The jeep is getting there/Massive thanks to new sponsors

It's been a while since the last update as things have been hectic trying to get everything organised! The first thing to mention is that we have a new member of the team coming with us on the trip, his name is Daniel McDonagh or "clicky" as we call him. The Land Rover is certainly full to the brim now!

Since the last update we have done the following to the jeep in no particular order; replaced all wheel bearings, fitted braided brake lines, changed all brake cylinders and shoes, fitted our new modular wheels complete with our brand new BFGoodrich All Terrain tyres courtesy of BFGoodrich (thanks again), fitted new half shafts to the rear and lots of other things in between. The new wheels and tyres combined with the Rocky Mountain Suspension has really given the jeep extra height which we will surely need when the serious off roading begins. We also had Simon from Rovercraft in Enniskerry weld the only real rust issue on the jeep which was the front left side chassis and he did a fantastic job. Jobs left to do are fit the new engine(goes in on Saturday), fit our winch, fit our diff guard, complete our interior refit and finally do a full check of the whole vehicle.

New wheels and tyres ready to be fitted

Much better!

Simon's welding on our chassis

Last Monday we paid our VRT (vehicle registration tax) which is an Irish tax placed on all imported vehicles and have now discared our UK plates for our new Irish reg which is 82 D 3182. 

We held a stand up comedy night in Na Fianna GAA club on Saturday night to raise money for the two charities and a wonderful night was had by all as well as raising a tremendous amount of money.

Celtic Link Ferries have kindly offered us free ferry transport to and from France which is a massive help in our efforts to reduce our spiralling costs so a huge thanks to them, you can access their website at www.celticlinkferries.com

Heli from heli.ie gave us absolutely brilliant handmade land rover cushions to make the trip that bit more comfortable and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Heli and also urge you all to check out her website of beautiful clothes handmade in County Wicklow.

Finally last week saw us secure our 2 month Russian dual entry visa's which was a big relief and we are now in the process of applying for our Azerbaijan, Mongolian and Kyrgyzstan visa's before we depart in early May. The embassy of Kazakhstan in London only accepts visa applications in person so given the cost of flying to London and back for 4 people we have decided to apply for our Kazakh visa's in Baku in Azerbaijan en route.