Sure the North Pole is abstract and distant but you know where it is and also that you can’t go there any more you can the moon. But Ulaanbaatar is just 10,000 kilometers away and if you felt a little restless on your way home from the supermarket, your old family car tired of the same old route and desperate for adventure, there’s probably a lot less than you think stopping you driving there yourself. That, for me, is what the Mongol Rally is about and what my book is about.

And people love the idea – the romance and the accessibility of it. I visited my former Primary School before I left to talk about the trip I was planning.  The children responded with reams of drawings, which all possessed the same otherworldly quality; they didn’t know where I was heading either. All I had been able to tell them was East, deserts and mountains.

The book is true to that dream and it brings back for you some of the magic of its origins, the moments of discovery and also the trials and the disappointments too. It has received excellent reviews from readers, male and female aged 15-77. I also am most proud to say it has also proved of great interest to reluctant readers, which I myself once was. Please enjoy the preview, your comments are of interest.

Rising/Falling – Always  Hoping -can be bought online at Amazon.co.uk, - ordered by your local bookshop  for just £8.74 (the price the team’s car was auctioned for at the end of the rally) Just note the ISBN:9780956196613 - or bought direct from the suppliers @ £10.99 (£8.74 plus £2.25 p&p) Address Cheques to Craig Chamberlain, Glovers Cottage, Lazonby, Penrith, CA10 1AJ

The Mongol Rally is not about being organised and on time. It is not about being polite and staying in the most expensive hotels. It is about buying the worst car you can, eating what you find and sleeping rough. That and making the best of the worst the world can throw at you.

Jonno, my team mate, and I like to think our journey was conducted true to this spirit and I hope if you have a Mongol Rally story of your own that it was too.

A native Bradfordian, proud of his textile heritage, you could be sure to find Jonno wearing at least one piece of tweed or knitwear, often of the ‘dirty green’ or ‘mucky orange’ variety he so loved. He also wore a distinctive ginger beard which set him apart, even in Sheffield.

Jonno had already registered our team name, ‘Ey Up Genghis’, which was a little too Yorkshire for my liking. I tended to prefer ‘Genghis Khan…eh?’ but it was not a sticking point and I liked the sentiment.

Time was already tight when I got involved so I had to be sharp getting myself sorted out. We inevitably left visa applications to the night before the deadline but managed to bully and coax each other through the sizable stack, guessing our dates of arrival and fabricating hotel reservations. A few packets of biscuits later and, with the sun threatening to rise, we finally signed the last form.

After this, all we needed was a vehicle. Jonno soon found a well priced Citroën 2CV on ebay. With a new chassis and recent engine rebuild it was the perfect car. By coincidence its M.O.T. expired on the 21st July, the very day the car was to leave British territory and begin its swan song journey to the distant steppe of Outer Mongolia.

It was clearly fated so we snapped it up and quickly got very comfortable with our new car. Jonno decided we should name it and fancied Charlie. Having not had any say in our team name I was happy to veto this,

“You can’t call a beautiful, curvy French girl Charlie. She’s going to have to be Amélie or something.”

And it stuck, Amélie she would remain. On one outing we took her to show the pupils of my former primary school, ‘Lazonby C of E’. We had an entertaining afternoon talking the students through where we were planning to drive. The fact that we had very little idea ourselves did not get in the way and we got some excellent illustrations from the group. Stories of camels, distant mountains and people shooting deadly arrows from galloping horses seemed to spark the youngsters’ imaginations. It felt good to be giving the students something a bit out of the ordinary to be thinking about. As I had more often than not found school a bore, I hoped our visit might break the monotony and give the children something to remember.

Alarmingly close to the launch, we realised we were missing an essential document, the V5, proving ownership of our vehicle and its key components. It would probably be impossible to leave the EU without the document and it would definitely be impossible to import the car into Mongolia. To make matters worse the chassis number did not match the records and required an inspection.

