Written by Tanya Carr-Hartley | 08 June 2010

I wanted to share a letter we received from Rhino Ark thanking all of you for your support in this years event. We would like to recognise the generosity of our supporters and to say that without your goodwill we would not have come in as the 6th highest fundraisers this year. Your contributions are greatly appreciated by Rhino Ark. Thank you all again for backing our team RhinoRouge. We are fundraising again for 2011, the online giving pages are set up. We very much hope that you will be willing to get behind us again.
 

AND IT CONTINUES BELOW;

Written by Louise Leakey | 03 June 2010

We drove down on the morning of the 29th May to the southern tip of Lake Magadi. Here we were given directions to take us to the competitors camp site. We had a conveniently located camp set up near some trees close to the main head quarters. See Camp on the Map. We were able to spend some of the afternoon sorting out our little red car and the children had a great time playing in the plunge pool because its a hot dry part of Kenya. We were sharing camp with Team 42 which is made up of several of Car 17’s spouses - Mikey, William, and Neil. They did incredibly well in the charge this year, placing 3rd and doing most of it with 2-wheel drive. We were a total of 18 in our camp including eight children and support staff and nannies! Quite an operation to get us all out there for this competition. Of our girls team Tanya Markham had her 1 year old Jamie there, Julie Church had her 1 year old Otto with her, Gemma had 1 year old Marina with her, Tanya Carr Hartley had Sala (6) and twins Kinna and Tisa with her and Louise had Seiyia (5) and Alexia (3) with me. Helle is in charge of them all! They were all very engaged with the car quite often in not so helpful ways.

On the second morning we head to the headquarters to hand in our sponsorship, deposit raffle tickets and to draw our starting check point for the charge. Tanya pulled BROOKHOUSE out of the envelope which we were pleased about as Team 42 also had this as their starting checkpoint so we knew they would be not too far from us the whole way round the course next day. The Car is given a final check.  We filled in raffle tickets for all your donations.

This evening we collected the GPS fixes and the map to plot our course for the following day. Its a very critical evening for us all. We measure shortest distances and work out various options that we think our car can manage as well as points where we will make a decision about which way to go while we are out there. We had it all worked out by 10pm that night working by the light from our little generator with lots of bugs flying all around us. With Google Earth on the laptop it helped to visualise the map in front of us but you really have to map read to get it right- there is no replacement.

After a stressful evening realising that our brake master cylinder was leaking at the seal we had to find a new one and fit it before the morning. A similar car drove 4 hours to meet us at Loduroj so we could use the master cylinder from this vehicle in the event next morning. These repairs were completed at 1am that morning! We had an early start and set of at 0545am to meet the convoy for an escort to our starting point at Brookhouse on the far northern part of the map. We were on our way to TMAM, our first checkpoint at 730. To get there we had to cross a very steep sided dry river valley, and did some rock moving with a crowbar before we found our way up to the top and into the checkpoint. Out of TMAM we had to get back up this river bank the other way and decided to get in there ahead of Car 42 incase we needed a little push! Thank you car 42, it was the confidence we needed at this point. We had a good early run at the Gauntlet which you need to complete three checkpoints in the absolute minimum distance possible as your distance in this section is multiplied by 3. Checkpoints KWS, Goodyear and Braeburn were the gauntlet points. We did this well but were too preoccupied to get our red wigs and red dresses on this year. Next year we promise! From Copy Cat we skirted the edge of the ridge line and made our way slowly over some very tough country. Lots of wait a bits and loose rocks. We did a fair bit of pushing and some very determined driving from Tanya got us up some impossibly difficult hillsides.

From Hardy we had a good run on a cattle track we found down part of the way to Procraft and in there to find that our next section that we had hoped to run, a direct 1.1km beat through a narrow river vally to Vineyard was not passable because of a seven car pile up between the two points in a narrow section there. So we decided not to sit it out and get in the mess there but to back track to our point 2 and take a different route on the other side of the ridge to Vineyard. This cost us 3 kilometers which would have had us placed in ninth position had we done the shorter leg!  Fortunatley we came across a cattle track that made this section a little easier. It was quite hot in the day by the time we got to Vineyard and here we made a run for Satau, picking up the cattle track the other side of Vineyard again. Satau to AON was not a problem, but a long run and to cut across from here to Greensteds over the hills would have needed more time than we had so we cut and ran around the hills here and probably could have cut over a ridge in one more place with the extra hour that we had. By this time we could smell home again and decided to play it safe and finish the charge.  So we made it back in to Brookhouse with lots of cheering and jubilation and only twenty minutes or so before car 42 who managed to cut 10.17 kilometers off our total distance of 47.5 km by running the tiger line between Copy Cat and Hardy as well as making it through the Procraft to Vineyard section. They were placed 3rd (total 37.36 km). We got the Coupe des Dames, winning the womens event with 6 entrants and were placed 18th overall, out of the 60 cars that started. Only 33 cars finished the event. We came 3rd in the unmodified vehicle class!

