Thanks for visiting our  Wacky Rally "Barmy to Barcelona" fund raising page.

We're back!

We successfully made it to Barcelona, via Britain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and back into France along the southern coast.
It was definitely something we (and a fair amount of bewildered locals) will remember, driving through Europe along with some decidedly wacky cars and people.

Arriving in the carpark in Lille we expected to see some "interesting" cars from the other teams, although it was obvious some were a bit more barmy than others. As well as the A-team, a fire engine themed Mercedes and the Pink Panther Ford Mondeo was Team Air Cav' with their car, complete with rotor blades, and side-mounted chain gun, KGB with their Red Army themed car, sporting a fetching twin barrel gun turret on the roof, and Best of the Wurst, an estate car with a giant sausage on the roof amongst over 50 other similarly mad cars.

Shortly after we were gathered around, given a quick briefing and set on our way, and a procession of unusual cars were unleashed upon Europe. As each car passed the start line we were given an envelope containing the days challenges, which included simple tasks such as taking a picture of a tractor (Imagine the poor tractor drivers face as he pulled over to the side of the road, only for several unusually customised cars to pull over as well, and swarm around him, with their occupants leaning out of doors and sunroofs taking their required pictures) to more obscure photos of another teams car, with a biker, and a cow, or making a team pet out of every day objects.

At the end of each day we would report in at a pre-determined bar and tell tales of the days events and share any amusing photos we had taken, many of which can be seen on the Wacky Rally website. 

The next day the teams would again assemble at a local car park ready to set off, sirens and lights blaring, for the start of the next leg of the rally. It was at one such car park in Italy a local was very interested in buying our car, and another which was interested in how much horsepower its 20 year old engine had, with us explaining that although it would've had around 200hp many of those horses would have ran away by now.

The whole journey went by almost without a hitch, but a trip like that wouldn't quite be the same without some form of mechanical fault, so naturally one developed. What we later suspected to be an overheating problem we found ourselves with a car which would refuse to rev enough to get moving after sitting in traffic for more than a few minutes. Switching off the engine for a few seconds and starting it up again seemed to cure it as long as we kept moving at normal speed. On the final day it became much worse, so unfortunately the car couldn't return with us, as we almost ended up misfiring and crawling into Barcelona. It made it, but only just, so there was a great sense of relief when we finally made it into Barcelona, parking a couple of streets away from Las Ramblas. We made it!

Thanks to everyone for your generous donations