I’ll not post another blog until we are on the road. Up-to-date progress will be on my Twitter account (or just look at the right-hand panel here), Twitpics from my phone, some live in-car video from my mobile phone now and again on the Live Video page, and you can follow our progress with GPS tracking on the car courtesy of Sanoodi. We are not using GPS in-car to aid us, just paper maps, road-signs and will hopefully not have to crack open the compass…

Friday 22nd (Wales & England)

Leave Conwy approx 6.30pm from The Bridge / Vicarage car park, drive to Dover, meet up with all the other cars at the port, collect our passports from Gôl trustee Neil Dymock (with or without Azerbaijan visas - see BBC News item), either grab a bit of kip or caffeine / Pro-Plus myself up the eyeballs  before boarding the ferry.

Saturday 23rd (England / France / Belgium / Luxembourg / Germany)

Ferry departs Dover 2.50am, arrive Calais 5.50am. Drive into Belgium,  through Luxembourg and in to Germany, arrive Stuttgart, set camp.

Sunday 24th (Germany / ???)

As i’m typing this, we have not decided / mapped out where we’re going. We’ll see how the car is and make a decision en-route. Leave Stuttgart mid-morning, heading vaguely in the direction of Vienna, camp… somewhere.

Monday 25th(??? / Austria / Slovakia)

Arrive in Vienna, visit the Rainman Centre (Gôl visited here in 2005), this is a day centre providing therapy for autistic young people. Gôl will be viewing how their £1500 donation has helped towards building an activity and relaxation room. We will then leave Vienna and head into Slovakia, where Gôl will re-visit Podunajske Biskupice Orphanage in the capital Bratislava. Gôl visited in 2007 and donated £750 towards building a football pitch in the grounds. We will then set camp somewhere near Bratislava.

Tuesday 26th (Slovakia / Hungary / Romania)

Push on from Slovakia into Hungary, where we will stop at Gyermekotthon Orphanage, previously visited by Gôl in 2004. An orphanage housing 126 children, where we will be shown photos of their summer camp Gol donated £500 towards in 2004. Visit the Hungarian capital Budapest. Then push on into Romania, through  Transylvania, our first stop in the region will be the Casa Josef Orphanage in Beius. Here 37 children live in complete care and would otherwise remain in the state institution system. Then on to Cluj, and set camp.

Wednesday 27th (Romania)

From Cluj, we will drive to the capital Bucharest, where we will meet with the Family Care Foundation showing us the problems faced by abandoned children in Romaniast and the Pinocchio Orphanage. We will make camp outside the city towards the Bulgarian border. European Cup Final (Champions League / Big Cup) will be watched from somewhere…

Thursday 28th (Romania / Bulgaria)

Cross over into Bulgaria, and over to the coast of the Black Sea to the city of Burgas, and visit the Al. G. Kodzhakafaliyata orphanage. I *think* we may have a restful afternoon and a night out in Burgas / Sunny Beach - it’s been mentioned more than 10 times between us anyway, and our next days driving is a relatively short distance…

Friday 29th (Bulgaria / Turkey)

Leave Burgas and cross into Turkey, and visit the Nesin Vakfi Orpahange in Catalca (a district of Istanbul). We will then visit Istanbul, and set camp on the outskirts of the city.

Saturday 30th (Turkey)

Join back up with the Turkish motorway network and drive to the capital, Ankara, to visit the Ataturk Cocuk Yuvasi Orpahange. This the largest of all orphanages in Turkey translated as ‘The Children Heim of Ataturk’. It was founded by Great Ataturk to protect the war orphans in 1922. From Ankara we will head north toward the Black Sea coast and drive as close to the Georgian border as possible. Will try and catch the FA Cup Final < it’s been preached to me/all of us from an early age just how international the FA Cup is followed throughout the world, we’ll put this to the test. Setup camp in north east Turkey.

Sunday 31st (Turkey / Georgia)

We will cross into Georgia, driving through Batumi, heading towards Kutaisi. This is the city twinned with Newport, Wales. We will enter the city in convoy under police escort. Once in Kutaisi we will visit the Football School “Martve 91″, and a number of Newport County shirts and ’stuff’ will be donated. We will also visit Childrens Home No.44 to donate books and gifts. Thankfully we have a hotel in Kutaisi for 2 nights.

Monday 1st & Tuesday 2nd June (Georgia)

Kutaisi, visit universities and schools. Meet with the mayor of Kutaisi and several governors of Georgia. We will also play a game at the 20,000 capacity Givi Kiladze Stadium (home to FC Torpedo Kutaisi), Wales Supporters v Georgia Supporters.

