Babs’ travels -The Peking to Paris Rally and other driving adventures.

It's been quite an eventful few days. For dinner, on our last night in the spaceship, we were taken to a camp by a beautiful river where we dined on moose hash served on a bit of tree. Yum.  Afterwards, we climbed up the ladder for a cosy night in the UFO.   The tree houses are in a very peaceful bit of forest, away from everything.  To get to them involves a bit if a hike away from the main house, all adding to the sense of remoteness.  In the morning, as we were going to breakfast, we spied Stanley Buick parked next to the mirror cube, looking splendid.  Paddy had got special permission to drive his car up -something that is usually forbidden.  I thought it would be fantastic to have a photograph of the beautiful Bristol in amongst the tree houses and thought I would sneak it up quietly and take some pics.  It all went a bit wrong though. The Bristol needs to warm up a bit before being at her best. More of an owl than a lark. I had to make large revv...

The weather was rotten yesterday morning for our push north.  Foggy, wet, cold and miserable. However, as we were on motorway for about 400kms at least we made good progress. The last, more interesting 100 Kms was on a mixture of gravel and Tarmac and through beautiful countryside and, the rain had stopped. The Bristol is behaving beautifully and eats up the miles with ease. We are now officially in Swedish Lapland - too thrilling!  Then we arrived at the famous Tree Hotel.  Oh boy!  What can I say?  It's the most amazing and unusual place that I have ever stayed in.  I'll just let the photos speak for themselves. Our home, for two whole nights, is called UFO.  It couldn't really be called anything else, could it? A button, on a tree, lowers the hatch and a ladder comes down.  We half expected little green men to walk out. Within, it is very comfortable; has a "Cinderella" burning loo - slightly disconcerting, but functional, and is warm and cosy....

We left Gothenburg bright and early, with all of us very excited, for the 500+ Kms to the quaint little town of Tallberg. Not far out, poor Charlie and Nellie lost the electrics in their Ace, but were soon on the go again, with Charlie McG's expert help.  The only other mishap was Chris and Mark, in an Aston Martin, running out of fuel - the shame of it! No problem they thought, the had a jerry can with spare petrol.  Except, they didn't.  What they had, only discovering it after they started to pour, was a jerry can full of water.  You can guess who got they "could have been a winner" rosette last night! We went through very pretty countryside, through some deeply rural areas.  Nearly all the houses are wooden, and painted dark red.  As you would expect there are an awful lot of trees and lakes of every size. We stayed in the Alkerbads Hotel, by the lake, in Tallberg.  What an utter delight that was.  It has been in the same family ownership for ...

Our final leg to Gothenburg was unremarkable except for the amazing bridge between Denmanrk ansd Sweden.  Crossing it was thrilling.  Unfortunately, there's nowhere to stop so the photo doesn't really do it justice. We had many joyful reunions in Gothenburg before starting in style with a fabulous dinner in a Michelin starred restaurant - it is a Paddy Walker rally after all, so we expect no less.  Our cars were being stored in a warehouse that, somewhat disconcertingly, was in a recycling centre.  The local Aston Martin club came this morning to take us to collect the cars to park them in a car park near the hotel where we had our own security guard.  At the time, this felt a little unnecessary as it seems so safe here.  However, Duncan's Defender, which was too high to get into the car park, and was parked in the street, had a window smashed this afternoon.  Luckily, nothing was stolen. Adrian managed to get us lost just getting back to the hotel. We...

3 countries 474 miles 2 ferries A bridge over the sea A tunnel under the sea 63,854 giant wind turbines AND THE RALLY HASNT EVEN STARTED YET!                                          Today began with our arrival at Hook of Holland.  We then swooshed through Holland, Germany and a bit of Denmark, arriving at our home for the night the enchanting little Danish town of Prastø. We're still making our way to the rally start, in Gothenburg, which we should reach around lunchtime tomorrow.  It's been a uneventful day really. Almost all the driving has been on motorway, through non descript countryside with the car behaving impeccably.   Unfortunately, as the blog photographer has done most of the driving there are few pictures.  So, a few thoughts and dreadful generalisations of the areas we traversed today. Holland:  flat, huge greenhouses; orderly; bit dull; wind ...

I haven't written anything here for over a year now, but that does not mean that adventures have not been had, just no rallies.  Since Vietnam, I've  been to Italy (twice), Slovenia, Switzerland, New York, Cambodia (obviously), both India and Bhutan three times and had a marvellous little tour of Scotland, taking in Skye, in deepest January.  I know that Scotland isn't exactly foriegn for me  since I am half Scottish, but I hadn't been to the Hebrides before and wonder why as it was so fantastic.  In truth, I only really blog when we are rallying and we are off again. We leave today for the start of a rally to Norkapp, the most northern part of Scandinavia you can drive to without falling into the sea.  It's been organised by the lovely Paddy and is vaguely following the route of his parents' honeymoon on 1955. We are a small group of adventurers who mostly know each other through other long distance rallies that we have competed in.  It promises to be...