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The Portuguese Rally

Our 4 year-old was over the moon when we decided to go to the Portuguese Rally in 2009, and the following six months he made sure we didn’t forget about it.
Last week we packed our car with our two little boys and a cooler box full with snacks and headed for the Algarve. A long car journey can be very testing with children, luckily one of ours is a car fanatic, so he was well entertained the whole way commenting on all the cars and of course looking out for “proper” rally cars. When we finally reached Almodover and the first rally car past us, he was ecstatic…

Second day of the rally we got up at the crack of dawn, to get to our carefully chosen viewing area.  We were all quite excited at this stage, well maybe apart from our 3 month old. So off we went to Almodovor, from there it proved rather tricky to figure out which exit of town actually lead to the rally, but we found it eventually.
We reached the viewing area in good time, only to realize that I had guided our little party to the wrong area… I would not cut it as a rally co-pilot! So I went from being a loved mum to the least favorite person in the car. But with a little back tracking we finally reached our destination.

The viewing area we chose was lovely, really felt like we were out in the middle of no-where, although the area was full of happy campers who arrived the day before.

Our little camp for the day was set up and we waited and waited. Our little car fanatic jumped up for every car that came past… and it was quite a few “safety” cars before the actual rally started. Then it happened…the first rally car appeared around the corner… And we were hooked! Our 4 year old was walking on air, “Did you see the pipes, the wing, the smoke (dust)!” You think he would have got a bit bored after the first couple of hours, but no. We saw them all come racing past, Loeb, Solberg, Hirvonen, Araujo, Sordo and all the rest. As the local favorite, Araujo, went past he hooted and the crowed went wild! It was a lovely international atmosphere.

We had a great day out in the “back-and-beyond”, although not even close to as good as our 4 year-old!  We left very dusty, our car looked like it taken part in the Dakar rally.

We will be back next year for sure, might even join the happy campers. Never thought I would say the beautiful country side, picnic and motorsport would actually mix. Life is full of surprises!