Wow - really enjoyed today. The definition of a day off is a bit vauge. We've thoroughly enjoyed just pottering around with nothing else to do. Meals will form the basis for our blog post:
Breakfast: Pan toasted Turkish bread. Buttered and spread with Vegemite! Packet caramel latte's gave a frothy start to the dull day.
-Read for an hour (damn book is nearly finished)
-Washed winch rope. It had lots of accumulated mud in the fibres, so it was cathartic to wash it. Then I hooked it to a tree and wrung it out by winching the car to it. It was a good opportunity to give it all a good run and make sure it works before we need it... meh lame excuse but what else was I going to do?
-Documented the positions of the winch clutch levers because the operation of them can be confusing as they can flap both ways which makes the diagrams incorrect.
Lunch: Cereal with chopped banana
-Watched some telly - new episode of The Office with that weird CEO. I'm struggling to find him funny at all, just creepy and highly annoying.
-An old fisherman walked past, seemed happy - loved Russia.
Afternoon tea: Tea with chicken flavoured potato chips and m&m's.
-Fog developed engulfing our beach and all water - eerie.
-Tried calling my brother (left voicemail) to tell him I was standing up to my chest in Lake Baikal looking at the fish. In truth, I don't think I've really seen fish, but no doubt they are there. Plenty of recreational fishing boats.
-Cassie washed her jeans
-We both washed our hair
-I had a shave
-Re-tightened the kitchen unit
-Dried out one of the roof boxes. Not sure why but only one of them leaks very occasionally. The intermittent nature of the fault makes it difficult to diagnose - not sure if the rope gets caught in the seal or something?
-Sun came out - nice and hot again.
Dinner: Some interesting wet shaker bag marinade with beef strips. We threw in finely sliced potato and a pretty ordinary carrot to give it some more oomf. We only had about half of the meat the packet suggested so the potato and carrot should do nicely. Rice added to make it go further - should have leftovers.
-Watching schools of fish jump at the surface perhaps being hunted by something hungry.
We feel like we're all refreshed and excited to be taking off into our next bit of the adventure. Everything is now clean, tidy and ready to roll! We may not make a post tomorrow night as we are likely to be at the Russian/Mongolian border.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Lake Baikal!
We didn't rate Ulan-Ude from what we saw of it. If we'd have had central accommodation and a good walk around, we would no doubt have a different impression. The traffic was crazy, fast and rude. We had lunch at a place that resembled a big American Indian tee-pee (but was no doubt a native reference to this area and in no way American) which served chinese-ish cuisine. We ordered two things from the very handy picture menu. One that looked like chicken satay skewers and one that looked a bit like a stirfry. The stirfry came first and was brilliant. I think we've been missing salt from our diets here and this thing hit the spot. Over here, meals come as they are made and in no particular order, so everyone in your party could be finished their meal before you're even served. The chicken skewers came about 15 minutes later and were just dry bits of chicken. oh well, they were still awesome. Perhaps we're easily pleased? We hit the road and washed it all down with handful's of
m&m's, today's flavour was hazelnut - not sure if they have that one at home?!
We also bought like a kilo or more of some kind of red berries from a roadside market. They taste grand with little pips, but are about the size of a small marble. This whole trip is about us not knowing anything!
After lunch and a bit more driving, we dropped in to a rainy Lake Baikal 'suburb' packed with tents, cars, car alarms and music. It was ok, but only just that. We had anticipated this but had word of a camp spot where you pass under the rail line, down a dirt track which opened onto a private stoney beach. We had all afternoon to explore, so we drove half way down one, walked the rest - dead end. Next try we drove half way down, walked the rest and found a stunning desert island scene awaiting us. Only problem was the road. It was deeply rutted black mud. Cassie was not happy about how good the camp spot was because it meant driving it and getting royally stuck. I for one was keen on the idea of giving it a go and getting stuck as there are many decent trees to winch to at all stages of the track. Well we gave it a go, got some good video which is just as important as actually doing it! We needed to have a second stab at one stretch, so I hope it's good viewing.
The laugh of it is, I can't remember where on the many thousand kilometer shoreline the alleged camp spot was on! We just got lucky. It's likely not even be the same side! The trans-siberian rail line can just be heard in the distance.
The sun has come out now and has a pleasant bite to it. We might have a wash after dinner which tonight is salt and pepper steak, hard boiled eggs covertly taken from the hotel breakfast buffet yesterday morning in Chita, fresh tomato and turkish bread. mmm! I've taken a picture of our desert island camp spot which although not impressive in size or quality, will be realtime which is tremendous. Chris - of all things to be green about, this is it!
So the plan is, we're going to have tomorrow 'off' and spend it at no doubt one of the most stunning and secluded campsites ever. As far as we can remember, we've not had a day of just nothing. No where to be, no one to see, nothing to fix or tidy. Just relaxing. I fear I'll get stir-crazy about lunch time, but we'll see! After that, we plan to spend Wednesday driving to the border to Mongolia for a 9AM Thursday morning stab at it!
Cassie here for one sentence - Graeme has just come back from washing up the dishes in the lake and confirmed that the water is far too cold to go for a dip tonight. Maybe tomorrow on our day off if the sun's shining.
Position: 12-07-30 17:31:44 +0900 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=51.81467,106.0203&q=51.81467,106.0203&z=16
Sunday, July 29, 2012
On the road to Ulan-Ude
Cassie:
After a late morning start today, we set out from Chita for Ulan-Ude. We're about 400km west of Chita, so estimating ~200km from Ulan-Ude. The road isn't very good at all. It's very similar to the tar road from Vladiviostok to Khabarovsk - narrow, potholed (at times part of the tar is just inexplicably missing as is often the case on the older Russian tar roads) and full of maniacs who think they can drive but are seriously lacking skill and better judgement. Not sure it's ever a great move to overtake someone at speed leading up to the crest of a hill, when you're driving a right-hand drive car on a right-hand drive highway (ie: you can't see around the vehicle to see if someone's coming in the opposite direction!) and dodging potholes all at the same time. But alas, the Russians seem to think this is an awesome way to overtake because they do it so often! We often find ourselves pulling off the road just to let the crazies past before they make some dumb decision about when
and where to overtake us. It makes for a bit of a stressful drive but at least we've experienced this type of craziness early on in our trip so it's of no surprise. Just wish the road was a foot or two wider! We had a half hour or so break in the afternoon to give ourselves a bit of a breather before tackling the rest of the afternoon.
Our stay at Chita was fantastic. We walked around a fair bit, took loads of photos, ate lovely meals and had coffees. Bliss. The hotel we stayed at was really good, cheap, free wifi, breakfast included (the breakfast is nothing to write home about though), private bathroom and absolutely central as it was directly opposite the main city square with the statue of Lenin. There's also an awesome coffee shop just around the corner! The only downfall was the hideously rude staff. This morning when we checked out and requested our hotel registration forms (which every other hotel automatically hand over when you check out), the "lady" just kept saying one word in Russian louder and louder, over and over and I said to her in english, "yep, could you be any ruder if you tried harder? Keep talking louder, yep that's working". Of course she couldn't understand a word I was saying but I was over them being so rude to us the entire time we were staying there. In the end, after rolling he
r eyes at us after we mimed that we're leaving now and not leaving without the forms, she filled them out and handed them over. Good one love, you did your job! Anyway, my rant aside, for those who are reading the blog and are heading in this direction, if you're thinking of staying in Chita definitely make the effort to drive into the heart of the city to stay rather than on the outskirts which look a bit rough and boring if I'm honest. The hotel we stayed at is called the 'Hotel Zabaikalie' on Leningradskaya Street. But there's heaps of hotels in the city and we just drove around until we spotted one.
Tonight we've camped next to a busy-ish railway line. It's been fun to watch the trains go past as we're cooking and eating dinner, but not sure if we may end up moving to a quieter location later in the evening when we want to sleep. Not very often we get a camp with a beautiful view and entertainment! In fact, a train's stopped on the line near our camp and Graeme's gone to investigate what their hold up may be. We're not sure if this is part of the Trans-Siberian Railway Line and without internet we can't confirm it's exact path. This railway line we've camped near runs parallel to the M55 between the towns of Khylok and (ooOOooo this'll test my translating skills because I'm guessing the translation of these towns from our Russian atlas) Pyetrovsk-Zabaikalskyy near Kharauz if anyone's interested. Speaking of our atlas, it's totally falling to bits as each page one by one comes away from the glue binding. At least all the maps are numbered so if I do happen to drop it all
over the place I can easily put it back in order!
Today on the way out of Chita we passed a truck that was heading into the city that looked like it belonged in the Dakar. It was awesome! Graeme noted that it had rego plates from another country but passed by too quickly for us to identify which country. Then, as we were turning off to look for a camp tonight, the truck zoomed past us with a blaze of "hello" horn beeping heading in the same direction as us! Very cool indeedy. Unfortunately we didn't catch it on camera so again can't confirm it's country of origin. Hopefully we catch up with them tomorrow along the way because we're really curious to find out more about them and they're awesome truck. Not holding our breath though because they were hootin' along!
Graeme:
Yeah Chita was awesome. We both ate our weight in raspberry crepes, coconut chocolate crepes, coffee, fresh subway sandwiches, pork, lasagne. You name it, we ate it. Consider it fattening up for Mongolia where we may go hungry. Everyone in Chita was lovley as virtually every person we met in Russia has been. With the exception of the hotel staff (which are obviously rotten from top to bottom), the people are lovley and warm. Everyone wishes us good luck at every opportunity. Wow, I notice I've repeated myself. I said this a few posts ago.
I'm really finding it weird to effortlessly communicate in Russian. When I say communicate, I'm certainly including non-verbal communication in that observation. There is not much we've not been able to organise, repair, order or remedy with a few key words and some hand gestures. As you may have picked up from a previous post, one of my favourite things to say is 'oochin priatnya' (nice to have met you) to people that are shy. One young gentleman waiter at the Chita coffee shop was very shy and eager to please. He would occasionally sneak in words like 'ok' and 'yes' which we zealously would repeat back as some kind of mutual celebratory hi5. When we left, I shook his hand and said those magic words. I hope it made his day. Then again, maybe it's so everyday to say that, it may not be special.
