How to raise £2000....

Hello dumballers.

For the first of our Dumball 6 blogs I thought I'd address the fact that this year we have set every team the target of raising £2000. Now we know this won't be easy...but we also know that it is 100% possible. Why? Because dumball one does it every year - and we are a measly team of two.

You just have to ask yourself these questions? 1) Do you WANT to raise £2000? 2) Do you have over 50 friends on facebook who you know quite well?

If you're not on facebook don't worry, the principle is the same. I refer you to one of my blogs in 2010 where I discovered the magic of sending PERSONALISED messages to friends  -we all know they don't respond to mass messaging. Invest a couple of hours of your time writing bespoke pleas for money, and abracadabra  - You've hit the target.

And if you need more reason to raise the required amount...think this. All things said and done your team will have spent over £2000 having the week of your life. You could of just stayed at home and given away that money - but then your not that nice are you? So to redress the balance of the Universe - raise the cash you're going to spend. Lets make the rally "selfish fun neutral"

Remember - anything is possible!

THE 2010 BLOG:

On Friday afternoon, I was sat at work, and I looked at our miserbale funraising total - just £220. Now as we all know this year we have set the dumball a ridiculous challenge - for all of us to try and raise £1000 (each!). Other charity rallys have done it - and we want to be one of the best, so we thought, why not?

Now I must admit it was highly embrassing to look at our page, with such a low amount, this close to the dumball. And so I decided to take our own advice. I sat down, logged onto facebook, and sent 50 tailor made messages to friends, family, acquaintances, and people that I just happen to be mates with on facebook (you know the sort). It took me about an hour, but it was well worth it. By the end of the day I had raised an extra £650. Now we're talking...and it was so easy! I just said hello, asked how they were doing, added some comments specific to them, then hit them with it: I'm targeting 50 of the most generous people I know, and asking them all for £20. But here's the best bit...some gave £30, some £50...some £100! Amazing. I urge you all to give this a try, if you haven't, your not making life easy on yourself - it was so simple.

The target we have set ourselves is ridiculously high - but everyone has hundreds of friends on facebook - so lets tap them up for cash...and it's a great way to catch up with people!

Peace

Muzza, DUMBALL HQ

Epilogue

So one month later and the date has been annonced for Dumball 6 - only 570 days to go... We're back to a spring date - 27th April 2012. Set your alarms folks.

Meanwhile, Dumballers old and new have been trying to cope with real life but just can't stop thinking about it. So a couple of goodies from the Red Squadron's Surf Chicks:

From old hand Jess, a half-hour photo montage taking you right the way through the whole event, featuring epic mountains, Busted jumps galore, speed limits for tanks and previously unseen footage of the cars post-crushing. Check it out here: http://gallery.me.com/jessholliday#100021

And from new girl Camilla, a gushing brain dump of all the best bits as she tries to explain exactly what happened in that magically week. Camilla couldn't bare to be parted from her trusty steed and to this day drives around Italy in the Surf Chick's dumball car, searching for anyone chatting on channel 3....

Dumball rally – The Godfather 2010 - one life live it

Really..??!.. is it not normal hanging out of a car with a massive sheep on the roof and screaming CIAO at the top of your lungs trying to get high fives from pedestrians whilst speeding through red light, on a forgotten mountain village on the way to Kosovo? Really? Not normal? Who defined normal anyway?

How about deciding to drive over 3000 miles through Europe, in one week with a bunch of your friends in fancy dress and pimped up shit ass cars. And we are not talking the autobahn either, we are talking hard core winding mountain roads, that only mad dogs and English men seems to still grace with their presence. Normal? I think yes, if you were a part of this year’s Dumball rally - The Godfather. One cause got us all united and made us live, scream and shot through the walki talkies that kept the squadrons together in convoys. Teenage Cancer Trust. What a great way to raise money for charity. Helping teenagers with the fight of their life, the fight to live. We all have one life, so live it!

