James Stephenson, Author at Adventures of Penny

James Stephenson has been contributed to a whooping 69 articles.

6th Feb – South America bound.

Sydney at the moment, next stop Santiago, Chile, where a very very unwelcomed 8 hour layover waits for us before a bit of a skip across to Buenos Aires. Some serious excitement hit me last night when I finally got my self organised enough to pack my bags. Collecting the few clothes I need and tossing them into my rucksack. Then in went my new goPro Hero 3 camera to my backpack and I thought to myself, “this is gonna be awesome!” I didn’t get to play with it much before I left but here is numero uno goPro snap. I’ll work out all the other cool things to do with it on my 15hour flight across the Pacific. DCIM100GOPRO

Cool story 1 of 687 to come: It turns out a girl I went to school with lives in Buenos Aires and has done for a few months so I will have someone to catch up with and show me the friendly city and its inner workings. Sorry father dear, you’re on your own thursday night. Can someone tell him that for me please? I’m not game enough. hahaha I kid, he will be fine on his own.

“Attention remaining customers, flight QF27 to Santiago is in the final stages of boarding, please immediately make your way to gate 12!”

See you later Australia. Catchya on the flip side.

James

PENNY IN SOUTH AMERICA February 1, 2013

Monkey Wrench – Foo Fighters

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Confused all ready??? Don’t be. Monkey Wrench is just the song that I am listening to right at this moment. However, in keeping of style, we do have quite a few monkey wrench’s in our tool box. Let’s hope we don’t need them.

Ok, so this is the beginning of another outrageous adventure. South America this time. Welcome to my blog if this is your first time, my last website was www.pennytocapetown.com if you want to check out me and Dad’s last long distance vintage car rally in Penny. Welcome to all my old friends and welcome to any new and future friends. Welcome all. I’m James. And Dad/Father dearest/Fahzer/Daddums/Big-daddy/The-good-navigator/The-navigator-who-dropped-our-route-book-over-the-edge-of-the-car-man, his name is Max, my friend and partner in crime.

Timeline: today is the the 1st of February. We leave Aus on the 6th of Feb and do some regular touristy stuff in Argentina/Brasil for a few days and the actual rally start is 14th of Feb.

So what happens on here you ask? Well, as you may know, Dad and I are rallying Penny almost 15,000km’s around South America. Over the next fortnight (2 weeks for you American folk:) ) I will just have updates on general run-of-the-mill shenanigans and cool stories as well as updates on how Penny is when we collect her in Rio. After the rally event has started I will try to write some interesting update of the day’s happenings and stories and if I am not in a wifi area you will just have to wait another day or so to find out what mischief we have got into.

Some highlights and sort of things you can expect on here from last years Africa rally is: hitting a bus in Egypt, seeing giraffes, vintage car drifting and of course me getting semi-arrested in South Africa.

Why are we doing this? Well, ummmm, because we can. Who wouldn’t want to spend 6 solid months repairing/preparing a 90 year old car to ship across the other side of

The world to race for 15,000km’s only to ship the car back and have both car and drivers very tired and in need of recuperation’s. Well me and Dad love it! I cannot resist going to the complete unknown of culture and country to jump into the deep end and do something awesome! It all boils down to one fact, this trip will be LEGEN, wait for it……. DARY.

P.s. most of my blog titles will be some form of a movie/music/entertainment play on words. I love puns.

Stay tuned B’s and G’s. Don’t forget to subscribe so you can be the first of your friends to say ‘I SAW WHAT JAMES DID FIRST’

James

LONDON TO CAPE TOWN January 30, 2012

The higher you are, the greater the fall.

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Firstly, we made it! We are in Cape Town! The end, finito. London to Cape Town world cup rally is over. All a memory now. A spectacular entry into the Table Bay Hotel. People everywhere and photographers and congratulations and pats on the back and everything. totally surreal! In the end we came a comfy 32nd place. Thats what you get with sensible driving and a very well prepared car. The buzz was phenominal.

Then.

What happened next you couldnt even write it in a fictional novel. It just doesnt happen. Ever.

We turned out of the couldersac of the hotel finish line and had a (no joke) 30 meter transit to the carpark. And we hear a clunk.

Not a good clunk.

Then a few more clunks.

Then nothing.

Then more clunks and horrible noises.

After some investigation we have come to the end, we have blown up our diff. The diff center is kaput…..

It is such a shame, considering our plans to see more of Africa. But Penny won’t be touring Africa this time round, maybe/hopefully in the future she will be back. But for now, she will go on a boat back to Aus and go from there.

And us? not sure at the moment, we will work it out tomorrow if we get a hire car and tour or whatever. For now we are going to the prize giving diner (we won “agaisnt all odds” award!!). Such is life, it was meant to be. I am young enough and have many years to come back to africa, and i will! Mark my words i will!

More tomorrow.

James

LONDON TO CAPE TOWN January 29, 2012

To infinity… AND BEYOND!

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Also, thank you all so much for following me thus far on this adventure. Everyone knows that the London to Cape Town world cup rally finishes tomorrow. But that is only the beginning for me and dad. Because we are planning on driving back north! Why? you might ask? Well, because we; A) are in africa, B) have a car in africa, and C) want to see more of africa.

So, we have a very vague plan of having a few days off in Capetown, seeing some good friends outside of Jo-burg, then going back north, maybe Botswana, then up to Gurun-gurun crater and the Serengeti and hopefully some gorillas and most likely finishing in Mombasa, Kenya to ship our car back home.

And this all means that i will continue to update this blog on our continued adventures as often as possible about what we are doing, and if i get arrested in the future (touch wood) and much of the same as what i have done so far. I hope you will all have the continued support and interest to continue checking and reading throughout Febuary and most likely the beginning of March. So to my friends back home in brissy, i still don’t have a solid return date yet but i will keep you informed 😀

James