As the last blog entry finished, this one begins. It seems we forgot a few items when we left Scotland, luckily there was nothing major and we are adaptable people, so we went shopping. This gave us the perfect opportunity to see the sights of Reading. Sights is a strong word, but we did see all Reading had to offer in an hour. We saw the inside of a Blacks store to replace our forgotten water bottles.

 

After lunch we set off from Reading for London to attend the official launch of the rally, which is in Battersea Park this year. My brother came into London with us, allowing us the perfect opportunity to test our gopro camera in his car's rear window. Second lesson learned: charge camera equipment before attempting to use it. The gopro battery lasted for 45 minutes, leaving us with nothing to entertain ourselves in London traffic but blaring our epic music playlist at full volume to keep our spirits alive. It seems the people of London do not appreciate John Williams' ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park’ played at full volume in 30 degrees C in heavy traffic. After exhausting our epic music, and halfway into our jazzy playlist we arrived at the wrong entrance to Battersea Park. As I said we're quick thinkers, so we tried a different entrance to more success. We were welcomed into the car park by a gathering of the most inappropriate vehicles to tackle a 10,000 mile trip to Mongolia - it was beautiful. A selection of cars varying from Micras through Citroën 2CVs to a single Ferrari. More impressive then the cars was the additions to them: some teams opted for roof boxes (like ourselves) and some team have gone a different path and opted for paddling pools, one team has decided camping is not for them and has opted for a garden shed.

 

After registering and sweating like a cow in a slaughter factory, we enjoyed the festivities of the launch. Jokes were made at the expense of the others, like the guy with a Ferrari who was mocked with the addition of two naked men to the roof. Awards were awarded to those who needed them: Best pimp job - those guys with the shed on the back of their car, least likely to make it - man with Ferrari, least understanding of the rally way - people taking a transit van who were awarded a golden washing machine to take to Mongolia for their lack of effort. 

 

The evening revelry got underway at a local bar where things got weird fast. We arrived and had a nice chat to a guy riding a bike solo, shortly after we were welcomed into an evening of Mongolian music and a dance floor occupied by one extravagant man. The scene was one I expect in random-istan not city centre London. Now we're sat in the car in a dark car park watching people fix their already broken cars.