On day one we arrived on Brighton peer, dressed to impress, a bag of currency and ready to cross 1 ocean go over two and drive through 12 countries to get to our destination, Scilly. Don’t forget the spirit of Dumball, it’s not about being there, it’s about getting there. Each car received: one driver manual, walkie talki and a bunch of stickers. My car the surf chicks were dumballers nr 25 and in red squadron together with: The Beach boys, easy to recognize with all the inflatable’s strapped to the roof, Devon Sent looked like it had dived into a painters kit and had everything colourful glued to it, Midas Touch the queens of the gold, Devon does Dumball and Moonshiners. We eagerly put all the stickers on our old 2liter 850 Volvo estate, with special attention to the sticker IN MEMORY OF ADAM HORN - one life, live it. A bubbly perfectly happy teenager, that one day got the horrifying news that he had cancer. Adam lost the battle before his 18 birthday but never lost hope. It’s for teenagers like Adam we were all gathered to do Dumball rally.

Are we not glad we got the manual, apparently all we need in form of maps and other information was in it. And as stated on page 1:The manual is perfectly correct in every way. In the unlikely event that you should discover any discrepancies along the way, blame reality… The manual is always right.

On that note, what could possibly go wrong?

The walkies turned out to be necessary for more than one reason. Some fabulous banter going on channel 3 amongst the red squadron. It proved extremely useful when driving in convoy or overtaking slower vehicles climbing up a winding road with absolutely no view of oncoming traffic. "Go go go go.. NO no no car coming car coming. All clear. Surf chicks are through, waiting for Moonshiners in the blowhole." All good! Or trying to keep the squadron together through crazy cities and various crossings with holding manoeuvres. "Who is in the blowhole? (being last in the convoy) over, Midas touch over, Beach boys requesting a holding manoeuvres from Midas touch over. Roger that, beach boys over. Roger Federer over." And the last car would pull out and stop all traffic.

Our squadron leaders, the beach boys, and their fabulous effort to keep us all sane when we needed it most. On the fifth day of driving we today we’re heading to the disputed territory of Kosovo through beautiful, tiny mountain passes in the middle of chuffing nowhere. The manual said it’s important to go to the right border into Kosovo and not via Serbia, as they are very much in dispute with Kosovo. There was a seriously long and hairy road through the Montenegrians peaks and tops that took us to Kosovo. Kosovo, the land that is being rebuild from almost scratch, at least the motorway, oh no wait let me refries that, the motorway is not built yet. If you try to find a descent road map of Kosovo you will find it to be more than a challenge. Pretty sure that any German participant, if we had had any, would have lost the plot just by the thought of not being able to know exactly where we were going. Having to buy car insurance on the border, because no insurance company in their right mind would insure you in this country, continuing on a not yet built motorway that we had to drive on for hours in the blackness of the night, with no light in sight, ANYWHERE. It basically consisted of a dirt road with no signing what so ever, the only light you saw through the huge cloud of dust was if you were lucky, the tail light of the car in front of you, and the sudden scare of the front light that came from out of nowhere 1 meter to the left of you. We constantly had to take hard right and hard lefts to avoid sudden drops in the road, ditches that would most certainly had messed our wheels up and the emergency total lack of road. Thank goodness for the walki talki at least we had each other. Me for one I did not know if I was driving into no man’s land, into a war zone or both. The dumball manual clearly said; don’t stop for anything in Kosovo, don’t drive off marked roads, and never drive at night. Ok so why not add to the excitement and just do all of it? Living in the comfort zone? Nop, living real life!

When we eventually got into Prestina, we were met with roads, cars, and general chaos. As expected traffic rules was mere guidelines, if that. And our dressed up cars drew no attention what so ever... so we managed to blend in pretty well. Or? After having the squadron leaders running around half panic stricken in the street trying to find out our location, in bright yellow and red LIFGUARD outfits, I don’t think anyone noticed us. We managed to find a taxi to escort the squadron to the hotel. Driving bumper to bumper got a whole new meaning. I was wondering why the taxi driver chuckled at us when we said take us to the Grand hotel, I assumed it was the bright red faced blond lifeguard James that was directing us with his lifeguard whistle, but after driving one block to find our hotel, I realized why. 23.45 we reached the hotel and 23.47 we hit the bar. Glued to a bottle of red wine and soaked in massive amounts of food, high fives and hugs all around. 100 exited voices turned into a 100 drunken voices and so the night went on.