Wednesday 3rd June (Georgia)

After saying farewell to Kutaisi we will visit Gori, visiting two orphanages housing approximately 100 children as a result of last summers conflict in the region. From Gori we will travel to the capital, Tbilisi. If we haven’t got them already, pick up Azerbaijan visas from the embassy. We have a hotel booked in Tbilisi.

Thursday 4th June (Georgia / Azerbaijan)

Make the short drive to the Azerbaijan border, visas permitting and law permitting we can drive our right-hand cars over the border. Where we will visit a total of 8 orphanages in the towns and cities of Qazax, Agstafa, Ganja, Ucar, Kurdamir, Saray, Gizildash and a refugee camp just outside of Baku.

Friday 5th June (Azerbaijan)

We will have sight of the Caspian Sea and roll into the capital Baku, a football match between “us lot” and the team of “Baku International Oil and Construction Workers FC” that evening. This is our hotel in Baku.

Saturday 6th June (Azerbaijan)

The day of the match. We will visit two orphanages outside Baku, the Saray orphanage (see 2 posts back) and Gizildash orphanage.

We will then travel back onto Baku, pick up match tickets from the FAWs very own Lucy in a hotel bar. Then onto a fans match between Azerbaijan fans v Wales fans, arranged on a pitch in the inner city of Baku for later in the afternoon, before we all make our way to the stadium for the 2010 World Cup Qualifier: Azerbaijan v Wales (I *think* the local kick off time is 8pm, which will be 4pm UK time?).

Sunday 7th (Azerbaijan)

Visiting a refugee camp outside of Baku, some sightseeing, and staying up right through the night, head to the airport around midnight for our flight.

Monday 8th (Azerbaijan / Latvia / England / Wales)

Early hour flight from Baku, arrive in Riga. Then a 12 hour stop and a wander into Riga, Chance to dip our toes in the Baltic Sea on Rigas beach. Connecting flight from Riga to Liverpool 8pm Riga, arrive 9pm UK time in Liverpool John Lennon, and a drive back into Wales… collapse.

Tuesday 9th (Wales)

Stay collapsed.

Final word from the Furries;

The Daily Post article last Tuesday was most helpful to resolve our “no car for 5,000 mile trip and just 10 days to go” headline/problem. Many kind phone calls offering cars to myself and the papers news desk were received. We now have a reserve car being serviced, MOT’d (for the 6 or so hours we need to have one) and we should be ready to roll out in it on Friday evening. More on the car very shortly.

The North Wales Wekly News helped in updating the car situation and the awareness for the drive last Thursday.

The South Wales Argus covered the work some of our South Wales drivers are undertaking for Kutaisi, full story here. Kutaisi is the city in Georgia twinned with Newport. We will be staying 2 nights & visiting schools, youth football teams (rumour of a game in a 20,000 capacity stadium; Us v Kutaisi…), we will also meet the mayor and governors of Kutaisi.

Big thank you to Graham Linehan (writer & director of Father Ted, Black Books, Big Train, IT Crowd & all round comedy hero), for his kind twitter update which caused the website traffic and my Twitter feed to go off the scale for an hour or so. He had just been “statistically proven” to be the 5th most influential user of Twitter (higher than Barack Obama); here is his 1st  update after he found out; Start by using my powers for good. Help @marc79 make his epic journey http://www.justgiv… (please RT!). Here’s the link to the tweet.
Photo: Linehan judging Eurovision.

There was also a brief article in “The Independent on Sunday” sport section yesterday, full page link here, full article below;

Baku to the Future
Another good cause, and an unusual way of helping it: 22 wacky Welsh supporters are setting out on Friday for a 14-day, 3,500-mile charity drive to Azerbaijan’s national stadium in a fleet of old bangers. Each will be full of clothes, toys, books and football gear for the 15 Eastern European orphanages and youth centres they will visit en route. Supporters, who have also raised £6,000 to spend on equipment and building work, aim to arrive in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku in time for Wales’ World Cup qualifier on 6 June at the Tofik Bakhramov Stadium – the one named after the 1966 linesman with the miraculous vision.

I did another telephone interview for Tudno FM last Friday afternoon with an update on the car situation, our latest preparation and of Gols recent donation to the Saray orphanage in Azerbaijan towards building a kitchen. I am hoping to be on the breakfast show Thursday morning, circumstances permitting.

