you will all go away having learnt something. I look forward to seeing you all there.
Vehicle Maintenance
By
Dylan Haden
When preparing a vehicle for any journey there are what we call the basic checks that we ALWAYS do everyday before we start up, we all check that we have a bit of oil showing on the dipstick and that when we shake the water bottle there is some fluid sloshing about in there and then walk around checking that all the light are working and kick the tyres.
Well this is what we are all supposed to do but the reality is that most of us just jump into the drivers seat and start up and go to where we want to go and if we break down then we ring a breakdown service, they turn up, open the bonnet and say “mmmmmmmm this is going to cost you” and most hand over their keys and nervously await a bill for the repairs.
Welcome to my world as a motor vehicle mechanic. I see vehicles come to me with basic problems that most of us COULD repair or more importantly prevent.
So, lets get to the point of why I am sat in front of a keyboard at midnight in the dark trying to explain what to do to save a lot of time and hassle and most important money.
The daily basic check
Open the bonnet
Somewhere in (or sometimes outside) of the vehicle there is a bonnet release catch that pops the bonnet to the point where you can lift the bonnet enough to release a secondary bracket (safety latch) and gain access to the engine bay.
- Check the oil level
Remove the dipstick and wipe clean, looking at the dipstick and you will see there are 2 marks at the lower end, the lower one being low level and the upper being the maximum replace the dipstick and remove again and check the oil is between the marks. Result - we have checked the oil, if the level is low then put some more oil in the engine. BUT putting in too much oil can be worse than not having enough oil in the first place so add a small amount at a time and restart the procedure.
- Checking the water level
There are 2 parts to this check on water levels, there is a engine coolant and a screen wash bottles/tank.
Open the system and look for a maximum mark, add water to reach this level and make sure you reseal the system after.
If you use additive to the water make sure you add it to the right bottle
For example:
Adding antifreeze to your washer will stop them freezing overnight but when used will smear your windscreen making it worse than if you not washed it at all, and by adding washer fluid to the coolant system will wash the hoses and clean the engine waterways, but seize the water pump and overheat the engine, also next time you open the cooling system you will have a ‘foam machine’ effect spraying everything in a 3 foot radius - that will be you as well. (Who would be stupid enough to do something like that? Well, I might have, but I mean, apart from me. Howard). So be sure to add the correct additives to the correct bottles.
- Brake and Clutch fluids
The brake system and clutch are considered to be sealed systems and should not need to be topped up. Some vehicles may have a separate reservoir for clutch fluid or may have a cable to operate the clutch.
If you find that you do need to top up the brake/clutch fluid use a dot 4 or higher brake fluid. If you find you are adding oil more than once a month then you should find out why, or you’ll find yourself up the creek without a paddle, or worst no brakes/clutch at all.
- Drive belts
You may find 1, 2 or even 3 belts driving pulleys at the front of the engine, check these by looking for crack or splits and how tight they are by pushing or pulling in line with the pulleys, there should be no more than 5mm deflection with about 5kg of force at the centre point between two pulleys. On most modern engines there is also a belt known as the cam belt, this is the most important part of any engine, as if this one fails then its game over in most cases for the engine and a nice bill if you want to have it repaired.
BUT here is the catch, checking this belt is both difficult to access and harder to judge its condition, they are recommended mileage intervals on replacing this belt are from between 30,000 miles or 3 years up to 100,000 miles or ten years, this depends on make and model and usage of the vehicle.
My advice is that if you’re not sure how old the belt is or how many miles it has done then change it, although it is advisable to have this changed at a garage as in most cases specialist tools are required.
In most cases this is all we can do under the bonnet, but with a few vehicles there are other things that we could check e.g. automatic transmission fluid, hydro static suspension level to name a few of them.
So at this point we can close the bonnet making sure that it has closed in the locked position, and with that we have come to the end of the first part of our maintenance checks.
Next time we will go through the exterior and interior checks and how to check the tyres and pressures.
Please be aware that this is only a rough guide on how to maintain your vehicle and if you are unsure or concerned with something get it checked out at your local garage, it may cost a couple of quid but may save you a lot of money in the long run along with the inconvenience and hassle of a breakdown and days without transport.
Until next time happy motoring, and I await a barrage of emails.
Dylan Haden, Mechanic for the Rainbow Run
spidermanwales@hotmail.com 07748 254814
Post Script
I have just discovered an on-line source for Scopaderm. I have no experience of this site and I am not recommending it. If you decide to use it I will be interested to know how you got on. If you are taking other prescription drugs you really should go to see your GP and he will check that there are no contraindications. http://www.doctorfox.co.uk/travel-sickness/important-information.html
Inter-vehicle communications. After a long time thinking about radios for the run we have decided to use FM CB radios. I hope the range will be enough and a European Standard set will not cost much. When installing the set make sure it is not obvious. Most countries frown on communicating amongst yourself so we will take time to remove antennas and hide radios at borders. Just had a look on eBay and they are readily available for as little as £15.
After speaking to Brittany Ferries they have agreed a discounted price for The Rainbow Run of £250 per Vehicle with 2 passengers per vehicle. This will include a 2 man cabin as well. Remember that if you are travelling as a three man team there will be additional costs to the team. They have also agreed to transport the bus for £250 as well.
Team Wyrd Sisters LR88” Janet Talbot & Dagmar Bancroft.
Team Bodgers LR109” Dylan Haden & Chris Bell.
Team Keating LR110” Michael & Maureen Keating.
Team 2 Scoops LR 109” Norman Maddison & Howard Bancroft.
Team Ruthless D2V8 James & Michael Stephens and Amy Hawkins.
Team Jockland Bus Charlie Denny & Janis McClure.
There is also a team from Sheffield who are in the process of registering. Of course there is also Mark and Leslie Mathews but I am unsure as to their travelling arrangements as yet. There may also be another team from here in Pembrokeshire (Chris Haden) but again I am unsure what he is doing. This makes a total of 6 vehicles with 12 runners with a possible additional 2 vehicles and 5 runners. There are no figures yet for the advance party.
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