Students complete epic 10,000 mile challenge to Mongolia in a Nissan Micra

Ben Crowther and Ed Cooper, student members of the Institution, have completed an extreme automotive adventure by driving a 1998 Nissan Micra to Mongolia.

The duo covered the 10,000 miles to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia for the charity event in a car with a 1.0L engine with no formal back up, so they had to be prepared for all eventualities.

Their route took them through countries including Belgium, Romania, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Russia and Mongolia.

Ben and Ed have now returned – with their car – to finish their MEng in Engineering Design at the University of Bristol.

It took the pair 56 days to get there and back and 43 of those days were spent getting there. The boys said this amount of time was towards the top end of their estimate, but within their contingency and just quick enough to get them home for university.

According to Ben and Ed there were many highlights of the trip. They said: “Colin McRae-esque driving through the mountains of Kyrgyzstan was amazing. This did claim two tyres and part of our exhaust, but was completely worth it.

“The vast wilderness of the Mongolian steppe was probably the most alien landscape we will ever experience; it felt eerily lonely when all you could see in any direction was a few camels and distant mountains on the horizon.

“Aside from the scenery, we also met some amazing people on our trip. The kindness of locals who would give us food and drink was touching and the madness of the long distance cyclists we met was inspiring, with many of them on longer trips than ours purely under their own steam,” said the boys.

The most memorable moment of the trip was when the pair were pulled over by a Russian policeman, only to find out their 'friends' had written "Ukraine for Ukrainians" in the dirt on our boot. “Luckily nothing came of it, other than a minor telling off,” said Ed and Ben.

According to the students, spending five days in the Baku ferry port was a challenge. Ben and Ed said: “Sleeping in tents on the concrete definitely wasn’t a highlight, we should have realised the concrete would retain most of the 40 degree heat from the daytime.

“Border crossings were not much fun either, often taking upwards of 12 hours in the sweltering heat. The bureaucratic nightmares encountered when crossing into different countries made us much more aware of how fortunate we are to be in the EU!” the boys added.

The students were driving for long distances each day. According to Ben and Ed the distance varied between 100 miles a day off-road and 700 miles on the way home. Their longest day involved 17 hours of driving.

The pair made modifications to their car for the journey. Ed and Ben commented: “The sump guard took plenty of knocks. Some composite parts were torn away when we unexpectedly hit deep sand at speed. Also our comedy air horn clogged with dust and eventually died completely after being towed through a window deep river by an old soviet tractor.

“We were pleased with the modifications we made but with hindsight would maybe have fitted slightly stiffer rear springs to give us greater ground clearance at the back – as this is where the fuel tank is situated, not something we wanted to scrape!

“Our Micra was impeccable – apart from the fuel gauge and CV joint, it was fault free for over 15,000 miles. Traditionally, the design life of a car was commonly thought to be 100,000 miles, which our car had on the clock before leaving the UK, never mind being driven over terrain that 4x4 owners would wince at.”

So what did the students wish they had taken with them? They said: “We probably should have taken a head gasket. One of the cars we convoyed with, also a Micra, managed to blow theirs. It took three days of towing to find a town in Russia with a spare."

So did the trip take its toll on their friendship? “In all honesty we didn't have a single argument and put up with each other surprisingly well given we were tired, hungry and baking hot in that little tin can,” they said.

The pair raised £1,600 and say they are keeping the car going and saving up to do another “mad adventure” when they can.

“At the moment, London to Cape Town is looking quite exciting,” Ben and Ed concluded.

Find out more
Visit the students' Facebook page find out more about their journey or visit the Adventurists website to find out how to enter the Mongol Rally 2015.

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