The project will entail creating a kitchen where the mentally and physically challenged orphans will learn how to help themselves and help others in the institution of the orphanage Saray, which houses approximately 200 such youth and children of both genders. Presently they do not have any access to a kitchen so are unable to supplement their very poor diet, they do not have a place to learn ergonomical skills such as feeding themselves or even preparing a nutritious fruit salad or ordinary salad. Additionally this place will be used to make play-doh and similar things which help those completely bedridden children to improve their motoric skills. It will also serve as an informal meeting point where they can prepare a meal together and have it together in a civilised and welcoming atmosphere. This kitchen focal point will help inculcate skills of caring for each other and for themselves.  The time for this project in terms of setting up the kitchen will take 2 months and the project itself could continue for at least 1 year and one can reassess it after that.

Sumqayit is often (always) amongst lists of “Top 10 Most polluted cities on earth”, and often ahead of a city which has had a nuclear meltdown, Chernobyl. In 2007 it made #1 of the Blacksmith Institutes list; full list here.

The orphanage, which has 22 rooms (sleeping 8 to a room), was built in 1974 after concerns about the high number of children being born with conditions like cerebral palsy, spina bifida and Down’s sydrome. Most of the children are from the nearby town of Sumqayit, which stands on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Sumqayit was once the biggest petro-chemical centre in the Soviet Union. It was built on the orders of Stalin in the 1930s and increased from a population of just 6,000 to around 350,000. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the country’s independence in 1991 opened Sumqayit to the outside world and environmentalists revealed the high levels of pollution. In 1992, the government of Azerbaijan declared Sumqayit “an ecological disaster zone”.  The World Health Organisation has tried to establish a more definite link between the pollution levels and the health of people living in Sumqayit. One report estimated there were 200,000 tonnes of “mercury sludge” dumped around Sumqayit. Source: Azerbaijans Poisoned Legacy, http://www.nigelgreenmedia.com/

Putting Azerbaijan On The Map

I will preface this video by explaining that Adnan studied in America (*I think*).

Baku Graffiti

This was filmed within the last week.

The Armenian Church

Azerbaijan and Armenia are still technically at war, Nagorno-Karabakh War. Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia meet in Prague ‘today’ to discuss the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, BBC news story here.

A Lada Enthusiasts Heaven

I May Learn This One: “We’ll take my car”

OL

For more of FuserLimons videos click here.

Big thank you to Ken “from Pen” Jones for organising the game, the pitch, and sorting the proceeds.

Everyone who played and donated in the clubhouse (that’ll be everyone then!) will have their name on the car… ah, the car: Latest is, it’s still mis-firing. The power-steering failed the other day, this was down to a broken fan-belt, now fixed; having a new one of those is further piece of mind. But the mis-firing is a real worry. Jeff, our mechanic friend, assures me the car will be back in working order Friday. If the car isn’t fully firing by this weekend, i’m beginning to think to get something else… but, this may not be an option; border guards and checkpoints en-route are all aware of the Saabs registration to wave us through. Switching car now, may be too late.

Neil Dymock, Gôl trustee and main organiser of just about everything, suffered a setback of his own this week; seems the rules of obtaining visas for Azerbaijan have changed. Neils flight to Baku, scheduled for last weekend, to sort accommodation and get some contacts over there failed to get past the embassy in London. There will be no reconnaissance mission. Our visas are still not sorted, but assured by Friday we will have everything in place. Oh, and has anyone thought to get tickets to the match?

Two and a half weeks until we roll out, things are getting tight, lots to do…

It’s got to be said how well Rich got across the purpose of the drive, Gôls charity work, spelling out exactly what we’re doing this for. Before going on-air he told me he’d just come in now and again letting me lead the conversation, fair enough; the opposite happened. I wish we had an audio copy to put up here. Geldofesque Rich, Geldofesque.

Afterwards I managed to catch all 3 Llandudno goals v Guilsfield in their 3-0 win, and wandered into the clubhouse, pleased to hear they had Tudno FM on, with Gary still plugging Conwy to Baku. Thanks Gary, and for your donation; “Carr will be on the car”.

Next fundraising/awareness activity is this Sunday, 3rd May, at Conwy Utds Morfa Ground, 2.30pm. We have hastily arranged a charity football match. We have gathered a ramshackle squad of 14 from our regular 8-a-side Wednesday night games to face Anglesey league side Moelfre, in a post-season friendly, everyone welcome. Thanks again for all donations made this far through all the various routes you have managed to get to us!

Car update: Having been handed back the keys for the Saab on Friday I managed to clock up 2 miles of spluttering around Conwy, the mis-firing mentioned in my last post got worse. It’s currently back with our mechanic. Thanks Jeff you’re vital to this drive - though I really wish you weren’t *this* involved in a mechanical capacity at this stage.

