Congratulations to Martin Arnold, the Council’s Contract Officer who recently took part in an epic adventure across Europe. Here, he explains more about the challenge.
“You don’t look like a typical One Direction fan”, stated the Asda security guard. And indeed, in our mid-30s and sporting beards, me and my co-driver Andrew did not look like typical “Directioners”. Nonetheless, at 6am in in a supermarket carpark in Doncaster, our car was getting a lot of attention.
We were taking part in the Two Ball Rally Beach Route, a “Top Gear” style adventure whereby teams buy a cheap car for no more that £789, and then take it on a road trip across Europe, with a different (and often stunning) evening venue to reach at the end of each day, and interesting challenges to complete on the way. Around 40 teams compete, decorating their cars in fantastic themes, and often raising money for a charity of their choice. It explicitly isn’t a race – which is just as well as many of these cars are mechanically fragile.
As Andrew and I had events to get back to after the end of the rally, we planned to buy a car, do the minimum required to make it safe and legal to cross Europe one-way, and then scrap it once finished in Barcelona, hence our team name and theme “One Direction”.
Our trusty steed for the trip was a £600 Vauxhall Astra, bought via the one place you can be assured of a quality used car that is not hiding a multitude of MOT-failures; Facebook Marketplace. A deal was done in a carpark in Inveraray whereby we noted that “good tyres” meant that one was down to the chords and the rest where perished, whilst “runs great” translates to the brake pads being worn down to the metal, and the power steering no longer provided any assistance. Questions about service history, the condition of the timing belt, why there was a random child’s car seat the boot, where all met by the same response – that the owner didn’t know as they had received this delightful heap in exchange for a debt owed only a few days prior.
Obviously, this all seemed reasonable, and so we didn’t haggle, and bought the car. Buyer’s remorse immediately set in, so whilst we sorted the tyres and brakes and other items to make it safe, Temu was raided and our roof mounted bubble machine, interior disco light, and 600 One Direction stickers were ordered. Andrew reckoned one “1D” t-shirt would be enough for us to complete our team theme, and so I committed fully to this and ordered one t-shirt for each day. We were going to cross Europe in style…
Rally -1 saw us depart Lochgilphead, traverse the mighty Arrochar Alps, and descend to a Park & Ride South of Edinburgh, to drop my lurcher off at his vacation home. Having made it most of the way East, the next logical direction would be down the A1, but defying logic, we made our way back across the country to Penrith, to pick up the trophies for the rally, and then onwards to our overnight stop in Doncaster.
Rally -2 we departed Doncaster, orbited London via the Dartford crossing, made it through security at Dover, despite the roof mounted bubble machine, and onto our DFDS ferry to Calais. We met other rally teams at this point; the group with the Audi TT converted to look like a Bugatti Veyron (apparently, it is quite famous on Instagram now…), and the team with a Jaguar, which had already lost all of its gears, bar one.
After arriving in Calais, wacky races commenced as all teams headed for St Quentin and rally registration. For registration, the venue was, like all good cultural European trips, an Irish bar – and fancy dress was mandatory.
Day one of the rally dawned with the kind of optimism only sleep deprivation and cheap croissants can provide. The route for the day took us down the French autoroutes toward Annecy, and if you’ve never driven on a French toll road, imagine gliding across a perfectly tarmacked motorway at the national limit of 80mph, with no traffic, no potholes, and no reason to slow down—unless you were the team in the Range Rover. It lived up to its reputation by overheating terminally before lunch, and a couple of other teams fell victim to snapped cambelts and had to withdraw or catch lifts with other cars.
To break up the journey, our daily challenge was to photograph cars we saw enroute, in alphabetical order by either make or model. This is surprisingly much harder than it first appears. Have you tried finding a Fiat Ulysse, when did you last see one?
The Jaguar team found another gear (2 out of 4!) in their automatic box and then lost it again as we skirted Dijon.
Eventually we dropped down into beautiful Annecy. Sandwiched in between the sprawling industrial estates, the railway yard, and 6-lane motorway, Annecy had a stunning medieval centre, and picturesque waterfront promenade. Having checked in out our destination pub (another Irish bar…), and handed in the evidence for our daily challenge, we sought out some more authentic cuisine. A restaurant selling a local speciality sausage and potato dish ticked the culinary box, and we finally spotted the elusive Ulysse!