Everyone at the DVLA assured us they could not possibly complete the paperwork in less than five months. We only had a week to go by this stage.

In a telephone marathon Jonno negotiated a plan. We could jump a queue, get the chassis inspected the following week and then be issued with a temporary V5. At the appointed time I was given a pack of printout directions from Route Planner and told to head for Doncaster to meet the inspector.

Due to a navigational error, by the time I arrived in Doncaster I had missed our appointment. There was camping equipment in the car so I emotionally reassured Jonno that I would stay put for as long as it took, feeling too ashamed to return to Sheffield without our papers.

There was no need. Simon, the man Jonno had contacted, could not have been more understanding and explained that he worked quickly and could find the time. Even so, he had to forgo his lunch break.

Simon was particularly interested in our story as he had worked in Kazakhstan, maintaining technologically advanced farm equipment that the Kazakhs had been supplied through a development initiative. He explained that it had been a constant and futile battle to keep the new machines working. In a nation of proud metalworkers and bodgers alike the local mechanics, used to keeping the crude but indestructible Soviet machinery plodding along, refused to let him do his job properly, withholding parts or insisting on fabricating parts from unsuitable materials. Admittedly, financial reasons must have been a major factor and the machines may never have been suited to the climate nor justified by any increase in productivity. Nevertheless, several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment was quickly ruined, dismantled and its parts arranged in the sand, as if by some giant bird of prey, to bake in the sun.

With his best wishes Simon sent me back to Sheffield with our first crucial hurdle negotiated. Amélie had passed the inspection and the chassis number had been updated. The document Simon gave us would have to be delivered to another contact at the DVLA and, God willing, he would be able to supply us a temporary V5 within the week.

Rising/Falling – Always Hoping -can be bought online at Amazon.co.uk, - ordered by your local bookshop for just £8.74 (the price the team’s car was auctioned for at the end of the rally) Just note the ISBN:9780956196613 - or bought direct from the suppliers @ £10.99 (£8.74 plus £2.25 p&p) Address Cheques to Craig Chamberlain, Glovers Cottage, Lazonby, Penrith, CA10 1AJ

Jonno’s aunt woke us with bacon sandwiches and his uncle got up to see us off too. We had just about stopped our yawning and eye rubbing by the time we reached the outskirts of London and although it was still cool, it was clearing and promised to be a gloriously sunny day. Somewhere in the suburbs we spotted our first fellow Rally team. They were a trio who, I was surprised to note, were carrying – in addition to their provisions for the four week transcontinental drive – both a trampoline and monkey-bike.

We soon split up to take our own separate routes to Hyde Park. Even so we somehow managed to arrive simultaneously and park up next to each other at the front of the queue which was already a kilometre long. What a circus it was. Our entrance should have been spectacular, coming as we did through a cycle gate, to the left of the traffic bollards, under a tree and onto the road with a bump. However Dan, the man in charge, was not at all impressed. With the stiffest telling off I had received in years we proceeded, a little embarrassed, and joined the crowd which was excitedly discussing routes and pre-race disasters, modifications, rocket boosters and oil slick devices. Rumour had it that Jack Osborne was there with a huge support vehicle but we were busy talking to the brave teams setting off in original Minis, Trabants, ice-cream vans and Hackney cabs.
We also caught up again with Neil and Jan, self-confessed ‘Rally Bores’. It was an encounter with this eccentric couple that had sparked Jonno and Andy, Jonno’s original team mate, to enter the Rally in the first place. Neil and Jan were veterans of the Mongol Rally, twice attempting it in a Citroën 2CV and succeeding the second time. They were desperate to do the Rally again and avidly followed its developments, meeting up with us to share photographs, tell us stories and give us advice.

It was great to see them strolling lopsidedly along. Both suited up in their squires’ outfits (top hats and tails), their startling difference in size was at once dramatic and endearing. My parents had also come down from Cumbria and bundled some supplies and homemade jam into the car. My mother had stitched us up a Mongolian flag which we strapped to the car where it flapped lazily in the wind as we revved our engine in the pre-race frenzy.