Even in the seemingly confined space of our mystery machine, we manage to find private space. There is the 'lounge room' back here, or a private 'sitting room' in the passenger seat. With shoes off, it instantly feels like you're relaxing. It's occasionally nice to have breaks from one another, just like you wouldn't at home, but then come back togeather to have tea and watch some telly. Just in the way I went and checked on the train backlog, Cassie may have gone to take photos. Video diary's are great to look back on.
I'm a bit concerned about our first ever land border crossing into Mongolia. Naturally we're loaded with stories of other peoples experiences, good and bad. One thing that surprisingly has got me edgy is hearing that Mongolians love to push in at borders. Grr. My single largest pet hate of this trip is pushing in. I know absolutely that it's just me taking offense to something that here is obviously not offensive, but it's been the hardest thing to let go of. I think it's because I couldn't do it to someone else, yet they so willingly do it to us. Any reception desk, cafe counter or barge landing is without fail, pushed in by someone. I'm not sure what erks me about it so much. I wonder how I can get over it?! If it's any concellation, our two intense pushing in sessions at the Yakutsk barge and the Kandyga return barge, ended without problem. It's just that you have to do the same. 'When in Rome...' as they say. One thing that works in our favor(and I hate to admit it) is th
e bullbar. It does allow us to stay tight behind whoever is in front of us. It's puts us in a 'nothing to loose' negotiation with a quarter panel of someone who has 'everything to loose' and is trying to cut in line. I couldn't care less if we scratch it or bend it. I know Kym Bolton from goannatracks also was seriously fed up with pushing in at barges, so perhaps it's not just me.
I think also what's concerning me about the border crossing, is it only runs office hours Mon-Fri. If we get pushed in on a Friday, we could be in for a world of boredom and frustration sitting at the border for 2+ days. All going to plan, we should be there Thursday at the latest, so it should be fine. We're pretty sure we have all the paperwork, and know not to surrender any of it, so it should be swell. I just need to relax about it, but it's the typical, never done it before kind of fear... the unknown! We're going to be used to it after a further 6-7 border crossings.
OK well, that 'oughta do tonight. We're excited that we may be camped at the shore of Lake Baikal tomorrow night. It depends how much time we want to spend in Ulan-Ude, or if we see it one our return from Lake Baikal.
Thanks for the comments, keep them coming. Kerry has a wealth of experience throughout Asia and makes the Russian toilets not seem so bad!
After a late morning start today, we set out from Chita for Ulan-Ude. We're about 400km west of Chita, so estimating ~200km from Ulan-Ude. The road isn't very good at all. It's very similar to the tar road from Vladiviostok to Khabarovsk - narrow, potholed (at times part of the tar is just inexplicably missing as is often the case on the older Russian tar roads) and full of maniacs who think they can drive but are seriously lacking skill and better judgement. Not sure it's ever a great move to overtake someone at speed leading up to the crest of a hill, when you're driving a right-hand drive car on a right-hand drive highway (ie: you can't see around the vehicle to see if someone's coming in the opposite direction!) and dodging potholes all at the same time. But alas, the Russians seem to think this is an awesome way to overtake because they do it so often! We often find ourselves pulling off the road just to let the crazies past before they make some dumb decision about when
and where to overtake us. It makes for a bit of a stressful drive but at least we've experienced this type of craziness early on in our trip so it's of no surprise. Just wish the road was a foot or two wider! We had a half hour or so break in the afternoon to give ourselves a bit of a breather before tackling the rest of the afternoon.
Our stay at Chita was fantastic. We walked around a fair bit, took loads of photos, ate lovely meals and had coffees. Bliss. The hotel we stayed at was really good, cheap, free wifi, breakfast included (the breakfast is nothing to write home about though), private bathroom and absolutely central as it was directly opposite the main city square with the statue of Lenin. There's also an awesome coffee shop just around the corner! The only downfall was the hideously rude staff. This morning when we checked out and requested our hotel registration forms (which every other hotel automatically hand over when you check out), the "lady" just kept saying one word in Russian louder and louder, over and over and I said to her in english, "yep, could you be any ruder if you tried harder? Keep talking louder, yep that's working". Of course she couldn't understand a word I was saying but I was over them being so rude to us the entire time we were staying there. In the end, after rolling he
r eyes at us after we mimed that we're leaving now and not leaving without the forms, she filled them out and handed them over. Good one love, you did your job! Anyway, my rant aside, for those who are reading the blog and are heading in this direction, if you're thinking of staying in Chita definitely make the effort to drive into the heart of the city to stay rather than on the outskirts which look a bit rough and boring if I'm honest. The hotel we stayed at is called the 'Hotel Zabaikalie' on Leningradskaya Street. But there's heaps of hotels in the city and we just drove around until we spotted one.
Tonight we've camped next to a busy-ish railway line. It's been fun to watch the trains go past as we're cooking and eating dinner, but not sure if we may end up moving to a quieter location later in the evening when we want to sleep. Not very often we get a camp with a beautiful view and entertainment! In fact, a train's stopped on the line near our camp and Graeme's gone to investigate what their hold up may be. We're not sure if this is part of the Trans-Siberian Railway Line and without internet we can't confirm it's exact path. This railway line we've camped near runs parallel to the M55 between the towns of Khylok and (ooOOooo this'll test my translating skills because I'm guessing the translation of these towns from our Russian atlas) Pyetrovsk-Zabaikalskyy near Kharauz if anyone's interested. Speaking of our atlas, it's totally falling to bits as each page one by one comes away from the glue binding. At least all the maps are numbered so if I do happen to drop it all
over the place I can easily put it back in order!
Today on the way out of Chita we passed a truck that was heading into the city that looked like it belonged in the Dakar. It was awesome! Graeme noted that it had rego plates from another country but passed by too quickly for us to identify which country. Then, as we were turning off to look for a camp tonight, the truck zoomed past us with a blaze of "hello" horn beeping heading in the same direction as us! Very cool indeedy. Unfortunately we didn't catch it on camera so again can't confirm it's country of origin. Hopefully we catch up with them tomorrow along the way because we're really curious to find out more about them and they're awesome truck. Not holding our breath though because they were hootin' along!
Graeme:
Yeah Chita was awesome. We both ate our weight in raspberry crepes, coconut chocolate crepes, coffee, fresh subway sandwiches, pork, lasagne. You name it, we ate it. Consider it fattening up for Mongolia where we may go hungry. Everyone in Chita was lovley as virtually every person we met in Russia has been. With the exception of the hotel staff (which are obviously rotten from top to bottom), the people are lovley and warm. Everyone wishes us good luck at every opportunity. Wow, I notice I've repeated myself. I said this a few posts ago.
I'm really finding it weird to effortlessly communicate in Russian. When I say communicate, I'm certainly including non-verbal communication in that observation. There is not much we've not been able to organise, repair, order or remedy with a few key words and some hand gestures. As you may have picked up from a previous post, one of my favourite things to say is 'oochin priatnya' (nice to have met you) to people that are shy. One young gentleman waiter at the Chita coffee shop was very shy and eager to please. He would occasionally sneak in words like 'ok' and 'yes' which we zealously would repeat back as some kind of mutual celebratory hi5. When we left, I shook his hand and said those magic words. I hope it made his day. Then again, maybe it's so everyday to say that, it may not be special.
Even in the seemingly confined space of our mystery machine, we manage to find private space. There is the 'lounge room' back here, or a private 'sitting room' in the passenger seat. With shoes off, it instantly feels like you're relaxing. It's occasionally nice to have breaks from one another, just like you wouldn't at home, but then come back togeather to have tea and watch some telly. Just in the way I went and checked on the train backlog, Cassie may have gone to take photos. Video diary's are great to look back on.
I'm a bit concerned about our first ever land border crossing into Mongolia. Naturally we're loaded with stories of other peoples experiences, good and bad. One thing that surprisingly has got me edgy is hearing that Mongolians love to push in at borders. Grr. My single largest pet hate of this trip is pushing in. I know absolutely that it's just me taking offense to something that here is obviously not offensive, but it's been the hardest thing to let go of. I think it's because I couldn't do it to someone else, yet they so willingly do it to us. Any reception desk, cafe counter or barge landing is without fail, pushed in by someone. I'm not sure what erks me about it so much. I wonder how I can get over it?! If it's any concellation, our two intense pushing in sessions at the Yakutsk barge and the Kandyga return barge, ended without problem. It's just that you have to do the same. 'When in Rome...' as they say. One thing that works in our favor(and I hate to admit it) is th
e bullbar. It does allow us to stay tight behind whoever is in front of us. It's puts us in a 'nothing to loose' negotiation with a quarter panel of someone who has 'everything to loose' and is trying to cut in line. I couldn't care less if we scratch it or bend it. I know Kym Bolton from goannatracks also was seriously fed up with pushing in at barges, so perhaps it's not just me.
I think also what's concerning me about the border crossing, is it only runs office hours Mon-Fri. If we get pushed in on a Friday, we could be in for a world of boredom and frustration sitting at the border for 2+ days. All going to plan, we should be there Thursday at the latest, so it should be fine. We're pretty sure we have all the paperwork, and know not to surrender any of it, so it should be swell. I just need to relax about it, but it's the typical, never done it before kind of fear... the unknown! We're going to be used to it after a further 6-7 border crossings.
OK well, that 'oughta do tonight. We're excited that we may be camped at the shore of Lake Baikal tomorrow night. It depends how much time we want to spend in Ulan-Ude, or if we see it one our return from Lake Baikal.
Thanks for the comments, keep them coming. Kerry has a wealth of experience throughout Asia and makes the Russian toilets not seem so bad!
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Chita–The unexpected gem
Not in a bad way, we just didn’t want to get our hopes up. I’d put it on par with Vladivostok for sophistication and ready access to everything!
We visited a mechanic around 1400 on Saturday afternoon, not expecting them to be open, or able to help us today. They instantly rolled out a car they had in the garage and did the following:
-Identified worn sway bar bushes (Not a show stopper, just something to renew when I get home)
-Checked wheel bearings and tie-rod ends for play (None found, hooray!)
