Thursday was a big day  - Paul's 60th birthday and the first day of the Rally.

The Drivers briefing was at 11am!! - not pm as announced for the English speakers - and the wished us all good fun for the event. We were encouraged to make sure we look out of the windows to admire the scenery and not get back home and have no idea where we had been.

The SMS service made sure we know what to do, when to start and sent us our Special Stage points long before the full results were put up - a great idea.

We set off at 13.34 - after Paul's birthday being announced to all. We did have the 60 birthday balloons in the back window of the car.

First was a 25min climb up the mountain with hairpin bends and scary drops, we did this too fast!! very surprised and these were our first 500! points - boo hoo. That turned out to be our worst of the day so they were dropped from the total.

Then we had a rolling stage - managed that quite well. Some good navigating was then required to find our way round Ischgl to the Yellow Fox GPS station.

Now back to the top of the hill to end the total stage perfectly on time!! A quick reset and off we go again for part 2. Down the mountain with another special stage towards Goltipohl. This was the most complicated timed stage yet and sadly our second largest points haul of the day - this one we kept......Where did that green flagged secret stage come from? We only saw the finish flag - but not too many points.
Finally two more timed stages in Schruns to the finish.

Paul was announced again and this time we all sang Happy Birthday.
Total points 761 making us 77th overall and 17th in the class. Not bad for an old man and a newbie.
Tomorrow is the long day with about 300km drive and 8 timed stages- watch this space