Six Star Magazine Six Star Magazine Autumn 2007 | Page 28

FEATURE

deserted streets of Randsburg Ghost Town, descended 4,000 feet on mountain bikes in the
Southern Sierra Nevada Range, drove through the oil fields and cotton plantations of the fertile
San Joaquin Valley, and took surfing lessons in Morro Bay.
In total, this group of newly crowned ‘adventurers’ navigated seven physical challenges,
23 venues, and almost 1,300 kms of driving, all in 55 hours. (So, what did you do
yesterday?) The adventure took Garry and Lisa over three weeks, driving more than
8,000 kms of Southern California back roads, checking out 160 hotels, restaurants and
attractions to plan it all out.
Are you up for the challenge?
These great adventures that Garry and Lisa create are not restricted to journalists. With
29 years of travelling great (and not-so-great) roads all over the world, this duo likes
nothing better than to conceive the trip-of-a-lifetime for a group of friends. Whether it be
an organized schedule, like the Subaru adventure, or a ‘Vacation Challenge’, where you
compete with your fellow travellers for awards ranging from “Best Vacation” to “Best ‘Getting
Lost’ Story”, you can bet that any outing with Garry and Lisa will be eventful.
One recent Vacation Challenge saw teams journey for 16 days across the U.S., from
Detroit to Los Angeles. One ‘team’ made up of Kongar Oll, a celebrated throat singer from
Tuva (you really can’t make this stuff up!), and his wife, Unda, got lost in North Dakota and
needed to stop into a police station for directions. Kongar tried to communicate as best he
could with his very limited English and only managed to make the police officers suspect that
he was a comedian going after a few laughs at their expense! It wasn’t until Kongar actually
gave them a concert that they believed that a throat singer from Tuva was a legitimate calling
and that the bearer of this talent could, in fact, be lost in North Dakota.
Garry was particularly amazed during this particular trip at the vastly different adventures
that each team experiences on the same road trip. “One team from Reunion Island (in the
Indian Ocean between India and Kenya) were intent on packing as much as was humanly
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF ODYSSEY INTERNATIONAL LTD

now it’s
your turn
Treat your friends and family to your
own customized rally adventure!

28

Does being privy to Garry Sowerby’s travels make you wonder – could I put together some
sort of mini road adventure? Road rallies are a great way to pass a sunny Saturday afternoon
and, with good planning, you could be the toast of your friends and family!
There are countless ways you could set up your rally, but all have a couple of things in
common – there must be at least two people in each car, a driver and a navigator, you should
stagger the start times for your teams, and teams must set their trip odometers to ‘0’ before
they start. (In an official rally, there will also be an Odometer Calibration Zone, but for us rank
amateurs, just thinking about that sucks the fun right out of it!)
When you’re planning your adventure, remember that the world is full of amazing places
and great people. Use your event to get out there and try different things and interact
with interesting people. “Plan something that you like to do,” says Garry. “If your group is
fascinated with remote control airplanes, make hobby shops pit stops along the way and
then have everyone end up at a fun fly.”
Just about all rallies will have a route map, including riddles and cryptic directions, and a
picturesque route to reach the destination. As you scout the route, take note of significant
landmarks and checkpoints and use them to create interesting directions. For instance, if
you want teams to turn left at a Starbucks you could write, “Celebrity deer make a left for
their caffeine fix.” On a column down one side of the page, list kilometres driven at certain