-Greased ball joints and universal joints
-Checked transfer and gearbox oil
I don’t think they checked diff oils, but that’s easy done roadside
They used a cool straight-line grease gun as opposed to the pistol grip ones I’ve used. I’d never seen one before, but it worked wonders as it meant the force applied to drive the grease held it on the grease nipple.
Not only did they help us straight away, they wouldn’t let us pay them! We insisted on numerous occasions, but they declined. They did accept our huge open, but uneaten packet of some seafood chips (which were inedible!) which made us feel a tiny bit better. They were one block down the street from our hotel and is clearly marked Mobil all over with a big enclosed courtyard out the front.
The owner had a SWB 70 series with a reverse winch and tractor tyres – nice!
Cassie noticed that the roof boxes scraped on the way in, so to get back out required both the guys on the back step to squeeze back out.
Morning tea was at the flashiest of Russian coffee houses where we had raspberry crepes and some kind of banana crumble pie – yum! both are pictured in the photo album at the bottom of this post.
We’ve done a heap of grocery shopping so we’re pretty much right to leave tomorrow morning for Ulan-Ude.
Today I tried to capture everyday people, but the call of the 'odd-ball’ tended to get the shot.
https://picasaweb.google.com/twomagadan/AroundChita?authkey=Gv1sRgCJTale3QvIyYggE
Friday, July 27, 2012
Chita!
Wow – this place is stunning on all counts! We’re staying right in the centre as far as we know. It’s beautiful! We’re going to go out later with cameras to capture some of it. We’ve had lunch which was brilliant!
My apologies, our last two blog posts didn’t upload for some reason. I have since uploaded them. I might check back and make sure all of our other posts have made it.
Here are our photos!: https://picasaweb.google.com/twomagadan/MagadanToChita?authkey=Gv1sRgCIGC4Z6iv97RBw#
A video is uploading, but is going to take another 8 hours apparently. Stay tuned.There is a heap of ‘wedding’ traffic today, one quite literally nearly ran us down. They have priority as it seems.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Bolshoy Never
Graeme:
Last night we both required services of the outhouse, several times each. We suspect it was the result of lukewarm meals we had for lunch at a cafe. It's difficult to tell what was the cause because we usually share meals, drinks and snacks. I'd remarked several times through the trip on how fortunate we've been to not get the slightest bit ill. Oh well, it could have been worse. The rain held off and we had running water to wash with.
When we woke this morning, we thought: 'hey, we're only 78KM out of Tynda. Lets go for a hotel tonight in Tynda to have showers and toilets whilst we get well again. It will also provide us with wifi to upload the pics and videos we promised.' We arrived in Tynda at maybe 10 o'clock and wasted two hours trying to find a hotel. Five different people pointed us to this same hotel. It turned out they only had share rooms, which nulled out private shower and toilet requirements... and no WiFi. We also figured we'd use the internet cafe/gaming lounge we saw last time we passed through to find a hotel or at least upload the photos/video, but nyet, gaming lounge does not have internet!
After having lunch we felt on top of the world so off we headed for Bolshoy Never. No doubt spelt wrong. I also think I'm going to stop excusing my hopeless spelling from here on. I can't spell at the best of times but it's made a whole lot worse by translation, memory and miles. The road was better than we remembered, a heap less traffic was great. Interestingly enough, the scenery was prettier going north, but maybe we're just getting harder to please :)
We stopped by a little cafe this afternoon that we stopped in on the way to Tynda. It was bittersweet sitting there drinking coffee as we had changed so much yet not much else has. The car in the same park as it was roughly 6000KM ago. It's exactly the same - our little piece of consistent wherever we go - We love it so much. The lady seemed to recognise us which felt special. As we left I said 'ochin priyatna' (nice to have met you) but so sad inside knowing we'll not see her again - ever. Extinguishing these little micro-relationships is one of the hardest things for me.
This trip has been a great opportunity to look inward. Mindlessly dodging pot-holes keeps half your brain busy while the other half is open to explore. One trait I've identified with me, is that I take a long time for emotions to develop. At points on this trip where I should be emotional, I feel nothing. Hours or days later, it will finally sink in. Weird I know. Only when we got to back to Yakutsk after leaving Magadan did I realise we actually made it to Magadan, some several days earlier. The joy of seeing the mask of sorrow is only really sinking in now. Cassie was ecstatic to reach the town where the new adventure begins or put differently the point at which we are no longer back-tracking. I'm pleased, but nothing more just yet. I find reviewing photos and videos helps with this, I'm not sure why.
We're staying at a motel on the outskirts of town. We have a private room, but shared toilet and shower. Not so bad, oh wait, the shower doesn't have a lock. 1500r or ~$45 for this is a bit hard to swallow. Especially as dinner for two cost less than $5. I think it's hard to swallow because our car is so much nicer, but no shower or toilet. In that sense I feel a bit cheated. Like in the same way that when you go out to a restaurant for a meal, and it's worse than the most basic thing you could make at home. You're worse off for the expense. Our idea of staying at a hotel tonight was to achieve private relaxed bathroom time with no mosquitoes, and hopefully a little wi-fi. Neither of which eventuated. Oh well. Two more days to Chita, provided the highway stays as good as it was.
Speaking of being cheated at a restaurant, we just returned from dinner next door. I enjoyed mine, but Cassie feels deflated by not being able to order anything. Anything we can read, they never have. We went through three selections until the waitress suggested borsh. I was OK with it but Cassie was deflated. That's virtually three in a row now for her. I pointed to pineapple juice and was obviously given the display one. A 500ml 'popper' of pineapple juice which was more than a year out of date. 'Nar marla', but when it came to paying, I softly said, 'nyet horishaw' (not good) whilst pointing to the use by date of April 2011. We went back and forth a little, between my confusion and her insisting we were not charged for the juice. I certainly wasn't rude.
In an entierly passive-aggressive way, she gave me my change of 37r in a total of 18 coins, on the counter. Which by itself is was poor form, but she put the change right next to the coin tray. Her objective of humiliation accomplished as I scraped them off the bar like I was piss-poor. What a darling!
But in fairness, everyone else has been lovely. In every form. From truck drivers, waitresses, road-workers and just strangers on the street. I don't know how many times I've been told I've left my headlights on as I don't bother turning them off when refueling. It's the o'l Russian contrast. So hard on the outside, so warm on the inside. Twice when we asked for directions today, people left their places of work, or positions in the line to walk us TO the destination, or point it out from the street. I know we would do the same, but it's nice to be on the receiving end of it sometimes.
A little dot point about toilets in Russia. There is a strong trend (>90%) of toilets where you are not to flush toilet paper. It's not all that hard to change the habit on it's own, but compared to the reality of sitting next to an aromatic bucket of other people's soiled toilet paper is the greater challenge. Time spent in the facilities could not be considered quality time by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, and toilet seats are not to be relied on. Their presence is occasional but even if it's there, they are not likely to be attached, or the lid rests against your back as it doesn't stay up.
I often fear that we look like whingers, but I assure you the rest of our day has been terrific. It's just something to have a laugh about. I think in some sick way you want to hear all the bad stuff!
Looking for more motels, we drove into Bolshoy Never. Although we didn't find a better motel, we did find mile marker '0'! We drove the whole M56! Woah, sense of accomplishment! Lol as I write this, we can hear a cat somewhere in the motel... omg this place is a zoo! Someone is consistently snoring in the room next door, people are walking noisly and talking loudly out in the hallway and the TV in the room has an attitude problem because no matter what button you push, it just does it's own thing (eg: it turns on but if you want to change channel it'll forget that it knows how to and just drop all channels - so no tv).
Last night we both required services of the outhouse, several times each. We suspect it was the result of lukewarm meals we had for lunch at a cafe. It's difficult to tell what was the cause because we usually share meals, drinks and snacks. I'd remarked several times through the trip on how fortunate we've been to not get the slightest bit ill. Oh well, it could have been worse. The rain held off and we had running water to wash with.
When we woke this morning, we thought: 'hey, we're only 78KM out of Tynda. Lets go for a hotel tonight in Tynda to have showers and toilets whilst we get well again. It will also provide us with wifi to upload the pics and videos we promised.' We arrived in Tynda at maybe 10 o'clock and wasted two hours trying to find a hotel. Five different people pointed us to this same hotel. It turned out they only had share rooms, which nulled out private shower and toilet requirements... and no WiFi. We also figured we'd use the internet cafe/gaming lounge we saw last time we passed through to find a hotel or at least upload the photos/video, but nyet, gaming lounge does not have internet!
After having lunch we felt on top of the world so off we headed for Bolshoy Never. No doubt spelt wrong. I also think I'm going to stop excusing my hopeless spelling from here on. I can't spell at the best of times but it's made a whole lot worse by translation, memory and miles. The road was better than we remembered, a heap less traffic was great. Interestingly enough, the scenery was prettier going north, but maybe we're just getting harder to please :)
We stopped by a little cafe this afternoon that we stopped in on the way to Tynda. It was bittersweet sitting there drinking coffee as we had changed so much yet not much else has. The car in the same park as it was roughly 6000KM ago. It's exactly the same - our little piece of consistent wherever we go - We love it so much. The lady seemed to recognise us which felt special. As we left I said 'ochin priyatna' (nice to have met you) but so sad inside knowing we'll not see her again - ever. Extinguishing these little micro-relationships is one of the hardest things for me.
This trip has been a great opportunity to look inward. Mindlessly dodging pot-holes keeps half your brain busy while the other half is open to explore. One trait I've identified with me, is that I take a long time for emotions to develop. At points on this trip where I should be emotional, I feel nothing. Hours or days later, it will finally sink in. Weird I know. Only when we got to back to Yakutsk after leaving Magadan did I realise we actually made it to Magadan, some several days earlier. The joy of seeing the mask of sorrow is only really sinking in now. Cassie was ecstatic to reach the town where the new adventure begins or put differently the point at which we are no longer back-tracking. I'm pleased, but nothing more just yet. I find reviewing photos and videos helps with this, I'm not sure why.
