Dave
After finishing work on Friday night, Steph and I bundled our camping gear into the car and set off for the 'official' launch party for the rally, being held in a field in Devon! It was soon established that we'd not brought a map, but hey, who needs maps?! On arriving in Collumpton we discovered, unbelievably, that the local supermarket was shut (it was 10pm), there were no off-licences and we had no beer! However, this soon faded into insignificance as Chris had arrived early and bumped into some fellow Group 1 Swiss boys who'd flown over from Zurich. Being Swiss, they were on the case and far more organised than us, sporting a homemade table, a digital pen-knife and most importantly, a big bottle of Pimms, lemonade and all the correct fruit! This set the scene nicely and we started to put up our tent and say hello to the people that had already arrived...

Chris
..........friday night continued with groups of people arriving up until fairly late, my recollection starts to get a little hazy from here on inverse proportion to the amount of Devon scrumpy I had left to the point that the next thing I’m completely sure about is Sat morning.

Sat morning was whiled away in Exeter generally blundering about, most importantly we replenished the stock of alcohol and ate brekkie in possibly the most pikey Woolworths I’ve ever been in.

General discussion was being had about a sociably acceptable hour to resume drinking when someone wandered past the tent about 12.30 with a can of Fosters which we unanimously decided was a good enough excuse to crack the bar open. With about 8 litres on Number 1 on offer I think we managed to greet most people in Group 1 with a complementary glass and ended up with a big ole group of people hanging around for the Group 1 leadership ‘election’.

We modelled the democratic process directly on Monty Pythons Life of Brian, blessed are the meek, blessed be the Pimms, follow the Holy Sheesha etc etc. Seeing as we didn’t have anyone called Roger or Roderrick we appeared to decide Fionna was now our leader mainly thanks to her son handing her an important looking file at an opportune moment, nice one Harry.


Dave
Next up was the hog roast, more drinking and a massive question and answer session, with Julian standing proud on a ladder and doing a very good job of giving out all the info, considering the rain and the large, drunk crowd! Now the real fun began, with a couple of bands playing in the barn and bit of a disco ensuing. I danced like a God as usual and the music was going well into the daylight hours... May I also point out that Chris thoroughly lived up to reputaion, furthering Group 1 and international relations... hehe. Other points of interest where the compulsive urge to wheelspin, handbreak-turn and do dohnuts in any vehicle being driven anywhere in the field. Top car surfing by the boys in the volvo.

Chris
Gernerally I had an excellent weekend all told, it being reassuring to find out that there was a really nice mix of ages and nationalities and that in general Group 1 rules. Had a good chat to veterans of the run and the odd team showing off their wheels. The film unit from Thailand (with Bloody Mary in hand on the morning of day 3) were floating the idea of Group 1 get together closer to the time……?

Oh yeah, and we picked up some maps and stuff. Into the desert, Hooyah

More pics to come and some stuff on the Pageant meeting I went to on the Sunday on the way back to sunny Brighton.