On the road for charity, and to improve his skills

A former Surrey Mirror journalist who drove to Cambodia in a Soviet-era car – with a top speed of 50mph – has finally reached the end of his six-month journey.

Dan Murdoch and four friends drove thousands of miles from Zwickau, Germany to Phnom Penh in Cambodia using only four Trabants, labelled by The Times as ‘the world’s worst car”.

The team say they were at one point trailed by secret police in Turkmenistan, and had to make a fire from camel dung in the Gobi desert to thaw water in the -20C conditions.

But after 318 breakdowns, and a journey taking in western Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China, Murdoch made it – and raised £9,000 for children’s charities in Cambodia.

This is some way short of Murdoch’s £150,000 target, but the trip has appeared in media all over the world, including the BBC, Reuters, AP and The Washington Post. Throughout the trip, Murdoch gave daily updates to Brooklands FM, a local radio station in Weybridge, Surrey, and wrote an article for The Bishkek Times in Kyrgysztan.

He said: ‘So, despite the career break, I’ve managed to keep working and picked up a few new skills: Radio reporting and ‘to camera’ pieces for the documentary we have made.

‘I hope I come back a better journalist than when I went away.”