So the final results were posted the following morning at prize giving. Team 38 won the event in 36.32 kilometers just 11.2 kilometers ahead of our total distance.    
This year Ksh 72,540,232 shillings were raised for the Aberdares which is a new record. This will go to the maintenance of the fence and the projects within the ecosystem. This is what this event is all about. We MUST protect this area and maintain the fence that we have all worked so hard to build over the past decade.

Car 17 raised a total of 2,040,539 shillings and we wish to thank all of you who so generously contributed to this. We are very grateful.

We are already raising money again for next years event - please consider supporting us again here right away. Please send us your ideas and suggestions and spread the word to your friends for us. Next year we will have a better live feed for you to follow us. We were learning this time round, but we had a fun day for an exceptional cause.

Written by Louise Leakey | 01 June 2010

Thank you for following our progress at Londuroj this year. We have some results. We have returned with the Coup des Dames- FIRST place for the Ladies teams. There were 6 all ladies teams this year. We came in 3rd place in the unmodified vehicles class which we are very pleased with and 4th in the Victor Lodurum which is based on money raised and total mileage. We were placed 18th overall out of 60 entrants. So we did pretty well and we are very pleased with our result.

Thank you to all our supporters who donated to us on and off line. We raised a total of just over 2 million shillings, placing us 6th in the list of highest fundraisers. This is the real competition and we really hope that you will be willing to support us again next year in our effort to raise the funds to maintain the Aberdare Conservation area. Thank you all.

Here is our track around the mountain. There were some tough sections. The Car did so well with no problems on route. We will be sending our donors a detailed account of our day out there and we will post a shorter version here over the coming days.

We did a total mileage of 47.53 kilometers. If you want to see the final results here they are;

and unmodified vehicles;

Written by Louise Leakey | 30 May 2010

FOLLOW US ON MONDAY LIVE on the map here.

We arrived in camp yesterday evening. S 02.04.671     E036.13.223 . The checkpoints are probably in the hills to the east of this point. 

Its hot here, they reckon tomorrow in the heat of the day it will be 52 degrees celcius. We will cook running round there for 10 hours!

This morning we took the car to Scrutineering where we drew our starting checkpoint from the envelope. Tanya pulled this out and we will see this evening where this is. We need to go out to the Checkpoint called Brookhose tomorrow morning and we leave at 620 in convoy. The officials have checked the car, given us our time sheet and installed their GPS tracker so they know where we are all the time.

We have made final preparations to the car today and she is set to go.

This evening we will meet at 5pm and collect our map and the list of GPS fixes for the checkpoints. We then come back to camp and plot these and work out our route, and load the GPS handhelds with our points so that we are set for the morning.

Its going to be tough work tomorrow but we are very much looking forward to it and hoping that you will follow us. 

Written by Louise Leakey | 27 May 2010

You can FOLLOW US LIVE on Monday 31st 2010. We have got a SPOT finder with us in the car which sends out via satellite a GPS position every 10 minutes and this can be seen on a shared online map. What a great gadget this is!

We will be given the positions of the checkpoints on the Sunday evening and we shall try to get this information onto a map late Sunday evening on this web site (with a little help) so you know where we will be. We will draw our starting position from the hat that evening too and we should be able to tell you this too.

We then depart very early Monday morning for the 10 hour gruelling event. This begins at 0700 hrs in Kenya on Monday 31st (that is midnight on 30th May in New York, 2100 in California) or 4am in London on the 31st May.

You can follow us live on the map on this web site. It will look like this.

You can see a plot of my trip to Lake Turkana today and I will take a ride on the bike in the morning too as a final test run.

Finally I want to share with you a very exciting development on the social networking front, please see this incredible web site www.crowdrise.com and it provides the tools to raise support for many different projects. Everyone should be aware of it and its potential.  I encourage you to take a look and to get involved. Infact, you can even try it out with rhinorouge by making a small donation or join our team on crowdrise!

