In August 2013 we announced the Beijing Rally 2014 and we have finally launched the website. We've posted the details of the charity we'll be fund raising for in the near future (if you guessed Mercy Corps you'd be right) on our charity page. We've also put some information up on our route from London to Beijing as well as some photos of Red, our now 50 year old Land Rover.
The Beijing Rally 2014 is the 5th Rusty Rhinos rally. We decided that as this is our 5th rally and Red is now half a century old, we'd need to push the limit a bit more compared to any previous rallies. As a result, we've now got to drive all the way to China!
We're very excited about the upcoming rally, although it is certainly going to be a challenge. We're aiming to drive from London, England to Beijing, China in 28 days. We're expecting this to require us to drive a minimum of 10,000 miles (16,000 km). Although Red has a maximum speed of around 65 mph, the reality is we need a tail wind and downhill to achieve those speeds as well as tarmac to drive on.
Our route to Beijing will include taking on both Kazakhstan and Mongolia in their entirety, that means no tarmac roads and speeds of 20 to 30 mph will be an achievement.
The launch date has not yet been set but we're expecting a launch around June or July 2014. The fund raising activities also haven't started just yet but our fund raising website is up and running.
The actual event planning is still in the very early stages, although we have 9 months to go and quite a bit of planning ahead of us. Unlike the last 2 rallies, we have a number of visas that need to be obtained as well as arranging Red's return back to the UK from China. We're at the beginning of the road for an awesome adventure to come.
