A Nottingham Evening Post journalist who embarked on a crazy trip to drive from London to Mongolia in an old 1.1 litre Ford Fiesta has crossed the finish line.

Erik Petersen and his dad Bob were one of around 200 teams to set off from Hyde Park for this year’s Mongol Rally.

After three weeks and 7,000 miles they made it to Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar – raising £1,200 for charity in the process.

Unlike most car rallies there is no support team and each car in the race must be at least ten years old – and there is also no defined route as organisers say it supposed to be an adventure rather than a guided tour.

During the trip Erik and his dad passed through checkpoints in Prague, Odessa, Kiev, Moscow, St Petersburg, Rovaniemi, Istanbul, Samarqand, Uchta and Tsagaannuur, with relatively few hiccups along the way.

Erik told holdthefrontpage: “My dad was the car guy and brought some tools and some extra parts, and we used a bit of it but we had a lot fewer problems than we expected.

“The rally was a lot of fun. Me and dad had a great time and saw some amazing sights.

“We caught up with my mother and fiancée in Siberia and saw Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake, which was one of the highlights and the Mongolian countryside was spectacular.

“We also took a detour on the last day, down a paved road and then about 20 miles of dirt track to a monastery in a clearing in the middle of a mountain range.”

As they made their way along the route Erik and his dad bumped into some of the other rally teams, joining up with them for some of the way, and stayed in motels or underneath the stars in a tent.

Erik said: “We met a lot of friendly people and stayed in roadside motels mainly used by Russian truck drivers.

“We also got into a routine of going to diners and pointing at the food we wanted because we didn’t speak Russian.

“One lady who couldn’t work out what food we wanted actually took us into the kitchen and opened up the refrigerator and plonked all the meat out on the table so we could point at what we wanted!

“We did bump into other rally teams randomly – there are not a lot of main roads and even though it’s such a vast area the law of averages are that you will find yourselves on the same road at the same time at some point.”

They were the ninth team out of 200 to finish. Many teams are currently still on the road as the emphasis is on having an adventure rather than coming first.

Erik said: “It’s funny but by rally standards it is almost embarrassing. But because of my job we had to be on a set schedule.

“We went into it not really knowing what to expect but it was more than we could have hoped for.”