Well loaded is already half departed…
We don’t want to dwell on the latest coronavirus news here. However, the easing of restrictions made our Team Judo goes Orient very happy.
After the Federal Council announced it was ending the «extraordinary situation» on 19 June and downgrading it to a «special situation», our hopes grew bigger and bigger. When the good news then arrived from Bern that the borders would be opened for all Schengen countries by 6 July at the latest, our confidence grew — and now the «fever for the mini-rally» at the end of July has well and truly taken hold. That said, this is only possible if all the countries on the route to Romania and Bulgaria also allow entry and exit without quarantine. Only then can we successfully deliver our collected relief supplies. We are in constant contact and close exchange with our on-the-ground contacts in Romania and Bulgaria.
As the saying goes, «hope is the last thing to die», and so our motivated team got to work. Over the last few weeks we have again successfully completed a good deal of work in our “Oase” to prepare for the «mini-rally». We continued fitting out our rally cars, which are now in a state of «ready to go at any moment». The sleeping arrangements in the car boots are finished too, and they are wonderfully comfortable to sleep on. The route plan for the «mini-rally» is complete and takes us through the following countries: Germany, Austria, Hungary to our orphanage in Romania and the SOS Children’s Village in Bulgaria. On the return journey through Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria, we’ll take some time to visit beautiful spots such as Zavojsko jezero (Lake Zavoj), Modračko jezero (Lake Modrac), and the Nacionalni park Plitvička Jezera (Plitvice Lakes National Park).
The greatest joy of recent weeks was inventorying the relief supplies. Our relief supply depot was completely emptied, all crates and loose items were catalogued, numbered and weighed. We have now drawn up a complete packing list and loaded all the relief supplies for Romania and Bulgaria onto their respective trailers. With around three tonnes, we are transporting roughly three times more relief supplies this time than we did on the 2016 rally. Honestly, as soon as we closed the trailer loading flaps, the urge to set off immediately was almost overwhelming.
Until our planned departure on 26 July there are still a good seven weeks to go, which we will now use to give the rally cars a mechanical check-up and to set them up personally for each driver. Kitchen equipment for the team also still needs to be organised and loaded. We’re nearly ready to go…!
