4 Kiwis, 1 car and 1 hell of a journey

The Mongol Rally thunders 10,000 miles across the mountains, desert and steppe of Europe and Asia each summer. There’s no backup, no support and no set route; just you, your fellow adventurists and a tiny car you bought from a scrapyard for next to nothing - If nothing goes wrong, everything has gone wrong.

And the 4 of us - Taygen, Debbie, Mike and Spanners - have decided to throw in the towel on normalcy and join in with the other 300 crazy teams to see what we can do.

The rules of the rally are gloriously simple...

RULE 1: Small & Shite- You can take any car, as long as it’s crap and with an engine of 1 litre or less. With a small car, you’re more likely to break down so you’re more likely to interact with the locals, so you can remind yourself you’re alive without jamming a fork into your eyeballs.

RULE 2: On Your Own - They could tell us everything we need to know about all the countries, roads and borders between here and Mongolia to ensure you have a safe, uncomplicated journey. But if it’s not dangerous and you aren’t lost, you’re not on an adventure. That means no on the road backup or support. If we get stuck or in trouble, we need to solve the problem ourselves. Any ‘Help! We’re broken down in Tajikistan,’ type phone calls to Rally HQ will be met with a snort of derision and a click of the receiver.

RULE 3: Save the World - It only seems fair that if were having the mother of all adventures we should give a little back, so teams on the Rally are asked to raise a minimum of £1000 for charity.

£500 of this must go to the official charity Cool Earth. The other £500 (or more) can be donated to a charity of our choice - we have chosen Arohanui Hospice and Parkinsons NZ which both mean a lot to our team. (we will set up a separate fundraising page for this)

20 Countries, 10,345 miles, 4 Kiwis, 10 Challenges, 1 Tiny Car

The Mongol Rally is about getting lost, testing your limits and using your noggin, raising bucket-loads of cash for charity, and scraping into the finish line with your car barely working with a massive grin smeared across your dirty face. Neither your car, nor your life, will ever be the same again.

Travelling over 10,000kms in the same car with the same four people is not for everyone. It’s important to have a crew of choice people who you can trust to save you from disaster when the going gets tough. And of course a mechanic is handy too... There will be plenty of breakdowns, military borders, dodgy roads, bad singing, and smelly farts but with this crew we’re bound to do well....... fingers crossed.

Wanna help us?

There are two ways you can get involved

BECOME A SPONSOR

Donations from businesses and organizations can help offsetting the cost of this charity rally.

Sponsors can take many different forms. Our numero ono sponsor will get their brand’s name, plastered on our website, our side panels of our car, and maybe even our big white butts if we go through with a Mongol Rally team tattoo idea that’s been floating around. Looking for a less, permanent(?) commitment? How about providing us with tyres, food, camping gear, outerwear, cooking supplies, tools, backpacks, wireless internet, cameras, or an exotic mascot of sorts? Whatever it is you do/make/sell ... there’s a good chance that somewhere between London and Ulan Ude, we will find a use for it. Otherwise any amount is appreciated and if your willing to donate atleast $250 well slap an A5 sized sticker with your companys logo on the front or back panels of the car too.

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What We Can Do For You

You think a billboard reaches a lot of people? Think about how many people you could reach by attaching your brand to a moving vehicle that we’ll drive across 1/3 of the Earth’s surface? The Mongol Rally is a unique adventure that comes with a built-in audience of over 300 teams plus thousands of friends, families, travelers, supporters, adventurists, spectators and locals.

Not only do we have advertising space on our car, we also have our story to tell along the way, which can involve your brand if we’re using it. Our team will be sharing every bump in the road and block up on the border on our travel blog. We’ll be taking pictures, videoing, and gallivanting our way through the race making one heck of a noise about you guys, we can do all of this stuff to tell our audience how great you and your product is!

This also gives you a chance to give back to some great New Zealand charities and be the good guy/gal that we know you are. Kiwis helping Kiwis that’s what were all about!

DONATE TO OUR CHALLENGES

We decided to try a different approach to fundraising. We came up with the idea to do challenges along our route in order to raise money for our charities. We wanted something that would make the fundraising mix with our adventure, have something that would instantly give something back to the people that supported our charity, and in addition make the process a bit more fun. If you can think of any challenges you think we should attempt along the way please feel free to share, the more cringey, embarrassing or hard to digist the better! We’ve come up with afew to give you a good idea:

- Team must drink a drink of Kumiss, this is a local delicacy of fermented mares milk favored throughout Kazakhstan.

- Team must send everyone who donates $50 a postcard from an ancient silk road town in Uzbekistan.

Your donations will go to the following amazing charities:

Cool Earth - These guys work alongside indigenous villages to halt rainforest destruction. To this day Cool Earth has protected over 500,000 acres of rainforest that lie directly in the path of chainsaws and bulldozers.

Arohanui Hospice - In Palmerston North provides specialist palliative care for people with a life-limiting illness, and support for their families/whanau. They are a free service and in order to keep this amazing place open they rely heavily on donations. This hits close to heart as Debbie’s family recently lost their father to cancer and could not have got through it without the love and care of the hospice.

Parkinsons New Zealand - Founded in 1983, The Parkinsonism Society of New Zealand (Parkinson’s New Zealand) is a community based, non-profit organization, reliant on funding from grants, bequests and donations which is A non-profit organisation supporting people with Parkinson’s around New Zealand. This is also close to home as both Mike and Nick’s mother has Parkinson’s and they would like to continue support for this charity that has become a big part of their lives in the hopes to help figure out more on this disease.

There are a few bits and pieces that we will need to get along the way so any help with these would put a massive grin on our face and help us out a lot!

Estimated Team Costs:

• Registration fees $1000

• Minimum Donations: $1000 – but we want to give more!!

• Car (including travel documents) $2000

• Visas $4000

• Insurance (travel and vehicle) $2000

• On road costs (e.g. food, accommodation) $2500

• Spare parts, repairs and petrol $3000

Total: $15,500

We’re going to Mongolia and you could come too! Take a look and get in touch...