Arctic 4x4 Rally day 1-3

So it is Monday evening and we have just had our first hot meal since Friday evening – a hotdog from a garage, very valentine’s day I must say, but then we are on a rally.

Some of the competition

Saturday morning had us standing around a collection of offroad vehicles on what is probably a sports field in the summer but now was 3 feet deep in snow. We were in Stockholm at the start of the first Arctic 4x4 Rally. The vehicles surrounding us all seemed far more capable than our Volvo XC, evidenced by the fact we had a few problems driving through the snow to the start. Of dear what had we let ourselves in for. I have to tell you that Shrek wasn’t here due to the fact that he is not bult for the cold and we were expecting very cold!

We set of at 7.30 Saturday at intervals. We had maps and gps points (no gps maps allowed!) and we had to find letters fixed at points throughout Scandinavia, what could possibly be hard about that.

The first stage was 900km, the recent snowstorm that had hit S Sweden) and made the papers) was going to make it a long day, just how long we were to find out. The first geo-points were supposed to be an easy warm up but deep snow made quite a difference. By the fourth point of the day’s 20 we had had to be dragged back along a track, by a passing (honest) tractor as we had bottomed out the car and lifted the front wheels of the ground. We started walking. This sort of high jinx continued. The Land Rover sprung a fuel leak and the Swiss got stuck and were the first to be towed out by the ever reliable Volvo ;o)

The locals think we are crazy!

We drove further north, it got dark and every 50km or so we would have to stop, wade through waist deep snow to find the code letter hidden in the woods. Still this went on, 20 points for sure, but 900km was turning into 1100km midnight came and went then 0ne and finally at 2am we arrived at the hotel ready to sleep and get to the start line for 9am the following morning. It had been a warm night wit the temp only falling to minus 15!

The number of the beast

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The Beast - we found him, honest!

Day 2 and we felt that the toughest day was behind us. However one team had almost missed breakfast only arriving at 6am. The start was conveniently close to the hotel and everybody lined up ready for another day. Tina and Uli’s Frontera had been plugged in to keep it warm through the night. The Landy was fixed again and the Volvo had the heated seats warming. Today was a short day, only 370km but there were some tough sections that we had been warned might be difficult for the Brits in their shopping car. When we arrived at this section after about 4 hours it was clear that it would be very hard for anything short of a snowmobile, so with an eye to a few extra points we set off to walk. 12km later we returned to the car, tired but satisfied, only to discover that the Danes (there are (were) 3 cars of them) had called the police as they didn’t think anyone would walk off into the wilderness and return safely – we actually enjoyed ourselves and the police were cancelled.

The Danes said they were going for a beer instead of looking for the final points and left us. It was only later at the hotel we saw the wreckage of their Toyota which had rolled off the road.

A note on driving here. The road surface on the main roads is a mixture of ice and snow, you routinely drive at 70mph on this stuff and what’s more you can stop really quickly if (and when) a reindeer jumps out in front of you, all down to the tyres I am told and if it is I want some next winter.  It is not surprising that the Scandinavians make the best rally drivers, they drive stages every day to work, to the shops, and on teh school run.

Towards the end of the 2nd day we backed off a 10 mile drive up a snowy track on our own which regrettably may have lost us some points, but we didn’t get stuck and that would have lost us a lot more, especially as the temp went down to -35C! We finally arrived back the hotel at 10.30, had a brew from the flask and went to bed, ready to get up at six for the start of day 3.

Monday and a relatively short stage of 570km with a section likely to be blocked out by deep snow and unlikely to be passable by the school run 4x4. Of we set, a couple of easy points, some nave errors and we found ourselves at the start of another interesting snow track, alone again. This time we had to give it a go, After almost 20km we had some points but the track ran out. Another team were at the end of the track, minus a navigator who, it turns out had yomped off up the hill to a point about 3.5km away by track (2.6 direct), it appears that our exploits the previous day had set some minds racing. We had no choice but to follow suit. 1:10 later I was back at the car and Lorna was ready with a brew and a sandwich.

Another 200km on snowy and icy roads, some more points along the way and yippee we arrived at the hotel. There was hot food at the garage and that beat any cordon bleu cooking I’m ever going to taste.

We have had three beautiful days, very cold, but clear and sunny. Like any rally the folks are good fun and we are currently handing out stickers to cars we’ve towed out, three so far.

The Snowballs have made it to the Arctic!

There are more we will get round to photographing them later!

The trick is to finish these events and we will be doing our best over the next 6 days. I will be on redshift radio tonight at 7.30. www.redshiftradio.co.uk