As regards to the driving experience this was one of the highlights of the Dumball Rally this year. But it was so much more to come. The joint mission we were all on, glue you together and create a whole different kind of unity. The sort of belonging that you felt to your 7th grade best mates and your soccer team mates after 10 years of thick and thin. Everyone with open minds and no personality filters, we all blended into a melting pot. The standard for fancy dress was defiantly set by the TOP DUMB on the first day in Brighton, where Highway to the danger zone was blasting out at serious volume, from the roof of an old gray sprayed pimped up sports Mazda made out to resemble the F11 top gun fighter jets. And in front MavNick and MavRick in full fighter pilot costume, helmet and pilot glasses. Top Dum = big hit! Not far behind was the EWE Turn, an estate Vauxhall with a massive sheep flat out on his stomach made out of insulation spray, a massive pink tongue hanging over the front window screen. This would later prove to be an issue and resulting in Mr Darren hanging out of the window holding the tong to one side in torrential rain in 70 miles an hour down the motorway in Italy! And I thought I had seen it all....
Parked next to EWE Turn in Brighton was the Esplanades Mexicans. A spaceship of a car dipped in serious technology. It had blasting speakers mounted on the back in what looked like space motors, changing colours and spewing out smoke. The inside was like sitting in a cockpit, and I could not help wondering what a class hang up on electronics had happened here. Having seen stranger things in my life, I sat back and let myself be impressed.

THE SPIRIT OF DUMBALL MONKEY

This is the highest honour one can receive. It is given to the group who show the most Passion, courage and madness along the way. The price we were all competing for went to "Blow your doors of" on the last leg to Sicily they actually literally blew their doors of, and drove the last hour without doors. Don’t think they had been expected a thunderstorm and pouring rain, but that only made it so much more fun.

8days, 3000 miles and £ 68 000 raised for charity later we grouped hugged when our cars got squashed into scrap metal. All but a couple of cars got to live to tell the tale. One that is still very much alive is our surf chicks car, which I renamed The surf chick when driving alone from south to the north, to Lake Como, which is where I currently live real life....

The Dumball Awards 2010

So, a couple of days later and we've all finally had a few minutes sleep, been back to work and seen our doting families. One thing they're all asking for: the results.

Now, we all know that the dumball is not a race. But that does not mean that there are not prizes to be had. Our awards ceremony the year was held at the spectacular Sea Club (sorry about their awful all flash website) a very nice venue, tucked away in a private little bay on the northern coast of Sicily near Palermo. We arrived to set up a little late (of course) and found that our contact wasn't around. No one spoke much English, nothing was ready and a big storm was brewing out at sea. An ominous beginning for a club which doesn't really do weather.

Now I'm back at a PC with a proper internet connection I can be a little more generous with the pics, so here's a little taste of Sea Club:

See that sunset? That developed into something magical over the next hour, the weather cleared up, the DJs and food arrived, the projector, massive screen and projector on the roof of the building were set up and things started slotting into place. Unfortunately the coaches bringing the rest of the dumball in missed their cue and they all arrived in the dark, but hey - it was there. So - onto the awards.

The Awards 2010

First up we had an update on the fundraising - this year 87 poeple have raised over £58,000, bring the dumball running total to over £180,000. Awesome. Individual teams' totals varied, but the team that did the most this year was:

THE GRAND MASTER CASH AWARD for fundraising

The Bandit held a mini music festival as a fundraiser for TCT, getting 13 bands to play and raising over 3 grand, bring their grand total to £3544.90. Well done them.

One of the main reason we raise money for the TCT is our friend Adam Horn who came with us in 2007 and sadly lost his battle with cancer the next year. He was a pretty cool bloke. And we have an award in his honour:

THE ADAM HORN BLING BLING TROPHY for being cool

Danny Mains took home the gold this year, for growing a moustace just for the dumball and generally being a f**king cool bloke. Here he is telling some locals how cool he is.

A new award for 2010:

THE LAURENCE LLEWELYN BOWEN AWARD for interior design

The Femmes Fatels took this one home for making the inside of their car look great just by being there.

Our poorest award normally goes to the team who's car breaks down first - but we altered it slightly this year to acknowledge the fact that one man was driving 2 cars when they expired. He did the double!

