Great Game and Great Arc
Start of a new year and a busy program for ROARR’s 11th year - 2010.
Entries for Patagonia have now closed and all those participating along with the ROARR team are looking forward to a month of great classic car driving across Argentina & Chile.
We start in Buenos Aries on 18th February. What a great adventure we have in store for all participants venturing to the Big and Beautiful Land of Patagonia.
Following on from Patagonia I will be back in Japan for a second recce in the MG from Tokyo to Sapporo in May. To bring together the best of Japan’s roads, to get them to flow together, together again with the abundance of wonderful sights Japan beholds; it is the biggest single rally challenge to date. I can, in Japan, put together one long continuous flowing drive south to north. However, this is quite a test.
Once the second recce is completed I should be in a position to confirm dates.
Next rally from ROARR will be the Great Arc of India in February 2011. This will be an invitation rally, only offered via the mailing list, no advertising, and limited to 12 – 15 cars. Full details to be sent out after Patagonia.
In the late summer I will be driving London to Calcutta; I hope in a 1914 LaFrance with Jim supporting this splendid and matured old lady with the youthful team Land Rover. This will be the first recce for the 2011 Great Game. At the same time the route will get our cars to India for the Great Arc: Cochin to Mussorie.
For me, one of the highlights of the Great Game is to enter Afghanistan and drive deep into the Wakham Kingdom (also known as the Pamir Gap); a valley peninsular in the very far north east of this worried country. Wakham Afghanistan is countless miles from the present difficulty; completely safe; no Taliban or UN Troops; no war and not to be missed! (So I believe – says I sheepishly.)
The appeal is that the Wakham Kingdom is untouched since the Great Game of the eighteenth century and at the same time is the heart of the Great Game. The Wakham Valley enters via a 12 mile long narrow pass. To the north is Tajikistan, to the south Pakistan. This long stretch of peninsular ensured that nowhere did the British and Russian frontiers meet, and acted to keep war at bay.
Politically a no-man’s land during the 18th century, becoming part Afghanistan by the fallout from the Great Game. Geographically the Wakham Kingdom separates Pamies to the north from the Hindukush to the south, a remarkable region. Oddly, the present warring factions have taken on the Great Game intrigue. Tracy is arranging permits and Karyn and I are intending to pass into the Wakham Kingdom, Afghanistan, late August.
Again, the Great Game will be invitation only, no advertising, and limited in numbers, enjoyed at a slow pace so as to enable us all to take in the great sights of the route, Calcutta, Kathmandu, Lhasa, Tibet, Kashgar, Pamirs, the Stans, Bukhara, Samarkand, Tehran; and if it is God’s will – the Wakham Kingdom!
I trust you can see why the rally needs to be enjoyed, I would utter slowly, savoured at a slow old fashioned pace. Rally to start in Calcutta August / September 2011. Entries open late 2010 after the first recce.
I am very grateful to Peter Noble for forwarding Cornucopia Magazine containing a wonderful story on Sir Percy Sykes, explorer, soldier, scholar and spy of the Great Game, telling tales of his mischief around Kashgar of 1915. The pictures stand alone and enrich the period. I will try to add the article to the Great Game web site. Peter has already asked for us to reserve his room at the Khini Bagh, once the old British Consulate at Kashgar, and home to many on the Great Game, and now a hotel. I had better do my homework well for Peter requires the room with the veranda!
First series of Great Drives on ROARR tv is finished and I hope this has been appealing to watch. A second series of driving films from around the world will be back in the spring.
At the same time I am adding to the website a Drivers Tales section so that anyone who loves to write and express their own adventure can put their own driving experiences onto the web. If we all stretch ourselves, we may surprise ourselves.
Preference will go to drives from ROARR rallies! I will start this new section with a few tales of my own.
At the same time a revised website, updating ROARR rallies, and further updates with ROARR’s Newsletter will be back after the Patagonia Classic Car Rally.
All the best for 2010 and I hope you all experience many great drives and plenty of adventures in the year to come.
Conrad Birch
Randalls, Penshurst, Kent.
