With a single bound…

In which Sid and Doris reclaim Teal from the Japanese customs and set off on a Big Adventure.

Yesterday at the Hokkaido Jingu Shrine we saw an intriguing sign offering “Car Exorcism”.

We proceeded on foot in the direction of the arrow and found someone performing the Shinto equivalent of the famous Basil Fawlty scene.  We didn’t want to beat Teal with sticks even if they were emitting lucky smoke, so instead we bought him a Traffic Safety Amulet, which comes complete with a suction pad so that you can hang it from the middle of your screen and obscure all the overhead traffic lights.  Assuming that the price reflects the amount of work being required from the gods, it is interesting that traffic safety is harder work than success in exams but easier than safe pregnancy and delivery.

Thus equipped, it was off to the Customs Warehouse, which was disappointingly landside so we didn’t get to penetrate the high security gates and drive through a maze of shipping containers piled 10 high.  All the cars have arrived including two or three which were flown in (“nothing is too good for my Citroen” although apparently it was instead due to the preparation not being finished in time to catch the boat.  In for a penny, in for £15K as we say.)

Our mantra is that if you are going to ask a small car to do a big task then the least you can do is keep him looking lovely, so Mr Google Translate’s next task was to help us master a jet wash.  How did I manage in Japan in 1988 before the information world blossomed on my phone?  Mostly by getting lost a lot and rationalising “well actually I didn’t want to do that anyway”.

The downside of the information world is that most of Japan’s motorways have an e-toll system which is unavailable for old foreign cars.  We have been given a printed phrase to show at manned toll booths and a warning that ON PAIN OF INFINITE DELAY (Limbo, perhaps, rather than death) we must never leave a motorway at an exit which doesn’t have a manned toll booth. The printed phrase says something like “I know this looks like a stinky old fairground ride but please just charge it at normal rates”.  We have started negotiations to get the phrase “This car is so tiny and cute you should let it out for free”.

The format of the event is that we are driving a fixed route, with deviations to drive round test sites (as fast as possible because these are on private sites) and regularity sections (at a speed which, coincidentally, seems to require you to drive as fast as possible on the public road, using a very wiggly or rough road where it is actually physically impossible to exceed the legal speed limit).  Although the organisers have tried to include interesting places, it is not possible for Sid and Doris to indulge their usual curiosity when presented with alluring signposts to the Coal Mining Museum of Yubari or the Abashiri Prison Museum. Like you, our valued and probably by now only reader, we have to resort to looking them up on the Information World Device.

Rally the Globe, who are organising this event, have a page with results, photos, videos and everything else here.  You could bookmark it for future use as we are going to try and avoid making this blog “what I did on my holiday” and instead just focus on a few interesting things.

Stops during the day tend to be car-themed including this collection of what you can only loosely call conveyances, including possibly the world’s first and hopefully the world’s only fire motorbike.

Two clear blue dry days suddenly change to a very heavy overnight thunderstorm, and at 5am the authorities decide it is time to take action.  Bingly bingly bong everyone’s phone jumps into life.  Due to the ever-present (although small) risk of earthquakes and tsunamis we have been told to take these seriously and the key guidance is “do whatever the locals are doing”.

Some hyper-alert lying in bed tells us that there is no rush of footsteps in the corridor, and Mr G Translate informs us that the alert is a flooding risk somewhere in the south of Hokkaido.

Although when we get up the roads here in the north are littered with bits of tree, the cloud level is down and it is generally a nasty sort of day, especially if your Stinky Old Car is not equipped with an elegant tin-top like some cars we could mention.

The lack of view at the first viewpoint “generally considered to be the finest view over a crater lake in north Hokkaido” – note the clever use of -est there – is more than made up for by general satisfaction at the stinky-est sulphur calderas.  Especially memorable when we put the car heater on a couple of hours later and our sulphur water-soaked shoes dried out, pooh whee, in a moment or rather, alas, half hour that would have made Mifter Bat very happy indeed.

The final run up to the north Hokkaido fishing village of Utoro featured one of the nasty-est lee shores we have ever seen.

We have a day off now to explore the local area but more importantly to fix all the early issues with the cars and scrape off the several kilos of wet leaf mulch which have gathered round the wheels and steering areas.  The only problem that Teal is experiencing is that the alternator belt is starting to slip when under pressure to support heated front and rear screens, headlights and the heater fan.  Hopefully this won’t apply too often.

Oh, and in case you were interested, at the end of the first leg we are 3rd overall and 1st post-war car.  The prizes are snacks, to add to the approximately 1 cubic metre of snacks we have been given since the rally started.  There are some drawbacks to rallying in a very small car.

PS Also we won, outright, the first test – a timed run round a kart track.  Scree whoo whee what fun stay to the left I SAID LEFT of that cone Sid.