THE SHITTY SHITTY BANG BANG SHIELD for breaking down first

Went to Tom Perry for his car destroying skills - one breakdown, one accident. Poor show Tom! ;)

One of the most prestigious awards next:

THE TIM WESTWOOD BASEBALL CAP for pimping your car

A hands down winner this year Lloyd and El Lunartics in their Mexican Space Shuttle, complete with smoke machine, glowing thrusters and the all important Thyristor controller.

A special prize this year for a regular dumballer who went a little bit extra this year:

THE MILES 'N' MILES AWARD for going the extra distance.

Tom Horn took this home - he flew out of Macedonia on Thurday for a wedding in blighty on Friday only to return to the dumball on Saturday to complete it as if nothing had happened. That's dedication. And as you can see, he's pretty dedicated to having a good time too:

Back to the traditional awards:

THE DAME EDNA AWARD for fancy dress

And the winner is... The Catania Car-dinals for the variety, commitment and sheer balls of wearing cheer leaders outfits at some rather macho borders.

THE BLIND BAT AWARD for lack of navigational skills

Despite planning this whole week, and leading the squad that generally led the rest, Dumball One AKA Top Dum pulled off a controversial 'victory' this year and picked up the Blind Bat gong. They had a unique skill of waiting until they were in a 20 car squad, and then deciding to go down the dead end, so the entire lot had to reverse. Oh, that and heading for a closed Kosovan border.

Chumps.

Another spot prize next:

BEST NEWCOMERS for being new and good

The Spirit of Austerity were awarded best newcomers for 'getting it', always up for a laugh, driving a shit car and most importantly, persuading a bride to get on the bonnet of their car, ruining her dress in the process:

Every year on the dumball, we ask people to have fun along the way and take some good photos. Now, in case anyone is stuck for inspiration, we set a few chanllenges as well, and want photo graphic evidence of completion:

THE CHALLENGE MASTERS for getting the best challenge photo

Amongst tough competition (we had a shortlist of 9 instead of 5), Raging Horn II pulled it off with the beautiful shot. The poor kid didn't know the dumball was coming to town that day, but it got involved anyone, putting on it's best 'pretending to be crying' face, just for the shot.

Ben Crean is another honorable dumballer who has sadly passed on, but lives on in the form of a mighty dumball award:

THE BEN CREAN PRIZE FOR PEACE for international relations

Back with another magnificent sheep car, but one which made it all the way this year, Ewe Turn brought joy and laughter wherever they went. Even if the tongue does get in the way of their windscreen wipers.

And onto the big one. There is a thing... carved out of a coconut...

THE SPIRIT OF DUMBALL MONKEY for showing bravery, stupidity and greatness in the face of tarmac.

What Blow The Doors Off did this year to win the monkey was quite funny - they removed the doors of their Mercedes 300. But what elevated it to monkey status was probably unintentional - they drove 150 miles along the Sicilian coast road though one of the biggest downpours we've even seen, with nothing but boiler suits to protect them from the elements. I would have loved to have seen them arrive at the swanky Geonardo Park, sodden and shivering. Good work lads - check out their handy work below.

And there you go! 2010 - Done.

A massive thank you to all the dumballers that came along and were dumb enough to keep us entertained, all those who couldn't make it followed us from a far, the Dumball Commitee for all their hard work, and of course, our glorious leaders:

Rick 'n' Nick

We couldn't do it without out you, and once again you've pulled off a very special week and made a lot of people very happy. Cheers guys.

Adieu

Hey all - Zoobs here..

Well.. bloody hell.. another year down. I'm currently sat in the hotel in Palermo with a few of the last stragglers from this year's Dumball. General consensus is that this year has been pretty much awesome :)

The last few days have been a bit of a daze, culminating in the most fabulous closing ceremony in an open-air, beach-side nightclub (thankfully the weather held off!) I'm sure pics will be forthcoming from someone, so once I've figured out where they are, I'll probably link them up for you to all see.

So many things happened over the last week that it's just impossible to relay even a small portion of them to you. Suffice to say, there are currently just under 100 people in various stages of heading back to the UK (and various stages of hangover) all wondering the same thing...