Day two was by far the most scenic as we left picturesque Annecy and began the long slow climb into the Alps. Our plucky little Astra struggled somewhat here, being passed by 2 service buses on their way to deliver passengers at speed. I wondered whether these fast bendy buses would work on Argyll’s network, whilst Andrew – he is a renewal energy engineer in fairness – marvelled at the massive hydro power stations as we crawled out of the valley.
The challenge of the day was to get a team photo at the top of the Col du Mont Ce, 2083m up. Our Astra’s foibles – a notchy crunchy gear change, ineffective handbrake, slipping clutch and relentlessly heavy power steering made this part of the journey a workout. Mercifully, the top of the mountain passes had cooled to around 10C rather than the 30C we had experienced the previous day, and icy rain had begun to fall. Being Scottish, we kept the windows down fully and revelled in weather that was “just like home”.
Coming off the mountain, we had two choices – a quick run down the motorway to our destination bar in San Remo, or the longer mountain route that skirted (and crossed) the border between France and Italy multiple times. We chose the border route and this did not disappoint. Tunnels. Mountains, multiple border crossings, towering scenery, dramatic gorges, twisting hairpin bends, and multiple wartime bunkers built into cliffs – this was the driving we had signed up for. The road signs and building styles kept changing from French to Italian, until eventually; we made our last crossing of the day into Italy, and descended to the coast and San Remo.
San Remo was, like most large seaside Italian towns, impossibly busy and chaotic, but nonetheless charming. Described as Italy’s “Skegness” by our hosts – not entirely sure this was the most flattering comparison – our bar for the night was in a Mafia owned and run hotel complete with pool. DO NOT begin the pool party until the staff say it is ok to go in, warned the rally organisers.
The next morning, a short hop down the motorway had us breakfasting in Monaco. This charming tax haven for the super-rich is worth seeing, and the opportunity to tour part of the F1 circuit not to be missed. Exiting Monaco was a challenge between the slipping clutch and non-existent handbrake (we had finally lost it on an alpine hairpin the day before), but soon we were on our way down the French Riviera. Honestly, this section was the most disappointing of the rally, the Riviera in July being clogged with traffic, and a series of houses with high privacy walls separating the supposed scenic coastal road and the picturesque beaches. We had a series of silly challenges – get a magnet in Monaco, and ice cream in St Raphael, and build a sandcastle on the beach in St Tropez. We fought our way through the gridlocked traffic to complete each of our daily challenges, slowly cooking in the 34C heat. Sheltering in an air-conditioned McDonald’s outside St Tropez, we concluded that the Riviera was probably best sampled by boat and not car.
After what was a long and hot day, we enjoyed our evening in Arles at what was, surprisingly, another Irish bar. There was a quiz on this evening, and between Andrew’s knowledge of celebrities, and my knowledge of rubbish cars from the 90’s, we scored full points and won 50 Euros, which bought dinner.
The final day was a shorter trip along the motorway to the final destination of the rally – the Mokai Beach Bar on Barcelona’s beachfront.
Not far from Barcelona, at a roadside service station, our Vauxhall made a bid for freedom. As a connoisseur of rubbish old cars from the 90’s and early 2000’s, I’m used to leaving the car in gear, which compensated for our ineffective handbrake. Andrew is more used to modern automatics, and this led to him unintentionally starting it whilst in gear. You might think, parked facing into the curb as it was, that the car would attempt to start and then stall. But no, Vauxhall having apparently specified the most herculean of starter motors for this Astra. It started, mounted the kerb, crossed the pavement and was happily sauntering across central picnic area towards a very robust looking tree when we finally caught it.
Despite this escape attempt, our Astra was doomed to be scrapped in Barcelona at a vehicle recycling centre described as “mostly legal” by the rally organisers. Our car had, despite previous owners’ neglect, performed impeccably, never leaking oil, losing coolant, and sitting at 80mph on the autoroutes for hours at a time. We exchanged the ownership document for 50 euros and got a taxi back to final night party and award ceremony, at the Mokai Beach Bar.
Feeling slightly sad at abandoning our trusty car, we got our final team challenge picture in the sea at Barcelona, before ordering the most ridiculous cocktails available at the bar. Rally almost over, heroic driving and breakdown stories where swapped, and plans hatched to do this all again sometime. If you ever get the chance to do a rally like this, I would thoroughly recommend it. It is fantastic, fun, slightly stressful, and somewhat expensive way to cross Europe, but you see our closest continent in a truly unique way.
Council updates often finish by imparting a piece of upbeat and sage advice. So, reflecting on our European road trip, here is mine:
Remember to pay for the Dartford Crossing!
