It's on the Meter

by Paul Archer

CHAPTER 55

  HOMEWARD BOUND

  Suddenly it was all upon us; the final stretch of road before Hannah would be reunited with the beloved Tarmac of Blighty. At this point I could hardly wait to complete the trip, and Leigh must have felt the same as he drove Hannah up the autoroute at the fastest speed we ever hit, a pant-wetting 85 mph.

  We were swallowed up into the Channel Tunnel somewhere around Calais and spat out at the other end 40 minutes later on to our dearly missed homeland.

  Even the miles of barbed wire fences around the Eurotunnel exit and the inevitable rain couldn't dampen our spirits. Finally, after a year and three months on the road we were home. Even the familiar road signs made me smile.

  The most important thing at that moment was to order a true English pint, so we headed to the White Horse in Dover, the little pub where we had our leaving pints two cold Februarys ago. Up above the bar, amid the scrawlings, lay a familiar sight: a postcard of Hannah in front of the Sydney Opera House that we had sent six months previously.

  Suitably refreshed we started the ride up to London.

  A tiny 80 miles was all that now separated us from our final destination. Compared with driving the length of America or crossing India, it seemed so insignificant. Britain felt so small.

  As part of the world record attempt rules, the taxi had to be a fully registered taxi in the country it departed from. However, before we had left the UK, Transport for London or any of the other taxilicensing authorities wouldn't grant Hannah a licence. I had called up just about every licensing authority in the country, coming up against typical bureaucratic public sector inflexibility at every turn.

  'Hi, can we register the taxi for an expedition to raise money for the Red Cross? It will never actually be used as a taxi and never collect any passengers?'

  'Will it have child-friendly seat belts?'

  'Err… like I said it won't actually be used as a taxi so therefore it won't carry any children.'

  'I'm afraid child seatbelts are a must on all taxi vehicles due to the Hackney Carriage Act of 1831. Does the vehicle in question have child seatbelts tested to 2001 European standards, part 17, appendix D?'

  'No, not exactly… but it does have a winch and a really big sound system.'

  This went on and on, until about two weeks before our departure I eventually managed to persuade Gloucester City Council to waive the vehicle requirements (at the time we hadn't even fitted seatbelts!) in return for placing their logo on the cab.

  However, when I went to collect the taxi badge she realised she had forgotten a rather vital question. 'You are a registered taxi driver, right?'

  'Err… not exactly. Why?'

  'You know it's illegal to drive a registered taxi unless you're a registered taxi driver for the local council, according to the European Mandate of blah-blah-blah, Part 192738 Section C?'

  At the time this seemed pretty insurmountable. Without the registration, there was no world record. But if the taxi was registered, we couldn't drive it without passing the registration test – an impossible task to accomplish in a fortnight.

  In the end we had hatched a convoluted plan and the evening before the departure we parked the taxi (which was still a private vehicle at the time) near Covent Garden, and at exactly midnight the taxi registration kicked in. The next day we waved our goodbyes and drove away from the cameras with me at the helm, then turned a corner and stopped before we reached public roads.

  I hopped out and swapped places with Steve – the head of the Gloucester Taxi Drivers Association and a fully qualified taxi driver. Once we were on the ferry, the taxi ceased to be under the law requiring a registered driver to drive it, but it was still registered in the UK and therefore legitimate for the world record. It was to become synonymous with the kind of bizarre kinds of creative work-around logistical solutions we would have to continuously create as the expedition progressed.

  Now we were back in Blighty, the same problem presented itself but we conveniently ignored both Hannah's lack of MOT roadworthiness certificate and the fact we weren't officially licensed taxi drivers. What had seemed like such an important technicality at the start of the trip now was a trifling rule that could be bent.

  As we approached our final destination, I felt a huge rush of emotions. We were all glad it was over and felt like the adventure had run its course. Fifteen months of travelling had worn us down to the bone; staying in a different place every day or two, continuously making new friends only to have to immediately say goodbye, living from a rucksack and never being truly clean certainly had its effect. Suddenly feeling emotionally and physically drained, we had the crushing realisation that none of us had any idea what we wanted to do with our lives. How could we assimilate back into normal life after so much had happened? My plan to return to the City of London when we left now felt ridiculous and the lads felt the same. We had no money, no desire to do anything more with the taxi, and life was moving on.

  But first we had one last short drive to complete.

  London was grey, wet and beautiful. We pulled on to Trafalgar Square, where 15 black cabs were waiting for us, and we paraded down the Mall for GetTaxi's photographers with them in procession.

  We reached Covent Garden, where the whole trip had begun, at around 10 a.m. on 11 May 2012, 450 days after we had departed from the exact same spot. When we finally stopped the meter it read a total of £79,006.80, but thankfully Leigh, who was driving at the time, agreed to waive the fee.

