ROARR - Rythm of a Road Rallies

Japan - August 2009

Just back from some great driving in Japan with Karyn as my enduring navigator. This country is a delight, with so much good quality motoring.

Arrived into Fukuoka, Kyushu, in the southern island to first collect the MG, and then away as quick as possible being as I am, impatient to see the drives of Japan.

First stop Nagasaki. Not a charming city, in contrast to the amazing charisma of say, Kyoto, but maybe more fascinating and certainly deserves a full day with the sad history of the atomic bomb, ground zero, and the most astonishing museum to Nagasaki’s horrendous attack.
Museums are built to tell a story; in most cases the story is from start to finish. Here in Nagasaki the museum tells the narrative, not only of the horrific act on the city on 9th August 1945, but also the continuing story of atom and nuclear power and weaponry. Somehow the museum leaves you with only half a story; the impression is the remaining story of nuclear weapons is yet to be told. You leave with horrific thoughts and challenging opinions.

Nevertheless I came for the drives, and the first great drive of Japan is not far from Nagasaki. The Shimabara Peninsular, to the east of Nagasaki, climbs high and around the active volcano of Mt Unzen. As with many of Japan’s mountain tops, this volcano is still active and exploding.

Mt Unzen, on this very prominent peninsular, has quite an amazing loop around the pine forests to the very top peak via the Nita Pass at 4480 ft.

The Nita Pass road has a grand driving feel as it lightly switchbacks around the volcano. The corners are not too tight and wind well along the hill side around the peak; rather than hairpins following hairpins.

And so the live Mt Unzen is the first of the Great Drives from Japan which you can see here on ROARRtv.

The volcanic activity in Japan is quite frightening. Karyn & I experienced our first earthquake, shaken from our futons, followed a few days later by our first volcanic evacuation. Mt Aso, the largest active volcano in the world, a staggering 114km in circumference, is 5223 ft high, and suddenly, and with no warning, started to threaten more smoking sulphur than the authorities judged as safe and so quickly evacuated the mountain! We had driven and filmed the ascent to Mt Aso and the warning came as we looked deep into the crater!

As I have said before, one of the great delights of Japan is to become involved in her culture and this Karyn and I tried to do to the full. In India we stay at the delightful converted old palaces, in Japan her inns are equally charming, quite unique, certainly one of a kind in all my travels.

Ryokens or onsens enable the traveller to experience the way the Japanese rest and enjoy life.  That said, Ryoken life and her ways can be, to us westerners, difficult and awkward - but is great! In the first Ryoken Karyn and I stayed for 5 days with no en-suite. But before a day was out I had fallen into the easy habit of enjoying the communal baths and chatting as best I could with my new found friends in the hot springs or hot tub.

It is social, agreeable, a pleasant way to chit and chat. After a day on the road I can see us drivers all enjoying a hot communal bath together! Saying that I could only take maybe 10 minutes of the hot waters. Here in Japan the locals will spend quite some time for each soak, and up to three soaks a day; they certainly enjoy to the full the hot spring waters.

The other great delight is the easy way it is to eat in Japan. The country is full of small restaurants, not dissimilar to Spanish tapas bars, many family run, but always the cooking is at the bar, the choice wide and the taste excellent. To be able to wander out from the hotel and pick a restaurant at random is just great fun. Many are hidden behind diminutive closed doors, so you cannot see in, but open and experience!

Over the next few months I will bring to you on ROARRtv a selection of the Great Drives of Japan. To date the selection is very diverse, Senomoto Plateau, volcanic Mt Aso, hidden Iya Valley, and the very interesting Nakasendo Road; a splendid story of a traveller, writer & poet, Matsuo Basho.

The dilemma is that Japan is a country offering so many choices that the recce will be more complex than say India, for very different reasons. The choice of drives, hotels, national parks, and historic sights needs to be narrowed down, and not all Japan roads give great driving experiences, so to create a wonderful journey the country roads need joining up with the sights of Japan and this will take quite an involved recce.

I return next month to drive into the northern lands.

For now we at ROARR are preparing for Patagonia. Pleased to say only 5 places left. This will be so very different to Japan or India and the Alfa will soon be on her way. Can’t wait to be driving the Routa 40 experiencing the glaciers, and then the mighty road - Carretera Austral.....
Jim’s Land Rover is due for preparation this month and will be shipped out in late August ready for a long and challenging survey from September onwards.

Below is a letter from Leah Pattison on the land purchase for the new hospital on Nagpur, India funded by the Great Arc participants. I am pleased our funding is having such an effect in bringing this hospital to fruition. As always I will keep you informed of the building as it becomes reality.

10th June 2009

Dear Conrad,

First of all, I would like to acknowledge receipt of the money transferred to our charity account. These are significant sums of money and it goes without saying that your contribution to the development of our hospital/health centre is invaluable.

Regarding the land, well I am due to arrive back in Nagpur next Tuesday and have a two acre area of land ready to look at and proceed with purchasing. A token gesture deposit has been put down in my absence by our trustees and our lawyer has approved the paper work so fingers crossed this should all be quite straight forward. Once I get this cleared then planning permission will be the next hurdle and looking on the optimistic side, it could be all systems go for the construction. I will keep you posted and look forward to seeing the bricks and mortar! We already have a couple of volunteers from the London school of tropical medicine who wish to spend time with us once the hospital is functioning which will help to improve our standard of care towards the women who need it most.

Hope you are well. Thank you again for all that you do.

Best wishes, Leah

All for now; just need five more eccentric drivers to join me in Patagonia! Also for Japan any expressions of interest?

All the best Conrad Birch 
 

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