THIRTY-TWO COUNTIES in eight days. As vehicle endurance tests go, this week's Eireball rally, which will visit every county in Ireland just once, doesn't sound too challenging on paper.
But when the 20-odd vehicles taking part are Volkswagen camper vans between 20 and 40 years old, the challenges run from co-ordinating the convoy to keeping the vehicles on the road.
Drivers of old Volkswagens quickly learn basic mechanics. Luckily for Eireball participants, the Irish mechanics who spend the most time underneath classic VW campers - John Hickey of Krazy Kombis and Dave Wheatley from the Ireland Aircooled Centre - have taken a busman's holiday to join the convoy.
Hickey, farmer and proprietor of Krazy Kombis in Kilmoganny, Co Kilkenny, which claims to be "Ireland's biggest importer, supplier and restorer of classic VW Campers", bought two old Beetles in 1989. His obsession has turned into his business and several vans on the Eireball are US imports sourced by Hickey.
A significant increase in ownership in recent years - particularly among thirty-somethings like this correspondent, who have rose-tinted memories of them from their childhood - has seen a vibrant internet community spring up (see panel). This week's oddball rally is not just an opportunity to get together and talk about old buses. In the last two years similar events have raised €27,500 for two kids' charities, Bridges Across Borders in Cambodia and the Share a Dream Foundation in Ireland.
Although not as iconic as the Beetle, which Volkswagen dubbed the Type 1, the Volkswagen van, or Type 2, in its many variants was a huge success for the manufacturer. Introduced in 1950, its distinctive two-piece windscreen lasted until the late 1960s. Just as hippies around the world embraced it as their transport of choice, Volkswagen gave it a face-lift, introducing the beefed-up "bay window" model which saw it through its glory days of the 1970s. It is this model that makes up the bulk of the attendance at the many VW camp-outs each summer.
The first round-Ireland event in 2006 was dreamt up by Tony Collins, so it's fitting that on Sunday night 21 classic Volkswagens camped in his back garden just outside Arklow, Co Wicklow.
Collins and his wife Jacinta did some voluntary work with a children's charity in Cambodia in 2005. On the way home from that trip they picked up Super Papous, a late 1970s camper, in Greece and drove it home. The following year a winter's night suggestion by Collins on the Type 2 Ireland website turned into a rally around the entire Irish coastline the following summer, and the Eireball was born.
While there are plenty of beers drunk and tales of van ownership shared around the camp fire, there is a distinct family feel to events, with about 20 under-10s dashing around on Sunday.
Gerry Redmond, a "40-ish" metal worker from Clondalkin, remembers driving Volkswagen Beetles that his mechanic brother brought home from Kenilworth Motors on his lunch breaks. Now he tries to get away with his kids whenever the weather allows. "The great thing about this is the kids can go and run wild when you camp up - you know they are safe with all the other kids here," says Redmond.