  We had managed to raise £20,000 for the Red Cross, and after we had presented them with an oversized cheque, an official from Guinness World Records stepped up to present us with not one, but two world records.

  Guinness World Record for the Longest Journey Completed by Taxi

  Guinness World Record for the Highest (Altitude) Reached by Taxi

  We were double world record-breakers – one for a truly ridiculous and pointless journey, and another for what sounds like drug consumption in a taxi (but was actually for the mountain pass in Tibet).

  Our friends and family came rushing over to welcome us back home and I think all three of us felt like we couldn't have driven a mile more. We were exhausted, but we had made our dreams come true.

  And another dream was about to be made. Way back during one of the pub-planning sessions almost five years previously, we had talked about what would be the dream indicator that the expedition had been a success. I said being featured on BBC News would be the biggest thing I could imagine.

  As we pulled up outside the gates of Broadcasting House, I was as nervous as could be. Leigh could see this as the colour drained from my face while we waited, 30 seconds from going on air. He was typically understanding.

  'So, how many people will see this?' he asked the assistant as he grinned and winked at me.

  'Oh, at this time of day? Something like seventy or eighty million.'

  Whatever colour was left drained from my cheeks and we walked on to the set. Thanks Leigh, you bastard.

  But strange opportunities started to appear. When people heard about our expedition we had a wonderful email asking whether we would like to take part in the London 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony. However, there was only space for one driver and we were three. As with everything else on the expedition, we decided in the fairest manner. Rock, paper, scissors. And as luck would have it, I found myself driving out with the Spice Girls to 80,000 screaming fans. Zig-a-zig-ah!

  Soon after we finished, when Hannah was rusting in retirement in GetTaxi's car park in London, a journalist asked me what I had learned 'about all the people of the world you met'.

  I felt such a general question could only be answered with a correspondingly massive generalisation and told him that I had gleaned that people everywhere were usually kind and that most people wanted the same basic thing out of life: the opportunity to share a small corner of the world with the people they loved, free from conflict or persecution.

  'That's not interesting for my readers,' he retor
ted, 'why would anyone want to hear your story if you say that everyone is the same?'

  After thinking a short while the only thing I could reply was that adventures are what each person makes of them. That maybe his readers should get out and explore the world themselves. Clashes are inevitable when the differences between people are so huge. Perhaps if more people tried to understand these differences then the world would run more smoothly.

  But is it smoothness we want? The German autobahn is frictionless and recognisable, but it is also bland and monotonous. The rutted track slows you down and rattles you around, but it affords you adventures you would never imagine. Where would the fun be in life if all of our roads and our paths were smooth and familiar?

  We could have stayed in our local pub on a Friday night, but the fun came from discovering that you should never challenge a seven-foot Viking to a drinking competition, that Dina and Sasha chase vodka with pickled gherkins not Coca-Cola, that cha-cha doesn't really make you go blind and that Special Brew is the drink of choice in dry Iran.

  We could have driven on our safe and ordered English country roads, but would we have figured out how to avoid potholes the size of watermelons, how to dig a car out of a seven-foot snowdrift or that the police in Berlin don't take kindly to you leaving your car parked in the middle of a street on a Monday morning?

  I spent a good chunk of my adult life studying engineering, but picked up more about mechanics from the radiator blowing up in the desert, from the ball joints snapping in the mountains of Nepal and from sharing some beers with Brando the mechanic, even if he did later turn out to be a multiple murderer.

  A lifetime of walking past British bobbies and the occasional traffic stop were no substitute for finding out how to bribe your way out of a Russian police station, fobbing off the Persian secret police, ditching armed escorts in lawless Baluchistan or blagging through borders with the arrogance of youth and friends in high places.

  We could have read all the guidebooks we liked but they would never take the place of hearing Russian dirty jokes from the horse's mouth, or shooting guns with locals in the backcountry of the USA. All the nature documentaries in the world couldn't compare with seeing the Arctic sky lit by the Northern Lights, stepping out on to the base of the world's highest mountain or really comprehending the vastness of the Australian Outback by chugging through it for four days.

  It is often said that people only show their true colours in times of great stress and conflict. Arguing with gun-wielding guards and escorts and countless border guards really let us see ourselves, and each other, more clearly than ever before. Spending 15 months cooped up in a car with Leigh and Paul allowed me to grasp why we were such good friends, and to learn a lot about myself along the way, too. I'm honoured to have spent so long with two great travel buddies and friends.

  As our story comes to an end, I hope we managed to give you a taste of the adventure. We loved our expedition precisely for what it was: a ridiculous pub idea that got out of hand. It was a road trip with three best friends, parties, mistakes, mischief, breakdowns, jokes and everything you would expect from three 20-something males on the road. Except ours went on for almost a year and a half, and involved a cast of hundreds of some of the most amazing, kind and unique people I will ever have the pleasure of meeting.