"what the hell just happened....."

Anyway, this year has seen many new faces and many returning old-hands. I'm sure you'll all join me in thanking Rick and Nick for their absolutely sterling efforts, (along with the Dumball Committee) and we'll see you all for the next one

/Zoobs

It happened!

Finally, on the last day of dumball, half way through the award ceremony party and shortly before the actual ceremony final began, all three lego space police came together (oh er) in a spectacular display of foam and Dave's hand craft.

We have in fact just got third place for the dame edna award for fancy dress! We would have won first place hands down had we actually worn them a little more often (i reckon anyway!)

Crushing

A wet night and an emotional day.
After the ferry we started driving towards huge fork lightening in the distance. A little worrying in a car with no wipers... We thought spectrum had it bad in our squad until blow the doors off took things a little bit literally and actually removed both their front doors. Shortly before the heavens unleashed and almighty doorpour which saw even the crazy italians stopping on the hard shoulder as visibilty reduced to zero and golfball sized raindrops battered the roofs of our cars. A couple of hours of that with no doors must have been pretty intense.
Palermo was an excellent introduction to true Italian driving skills and squads took some 'interesting' routes into the plush hotel. The Genoardo Park is a very nice hotel, more at home to exclusive weddings than 100 idiots wearing jumpsuits and freddy mercury costumes. A welcome party at the hotel was most called for and finally everyone right foot could take a rest. 2800 miles, 14 countries (if you took a couple of detours) and some very sweaty people.
Nothing lasts for long on the dumball though and we had to set off this morning to dispatch the cars- italy being rather dead on a sunday. So we headed to a scrap yard and in return for a generous donation to the TCT, they took about 20 cars off our hands and proceeded to show off with their machines, building little piles of dumball history. It was a smashing day. Crushing for some.
Just the aware ceremony to go. I can now reveal the location check out seaclub.info and start planning you car for next year.

The dumball has landed.

DELAYED FROM EARLIER - WE'RE HERE! Explain more tomorrow...
So, we're nearly there... Nearly. About 300km and 1 ferry to go. In palermo a plush hotel and disco awaits.
Unfortunately the pool on the ferry wasn't open overnight so there wasn't a huge amount to do, although the casino was and some people stayed up a little too late gambling and may be regretting it slightly now...
We set off from the ferry in a full dumball snake but that quickly broke off into various factions. A few people are nipping into airports to pick WAGS, while we have got one of ours on route and have grabbed Adriana from a services where she was waiting with her family. Space is at rather a premium in the Space Police now...
As we hit the northern coast of southern europe we found a nice little restaurant and had a fine italian meal, aided by our new found local.
And there she is! We're in the queue for the ferry...
...and now we're through the ferry, but with the amount of tunnels on this road it looks like i won't see it till we get there, current ETA 21:30 and it's all over for another year.

Done.

This little man was the lego space police's trusty guide all the way from brighton to palermo. Copious amounts of superglue were not enough to keep his shield in place which may explain a few of the mishaps along the way. And you can just a drip on his cape - a mere fraction of the battering he suffered along the Sicily coast road

Palermo!

Well boys and girls the sun is setting on both another dumball and the beautiful island of Sicily. It's been epic emotional and exceptionally long. A week we will never forget. Now bring on the awards ceremony... A grand way to finish a grand old week.

Dumball one

So we're back on the road and cruising down to our overnight ferry to Italy. Have you noticed how i only blog from the back of the car and not while actually sat on the beach?

A very unusual dumball day- we've just set off at 7pm after spending the day sleeping, playing pool polo and having a beach volleyball tournament a few hundred meters down the beach from where we did in 2006. It's a short (4 hour) across good motorways so we made the most of our plush greek resort and revitalised mind, body and soul.

Now, there is a road over the top over Mt Olympus. Our sat nav said it was one hour, others said 5 hours, it wasn't in the maps, and the locals said it would be 10 hours. So, given that we've just driven over some of europes most amazing mountain roads, we figured a little r&r was called for rather than leaving earlier. Some cars did brave it, and i'll be very interested to know if they saw any gods up there. Shame to miss a good road, but it was a nice beach.