We're staying at a motel on the outskirts of town. We have a private room, but shared toilet and shower. Not so bad, oh wait, the shower doesn't have a lock. 1500r or ~$45 for this is a bit hard to swallow. Especially as dinner for two cost less than $5. I think it's hard to swallow because our car is so much nicer, but no shower or toilet. In that sense I feel a bit cheated. Like in the same way that when you go out to a restaurant for a meal, and it's worse than the most basic thing you could make at home. You're worse off for the expense. Our idea of staying at a hotel tonight was to achieve private relaxed bathroom time with no mosquitoes, and hopefully a little wi-fi. Neither of which eventuated. Oh well. Two more days to Chita, provided the highway stays as good as it was.
Speaking of being cheated at a restaurant, we just returned from dinner next door. I enjoyed mine, but Cassie feels deflated by not being able to order anything. Anything we can read, they never have. We went through three selections until the waitress suggested borsh. I was OK with it but Cassie was deflated. That's virtually three in a row now for her. I pointed to pineapple juice and was obviously given the display one. A 500ml 'popper' of pineapple juice which was more than a year out of date. 'Nar marla', but when it came to paying, I softly said, 'nyet horishaw' (not good) whilst pointing to the use by date of April 2011. We went back and forth a little, between my confusion and her insisting we were not charged for the juice. I certainly wasn't rude.
In an entierly passive-aggressive way, she gave me my change of 37r in a total of 18 coins, on the counter. Which by itself is was poor form, but she put the change right next to the coin tray. Her objective of humiliation accomplished as I scraped them off the bar like I was piss-poor. What a darling!
But in fairness, everyone else has been lovely. In every form. From truck drivers, waitresses, road-workers and just strangers on the street. I don't know how many times I've been told I've left my headlights on as I don't bother turning them off when refueling. It's the o'l Russian contrast. So hard on the outside, so warm on the inside. Twice when we asked for directions today, people left their places of work, or positions in the line to walk us TO the destination, or point it out from the street. I know we would do the same, but it's nice to be on the receiving end of it sometimes.
A little dot point about toilets in Russia. There is a strong trend (>90%) of toilets where you are not to flush toilet paper. It's not all that hard to change the habit on it's own, but compared to the reality of sitting next to an aromatic bucket of other people's soiled toilet paper is the greater challenge. Time spent in the facilities could not be considered quality time by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, and toilet seats are not to be relied on. Their presence is occasional but even if it's there, they are not likely to be attached, or the lid rests against your back as it doesn't stay up.
I often fear that we look like whingers, but I assure you the rest of our day has been terrific. It's just something to have a laugh about. I think in some sick way you want to hear all the bad stuff!
Looking for more motels, we drove into Bolshoy Never. Although we didn't find a better motel, we did find mile marker '0'! We drove the whole M56! Woah, sense of accomplishment! Lol as I write this, we can hear a cat somewhere in the motel... omg this place is a zoo! Someone is consistently snoring in the room next door, people are walking noisly and talking loudly out in the hallway and the TV in the room has an attitude problem because no matter what button you push, it just does it's own thing (eg: it turns on but if you want to change channel it'll forget that it knows how to and just drop all channels - so no tv).
550KM Day
As you may have noticed we didn't upload last nights post last night. It's a bit awkward uploading them in public places via the sat phone because I don't relish the conversation about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it... in another language. So tonight you get a 2 for 1 deal!
Well, it's felt great to get some distance done on really good roads. We were stopped by 4:40 today with plans of being in Chita tomorrow afternoon roughly 400KM away. Hopefully we can source a decent motel with restaurant and wifi. We're excited at the prospect of a decent shower too! I didn't end up getting a shower last night due to long queues for the single shower. We ended up abandoning the establishment around midnight, unable to sleep with a flashing interior light, people continually talking and walking around, oh and the meowing cat. The bedding was filthy, I'm entirely confident they have not been washed in a long time. We drove all of 8KM down the road and found a great alcove/driveway thing which was silent all night.
There has been about two potholes today which is nice, and about 1000 undulations which can set you flying if you're going to fast. Don't get me wrong, all very good, no complaints. It's starting to sink in that we won't be driving these roads back which is a refreshing yet daunting sensation. Every KM is a once in a lifetime KM. Even with that in mind, we still took only one photo today of a cool gold topped church atop a mountain.
Other than getting fuel, we've been entirely self reliant which has been a nice change. Traffic is crazy as usual. One Toyota Prado overtook a truck up the outside lane and at the last milisecond, hooked in back in front squeezing between the armco railing and the truck. It was so close! The typical part is that he was stopped half an hour down the road, only to have to pass us all again. We traveled with numerous trucks today that had identical sized trucks in their bed. And in the bed of those trucks were a small car. It's like the babushka doll method of transport.
Tonights dinner is rice, bacon and tomato. We're running through our supplies pretty quickly as there has been hardly any stores, just cafe's.
The car is going great with no complaints.
Well, it's felt great to get some distance done on really good roads. We were stopped by 4:40 today with plans of being in Chita tomorrow afternoon roughly 400KM away. Hopefully we can source a decent motel with restaurant and wifi. We're excited at the prospect of a decent shower too! I didn't end up getting a shower last night due to long queues for the single shower. We ended up abandoning the establishment around midnight, unable to sleep with a flashing interior light, people continually talking and walking around, oh and the meowing cat. The bedding was filthy, I'm entirely confident they have not been washed in a long time. We drove all of 8KM down the road and found a great alcove/driveway thing which was silent all night.
There has been about two potholes today which is nice, and about 1000 undulations which can set you flying if you're going to fast. Don't get me wrong, all very good, no complaints. It's starting to sink in that we won't be driving these roads back which is a refreshing yet daunting sensation. Every KM is a once in a lifetime KM. Even with that in mind, we still took only one photo today of a cool gold topped church atop a mountain.
Other than getting fuel, we've been entirely self reliant which has been a nice change. Traffic is crazy as usual. One Toyota Prado overtook a truck up the outside lane and at the last milisecond, hooked in back in front squeezing between the armco railing and the truck. It was so close! The typical part is that he was stopped half an hour down the road, only to have to pass us all again. We traveled with numerous trucks today that had identical sized trucks in their bed. And in the bed of those trucks were a small car. It's like the babushka doll method of transport.
Tonights dinner is rice, bacon and tomato. We're running through our supplies pretty quickly as there has been hardly any stores, just cafe's.
The car is going great with no complaints.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
78KM north of Tynda
Graeme:
Cassie's currently preparing dinner. Tonight it's bacon burgers with fries. Healthy I know! So far the rain is just holding off long enough to cook. A cool fog has developed over the water.
We've struggled to find decent meat as most of it is frozen and looks like a cross-section of a leg... just above the ankle.
Tomorrow at Tynda, we plan to upload our photos and videos from the internet cafe. Exciting times.
Cassie:
Despite how Graeme described our dinner, it was actually quite healthy with vegies on the burgers and the "fries" were just strips of potato cooked in the pan.
There's really not much to write about today. It's been a fairly mundane day, just driving along heading towards Tynda. The roads have been potholed like crazy but they were in the same condition on the way up. Perhaps the recent rain in the area has made it slightly worse. Because of the rough roads these past few days we're struggling to make any decent distance which is a little bit frustrating as late afternoon comes around, we've been driving all day and only done 200km at 20-50kph. Yes, the roads are that rough.
Again, the cabinet in the car has shaken loose so will have to be fixed again. I think that's going to be a ritual every few days until we get onto some smoother roads. Graeme is continually jumping at every new sound the car makes, which is understandable but exhausting him (and me!) at times. I told him this afternoon that he's to stop it, stop listening for new noises unless it actually sounds like it could be something we need to fix. I don't care about new rattles, I'm sure us and the car are going to come home with a few more squeaks and rattles and there's nothing we can do about it. We had a bit of a laugh that my new "rule" could mean something important has broken on the car and we've just ignored it because I said so. Oh well, I'm sure Graeme's not going to stop picking up on every new noise, so that's not a concern. And I'm sure we'll have this conversation many more times along our journey.
It's nice to be driving towards civilisation again if I'm honest. The remote parts of Siberia have breathtaking scenery, but the same cannot be said for the towns as I'm sure we've already covered in previous blog posts. It's kind of comforting to be driving through a town and seeing multiple businesses that could be useful to us rather than realising that the collapsing building across the dirt road with all the rubbish piled around it is the one you're looking for.
As Graeme mentioned, tomorrow's plan is to try and find an internet cafe in Tynda that'll be useful for us to upload some more stuff to the blog and get some supplies. From there we'll head down to Chita. Our road atlas that we bought in Vladivostok says that it's the current 2012 edition, but that's been very questionable a number of times on this trip. It's missing roads that are actually there in real life and still says that some roads are under development when in fact they're completely finished. So, according to our road atlas, the highway doesn't link up to Chita yet and you have to take a whole heap of goat tracks from just after Tynda to get there. I'm thinking that's not the case because when we were heading from Vlad towards Tynda, the beautiful highway we were hooting along had signs to Chita. I think our plan is to just head back down to that highway and see if it connects up to the one to Chita. It would be awesome if we could be treated to those wonderful road
s again. Even if we just had a day or so of it would be wonderful before driving the "roads", or from what I've seen and heard a better way to describe them would be "meandering dirt tracks", in Mongolia.
It feels great to be going in the direction of Mongolia. I'm looking forward to seeing new towns and roads within the next few days once all our backtracking is done.
Cassie's currently preparing dinner. Tonight it's bacon burgers with fries. Healthy I know! So far the rain is just holding off long enough to cook. A cool fog has developed over the water.
We've struggled to find decent meat as most of it is frozen and looks like a cross-section of a leg... just above the ankle.
Tomorrow at Tynda, we plan to upload our photos and videos from the internet cafe. Exciting times.
Cassie:
Despite how Graeme described our dinner, it was actually quite healthy with vegies on the burgers and the "fries" were just strips of potato cooked in the pan.
There's really not much to write about today. It's been a fairly mundane day, just driving along heading towards Tynda. The roads have been potholed like crazy but they were in the same condition on the way up. Perhaps the recent rain in the area has made it slightly worse. Because of the rough roads these past few days we're struggling to make any decent distance which is a little bit frustrating as late afternoon comes around, we've been driving all day and only done 200km at 20-50kph. Yes, the roads are that rough.
