Craig O’Rourke and Ronan O’Neill from Blessington, Co. Wicklow have today completed the 2016 Mongol Rally, writes Douglas Imrie.

The competition sees teams attempt to drive from London to the city of Ulan-Ude in south-eastern Russia, with many groups coming unstuck en route.

Competitors must adhere to three rules that separates this event from traditional rallies, in order to make the difficult journey even more treacherous.

Namely, the car must be small and rubbish, teams must be totally unsupported and teams need to raise at least £1000 (€1150) for charity.

Driving 15,030km in over 228 hours across 14 crazy countries the pair, operating under the name Straight Sideways, were the first Irish team to cross the finish line in Ulan-Ude, Russia this morning.

They arrived at the finish line at 2am after an 8 hour wait at the border between Mongolia and Russia yesterday.

Five teams had beaten them to the finish of the rally with no set route, just start and end points.

It has been suggested they were the only team to come through Mongolia as the quicker teams opted to go straight through Russia, which has considerably better roads.

Mongolia is notorious for its poor infrastructure and cars have to traverse the majority of the country on simple tracks.

The pair have been raising funds for Aoibhinn’s Pink Tie foundation and have so far raised over €8000. You check out their idonate.ie pagehere and see more of their expedition photos on Instagram.