I’m off to find a Hungarian phrasebook; “I will not buy this tobacconists, it is scratched”, had to include it:

It’s alive!

Today the car goes back to the mechanic for a full service to stop those mis-fires. All filters, spark plugs, oil change, and a few pumps and belts replaced, and hopefully the car will be back to me this weekend in it’s best working order for years. Thinking of celebrating with producing a short-film of the car actually moving (un-aided by tow rope or recovery truck)…

Got my jabs done for the trip this week, they included; a large helping of the Hepatitis alphabet, a spoonful of Diphtheria and Typhoid, a joust-like needle of Tetanus booster, all washed down with a Polio boost jab. Think i’m over the worst of the effects, arms still swollen.

Whilst looking up Azerbaijan on the NHS site, the nurse warned of Malaria risk in the country. Valleys in the north-west and south-west of the country are high-risk areas, where anti-malarials are advised. The print-out she handed me tells of 2,311 malaria cases in Azerbaijan in 1999, but has steadily been declining since, Baku is Malaria free.

"This map is just a guide as mosquitoes do not respect boundaries"

Press coverage in the last week includes; Azeri Sport Magazine (article here), North Wales Weekly News, and i’ve done a couple of short telephone interviews with local radio stations Marcher Coast and Tudno FM. Me and Rich are scheduled to be on-air at Tudno FM this Saturday afternoon during their sports show, i’m sure audio and photos will be on here shortly afterwards.

Our visa forms are filled out and on their way to the Azerbaijan embassy in London. Oh, and I got a speeding ticket on the weekend in Wrexham - I just hope it’s processed “very” quickly…

Making Fernando Torres look ordinary, but who sounds sanest?

For the record; it's a 96' plate P Reg... not T

Full story here.

Before the game I managed to get a quick chat outside the famous City Arms with our very own Neil Dymock; organiser of “Baku or Bust”, Gôl trustee, and all round busy man. Concerned for my brokendown car he went on to reveal that he has already gone through 2 cars of his own in the last 3 months, both engines blown. Slightly concerning, but adds to the tapestry of the trip. Unperterbed I handed over cash for my visas, and listened to his exploits of driving Dean Saunders and Chris Gunter around the team hotel grounds in the London taxi, a car which will be a part of the drive. These photos need to be seen Neil.

The Visa Exchange, City Arms, Cardiff

Photos outside The City Arms by good friend, David Jones (@DMJones79).

Big thank you to work colleague Joel Bradbury (@joelbradbury), who introduced me to Sanoodi (or @sanoodi) earlier in the week. Sanoodi are a GPS tracking company based on Bangors Menai estate. Within an hour of sending a quick email to my contact there, they were on board and offering hardware in the form of a Blackberry phone for the trip with GPS  hooking up to Google Maps. I am picking up the equipment next week, i’m sure a blog post will be dedicated to testing this technology soon.

This website, “Conwy to Baku”, was published in Wednesday nights official matchday programme Wales v Germany, as well as a name check (hope to have a scan of this on here shortly - i’ve not seen it myself yet). Seems me and Rich have a couple of press calls next week. Daily Post, North Wales Weekly News (thanks to @debjam and @danowen), photoshoot with @jashergilbert and mention of some radio too…

Quick update on the car; it’s still out of action, but hopefully back on the road Monday.

More thanks to everybody who has made a donation over the last week on our justgiving page.

Being a member of the RAC I gave them a call to see if they could offer a quick fix solution. An hour wait and they arrived. The hi-vis jacket used all sorts of gadgets and computers to check the car over. Fuel was pulling through, the injectors were fine, the firing pins were tested as fine. The conclusion; electrical coil broken, “It’s a common fault with these”. On asking the hi-vis jacket “Rough price at a garage?”, the hi-vis jacket took the classic mechanics vacuous intake of breath and said “You’re looking at £150 to £200″.

I also got a list of other common faults from him before he left; electric coil, fuel pump and the heater often breaks down, and that’s about it…

A second opinion from a mechanic friend of the family was quickly sought. The car is undergoing further diagnosis, and hopefully back on the road early next week… I was hoping to drive it down to Cardiff to stretch it’s legs for the Wales v Finland World Cup qualifier tomorrow, not happening. I’m still going to Cardiff, and hope to have a quick word with some of the South Wales drivers, more next week!

I’m just glad this ‘common fault’ faulted now and not mid-Bulgaria.

Yes Simon, you can sponsor the prime position on the car, under the bonnet; £50 a sticker. http://www.justgiving.com/conwytobaku