Again, the cabinet in the car has shaken loose so will have to be fixed again. I think that's going to be a ritual every few days until we get onto some smoother roads. Graeme is continually jumping at every new sound the car makes, which is understandable but exhausting him (and me!) at times. I told him this afternoon that he's to stop it, stop listening for new noises unless it actually sounds like it could be something we need to fix. I don't care about new rattles, I'm sure us and the car are going to come home with a few more squeaks and rattles and there's nothing we can do about it. We had a bit of a laugh that my new "rule" could mean something important has broken on the car and we've just ignored it because I said so. Oh well, I'm sure Graeme's not going to stop picking up on every new noise, so that's not a concern. And I'm sure we'll have this conversation many more times along our journey.
It's nice to be driving towards civilisation again if I'm honest. The remote parts of Siberia have breathtaking scenery, but the same cannot be said for the towns as I'm sure we've already covered in previous blog posts. It's kind of comforting to be driving through a town and seeing multiple businesses that could be useful to us rather than realising that the collapsing building across the dirt road with all the rubbish piled around it is the one you're looking for.
As Graeme mentioned, tomorrow's plan is to try and find an internet cafe in Tynda that'll be useful for us to upload some more stuff to the blog and get some supplies. From there we'll head down to Chita. Our road atlas that we bought in Vladivostok says that it's the current 2012 edition, but that's been very questionable a number of times on this trip. It's missing roads that are actually there in real life and still says that some roads are under development when in fact they're completely finished. So, according to our road atlas, the highway doesn't link up to Chita yet and you have to take a whole heap of goat tracks from just after Tynda to get there. I'm thinking that's not the case because when we were heading from Vlad towards Tynda, the beautiful highway we were hooting along had signs to Chita. I think our plan is to just head back down to that highway and see if it connects up to the one to Chita. It would be awesome if we could be treated to those wonderful road
s again. Even if we just had a day or so of it would be wonderful before driving the "roads", or from what I've seen and heard a better way to describe them would be "meandering dirt tracks", in Mongolia.
It feels great to be going in the direction of Mongolia. I'm looking forward to seeing new towns and roads within the next few days once all our backtracking is done.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Have you tried 'Nyet'?
We joke that the first response to any question to a Russian is nyet (no), followed by 'let me see', followed by 'yes we have one'. The title was a joke between us that when a sales assistant would ask a supervisor about a customer enquiry, the advice would be 'Have you tried saying nyet?'. Almost like 'Have you tried turning it off and on again?'
Examples include:
-Auto Shop (buying the rubber bushing)
'Nyet, we don't have those, wait, is this them, oh yeah, we have them.
-Shinomontage (Tyre Shop) - Can you balance my tyres?
'Nyet'. Hmm, "I have a vibration in my steering, come see", 'oh that is your tie rod ends'. "Can you tighten it?" 'Nyet'
-Chemist - Do you have a nail brush?
'nyet' hmm, er, here's one. Oh ok, yeah you can buy that one in a fancy gift pack thing.
It's all in good fun, but you need to wade through a lot of nyet's to get things done.
Last night we got moved on by a truck driver. At the time we were a bit miffed, like 'who's he to tell us what to do' but in the light of day, the amount of traffic our camp experienced suggested that we may not have got much sleep where we were if we had stayed.
This post will probably be posted tomorrow as it's raining enough to not bother going outside. If you get this today, then using the 'hockey puck' antenna on the bonnet worked!
We did 397KM today which is near enough a 'double quota day' to make us feel accomplished. We bought lunch and dinner today which is a great time saver.
So, to backfill some story, around 40kph to 60kph if provoked by a bump, the car and steering wheel would shake violently until you accelerated through it or virtually stopped and started again. This became quite vexing as all of our day is spent somewhere around that speed. Initially we thought that it was a result of considerable built up of mud on the rims, throwing them out of balance. We washed them big time in a river today but alas, no improvement. After our dinner cafe in Aldan, we dropped into a tyre shop to have the wheels balanced again in a desperate attempt to shake this demon. The young fellow pointed out straight away to the tie rod end that connects to the steering arm. Why didn't I check that? I was convinced by the amount of movement it was the big arm that locates the axle laterally (phainard rod?), but it seemed fine when I pushed and pulled the bullbar sideways to rock the car - no movement whatsoever. So in short, we headed down the road to a train stati
on carpark, mounted two kerbs and nosed in under an awning out of the rain to tighten both left and right tie rod ends, both way out of adjustment. These were brand new 15,000KM ago, but like most things, perhaps they need re-tensioning down the track? Or are they just ebay rubbish? One took three rotations, one about five! That far in that I've needed to bend the split pin inwards so that it locks it in place. Within 20 minutes we had both adjusted and were ready to roll.
Even though this procedure doesn't require a wheel alignment, by removing most of the steering play, it's become apparent we now need one! Driving straight requires the steering wheel to be 75-90degree to the left. No drama, but it makes reading the odometer difficult ;-) Thank goodness for the wet tar and the dirt roads to limit the associated tyre wear. Meh, who cares about tyre wear! At least they'll wear in sync with the rear tyres. That's positive thinking!
I'm very thankful for input from my dad adjusting these tie rod ends. I didn't know they were adjustable until I'd already bought a new set. Most of what I know about cars has come from him, something I'm very fortunate to have had. I was so appreciative that I had to call him once we'd had success with the adjustment.
Aldan is a terrific place as every place south of Yakutsk seems to be.
Good evening.
Examples include:
-Auto Shop (buying the rubber bushing)
'Nyet, we don't have those, wait, is this them, oh yeah, we have them.
-Shinomontage (Tyre Shop) - Can you balance my tyres?
'Nyet'. Hmm, "I have a vibration in my steering, come see", 'oh that is your tie rod ends'. "Can you tighten it?" 'Nyet'
-Chemist - Do you have a nail brush?
'nyet' hmm, er, here's one. Oh ok, yeah you can buy that one in a fancy gift pack thing.
It's all in good fun, but you need to wade through a lot of nyet's to get things done.
Last night we got moved on by a truck driver. At the time we were a bit miffed, like 'who's he to tell us what to do' but in the light of day, the amount of traffic our camp experienced suggested that we may not have got much sleep where we were if we had stayed.
This post will probably be posted tomorrow as it's raining enough to not bother going outside. If you get this today, then using the 'hockey puck' antenna on the bonnet worked!
We did 397KM today which is near enough a 'double quota day' to make us feel accomplished. We bought lunch and dinner today which is a great time saver.
So, to backfill some story, around 40kph to 60kph if provoked by a bump, the car and steering wheel would shake violently until you accelerated through it or virtually stopped and started again. This became quite vexing as all of our day is spent somewhere around that speed. Initially we thought that it was a result of considerable built up of mud on the rims, throwing them out of balance. We washed them big time in a river today but alas, no improvement. After our dinner cafe in Aldan, we dropped into a tyre shop to have the wheels balanced again in a desperate attempt to shake this demon. The young fellow pointed out straight away to the tie rod end that connects to the steering arm. Why didn't I check that? I was convinced by the amount of movement it was the big arm that locates the axle laterally (phainard rod?), but it seemed fine when I pushed and pulled the bullbar sideways to rock the car - no movement whatsoever. So in short, we headed down the road to a train stati
on carpark, mounted two kerbs and nosed in under an awning out of the rain to tighten both left and right tie rod ends, both way out of adjustment. These were brand new 15,000KM ago, but like most things, perhaps they need re-tensioning down the track? Or are they just ebay rubbish? One took three rotations, one about five! That far in that I've needed to bend the split pin inwards so that it locks it in place. Within 20 minutes we had both adjusted and were ready to roll.
Even though this procedure doesn't require a wheel alignment, by removing most of the steering play, it's become apparent we now need one! Driving straight requires the steering wheel to be 75-90degree to the left. No drama, but it makes reading the odometer difficult ;-) Thank goodness for the wet tar and the dirt roads to limit the associated tyre wear. Meh, who cares about tyre wear! At least they'll wear in sync with the rear tyres. That's positive thinking!
I'm very thankful for input from my dad adjusting these tie rod ends. I didn't know they were adjustable until I'd already bought a new set. Most of what I know about cars has come from him, something I'm very fortunate to have had. I was so appreciative that I had to call him once we'd had success with the adjustment.
Aldan is a terrific place as every place south of Yakutsk seems to be.
Good evening.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
McBorsh
Yesterday was not a very good food day. Breakfast was some bland cereal, lunch was at a "cafe" and was literally a leg of chicken and a ball of mince meat, a plate of plain rice and two extremely sugary teas (I don't have sugar in my tea but managed to drink it). I didn't realise that the food was sitting in plastic tubs behind the counter and after ordering, the guy picked up one of the mince balls with tongs and plopped it on a plate, then whacked on the leg of chicken (again, just sitting unrefrigerated in a plastic tub), whacked it in the microwave for maybe a minute. So we "ate" this stuff which was only luke warm at most. I thought for sure we were going to be sick later, but thankfully not. Stomachs of steel! Dinner was going to be meat with mash potato, zucchini and gravy but I ended up throwing the meat out before I even cooked it because it looked disgusting, not gone bad, just part of a leg of some animal (ewww, very sinewy and tough with animal hairs still stuck t
o it. Call me a city gal I don't care, but I like my meat packed onto a tray and not resembling the animal it came from and feeling like I'm finishing off the job of slaughtering it to prepare it for cooking). So dinner ended up being a can of kidney beans, zucchini and mash potato with gravy. Maybe it sounds ok to some, but it looked like a dog's breakfast and was a little bit gross. So yes, a bad food day. This morning Graeme told me that he dreamed about McDonald's last night and woah, so did I!! Weird! My dream was that we were driving through a town and I saw the golden arches, then noticed a sign that said "Drive Through". I then said to Graeme "Let's just swing through drive through and get something to eat", to which he replied "Nah, let's give it a miss". Naturally in my dream I was like "What, why!?". And that was the end of the dream. I've never dreamed about McDonalds in my life and wouldn't rate it as dream worthy, but nevertheless, we were both obviously cravin
g something we knew we could actually eat. Since coming to Russia we've been jokingly referring to borsh as "McBorsh" for some silly reason. Probably because it's something that we consistently order. They are good though.
