Patagonia - June 2009

Very pleased to say that the new ROARR web site will be up and live on Wednesday 1st July. Please do see all that is going on at ROARR on www.roarrallies.com.

A few date changes since my last newsletter so that the rallies can run in Spring & Autumn each and every year. Deliberately they are all very different rallies as I enjoy the variety of differing drives, and I do hope at least one of these journeys appeals to some of you.

The highlight, and these have been a great pleasure to make, are the small films I have made for ROARR’s new web site.

To bring ‘Great Drives from around the World’ alive, I have made a series of short films, 8 to 10 minutes long, showing great drives from past and future rallies. Last month, for the first in the series, I filmed a number of the Great Drives from the Great Arc of India Classic Car Rally. Opening the series of films is the drive around the ‘Kesroli Loop’ near Alwar, Rajasthan. This will follow in August with the first of the Rising Sun drives, Takachiho Valley and Mt. Aso from Japan. I hope these short films give an insight to the great drives of each rally. They can be viewed from 1st July on www.roarrtv.com and for better viewing I will send a copy DVD to you.

I cannot wait to drive the great adventure of Patagonia. This is the land of immense and dramatic drives, especially the lands to the west, such as the 600 km Ruta 40, Argentina’s most iconic road that penetrates the remote heart of Patagonia.

And then if the Routa 40 is a great drive of Argentina, the Carretera Austral is the outstanding drive of all Patagonia, if not of all the America’s, giving to us drivers over 1000 km of an outstanding journey, joined up by ferry boats through ever-changing spectacular scenery, and until recently quite inaccessible. It is breathtaking with its beauty. I understand there is no drive like this in all of the America’s. This could be, for those you love to drive, ‘the greatest drive ever’?

And then the Argentine Lake District, home of the Milli Miglia, and I am going to try and make sure all of us drive the full route of the Mille Miglia. A journey driving amongst craggy snow-capped peaks, flanked by glaciers and rivers with crystalline waters. The Argentine Lake District is one of the world's most spectacular mountain landscapes, yet it is remarkably unknown and unexplored by foreigners. And if this is not enough there are the twelve lakes of the Chilean Lake District to entice us to drive on and on......and I have not yet written of the adventure to Tierra del Fuego or the adventure of crossing the big Pampas lands!

This is no tourist drive from Hilton hotel to Hilton hotel, this is wild Patagonia with fantastic driving and it will give us great adventures.

And this drive deserves the response I have had to date, as it does seem to have captured your spirit of adventure and half of the 15 entries have been pencilled in.

The Italian mistress and I are now preparing to film for ‘Great Drives’ once the winter in the southern hemisphere is behind. Jim is preparing his new Land Rover for shipping in late August to start the recce. Jim, who many of you know from the Great Arc, will recce this mammoth land for 4 months from October, (as Jim did for the Great Arc), to do full justice to this big terrain. The new web site and the future film series will give, I hope, passion to some of the outstanding Patagonia drives.


(My Italian mistress)

Other than Jim, Tracy is looking after admin, as she did on ROARR’s early rallies since 1999 along with the Great Arc. Livy is back in charge of accommodation and booking, making sure all is well at the hotel after a hard day’s drive.

And who is this rally going to benefit? We are looking at a number of good causes which Patagonia benefits from, and if the energy of the people of these causes is strong and dedicated, as is the reason for ROARR’s support of Leah Pattison in Nagpur, India, then they will benefit from ROARR’s surplus funds from this rally. Please see www.women-in-need.co.uk

The provisional dates (subject to a few date changes either way) will be between 15th February to 15th March 2010.

Patagonia has inspired the great adventure in you, and Rising Sun Rally will be for those who want to embrace and understand a very strong and different culture. I know Japan well and this, on the right routes, is driving heaven. The MG has arrived in Japan and I am away from 20th June for 2 weeks in this most amazing country and will film for you ‘Great Drives of Japan’, which must be driven!

The Great Arc, with its quite unique style, has to be back for a second time and will run again with provisional dates 24th January to 2nd March 2011. Looking at a slightly revised route to start at KanyaKumari, still with four, I may push this to five, Great Colonial Arc expedition camps on route to Mussorrie. Cost to be confirmed, but should be held at this year’s price.

Great Game, Calcutta to Istanbul will, I am afraid, be in autumn 2011. China permits have been submitted for this year’s recce, and I have the recce booked for September, but confirmation of recce permit for this will not be issued until August and it’s all getting tight with winter looming on the Pamir high mountains. On top of that I have a number of people who have asked, and I am pleased to say, confirmed entries for autumn 2011. It is a big adventure; programmed to be 50 ish days, but still cost will not be any more than ROARR usual costs subject to China permits.

Please do see ROARR’s new web site once live and I hope the first of the Great Drives captures your imagination to drive and drive...

All the best Conrad