The Himalayan Challenge - Day 7 & 8
Reports by Syd Stelvio. Photos by Gerard Brown
~~~~ Day 7: September 27, 2018 ~~~~
Shimla - Rest Day One
Monkey business
The old saying goes that ‘there’s no rest for the wicked’, so today the competitors enjoyed a well earned day off. We're in an excellent hotel, in a lovely town with all the cafes, shops and amenities that anyone could wish for.
Shimla's famous Mall and Ridge shopping areas were a popular destination which also offered superb views over the valley and surrounding hills with views of the snowy Himalayan peaks on the horizon. The sun was out, the sky was blue and we were all drying out nicely.
John Spiller and Guy Woodcock on the other hand were hard at work. They were driving through the hill country, scouting out an extra loop to keep us entertained tomorrow. Their report is eagerly anticipated.
Dick Appleton and Chris Mills were also busy and after taking on one last cheese omelette, they resumed their 48 hour advanced car duties and made for Mussoorie. Their report is also eagerly anticipated.
Shimla is a resort town, make no mistake about that, and as today was World Tourism Day there was definitely a holiday feel about town. The historic railway station was doing good business taking tourists on day trips further into the hills and bringing yet more of them up from Chandigarh and “the burning plains below”.
The sweeps were given the day off as well. They’ve had a tough few days, so a bit of high altitude downtime was prescribed by the rally medics. So the rally crews were left to their own devices down in the carpark but, as far as we could see, there was no major work going on.
Lars Rolner had a peculiar problem to deal with however. Whilst attending to his Bentley he took his eye off the tool bag for five minutes and when he returned it had gone. Swiped by one of the hundreds of monkeys which live in and around the hotel grounds. Despite Lars’ most enthusiastic attempts to coax it down, the offending primate sat in a tree overlooking the carpark and went through the contents looking for something to eat. As the bag only contained a battery charger though, the monkey lost interest and threw it to the ground - some 20 metres below.
As the day drew to a close and darkness fell, the bar of the Oberoi Cecil, filled once again and the speculation about the next instalment of this already epic rally began again.
~~~~ Day 8: September 28, 2018 ~~~~
Shimla to Shimla - Loop
Pulling a rabbit from the hat
While the rest of us had shopped till we dropped yesterday, and taken in all that Shimla had to offer, the Clerk of the Course and his deputy, had obviously spent their rest day doing something much more productive and today we were all beneficiaries.
The floods, landslips and bridge closures had thrown the rally schedule into disarray but today the tide turned and the next time we open our route books, we’ll be on the correct page.
John Spiller was obviously a tailor in a previous life because he, along with Guy Woodcock, managed to stitch together a superb day of driving, complete with a pair of Regularities and a buffet lunch. Set within a 110km circuit this took us from the Oberoi Cecil in downtown Shimla to the Oberoi Wildflower Hall on the outskirts of the town.
The direct distance between the two hotels was only 15km, but our route was much more entertaining and within a shade under 14 km from leaving the hotel we arrived at the first Regularity on the road to Dhalli.
John and Gill Cotton set the clock running and 8.65 km later Jamie Turner and Tony Jones who’d swapped their spanners for a stopwatch, recorded the time. In between was a little used stretch of road with some excellent views across the valley.
The next part of the day involved a short section of a typically busy Indian highway and then a much longer section of almost deserted tarmac, which climbed steeply through a forest to the village of Chail. Here we enjoyed a buffet lunch in the eponymous Palace, which was built by the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, after he was expelled from Shimla by Lord Kitchener for some unspecified, but no doubt serious ‘indiscretion’. At around 2,300m high, the Maharaja was just about able to look down upon the Viceroy, as well as enjoying some expansive views of the Himalayas.
After lunch, the second Regularity was quickly upon us but, as the cars rolled along the Kufri Road, which led almost directly to the night halt, the heavens opened once again, with rain and hail lashing down as enthusiastically as it had done so earlier in the week. Fortunately though, this storm only lasted for a few hours and the weathermen say that tomorrow it will be dry once again.
Tonight, in the splendour of the Wildflower Hotel, we can finally say that we’re now back on the original rally schedule. We’ve got a rest day tomorrow, Saturday, and then we leave for Mussoorie before pressing onwards to Nepal.
This then will be our last rest day for a week and there are some crews with a few jobs still on their ‘to do list’. Bjorn Schage and Trond Brathen for example whose Morgan Plus 4 was giving them even more trouble this morning and, on the way out of the Regularity, they were again by the side of the road with Andy Inskip and Russ Smith, looking at an engine which was still unable to keep itself cool. The crew sensibly skipped the afternoon’s session and headed back to Shimla to start work on the repairs.
Roland Singer and Hans Malus’s Saab has also been a frequent visitor to the side of the road and today it pulled over on the way into the first Regularity with what Roland described as "problems with the fuel pump, the carburettor and the windscreen wipers". They too decided to head straight back to Shimla to begin repairs and given the way that the weather turned during the afternoon they definitely made the right decision.
For those lucky enough to have some time to kill though there are still many things to do and see in and around Shimla with a train ride into the hills being a popular choice although there would be worse ways to spend a day than lolling around the Wildflower hotel and its grounds in the manner of, Shimla born, Guy "Dambuster" Gibson.
This evening, Andy Mudra and Gernot Woerle finally rejoined us, albeit in a hire car. They’ve had a wild ride like the rest of us, battling floods and road closures along the way after dropping their broken Bentley in Delhi, almost one week ago.
Reports by Syd Stelvio. Photos by Gerard Brown