Today has been about 200km of driving. It's only 3.30pm and we've stopped to setup camp for the day. It's still raining on and off so the dirt roads are still sloshy and more potholed than ever. We drove in on these roads and they were fine, they're all torn up by the rain and traffic now. It's rough, slow going and we're both exhausted from it. We've deliberately stopped before a stretch of maybe 100km of roadworks. We're going to tackle that when we're fresh tomorrow because it was extremely rough going on the way up when it wasn't raining. Goodness knows what we're in for tomorrow due to the rain. It'll be fine, it'll just be a long day.
The car is completely caked with three different colours of mud on the outside. Looks like a bit of an artwork. It's going to be tough trying to clean it because it's set like concrete. The front wheels get a bit of a wobble up every now and then as if they're out of balance, but it's maybe because there's so much mud on the rims. There's no point taking the wheels off to clean it off just yet, may as well wait until we've past the muddy roads. We just make sure we stop and clean the windows and headlights when we can. Wish we had a high pressure hose, nothing else is really going to do the trick.
This morning we stopped at the town on the banks of the Lena River opposite Yakustk. Sorry, I can't for the life of me pronounce the name of it, let alone translate it into english (our road atlas is in Russian). We needed a rubber bush for one of the shock absorbers because it had shredded to bits from the bumpy roads. Went to the first car parts shop that was open and was quickly met with a "nyet" when we asked for the car part, even though the person was standing in front of a row of shock absorbers as he declined us. That's ok, our spirits were not dashed. We're getting used to the first answer being a no. So off we trotted to the next one that was open. Originally that was met with a "nyet" also, but then the guy had an idea, grabbed a shock absorber off the shelf, pointed to the part on it we needed to clarify that was it. Yep, we nodded, that's it. We asked for three (a pair and a spare), and he then proceeded to pull some shock absorbers apart just to get those rubber
rings off for us! Lol, what the!? Anyway, 30 roubles (AUS$0.90) and two Australian coins later (5c and 10c coins), we had the part we needed.
Quite a few Russians have asked us for an Australian coin. We're starting to run out. Didn't think of bringing more with us to give away as souveniers to the locals. There's a tip if anyone wants it, carry some Australian coins with you when you travel and you'll make friends easily. Doesn't have to be large denominations, they just seem to be happy to be holding an Australian coin. And they almost always will exchange it for a Russian coin even though my purse is full of them and I'm trying desperately to get rid of some, they insist that we take their Russian coin in exchange for the Australian one.
Still in the town, and buoyed by our positive experience at the car shop, we went across the road to a lovely little cafe and had some teas and crepes with sweetened condensed milk (oh so yum), then into the a small supermarket for more supplies. I'm really glad we got to explore that town a little bit. It looked kind of interesting on the way to Yakutsk. The people were really sweet there too. One of the ladies in the cafe followed me as I was leaving because she wanted to ask me if we were Australian (spot on! How'd she guess, normally they say "Americano" to which I reply "Nyet nyet, Australian!". Don't know why but 9 times out of 10 people then give out a big "oh right!" kind of sound then say "Kangaroo dah?" It's getting quite funny how many times that's happened). Before I'd even got to the door of the cafe, the lady had already gone back to her workmates and was giggling away repeating our "conversation". They love to have a good giggle in this part of Russia which is
great to see and be involved in.
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Replies to comments (apologies if I haven't replied to your comment here, I'm losing track of where we're up to with this):
Brett: We'll try and get a picture of the rocks up on the blog, but it may have to wait until we get to a hotel with wifi. I'm sure your friend would love to examine all the rocks in these parts. There's certainly no shortage of them!
MumD: Thanks for the info on Kadykchan. We're missing the internet as an info resource and would love to know more about all of these places we're traveling through.
Nora/MumD/Chris: Just reporting that Graeme is still doing the washing up...and is currently having a nanna nap.
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Graeme: Yep - all the above. I'd not call it a nanna nap (a bit feminine!), but rather an hour power nap or something more manly. Also to Brett, I tried to MMS you one of the pictures but no success. I'm going to upload it with this post 'because you're worth it'. The image should be geotagged if that helps your friend. Four more pictures are coming once we get wifi's. We had the most fantastic Borsh for lunch today - hot, heaps of vegies and meat. Brilliant! I felt a bit sad knowing that once we leave Russia, the Borsh will be no more. It reminds me of that intro to 'An idiot abroad' where Karl is worried about visiting China for fear that he may develop a taste for Toad, and not be able to source it in England.
We decided to only do a real short today today and met our 200KM quota and plan to spend the day and evening doing nothing. It's been wonderful so far. Cassie just finished her book and I'm going to start assembling videos to upload when we have a chance. What do people want to see? Be mindful we're only posting politically correct content on the internet. As they say, anything written on the Internet is done in pen. Most of the footage is of driving (boring) or ranting (politically incorrect) but we'll see what we come up with. I'm torn between putting up all the good bits and risk having nothing good to show you all when we get home. It's a little bit laborious working with video because I don't have the skills to use anything more than the most basic editing package... which often crashes half way through rendering projects.
We've got a day of roadworks tomorow, so it felt fitting to just knock that over in a day because camping within it's bounds will be rare and noisy.
Since leaving Magadan, we've been carrying less fuel. Rather than filling both tanks, we're only filling the main tank and only putting excess fuel we've ordered into the sub tank. We're doing this for a few reasons:
1) Fuel is much more readily available, so carrying less weight means less strain on suspension and better economy.
2) The second tank hangs behind the rear differential, so keeping it only 1/4 full means all the weight isn't at the back of the car. I visited a weighbridge before we left found that when fully loaded, the majority of the weight was on the rear axle. I can't remember the exacts but I think it was 1.2T front and 1.7T rear. This could be a contributing factor to our tyre failures which have all been at the rear.
I've noticed most of my posts are fairly technicial, but hey, I have to talk to someone about this stuff.
Where we have pulled up today, we noticed a bread loaf in one corner so we idled to the other corner keeping our distance, assuming the driver might be sleeping. Well as it turns out, there were 6 or 7 people in there. Wow, we thought it was stuffy in here! We also have 1.2 trillion (about 6) microscopic bugs in here which fly around rapidly in 1" holding patterns in front of your eyes. Just enough to annoy, but not enough to warrant their immediate death.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Crossing the Aldan River
Graeme:
Yesterday was grand. Keen readers may spot we miscalculated the distance to Kandagya, but that's ok, we had figured that would only take a few hours, the rest of the time would be spent stocking up fuel, food, kafe in Kandagya. There were two stretches of roadworks that held us up a total of maybe 4 hours. Crazy eh! With the miscalculation on the distance, combined with the roadworks meant we missed the evening barge across the Aldan river. We had enough buffer for one of those to blow out, but not both. Oh well.
I think we arrived at the barge at around 2230 local time, which sounds like a horribly long day, but it was well punctuated with a sleep and roadworks. Pity we didn't combine them both, as we had the sleep about 20 minutes before the roadworks. doh!
Waiting for the barge meant sleep was intermittent at best, to the point Cassie felt sick at some point but thankfully slept it off. Cars and trucks coming and going all night. Rain however was consistent and although pleasant to listen to, it meant keeping the windows closed which means humidity rises and oxygen falls in our own little micro climate. The barge left at around 6AM with the usual barge rage.
Todays driving has been rubbish. I'm writing this as we bounce along between somewhere named Churchgha (totally rough, I can hardly read the screen from the bumps) and the town on the opposite bank to Yakutsk. Sorry, as I write this, I realise this is so devoid of information it's hardly worth reading. The first half was big smooth rocks submerged with gigalitres of rain, a bit like driving 60kph down a river. That wasn't so bad. Next came fairly normal dirt road, but laced with missing sections one foot wide, spanning one lane due to crazy levels of erosion. Thankfully we didn't hit any.
Then slop. Nothing but thick black slop. At least one hour of today has been spent with us sideways to some degree. And it's not just us, everyone. The clue we should have noticed is all the oncoming cars were black. The next four or so hours has been hell. Sloppy mud as before, but with a steep road camber. Not cool when you have to pass an oncoming car. If you stop, you slide off and down into a swamp, so it's a delicate operation of both slowing as you go past, then applying copious amounts of throttle to get back up to the crown of the road again - sideways as usual. That wasn't the worst bit. All this, combined with the worst road underneath which is completely invisible through the slop. So, you can't slow down, you can't go faster, you can't stop.
I think the biggest shock is that none of this was that bad a week ago! The road crews must just be working every day to keep up with the wear and tear.
As I write this now the road has improved. No slop, dry and rough however. Is this boring talking about a ROAD SURFACE?
lol excuse those caps, I hit the caps lock key whilst trying to type. That's reality TV kids!
Today has been visually stunning (ugh, I'm repeating myself), and looks a lot like we imagine Mongolia will be. Rolling grass hills, lots of random unfenced livestock. Very pretty. We're finding most days we're seem to only hold one camera, so it's either the still camera or the video camera. Today was certainly a still camera day. Hopefully they turn out ok.
Part two: We're now at camp. We stopped at this spot on the way here as it was good to wash and quiet.
We've had a knocking noise in the passenger footwell which I assumed was something wrong with a shock absorber. The bottom neoprene bush has disintegrated which made it rattle on the up stroke. Should be no problem to get one tomorrow. That's all folks.
Yesterday was grand. Keen readers may spot we miscalculated the distance to Kandagya, but that's ok, we had figured that would only take a few hours, the rest of the time would be spent stocking up fuel, food, kafe in Kandagya. There were two stretches of roadworks that held us up a total of maybe 4 hours. Crazy eh! With the miscalculation on the distance, combined with the roadworks meant we missed the evening barge across the Aldan river. We had enough buffer for one of those to blow out, but not both. Oh well.
I think we arrived at the barge at around 2230 local time, which sounds like a horribly long day, but it was well punctuated with a sleep and roadworks. Pity we didn't combine them both, as we had the sleep about 20 minutes before the roadworks. doh!
Waiting for the barge meant sleep was intermittent at best, to the point Cassie felt sick at some point but thankfully slept it off. Cars and trucks coming and going all night. Rain however was consistent and although pleasant to listen to, it meant keeping the windows closed which means humidity rises and oxygen falls in our own little micro climate. The barge left at around 6AM with the usual barge rage.
