TWO Pewsey Vale School teachers will trade a noisy classroom of children for two months behind the wheel as they take part in the Adventurists’ Mongol Rally this summer.

On July 16, Charlotte Reilly and Patrick Beatty, both 32, are taking a break from their roles as English teachers to embark on a trip of a lifetime when they take their 1.2L Vauxhall Corsa from Goodwood in Chichester all the way to Siberia, 10,000 miles away.

The rules of the race, as quoted on the Adventurists website, is that competitors can only take a farcically small car, you have to be completely on your own, with no help, and you have to raise £1,000 for charity.

The couple, who live in Seend, will quit their jobs after several years at the school for this spontaneous adventure and they cannot wait.

"This is an adventure that we simply could not turn down. We joked about doing this a year ago but when we went travelling in India last summer it just felt right, we just have to do this," said Ms Reilly.

"It is so exciting. When we told the school they could not quite understand it but they wished us the best and we both thank them for supporting us.

"The funny thing is neither of us are driving fanatics or particularly good with repairing cars so that should make it even more interesting.

"We have raised just over £300 so far for our two charities – environmental charity Cool Earth and Dorothy House Hospice. The latter did a wonderful job of looking after Patrick's dad and Cool Earth is a cause we very much support."

The intrepid adventurers, who fully acknowledge that giving up their jobs is a big risk, will thunder across mountains and desert across Europe and Asia for the race, and then, if their car is still intact, drive all the way back home again.

"We know that this is a fool's errand, one that our friends and family think is nuts, but we thought it was a risk worth taking," she said.

"We are still at the age when we can do this sort of thing, so why not do it now rather than later? If we can come back to the school that would be great but if not we will look for jobs elsewhere.

"We have a wedding to go to in England after the race so that is definitely something we are aiming to come back for."

To donate visit https://www.gofundme.com/a-streetcar-named-bataar