  Jasper, the Dutchman with the horny cat, told us that bad decisions make for good stories. We made countless bad decisions and foolish mistakes along the way but the best decision we ever made was to try.

  We three intrepid idiots, bluffing our way around the world and learning as we went, managed to drive a black cab purchased on eBay the entire way around the globe. So go out and buy that vehicle, or book that flight, or plan that route for your own adventure. It will be the best thing you will ever do.

  Because if we can do it, believe me, you certainly can.

  AFTERWORD

  By Leigh Purnell

  This book is dedicated to all the people who thought we were bat-shit crazy, but supported us with food, floors, finance, friendship and spare parts anyway

  Sitting back and thinking about it, a lot changed in the 15 months since we left Covent Garden, with a half-working taxi that didn't even have functional wiper blades. We waved goodbye to our friends, family and sponsors, who honestly didn't even think that we would make it out of Europe, let alone circumnavigate the world.

  Stuck in the basement at Aston University, desperately working on Hannah just days before launch, 50 hours into a 54-hour workathon, I was just thinking of all the things that needed to be finished otherwise we would fail before we even began. I was sat there with a welder I had just learnt how to use, thinking that the people who had said we were crazy might have just been right.

  Buying any vehicle from eBay has its risks; buying a car from eBay that you expect to take you around the world was maybe a stretch too far. When we were trying to figure out what vehicle to use, we immediately went with the iconic London black cab and focused on finding one with a manual gearbox, as the roads that we aimed to traverse were not as forgiving as the busy streets of London. We then began to convert Hannah into a steed that might stand a chance in the conditions we were going to put her through. The ideal donor car to use for these modifications was the Land Rover Defender; nearly all of the parts we used were taken from this vehicle and they served us well. Here is a full breakdown of what we changed on Hannah:

  • Added a roof rack and roof box

  • Added adjustable suspension and raised the height by 60 mm with custom springs

  • Replaced all ball joints on the wheel assemblies

  • Replaced clutch and fuel sensors

  • Added winter tyres and upgraded brakes

  • Added a cable winch and bull bar to enable recovery

  • Welded in a new driver's seat and added a passenger seat

  • Installed air intake snorkel for better air filtration and to prevent engine flooding

  • Welded new floor in the boot to replace the almost completely rusted-through existing version

  • Installed new silicone engine hoses for high temperature tolerance

  • Increased the capacity of the stock radiator and added electric fans for increased cooling

  • Installed custom high-power output alternator and extra fuse box for additional electronics

  • Created and welded custom roll bar to replace partition normally found in taxis

  • Created a custom storage unit (The Bar) for secondary back-up battery and mains power invertor

  • Added new electrical spool and high-intensity lights for night driving

  • Installed alarm and immobiliser system

  • Fitted insulation for sound dampening and thermal protection

  • Cleaned and painted all the underbody for rust protection

  • Finally, we added a sweet sound system.

  Looking back at what we had just accomplished, I would not have traded it in for the world. We went from being three students, who knew a little about fixing cars, had ran a few events and travelled a little, to becoming seasoned explorers, who had just traversed 50 countries, in some of the harshest weather conditions that humans could tolerate, and hadn't managed to kill each other in the process. It was a life-changing experience and it made me feel a whole new respect for Johno and Paul, not to mention all the amazing people we had met along the way.

  The previous record for the longest journey by taxi was set in 1994 and was a 21,691-mile, four-month taxi ride from London to Cape Town, South Africa, and back, by Jeremy Levine, Mark Aylett, and Carlos Arrese. The trip ran the meter up to $64,645 (around £40,000). When we saw that mileage figure all those years ago, drawing our fingers across a map of the globe, it seemed a simple task; they had just gone to South Africa and back, easy right?

  But after nearly 15 months, 43,319.5 miles, 8,000 litres of diesel, 50 countries and four continents, I had a newfound respect for people who go out and try to achieve something that is truly a wo
rld record, that somebody has never been able to accomplish before or is striving to beat, always pushing yourself to be the best that you can be. To Jeremy, Mark and Carlos, well done in 1994; it must have been far from easy and I now have the utmost respect for the three of you.

  Below are some facts and figures from along the journey and I hope that by the time you finish reading it will generate a spark that might put you on a path to achieving something great:

  • Total cost of taxi fare: £79,006.80

  • Total distance travelled: 43,319.5 miles (69,716.12 km)

  • Amount of money raised for the British Red Cross: £20,000

  • Number of litres of diesel consumed: 8,000

  • Total spent on visas: £3,345

  • Highest altitude above sea level: 5,225.4 metres (17,143 ft)

  • Lowest altitude below sea level: -423 metres (-1,237 ft)