In fact we've just heard- they didn't make it over and had to turn back. I think that means they didn't take the road over the top but we'll find out later...

I've swapped cars for a quick jaunt in dumball one and am enjoying a little bit of magic up front. Watching a little bit of Extras, planning a rousing final leg speech and preparing to accept hundreds of stupid photos from everyones challenges. Looking forward to those!

Oh- better slow down, just saw a sign the said 'Attention danger. Bears habitat.'

Ahh, Greek port authority

Interesting...

We're in Igoumenitsa, inside the secure international port.

Not that we've been challenged by anyone yet.. and not that we actually have any tickets yet.. but we just drove in. I know that we need to pick the tickets up, but only the person who made the booking can do that.

So, we're sat in the port, waiting for the rest of the world to arrive, hoping vaguely that they haven't broken down or got lost. Could be fun :)

The run down from Mount Olympus to Igoumenitsa was pretty uneventful. We came on early so I could meet up with my mum (Hi mum! /wave) who lives in Corfu. A nice spot of lunch and a few hours gab, and I'm ready to hit the ferry and party like there is no tomorrow. Except of course, there is a tomorrow.. and in true Dumball style its a 400 mile "sprint" across the south of Italy, to our glorious destination of Sicily. Damn, are we that close already? :(

Zoobs

Beach bums

It's a hard life driving thousands of miles and today the cars and their drivers received a good old beach break. Right now were on route to the overnight ferry to Italy after a seriously chilled day...

Dumball one

Greece and beyond

Morning all!

We're in Greece, at a lovely hotel right by the sea at the foot of Mount Olympus, and it's bloody hot.

Yesterday was a usual eventful Dumball day. Prishtina is an interesting city - one thing that they are desperately in need of are innovative marketing companies. Frankly, the petrol company cunning called "Petrol Company" was our first clue. However, after taking a wander around the city in the evening that was certainly not the only example of obviously named companies.

We ended up celebrating in the hotel - apparently they have recently introduced laws that force all of the beverage entertainment locations to shut at midnight. However, with a little negotiation with the hotel staff, they finally agreed to keep the hotel bar open for "as long as necessary". They obviously haven't looked up the Dumball before.

In the morning, we left Prishtina and headed south towards Macedonia. Our first stop of the day was at a petrol station to fill up the cars. Whilst there, we got a little American Football in with the locals, which they seemed to enjoy almost as much as us.

We then headed on to the Macedonian border, which was the usual "border tax" situation, followed by lots of arm-waving and gesticulating. Luckily, the fact our V5 isn't entirely accurate in terms of owner didn't hold us up at the border.

Heading into Macedonia, we picked up the toll road and continued south. The road was pretty much deserted, which allowed us to pull off some amazing manoevers with the cars. A quick hug of a policeman, riding a local's vehicle and trying to nick a police car later, we cross the border into Greece. (Thanks Macedonia - that €50 insurance was worth every penny for the two hours we were there!)

Finally reach the hotel pretty early doors - around 5.30pm, once we had moved our clocks forward again an hour. Had a swim on the pool, a bite to eat in the local all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, then we headed down to the beach for a party, finally hitting the sack at around 4am.

So now, I'm up and about getting ready to depart. (The rest of the Dumball crew are hanging on til about 4, but I'm off with Dan and Mat to head to Igoumenitsa to meet my parents for the afternoon. We'll hook up with the rest of the Dumball as we get onto the ferry to Brindisi.

Oh - we did lose two more cars yesterday. General Lee died with a head gasket problem, and I believe the Ben's Angels car suffered a bijou tappette to the front end which rendered it a little broken. (Don't worry - everyone is fine!) I think that brings our total to 4 down now, which is pretty good considering the terrain we've been going over.

Anyhow. Must have a beer. It's at least 10.20am now and my alcohol-stream has a high blood content. At least Des is driving!

Cheers

Zoobs

Kosovans treat us like marmite

But they mainly love us. Just met a kosovan who has a car wash in tottenham and offered us a free one next weekend. Excellent.

Downhill all the way from here- after the swedish nato forces waved us off, there was a short battle out of pristina and down to macedonia. More border insurance and it's time for a lunch break in the middle of nowhere.

