4 Young Men and 45,000 KMS Of Driving !! – Crazy Journey

1 Hummer, 4 Guys, 6 months,
37 Countries, 45,000 miles = A Crazy Journey

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul” – John Muir

in the Dubai desert

This is an amazing and inspiring story which all travel freaks should read once and dedicated to those who are suffering from depression. Planet Earth has lot to offer. Here is the hell, here is the heaven. Get rid of Depression with the help of travelling. Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew yourself. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

THEY call themselves the crazy blokes. 4 young guys who are throwing clothes, supplies and some Celtic music into a massive black Hummer for a worldwide road trip which will see them surfing, skiing and pursuing “plenty of European fun“.

Over six months they will drive from Sydney to Dublin, through the sweaty, vibrant streets of Bangkok and Mumbai to the cobblestone lanes of Paris and Prague, dwarfing all in their path.

A 45,000kilometre ode to hedonism? Not quite.

Rhys Baker, Fintan Gillespie, Charlie Ross-Smith and Dave Foran want to raise money for suicide prevention and depression, and have worked three jobs each for more than a year, in addition to attending university full-time, to save more than $14,000 each to make their charity drive come true.

They shelled out almost $300 so 93 trees can be planted to offset the carbon emissions generated by the Hummer and have pored over 30 travel guides to ensure their journey avoids political hot spots, employing government tour guides to travel with them through the more remote areas and escorts for the “hairy parts”, as well as acquiring a special visa to move the car through the 44 countries on their itinerary.

Fintan and Dave, both 24, had a school friend commit suicide a few years ago in Dublin. They will not talk about it. The scars run too deep and they are still at a loss as to why it happened. And Charlie and Rhys, both 22, have had depression stalk family members.

But one afternoon in a statistics lecture the four drew a lazy line from Sydney to Dublin on a piece of paper and decided that if there was one thing business students knew how to do, it was to make money.

The lads have gained the support of several sponsors who have bought them camping gear and video cameras to document the journey, and they bought the second-hand Hummer with their own money.

They will donate all money raised, plus interest, to Aware, an Irish depression support group, and will support SANE Australia by talking to people along the way about how important it is to overcome challenges, to get out there and give the world a shake.

“We’d like to inspire people by showing them that there’s a lot out there and it’s worth putting yourself out there to get it.”

“People with depression face huge challenges and have to get through them and that’s exactly what we’re doing.

“In Ireland, depression affects up to 10 per cent of the population, about 400,000 people per year. In Australia it’s about 800,000 people. When we started planning this journey we had all had personal experiences with depression, but none of us knew just how many people are affected.”  No doubt Travelling is just an amazing idea to get rid of depression.

Travel Experience of Crazy Journey

Here goes some some travel experience of the crazy journey by these folks.

Dave and Fintan in Riga

Sunset in Lithuania

Getting Ready to Board the ‘Romantika’ from Tallinn to Stockholm

Tallinn to Stockholm

In Stockholm, we met Doyler and Smythy who was back for a second run with us and after a few great nights in Stockholm, we collected Dan O’Keefe, Dave’s mate from Sydney who had flown in specially to join us the whole way back to Dublin. We all agreed that the sheer caliber of Swedish women was up there with the best in the world and we struggled to leave to Oslo, the world’s most expensive city.

 

We headed south and back into Sweden again to stop in Gothenburg to watch Sweden’s Euro 2008 match where they unfortunately went down to the Russians. Then it was off to Malmo, where Paul Sokhi had arranged to meet a huge mob of Swedish mates he had met in Thailand. The Malmo boys were unbelievably good to us and showed us a few amazing nights in both Malmo and Copenhagen which was only a 20 minute train away.

The Malmo Gang! 

Our first stop in Western Europe was the German Port city of Hamburg before arriving in the madness of Amsterdam. We spent three days getting up to the usual mischief before heading to Paris to meet Dave’s friend Bertrand and were lucky to get free accommodation at a model agency apartment through Paul Sokhi’s wonderful social network. We visited all the usual tourist sites and got the classic Hummer meets Eiffel tower photo!

DAVE AND FINTAN AT EIFFEL TOWER

Us at the Model’s Apartment, Paris

After a 30minute Eurotunnel trip from Calais, we finally arrived in London where Franner’s cousin Patrick put us up for a few days. Our final roadtrip was to Liverpool for a final night of madness before catching the afternoon HSS from Holyhead to Dublin!!!

Waiting to board the HSS to Dublin!

 European Road trip tour

(credits goes to http://crazyjourneyhummer.blogspot.in/)

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