A battered £200 van, 5255 miles across Europe & Central Asia, travelling through the worlds 16th most sparsely populated country, a desert, a dried up sea, various bars and hangovers, then at the end an England football match.     And all for a good cause.

Sounds like the perfect holiday.....

May 20th 2009 we left England,

Destination -        Almaty, Kazakhstan!

We took part in the London-Tashkent Rally, despite the name there's no racing or time trials involved, neither were we starting from London or finishing in Tashkent but then the Paris-Dakar didn't always go from Paris to Dakar. The route we took saw us travel through France, Belgium, Holland,  Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and finally Kyrgyzstan.

Along the way we visited Auschwitz,  Kiev, Rostov, Volgagrad, a desert with really bad roads and the Aral sea.

The arrival date in Almaty was set to coincide with England playing Kazakhstan in a world cup qualification game, and we've had tickets waiting with our names on them!

After amassing 15 points from 5 games before the Kazakhstan game and comfortably heading their table the chances were England would sooner or later revert back to normal and lose points somewhere dropping them down the table and leaving all fans to bite their nails in the last game. So on June 6th they needed some strong support to avoid a moral draining defeat at the hands of a team ranked 136th in the world. And as we know the planes aren't always reliable so we were taking no chances in missing the game and driving there to avoid an airport waiting lounge delay.

After the game we made our way to Kyrgyzstan where the vehicles  and contents were sold off locally and the money raised given to the local Voenno Antomovka orphanage, Bishkek, they care for children of all ages but in particular babies..On the last trip in 2006 this raised enough for some clothing and an incubator for their baby unit.

Then we flew home from Bishkek with a wealth of new experiences and the satisfaction we have helped out some less fortunate than ourselves.

We also  collected for the charities of our choice to make the trip even more worth while.

It all sort of went to plan and we reached Almaty 16 days after leaving the UK

Will the van break down on the way?   It might. ( but didn't)

Will we get lost?   Most definitely. (only for 5 mins in Donec'k, UA)

Will we have the most amazing experience of our lives?   Absolutely! (oh yes)