Two days down, only 8 more to go ...

Well we have been very successful in our fundraising efforts this year, and thanks again to our major sponsors for helping us out so much. We have actually ranked 7th in the starting lineup this year, which means that - to date - we have raised the 7th highest amount. We also have some extra dollars to add to that before we reach the finish line next Thursday, so that may increase slightly (fingers crossed as we came 6th highest fundraisers last year).

So - we are now in the lovely Red Rock, NSW. Its a beautiful seaside town with a permanent population of 250 people (or so one of the locals just told me), but it swells to 2,500 at Christmas time. We've managed to get a great holiday rental house for the night, with hot running water to help us get rid of the caked on mud and dust from today.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.... Yesterday we left the North Burleigh Surf Lifesaving Club, and unfortunately we got slightly lost only about 15km after that - but not for long! We got ourselves back on track a lot faster than some others - to our benefit, although that didn't last long as we blew a tyre on the second section and had to take 30mins to change it. Oh well, we learnt from that - we learnt that the Prado jack doesn't do jack s**t and we went and bought a better one last night.

All in all though, our first day was pretty good - we lost maximum 8 points for the section with the flat tyre, but only 3 points for the other 4 sections - good going for a new team and new car.

We also learnt not to make bold predictions like "now we have a super great trolley jack we probably won't ever need it..." cause lo and behold we lost another tyre today and out came the trusty new jack. We're still getting ourselves fully acquainted, but we're pretty good friends already.

Many apologies for not posting anything last night, but there was no service at Brooms Head. And many more apologies for not yet being able to add any images, but the service here at Red Rock isn't much better and while I can add the words, the images won't add...

We'll hopefully talk to everyone tomorrow from Valla Beach.

We're almost there!

So we have now officially had our car checked and signed off by the scrutineers and we are all registered and almost ready to go. Just some last minute shopping and of course packing the car, and then come tomorrow morning at 8am, we're off into the wide blue yonder.

We also managed to fit in a trip to the local Endeavour facility this morning as well - a great opportunity to catch up with some of the clients. We have attached a selection of photos from today...

Only 1.5 days of work to go....

So the numbers are:

- 1.5 days of work left
- 5 more sleeps
- Approximately 115 hours left to go and
- Only about 4,000 kms from start to finish

....until official flag off!

No matter which way you want to put it there's no a lot of time left to go now! Yay!

My personal wishlist for the rally:

- Fingers crossed that the weather is all sunshine and blue skies wherever we are (27 degrees would maybe be a bit too much to expect)
- The car goes great guns and there are no problems either on the rally or after
- We get a good starting position (between 5 and 10 would be great)
- My liver regenerates itself quickly once I get back
- Oh - and that we get another trophy!!! (Although its far more important for us all to finish in one piece)

Really looking forward to it now - have started to collect a great big pile of stuff in my lounge room near the front door, but I have to keep checking every now and again to make sure that the cat hasn't hidden himself inside it hoping to sneak along for the ride.

Speak to you all again soon!

Only 12 more sleeps to go until we take off!

The countdown has well and truly started - and we only have 12 more sleeps to go until we're off again! I hope that the rain stays away for the 10 days we are on the road - travelling and camping in the cold and rain is no fun for anyone I can assure you. Lucky we have lots of accommodation to stay in this year I suppose.

I have just had a new "musical car horn" fitted to the car - the auto electrician assured me that the best place to put it was under the bonnet which will protect it from the rain and other weather. The only problem is that now instead of sounding like the wild animals its supposed to (think elephant, tiger, etc) it sounds a little like a strangled duck... perhaps its the thought that counts anyway - and its certainly unique.

We've now got all of our costumes organised as well - just a couple of last minute touches which we can hopefully pick up on the Gold Coast before we leave.

The History of The Ruby Legends

In 2010 The Ruby Legends will participate in The Great Endeavour Rally, which takes place over 10 days in July. We will travel from Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast down into New South Wales and then finish in Bargara after traversing approximately 3,500 klms of beautiful Australian countryside.

Although this is the fist year for "The Ruby Legends" (thanks to our sponsors Westpac and East Coast Bullbars for contributing to the name), we already have three other rallies under our belts. In fact the team has gone through some changes over the years.

In 2007 Kerry McLeish joined with three other women to become "The Dollies" as a tribute to Dolly Parton - and they wore special Dolly wigs the whole time as well. Then the team changed in 2008 when Elisabeth joined with Kerry and another former Dolly to become "The Aussie Maids". This was such a winning formula that it stayed in place for 2009 as well.

This year we will change ever so slightly with Elisabeth and Kerry being joined by Rachel, a brand new entrant to the world of charity fundraising and rally driving. Plus of course we are also breaking in (not literally I hope!) a brand new car this year.

So far we have taken part in three one day events so that we can all practice driving and navigating, and of course we need to make sure that the car can handle it all - which it has done so far without any complaints. Fingers crossed that it comes out the other side of 10 days the same way.

Our fundraising to date is just shy of $23,000 which is pretty close to our target - although we never give up trying to get that little bit extra for the Endeavour Foundation of course. But we only have a couple of weeks left to get the final finishing touches organised for the car.

The car is in for a service this week, as well as another visit to the auto electrician so that everything can be securely fastened down as we know we will be bouncing through some pretty rough terrain over the next few weeks and we really need to avoid damage both to the car and to ourselves.

We've had a few companies around Brisbane help us out with products recently, and they deserve a big thank you - On Track 4WD Centre, Berlei, Triumph and Hicks Signs have all been great to us, which is very much appreciated.

Westpac as our principal sponsor have also made everything possible, and without East Coast Bullbars the car wouldn't be in the great position it is now. Opposite Lock have also been great support to us.

So, the car is 95% ready and the team is probably about 110% ready to go - the countdown is on!

Redcliffe Herald Article - May 2010

Elisabeth & Rachel appeared in the local Redcliffe Herald newspaper again to provide an update on the progress of fundraising.

The car is now almost fully prepared, with only a few more modifications and accessories to be added and some extra sponsor stickers included.

Click on the link to read the whole story.

Wow! Our first blog and our first post...

Hi everyone!

This is our first attempt at creating a blog and of course posting stuff to it. Please bear with us as we add more info on who we are, where we are all from and what our plans and goals are for the 2010 Great Endeavour Rally this year.

Please come back soon.

Elisabeth