With a test drive at midday, the garage had successfully re-machine the head, replaced the valves and cam shafts, fixed the injectors and replaced the crankshaft oil seal within 24 hours – not something that would ever occur in the UK! The final payment was made, mainly for the quick turnaround (despite the overwhelming sense that we were being greatly overcharged) and the ambulances were once again on their way.

With much time to catch up from both the breakdowns, the team decided that sticking to the Turkish highways was the best route across the country. Little did we know that the Turkish highways were only ever half built, with varying levels of unfinished roads on the other side of the road and elaborate contraflows. The aim was to attempt to get a great distance in the afternoon heat, past Samsun, however as night fell we decided to find a camp site, have dinner and get on the road at the crack of dawn.

Finding a wild campsite was much easier in the remaining light than the usual pitch black, so we followed a dirt track to a idyllic opening. Discovering that further up the track was a local mine, we decided it was safe enough to set up tents and settle down for the evening, that was until a Turk with a shotgun turned up! He turned out to be the mines night guard and was kind enough to let us stay whilst indicating that they may be blasting in the morning. A starlit supper ended one of our more random days, with an overwhelming feeling that it had been good to get back on the road.

Turns out that it was sort of “owned” or “maintained” by a group of locals, with some of them appearing to live permanently in large tents on the beach. for a measly price of 60 TL (~£20), we got to camp at the most gorgeous campsite yet with use of their toilets, fresh water and shower. It was quite windy which kept the temperature down, blew all the flies away and helped dry all our clothes. The locals were really interested in meeting englsh people and we had lots of fun chatting to them about the UK, Turkey, our trip and football. We cooked a lovely curry and had a great nights sleep.

Day 12’s plan was to have a long days drive down to the Turkish autobahn and blast along to the next campsite along the coast however, as the real time tracking shows, this did not happen. After a long winding early morning drive, we reached a town called Gezbe at around midday when, literally just on the slip road of the autobahn, Adventure decided it would break down. With very little warning, the engine cut-out and wouldn’t start again. The hope of a simple fix like a blown injector fuse swiftly faded as the team failed to diagnose the problem.

Fortunately, as we had broken down next to the toll booth, human goodness prevailed and the toll booth man hooked us up with a tow to the local garage. The garage, with very little knowledge of English, very quickly diagnosed the problem and had started taking Adventure’s front end and engine apart before you could say “German efficiency”. The family run garage had several hilarious characters, made better by the outrageous sign language between us all.

The diagnosis, not good. With the intention of replacing the cam belt, the garage disassembled the engine to find a whole host of problems. Firstly, it was evident that two of the injectors may have been leaking, not only this, but the head itself had damage and required much re-machining as well as replacement valves and cam-shafts. The only good news from this was that the cam belt was intact.

All in all, a long day for different reasons than intended, the team finally got some shut eye at around 2am in an ambulance that continued to be worked on. Despite the worst night that the team had experienced, the garage soldiered on (powered by vodka, red bull and cigarettes) until 5am with the last bit of bad news of the day: the crankshaft oil seal also required replacing.

Big news this week is that our friend Matt Lokes has joined the team, bringing with him (hopefully) some professionally printed hoodies and Tshirts so that we can make our journey in style. Matt is a fantastic addition to the team and we are very excited for what he will to add to our adventure. Get on over to the team page to learn about Matt.

Nextly, we have got a vehicle sign-age company involved, allowing our Ambulances to really look the part…more details on this coming soon!

Finally I can reveal some more pictures of our first ambulance have been taken. Our friend Dave @ukambulancesales will be delivering our next Ambulance on Thursday so excitement all round here!