Todays driving has been rubbish. I'm writing this as we bounce along between somewhere named Churchgha (totally rough, I can hardly read the screen from the bumps) and the town on the opposite bank to Yakutsk. Sorry, as I write this, I realise this is so devoid of information it's hardly worth reading. The first half was big smooth rocks submerged with gigalitres of rain, a bit like driving 60kph down a river. That wasn't so bad. Next came fairly normal dirt road, but laced with missing sections one foot wide, spanning one lane due to crazy levels of erosion. Thankfully we didn't hit any.
Then slop. Nothing but thick black slop. At least one hour of today has been spent with us sideways to some degree. And it's not just us, everyone. The clue we should have noticed is all the oncoming cars were black. The next four or so hours has been hell. Sloppy mud as before, but with a steep road camber. Not cool when you have to pass an oncoming car. If you stop, you slide off and down into a swamp, so it's a delicate operation of both slowing as you go past, then applying copious amounts of throttle to get back up to the crown of the road again - sideways as usual. That wasn't the worst bit. All this, combined with the worst road underneath which is completely invisible through the slop. So, you can't slow down, you can't go faster, you can't stop.
I think the biggest shock is that none of this was that bad a week ago! The road crews must just be working every day to keep up with the wear and tear.
As I write this now the road has improved. No slop, dry and rough however. Is this boring talking about a ROAD SURFACE?
lol excuse those caps, I hit the caps lock key whilst trying to type. That's reality TV kids!
Today has been visually stunning (ugh, I'm repeating myself), and looks a lot like we imagine Mongolia will be. Rolling grass hills, lots of random unfenced livestock. Very pretty. We're finding most days we're seem to only hold one camera, so it's either the still camera or the video camera. Today was certainly a still camera day. Hopefully they turn out ok.
Part two: We're now at camp. We stopped at this spot on the way here as it was good to wash and quiet.
We've had a knocking noise in the passenger footwell which I assumed was something wrong with a shock absorber. The bottom neoprene bush has disintegrated which made it rattle on the up stroke. Should be no problem to get one tomorrow. That's all folks.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
A Different Light
Cassie:
Today has been very interesting in a great way. Again we've done over double our 200km target but we certainly didn't push ourselves. We're just fortunate that the dirt roads are actually quite good for this section we're on. Camp tonight is on a river at the same spot we camped on our way to Magadan. This morning we woke up at 6.30am, packed up camp and started driving and had breakfast about 50km or so away from where we camped. I think for us it's a relaxing way to start the morning because it's peaceful driving when there's hardly another soul out and about. We haven't done that before on this trip. It's normally how we roll when on a driving holiday in Australia, but because of the extra long daylight hours here it's been throwing us out. Previously during this trip we were getting up at maybe 8am and not driving until maybe 9 - 9.30am. Hopefully we're able to settle into this sort of pattern of getting to sleep earlier and waking up earlier.
On our drive to Magadan we were very nervous about the tyres (understandably given the 5 flats along the way!) and there was a lot of smoke from bushfires in the air, so we really couldn't see the scenery. What a treat the way back from Magadan has been! The smoke has pretty much cleared up, the car has new rubber shoes and with our nervousness dissipating each day as we get closer to being off these sharp-rocked roads we're able to take in the scenery, and what a scenery! I think we reached our beauty saturation point today. I personally couldn't take in anymore beautiful scenery. The mountain passes were spectacular! I'm glad we get to retrace our steps so that we didn't miss out on this.
We went by Kadykchan this morning (please excuse the incorrect translation if it's wrong). We missed it on the way to Magadan because we were focused on getting to Magadan for new tyres and because there were road works that sort of steered us away from the turn off a bit. It's a town that's been abandoned apparently because the heating plant thing failed and it was easier/cheaper for everyone to move on rather than fix the heating in the town. Weird. It's quite a spooky place to be. The mozzies were atrocious there so that stopped us from venturing around for very long but we did walk in to one of the buildings. They're pretty run down, broken windows, roofs breaking away, cracked walls, some buildings sagging. It's a real ghost town. Walking through one of the buildings was eerie and really dark (obviously), and yes Mums, we were careful. It's a sizeable town so would take the better part of a day to walk all the way through it.
Stopping in Ust Nera today was good but strange. We filled up with fuel at the same petrol station we filled up at after Gipetto fixed our tyres. We then called into his little shed to say hello but he was busy in the back and had someone else in the workshop. We were hoping to be able to thank him again but didn't get the chance. So after that, we drove to the cafe where we had lunch that day he helped us. Again, the lady who I spoke to last time didn't seem to recognise me, or perhaps was too shy to say anything, but her daughter recognised me. She was the little girl that we gave the toy echidna to. Perhaps so many travellers come through these parts that they don't seem to think anything of it. We passed two motorcyclists today seemingly on their way to Magadan. We think they had UK plates but aren't certain about that. There were big waves all round as we passed on the road. It's always great to cross paths with other travellers along the way. I feel an instant kinship a
nd what to swap stories and hangout for a bit.
As a funny side note, Graeme and I are totally over people wearing camo, trucks and cars painted camo and people in camo suddenly appearing out of bushes (seriously, that's happened more times than we can remember). No offense to all those who wear camo, we're just over seeing it here. Even little kids dress in camo. Yesterday, after passing a truck coming in the opposite direction there was a total whiteout of dust. Happens often on these dirt roads. Then all of a sudden, out of the dust appears this figure in camo walking ON the road! Don't think our steel bullbar in his back would've tickled. Not sure camo's helping ya there buddy. They wear camo like their lives depend on it at all other costs, when it could seriously do the opposite for them in situations like that. Anyway, gives me a giggle most of the time.
Ok, well I suppose it's back to relaxing, sipping a cup of tea and reading my book. Thanks for the book by the way, Denise - loving it! I've been trying to make it last longer but I'm nearly done reading it. Thankfully I still have that massive book you let me borrow, hopefully it'll last me for the rest of the trip. I should've brought more with me!
By the way, you'll be glad to know Graeme has taken up the duty of washing up again after a day off yesterday. Chris, you deserved the whack to the back of the head for that comment lol. Nice one Beck! ;-)
Graeme:
Truck washing guards on roadside
We've been kickin' back here in our camp that we stopped at probably a week ago. After all the jobs were done, I've been reading my book and just relaxing. The sun just came out in a defiant gesture, followed quickly by rain - how beautiful.
We got some good footage today of the road. The contrast in perspective is amazing. Last time it was all smokey and we so easily drove past one of the most stunning scenes so far. Not just the smoke, but the direction didn't reveal the beauty quite like driving the opposite direction did.
We drove around for ten minutes trying to locate Kadykchan. We did find it, having been tricked by the roadworks last time. It was cool, but sad. Why wasn't it viable to repair? I understand in the middle of winter maybe not possible, but surely everyone would be happy to move back home after a few months? Most of the facilities were modern by Russian standards. Glass bricks lined foyer in the school, huge laundry facilities with newish looking machines. It feels not so much like a wasteland, but just a waste to just discard a whole town. There no doubt will be a lot more to the story that we are unaware.
As Cassie mentioned, arriving at Ust Nera today was a bit of a non-event. I think in some way we expected excited faces, but when we were hardly recognised, it meant we've made less of an impression on them as they did on us. Oh well. I'm sure they see a lot of travellers. That and everyone was busy with other customers today. I am still in awe of Gerrit and Ria's 9 years on the road. Although this travel isn't thattt tiring, I think even one year on the road would melt me mentally. I would miss work and family but perhaps they had 'been there, and done that' and now it was their time.
In the same way the perspective differed with beautiful scenery, ascending a mountain pass today revealed itself as so much more dangerous then it did a week earlier. Smoke easily hid many 500M drops last time. In a thinly forested section, a UAZ utility obviously careered off one of the edges with it's contents strewn down the hill side like a tornado had hit it. Needless to say, when it came to descending the other side, we didn't rely on brakes at any stage. I like how in this country, your safety for the most part is dependent on you. If you trip over, it's your fault for not watching where you were walking. If you drive off a cliff because you were driving too fast - your fault. It certainly makes you slow down as opposed to our 'cotten wool' approach to road safety which results in us all going faster.
The last 50KM of road surface has been terrific - better than the best Australian dirt roads. 100kph easy.
Just as we were pulling off the highway towards our camp spot, we noticed a truck spraying a lot of water. It was like a sideways street sweeper, cleaning the armco railings. Wow - just when you think you've got this place figured out, something smacks you like that. Tomorrow will be a rollercoaster day. Thick with roadworks and pot holes, crossed with the best scenery I think I had ever seen - jeez that's going to be a shame to have to drive it again ;-) We've got roughly 223KM to Kandyga which although sounds quick, will probably be a decent day of driving. We may end up catching the last barge around 9PM if we feel up to it. It's could be a late night as the barge takes just under two hours. Don't expect a blog post if this is the case.
We've really enjoyed the driving and feel like we're getting in the zone. The straight up and driving as soon as we wake up does wonders for our progress and puts us in a relaxed mood for the rest of the day as we've already done half of our quota before breakfast. It hasn't yet, but may also provide opportunity to buy breakfast which might be nice for a change. Well, nice for us, not so much for them as part of the quick launch means we brush our teeth after breakfast, not before. Sorry if that's TMI.
Well, that's about enough from us. I forgot that I wanted to have a go at reassembling some video, meh, it can wait for another day.
Today has been very interesting in a great way. Again we've done over double our 200km target but we certainly didn't push ourselves. We're just fortunate that the dirt roads are actually quite good for this section we're on. Camp tonight is on a river at the same spot we camped on our way to Magadan. This morning we woke up at 6.30am, packed up camp and started driving and had breakfast about 50km or so away from where we camped. I think for us it's a relaxing way to start the morning because it's peaceful driving when there's hardly another soul out and about. We haven't done that before on this trip. It's normally how we roll when on a driving holiday in Australia, but because of the extra long daylight hours here it's been throwing us out. Previously during this trip we were getting up at maybe 8am and not driving until maybe 9 - 9.30am. Hopefully we're able to settle into this sort of pattern of getting to sleep earlier and waking up earlier.