It was nearly too much. Our lack of preparation and the scale of the undertaking began to sink in. We were to begin our journey with no hazard warning lights and no indicators. On a more personal note, I only had the underpants I was wearing and not even a pair of socks. More immediately we had no plan of how to get from London down to Calais and little more idea how to get from Calais to Kazakhstan.

With horns blaring and flags waving we pulled out into London proper. It was chaotic and would have been totally disorientating had I any notion of orientation left. As much by pure chance as anything else, we made it to Trafalgar Square, did a lap with a motley collection of ralliers and drove off into the unknown. We soon got split up but as we were all heading to Calais it was never long before we passed another team.

At Calais, we decided to head for Belgium. The home of the EU seemed as good a place as any. Moreover, in Belgium, they celebrate a national holiday on the 21st July. With a laser show in Brussels and parties in all the towns it was the place to be. After consulting the map we headed to Bruges. At this opportune moment I would like to tackle the myth that the Brits alone, amongst our european neighbours, get drunk on such occasions. It appeared that every self-respecting man, woman, child and dog was inebriated. On arriving in Bruges, the main square was full of families dancing and singing along to a live band. It was too late to find the youth hostel we had been recommended so we chose to drive out of town for the first of many roadside sleeps.

By the following night, the 22nd, we were just outside our expected destination, Prague. In the morning, we encountered huge tail-backs caused by a terrible motor crash on the ring road in Prague. In order to save fuel, avoid the risk of overheating and to provide entertainment for the hundreds of Czechs also caught in the queue, we cut the engine and pushed the car some miles down the middle of a triple lane clearway that ran parallel to the river. We also had a much needed pause for lunch in a small but beautiful provincial town.

While Jonno read or slept I snuck off and bought a number of cassettes for the car from a man who I am quite certain was the only punk in miles. His shop was as still and beautiful as the rest of the town but more welcoming and intimate. Inside I had the first feeling of the trip of being in a truly foreign land as the wonderful array of comics, T-shirts and CDs all spoke out to me in a strange language. Outside the summer sun was hot and as dizzying as homemade wine. I am sure I will always remember the sparseness of that dusty, nostalgic town. It was nearly deserted, with the inhabitants perhaps in the fields with the harvest or away on holiday. Even so it was easy to appreciate its generous proportions, slow pace and resistance to unnecessary and modish change. However it is the light I will remember best. So warm and all encompassing that it felt as though it had ceased to fall from the sky and instead came from the air itself.

Jonno decided that one of the songs on the new cassette would be the theme to the trip although I am convinced he chose a different song every time. It was fun either way and we were soon racing along, top down, singing along with gusto and conviction to the mysterious lyrics.

By evening we were lost, confused by diversions on the road out of the Czech Republic. A man of around five foot five with stubborn tufty blond hair came to our aid. He was not only handsome but truly beautiful and so were his car and his son. He was so proud, so steady and so dispassionate, he might have been an angel. His son, also blond, sat absolutely still, expressionless, except for a distinct hint of superiority, waiting patiently on a booster seat for his father. The car was a 1970’s Porsche 911, jet black, with neither speck nor mar, and as glossy and enchanting as a precious stone.

Several hours later we ended up hopelessly lost again and utterly exhausted somewhere in a lush and idyllic national park in the mountains of southern Poland. I insisted on stopping and having a long sleep before continuing the journey.

Rising/Falling – Always Hoping -can be bought online at Amazon.co.uk, - ordered by your local bookshop for just £8.74 (the price the team’s car was auctioned for at the end of the rally) Just note the ISBN:9780956196613 - or bought direct from the suppliers @ £10.99 (£8.74 plus £2.25 p&p) Address Cheques to Craig Chamberlain, Glovers Cottage, Lazonby, Penrith, CA10 1AJ