I don't think this random cafe was expecting 20 'ballers to turn up unannounced and have just popped to the shop to get some more chicken...

All Hail George Bush

So, where was i? Oh yes, fruity...
Let me start by relaying a message from Lord Horn i received earlier today (tuesday?): 3500ft up in mountains between montnegro n kosovo, had a huge Adam moment. The boy woulda liked this!
He sure would. Today's drive was absolutely incredible.
So, the montenegro hotel was a massive downgrade from the decidedly dodgy one that we had originally booked, and of course finding it without any maps was a lot of fun. They held our passports for a good couple of hours this morning while the transfered money was transfered on the third hotel but we got there in the end and squeezed a bit of a rebate out of them to make up for the cockroaches... Which was promptly spent no bubbly for those lucky dumballers having a birthday this week.
But the real story for today was the drive- oh my f-ing g. Montenegro really should shout more about it's scenery. There's no way this phone or any pictures do it justice, but the drive over the mountains was simply stunning. We peaked at over 5000ft surrounded by nothing but rugged peaks and the occasional cow, many hours from any form of civillisation, stopping regulary to tend to either boiling radiators or red hot brakes. What superlative haven't i used yet? Mind-boggling.
Eventually we reached the border for the day- the UN administered state of kosovo. We've been trying all day to work out how an unrecognised state works exactly... And it doesn't. The road from mne to pristina was about 100km but far bumpier that any before, and completely unfinished so it took hours at 20mph. Insane.
Pristina is mental. So much so that they have imposed a curfew and the town is shut down at midnight, pubs, clubs and all. But we persuaded grand hotel to let us have a lock-in and we got most of our kosovan cultural fix from the hotel bar.
That's enough for now. Tomorrow- the EU! --

Kosovo

And so we make it to Kosovo. We took a windy windy route that can only be described as windy. Here's some pics...

Kosovo..... We made it!

Hello everyone!

Zubel checking in for the first time this Dumball. So far Wifi access has been a bit sparse, so I'm taking the opportunity to blog whilst I can.

The story so far...

We're now on what feels like our fourth week of Dumballing, although by the Dumball calendar we've just finished day 5.

Our run to Zurich on the second day was loooong, and fairly uneventful. We took the opportunity to cover a bit of road that we covered in the '08 Dumball again which led us into a traffic jam, and we ended up at the hotel around 10.30pm. Following a quick change of clothes, we head out to the Australian bar for a few beers, and then passed out from exhaustion in the small, yet perfectly formed hotel.

Day 3 was another very long day, heading down to Rijeka in Croatia. It started pretty badly, with Smalley's car dying in the car park of the start hotel (that was the second car death for the Black squadron), so the remaining three Black squadron cars joined our Pink squadron to create "Blink Squadron" and we convoyed as a group of 9 cars. The scenery was awesome as we took in the Swiss and Austrian mountains (found an amazing restaurant that had an impromptu barbecue for us with the most beautiful panoramic view I have ever seen), then turned south into Slovenia and Croatia. We stopped a few times, and again ended up late getting into the hotel. Total mileage so far, around 1,100. The hotel was a little odd, but the beer was €1.50 a bottle and we sank a few. Some people headed off into town to the "club", but I was knackered after the long day so decided (again!) to hit the sack.

Day 4. The Epic journey to Budva. A slow start, and we covered about half the distance by 5pm. We ploughed on and eventually made our way to Budva. Then through Budva.. then 15km the other side of Budva. After wrestling control of the sat-nav from Smalley, we turned around, beaded back into Budva and found our hotel at 1.30am.

Well..... what can I say. It reminded me immediately of "Hi-de-hi". The place was a little, uhm.. dated. It looked like they had reopened the hotel in the morning we arrived and half of it was condemned. We were convinced that there was a cure for cancer in the shower tray and the food was interesting. However, the most important thing was that beer was bloody cheap, so we drank into the wee small hours of the morning and then passed out again in bed. (see the pattern forming yet).

Now, I must stop briefly and apologise for the short summaries of days so far. As I mentioned at the start, this now feels like the fourth week of Dumball, and there has been so much happening that a lot of it has passed without me remembering (and without me being able to catalogue it on the blog). However, now I shall launch into Day 5 - the epic journey from Budva to Pristina in Kosovo.

