London to Sydney
Steve's Diary !
Days 13 to 16
Day 13 – Cochin (India) to Munnar (India) 18-06-04; 230km
What an India send off we got. Huge crowds lining the streets, elephants, TV camera's etc. It was the send off we should have had in London.
Paul was driving today so I had to navigate us to our first stage about 80km away. Boy was this drive India at its best. Incredibly bumpy and muddy roads, cars, trucks, buses, motorbikes, people all wandering aimlessly along the road. We really had to be on the ball just to get to the stage. One of the competitors in a yellow Monaro had an accident on the transport stage and rolled down a bank, ending upside down in a river.
The navigator suffered a broken finger but they had to retire from the event. Another, an Aussie Corolla got rear ended by a truck crumpling their left rear quarter and smashing a tail light. The transport stage took us up to 7000ft where our very beautiful special stages were to be run amongst the tea plantations.
We arrived and the tarmac stage on tarmac tyres….what a mistake that was. The stage was 18km of smashed tarmac and mostly mud, pot holes, and incredible bumps and jumps. It was so bad I thought my teeth were going to rattle out. We struggled through the stage trying hard to avoid a puncture. Fortunately for us the second stage was cancelled as the ambulance and tow truck failed to appear.
Our overnight stop was just outside Munnar in an Indian resort. It was quite good (at least they serve beer) and incredible views. Two amazing facts about this place; It is the wettest place on earth with an apparent 100ft of rainfall a year. I can vouch for that as it pissed down non-stop the whole time we were there. And, National Geographic Magazine named it the most beautiful place on earth. I can believe that too. It has incredible beauty.
It's a shame our car park didn't. It was a school yard that quickly became one huge bog hole. We had to chance tyres ourselves (to gravels) in the mud and rain aswell as wash the car with weird cowshed type hose and T-Shirts.
Day 14 – Munnar (India) to Coimbatore (India) 19-06-04; 290km
I was driving today and we were running yesterdays two stages in reverse.
It was raining but at least this time we were on the right tyres. And it showed in our times, actually it was a good day for us timewise as we were about 8 th fastest.
Two cars came to grief on the stages today; We came accross Steve Blunt's Corolla perched on some tea tree's on the outside of the tight left hand bend. They were to get going again but posted maximum time for the stage. And the Yellow Capri Perana went down a huge embankment and landed somewhere down a gully. I have not seen the car yet so don't know its state of being.
If yesterdays transport was a 7000ft climb, today's was the decent. A reasonably uneventful drive through typically chaotic Indian traffic to our overnight destination in Coimbatore where we did a quick “nut and bolt tighten” on the car and paid the carpark attendant 50 rupee's to clean the car.
Day 15 – Coimbatore (India) to Mysore (India) 20-06-04; 350km
Paul's turn to drive and we had a 60km transport to the first of our two gravel stages today. They were like oversized motocana through a wind-farm. There were hundreds of huge windmills everywhere. The land was flat, dry and very windy. The stages were 14km and 12km long and they were rippers. I wished I had been driving. We zigzagged across these paddocks at about 100km/h spending most of our time sideways. The little car was screaming its head off in second gear most of the time…so much so that the water temp got quite hot. There were rally cars going everywhere. The Yellow Capri Perana that rolled yesterday was back in the event today but overheated badly during the first stage. They must have damaged their radiator in the previous accident.
We had a 240km tour to Mysore (or “Eyesore” as Paul calls it). It's a dry and dusty city with plenty of squalor. We met the service truck in Mysore and changed from gravel to tarmac tyres as we have been assured tomorrows tarmac is sort of smooth. Hmmm….I remain skeptical until I see it for myself. We checked into our hotel and beat off the 10 porters who all wanted to carry my luggage.
Day 16 – Mysore (India) to Cochin (India) 21-06-04; 450km
In Mysore we were staying in a different hotel to where the start control was located, they were in a “Taj Mahal” style luxury antique hotel and we were downtown in "another" hotel.
We had to get to the start control early. As we left for the control we picked up four motorbikes each carrying a rider and a guy on the back with a video camera recording our every move which is something that had been happening to us quite regularly. Its quite fun for us darting in and out of the traffic trying the shake them off.
The two stages were actually the same stage run twice. It was right outside Mysore and was tarmac, up hill (buggar), reasonably straight with a couple of slippery corners. In other words a horsepower stage. We got through OK, but conservatively as my sights are firmly on getting to the Antonov.
Once we completed the stage we had a 400+ km drive to Cochin. And wasn't that an experience. The traffic is chaotic beyond imagination. They have no road sense at all and it's a miracle all the competitors arrived back in one piece. A couple had minor incidents, one sideswiped a truck costing them their outside mirror and one tire. Another had a motorcyclist run into the back of them. We saw two major head on collisions between cars and trucks. We heard of others from competitors traveling behind us.
We arrived into Cochin just inside our allocated time despite traveling quite rapidly and at times unsafely. We then spent almost 3 hours (until it got dark) cleansing the car interior for Australian customs . We have to spend another whole day tomorrow finishing the interior, doing the spares and tools, the engine bay, underneath (including removing the stone guard), and the exterior. It will be a very long day I suspect.
Oh…and we were back in the same shitty hotel as last the time, The very bad Abad hotel.