Any last minute support will cut off those kilometers for us on Monday and will go a long way to protecting the Aberdares. But all donations have to be in by 12 midnight on the 30th of May to count.

With lots of good red luck we hope to report back shortly to you.

Written by Helle Sejer-Hansen | 27 May 2010

Rhino Charge rush... the last few days have been busy for all the teams getting their cars ready, organising camping equipment, ordering food and drink supplies, ensuring medical kits have been double and triple checked, checking our own medical insurance cover, ensuring we know each others blood group, and last minute fitness.  The Charge is a team effort - the officials of Rhino Ark who have spent the last six months gearing up to the Charge, us the competitors and all those who sponsor the teams taking part.

This is Car 17's 7th charge.  I am not sure it gets easier - perhaps its just nerves.  We know the score.  We know it's going to be hard.  So much effort has gone into this one day - from all - officials, sponsors and competitors and so much rides on those ten hours of the charge. We know what areas we have to focus on.  We are a strong team - we are focused and we take our time to plan our route.  But we get nervous too and know that the day will hurt but it is such a rewarding experience to do this with 5 really good friends. 

Most importantly, it is about us all enjoying our time together - our extended camp of friends and family total 6 teams - whilst raising funds for Rhino Ark Charitable Trust.  We are also extremely competitive and have our own goals for that day !  We will keep you all updated about the event and Car 17's participation.

Written by Louise Leakey | 23 May 2010

We had a team get together this weekend. We spent an hour with Ian McCrae at his workshop. He very kindly talked to us about the car engine and what to do in certain situations. Overnight mechanics?! Thank you Ian again for your support and time both for your time spent repairing the vehicle and also to run through this on your Sunday morning. We are hugely grateful.

Then we took the little red car down behind the Ngong Hills for a practice run. Shes purring along and it felt great to take her out again. We had a change to run her across some steep gulleys and channels and to make sure we know what we are doing next weekend, and to sort of define our roles. These things can always change at the last minute. Thanks Neil, Gemmas husband (!) for coming out with us and to give us a little guidance. Much appreciated.

Gemma and Julie directing Tanya Carr-Hartley (Driving) across a little ditch!

Written by Tanya Carr-Hartley | 21 May 2010

Some unfortunate news to share with everyone. Mary Njonjo had an injury to her knee this weekend while training for the Lewa Marathon. This means that she will be unable to be on the team for the charge next weekend. We are however most grateful and pleased that a super fit Tanya Markham will be able to join the team. We will be meeting this coming Sunday to take the car our for a drive and to work out our roles in the car. We will also take the opportunity to make sure that we have everything together for the charge.

Wishing Mary a speedy recovery and we look forward to working with Tanya in this years event.
 

Written by Gemma Lawrence | 10 May 2010

My daughter Marina McRae in training for the charge!  Her dad -Neil McRae (6 times winner in team 42!), mum (soon to be winner!!), Grandad Ian McRae (2 times winner), granny Chris McRae (competitor) and auntie Dawn (competitor)...there's definitely some 'charge blood' in the family!!

Written by Gemma Lawrence | 10 May 2010

The Rhino Rouge Car is undergoing final checks and changes for the charge.  Three years ago we moved out of the ‘unmodified’ section into the ‘modified’ section by adding a diff lock to the back axles.  This basically gives us greater traction when going up and down rocky hills/uneven grounds.  It locks all the wheels so they move at the same speed as opposed to only having the back wheels with the driving force i.e. all four are now the power for the car.  The difference in the cars capabilities is incredible.  We have been very lucky to be able to borrow this ‘diff lock’ from team 42 (as seen in the picture below changing all the axles), however, next year we will be looking to buy our own as part of upgrading the car!!

The car went so went last year that we are really hoping for the same this year (touch wood!).  We’ve always had overheating problems but last year Ian McRae custom-designed a great removable grill for the front of our radiator which allows us during the charge to keep the airflow going through the fan to the radiator to keep the engine temperature down. 

Huge thanks to Ian McRae for all his help on the charge car again. who is one of the original chargers and won a number of times in his Ford Taunus! (I’ll be posting a few of his images soon…it’s incredible how they did it without all the gadgets we have now!). 

We have our annual ‘mechanics training’ coming up to remind us all of how to deal with basic mechanical issues including burnt our started motors, broken half-shafts to mention a few of the problems we encounter during the charge! 

Very excited now….