Manx Adventurers

Steve Watt has issued the ‘winter series’ of walk/run challenges, all of which must be completed by the end of March 2008.

To complete the challenge 10 out the following 15 routes must be complete, at night.

In no particular order :-

1. Sloc to Bay View Hotel, Port Erin via the footpaths.
2. East Mountain Gate to Ginger Hall
3. Brandywell Cottage  to Crosby via Baldwin
4. Cronky Voddy to St. John’s via the Staarvey Road
5. Bungalow to Sulby Hotel
6. Windy Corner to Union Mills
7. Port e Vullen to Maughold village via the Venture Centre and the Dreemskerry road
8. Round Table to Colby Glen via the magnetic hill road A27
9. Blue Point to the Point of Ayre
10. Union Mills to St. John’s along the old railway line
11. Point of Ayre to Ramsey at Low Tide ( last bit on the beach)
12. Round Table to Glen Maye down the track (recent work at top)
13. Black Hut on the verandah to Laxey Prom.
14. Brandywell Cottage to Ballaugh on the Druidale road
15. Shore Hotel at Gansey to Castletown around Scarlett Point

There seem to be a few schools of thought:

• Take a small cheap banger. This is the most challenging for an adventure rally as they are old, unreliable and underpowered.
• Take a 4×4. This provides a higher likelihood of a finish but takes away some, but not all, of the unpredictability of dealing with difficult terrain.
• Take a vehicle that will be useful to the locals that we donate it to.

A combination of all 3 would be great, a small underpowered 4×4 that will be useful to the receiving charity.

Thinking of a 1.0 Fiat Panda 4×4, Suzuki SJ410 4×4 or similar. How about a Lada Niva?

We have now entered the Mongolia Rally starting July 2008.  Next steps are:

• thinking about what car to take - small and inexpensive
• thinking about the route - what countries we want to go through on our way to Mongolia
• choosing our charities and planning on raising money for them

July seems a long way off but I am sure it will come round in no time at all and all of the things that we should have prepared will become more urgent.

We are currently looking at a Summer 2008 adventure rally to Mongolia. There are a couple of organisations running charity events with different starting dates. Update to follow.