The day started well. We came down to the car park to the Spirit of Austerity's car firmly planted on it's side. Breakfast was "interesting", in Croatian style and we weren't allowed to get our passports back from reception until the bill had been paid. In true Dumball style, we partied in the glorious sunshine in the car park until all the wrinkles had been smoothed out, then we returned the Spirit's car to four wheel heaven and headed off.

To start with, the drive was fairly easy although the cars were struggling a little with the mountain climb. I spent some time hanging out of the rear window enjoying the sunshine (yes, I'm sunburnt) whilst we played gentle dodgems with the "Blows the doors off" team. (thanks for the whiplash, beyatches..) After a small detour, (we all make mistakes....) we finally found our feet and headed out to the infamous Kosovan border - all the while the locals were marvelling at the amazing Space Shuttle of the "Lunartics" (man, that craft has some sweet work done on it - just between you and me, it gets my vote).

So, the border worked pretty much as all the borders worked in '08. You arrive, you purchase insurance for an absolute extortionate amount (€40 in this case). You then behave yourself as you pass through the border, pray a little, hope that no-one notices that the V5 is in the name of someone who isn't in your party, and also hope that the fact your front bumper is held on entirely by gaffer tape. (Thanks Knights - please remember you have a tow bar before reversing into the front of us :P), and the number plate is gaffer-taped to the bonnet. Despite all that, they let us through, and after a brief stop to distribute some "Everclear" (look it up - it's very alcoholic), we proceeded on into Kosovo.

Wow, the road was actually really nice. The locals very friendly and accommodating. We're making really good time to get to Pristina. Then we hit the "Roadworks".

Now, I can appreciate that flinging up infrastructure is a tricky business. However, the last 30km to Pristina are effectively a gravel rally track, around 50m wide, with lanes defined by the current flow of traffic, luck, and collision avoidance.

It was frickin AWESOME

Then we pull up at the Grand Hotel Pristina, which was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. They have wifi, hot running water, electricity and a bar. Tonight's plan is to eat here in the hotel first, (I believe that we have an announcement at 22.00, and I'm not privy to what's being announced so that could also be interesting) then we're heading out to town to celebrate the fact that we got here without being blown up by a land mine!

So, I'm showered for the first time in four days.. I have wifi.. A beer in my hand.. and I'm blogging. I feel human again and am looking forward to the next four weeks of Dumball.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I'll figure something out..

Zoobs..

Wait a minute...

That's not a dumballer! It's nice to see that other people paint up an old banger and drive south and east for a laugh! And no, i wasn't driving when i took this picture, before you ask.

We just saw 2 more! Not quite as beautiful as the dumball of course but we definatly have a banger rally on our hands. Wonder where they're heading.... And here we have the view from bosnia. Breathtaking scenes all day through the croatian mountains and dalmation- never fails to disappoint. A little disappointed to be driving as it gets dark again, but hardly surprising (and we wouldn't have got to see that sunset would we?). Just a short ferry across a lake and a couple of hours to go before we have see if the administrative nightmare in budva has been resolved... Oh, and a little thing called the Montenegro border. This is where things start getting fruity...--
This Orange Multi Media Message was sent wirefree from an Orange MMS
phone. If you would like to reply, please either text, phone or send
a photo message to the sender directly by using the phone number listed
in the sender's address. To learn more about Orange's Multi Media
Messaging Service, find us on the Web at http://www.orange.co.uk/mms

Raising the Roof

Well, whether or not we made it to the hotel by 11 is still a matter of hot debate, but we made it to club boa by 1 and got up to the usual business till the wee hours- a good job as they had opened especially for and even fed the snake.
Currently blatting a bit of croatian motorway before rejoining the dalmation coast road and heading to sveti phil's for a spot of lunch munching. See phil? It's NOT a holiday, we have to go out of our way to fine silly signs with you name in! --

Triple booked...

Tomorrows going to be fun as people turn up at the 3 different hotels we've been booked into... Nice of them to give up at least 12 hours notice after we've already re-printed the manual once!