On our drive to Magadan we were very nervous about the tyres (understandably given the 5 flats along the way!) and there was a lot of smoke from bushfires in the air, so we really couldn't see the scenery. What a treat the way back from Magadan has been! The smoke has pretty much cleared up, the car has new rubber shoes and with our nervousness dissipating each day as we get closer to being off these sharp-rocked roads we're able to take in the scenery, and what a scenery! I think we reached our beauty saturation point today. I personally couldn't take in anymore beautiful scenery. The mountain passes were spectacular! I'm glad we get to retrace our steps so that we didn't miss out on this.
We went by Kadykchan this morning (please excuse the incorrect translation if it's wrong). We missed it on the way to Magadan because we were focused on getting to Magadan for new tyres and because there were road works that sort of steered us away from the turn off a bit. It's a town that's been abandoned apparently because the heating plant thing failed and it was easier/cheaper for everyone to move on rather than fix the heating in the town. Weird. It's quite a spooky place to be. The mozzies were atrocious there so that stopped us from venturing around for very long but we did walk in to one of the buildings. They're pretty run down, broken windows, roofs breaking away, cracked walls, some buildings sagging. It's a real ghost town. Walking through one of the buildings was eerie and really dark (obviously), and yes Mums, we were careful. It's a sizeable town so would take the better part of a day to walk all the way through it.
Stopping in Ust Nera today was good but strange. We filled up with fuel at the same petrol station we filled up at after Gipetto fixed our tyres. We then called into his little shed to say hello but he was busy in the back and had someone else in the workshop. We were hoping to be able to thank him again but didn't get the chance. So after that, we drove to the cafe where we had lunch that day he helped us. Again, the lady who I spoke to last time didn't seem to recognise me, or perhaps was too shy to say anything, but her daughter recognised me. She was the little girl that we gave the toy echidna to. Perhaps so many travellers come through these parts that they don't seem to think anything of it. We passed two motorcyclists today seemingly on their way to Magadan. We think they had UK plates but aren't certain about that. There were big waves all round as we passed on the road. It's always great to cross paths with other travellers along the way. I feel an instant kinship a
nd what to swap stories and hangout for a bit.
As a funny side note, Graeme and I are totally over people wearing camo, trucks and cars painted camo and people in camo suddenly appearing out of bushes (seriously, that's happened more times than we can remember). No offense to all those who wear camo, we're just over seeing it here. Even little kids dress in camo. Yesterday, after passing a truck coming in the opposite direction there was a total whiteout of dust. Happens often on these dirt roads. Then all of a sudden, out of the dust appears this figure in camo walking ON the road! Don't think our steel bullbar in his back would've tickled. Not sure camo's helping ya there buddy. They wear camo like their lives depend on it at all other costs, when it could seriously do the opposite for them in situations like that. Anyway, gives me a giggle most of the time.
Ok, well I suppose it's back to relaxing, sipping a cup of tea and reading my book. Thanks for the book by the way, Denise - loving it! I've been trying to make it last longer but I'm nearly done reading it. Thankfully I still have that massive book you let me borrow, hopefully it'll last me for the rest of the trip. I should've brought more with me!
By the way, you'll be glad to know Graeme has taken up the duty of washing up again after a day off yesterday. Chris, you deserved the whack to the back of the head for that comment lol. Nice one Beck! ;-)
Graeme:
Truck washing guards on roadside
We've been kickin' back here in our camp that we stopped at probably a week ago. After all the jobs were done, I've been reading my book and just relaxing. The sun just came out in a defiant gesture, followed quickly by rain - how beautiful.
We got some good footage today of the road. The contrast in perspective is amazing. Last time it was all smokey and we so easily drove past one of the most stunning scenes so far. Not just the smoke, but the direction didn't reveal the beauty quite like driving the opposite direction did.
We drove around for ten minutes trying to locate Kadykchan. We did find it, having been tricked by the roadworks last time. It was cool, but sad. Why wasn't it viable to repair? I understand in the middle of winter maybe not possible, but surely everyone would be happy to move back home after a few months? Most of the facilities were modern by Russian standards. Glass bricks lined foyer in the school, huge laundry facilities with newish looking machines. It feels not so much like a wasteland, but just a waste to just discard a whole town. There no doubt will be a lot more to the story that we are unaware.
As Cassie mentioned, arriving at Ust Nera today was a bit of a non-event. I think in some way we expected excited faces, but when we were hardly recognised, it meant we've made less of an impression on them as they did on us. Oh well. I'm sure they see a lot of travellers. That and everyone was busy with other customers today. I am still in awe of Gerrit and Ria's 9 years on the road. Although this travel isn't thattt tiring, I think even one year on the road would melt me mentally. I would miss work and family but perhaps they had 'been there, and done that' and now it was their time.
In the same way the perspective differed with beautiful scenery, ascending a mountain pass today revealed itself as so much more dangerous then it did a week earlier. Smoke easily hid many 500M drops last time. In a thinly forested section, a UAZ utility obviously careered off one of the edges with it's contents strewn down the hill side like a tornado had hit it. Needless to say, when it came to descending the other side, we didn't rely on brakes at any stage. I like how in this country, your safety for the most part is dependent on you. If you trip over, it's your fault for not watching where you were walking. If you drive off a cliff because you were driving too fast - your fault. It certainly makes you slow down as opposed to our 'cotten wool' approach to road safety which results in us all going faster.
The last 50KM of road surface has been terrific - better than the best Australian dirt roads. 100kph easy.
Just as we were pulling off the highway towards our camp spot, we noticed a truck spraying a lot of water. It was like a sideways street sweeper, cleaning the armco railings. Wow - just when you think you've got this place figured out, something smacks you like that. Tomorrow will be a rollercoaster day. Thick with roadworks and pot holes, crossed with the best scenery I think I had ever seen - jeez that's going to be a shame to have to drive it again ;-) We've got roughly 223KM to Kandyga which although sounds quick, will probably be a decent day of driving. We may end up catching the last barge around 9PM if we feel up to it. It's could be a late night as the barge takes just under two hours. Don't expect a blog post if this is the case.
We've really enjoyed the driving and feel like we're getting in the zone. The straight up and driving as soon as we wake up does wonders for our progress and puts us in a relaxed mood for the rest of the day as we've already done half of our quota before breakfast. It hasn't yet, but may also provide opportunity to buy breakfast which might be nice for a change. Well, nice for us, not so much for them as part of the quick launch means we brush our teeth after breakfast, not before. Sorry if that's TMI.
Well, that's about enough from us. I forgot that I wanted to have a go at reassembling some video, meh, it can wait for another day.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Responses to comments - and half a post.
Responses to comments:
Brett: Um, I kept most of the swearing off camera.... but I do have a piece recorded that I'm confident would get my money back ;-) Ahh youtube. It provides a podium for nobodies to get heard!
Cassie/Charlize: Glad to have you along - yeah it was fun crossing the river.
Steven: New career... no one could pay enough money to make me do this crap lol. Nah, it could be fun, but I think one risks becoming a sellout if you rely on advertisers to feed you. I can be unbiased this way. When we return, I intend to write to the suppliers who's products have worked perfectly to thank them for making decent equipment. There are some products that we use each day that make me shake my head thinking 'how is this thing still working?!' It doesn't take long before the cheap products fail and the better products prevail.
All: Glad to hear you liked the video - I thought it was stupid and was very reluctant to post it.
I'm going to manufacture run-flat tyres. They are going to be horrible and rough when flat, but my oath they will be round and enable you to get home. That, or an internal beadlock system that works as a run-flat which you can retrofit to any tyre/wheel combination. Don't anyone steal my ideas! Lucky this is only going on the internet.
Graeme's half post:
Over our cups of tea, we just finished watching episode 7 of Long Way Round - the inspiration for this trip. I had made a point of not re-watching any of the show leading up to this adventure. I'm not sure why, but I didn't want to somehow wear out the experience. We watched the episode tonight to to see if we could spot which rivers were where etc. Throughout the trip so far, I've felt that we were having a very different experience. A good experience, but different. I'm sure that frustration had simmered within me due to an inability to match my memory of the hollywood production with our real life adventure. I was wrong on several counts: 1) I didn't appreciate how scarce resources would be
2) I didn't appreciate the distances
3) I didn't appreciate that we're actually in outback Russia. I figured it would be sparse, but populated. It freaks you out to see big dots on the map, but rows and rows of buildings with smashed windows, obviously uninhabitable. It gets your hopes up, then smashes them big time.
Of this single episode we've watched, most of it is linearly correct with voice overs and video diary's being the only opportunities to flash back and tell a story. In our own very basic productions, it has proved very difficult to compose something interesting to watch, whilst retaining accurate timeline. The lesson we can take from this, is that no one will ever know if the timeline is inaccurate, but they will certainly know if something is boring.
After seeing the actors arrive in Magadan, I have a few observations:
-The chronological order of the episode was flawless.
-Seeing sights and scenes that we have witnessed first hand is terrific - it triggers that weird celebrity stalker vein in you. But about places, not people ;-)
-We stayed in the same hotel in Magadan! It's so weird to see it on TV when you were just there! We noticed that the inner door was still in their room, ours was removed.
-I'm a bit sad we've missed out on the old summer road adventure, but perhaps we were kidding ourselves thinking we could take it on our own.
-If I was to come back to do the old summer road, I'd fly into Yakutsk or Magadan. I wouldn't drive from Vladivostok JUST to do the OSR. It's exhausting. It's a bit like driving to Brisbane from Perth to go to Fraser Island. By the time you get there, all the adventurer in you is sapped.
-I've had the opportunity to DO SOMETHING in life! I get that this dream wasn't for everyone, but sometimes I'll stop and think where I am and be speechless about the opportunity I've had. -Part of me is sad that not everyone gets this opportunity, but then again, they don't just fall in your lap - they are damn hard work.
-I've also learned that if you put one foot in front of the other, you can do ANYTHING! Everything is impossible until you start.
-I'm indebted to Cassie. I don't know anyone else who would put up with this obsession for so long. Thank you for also giving me this opportunity through all your hard work and patience.
I feel like a huge chapter of my life will close by making it to London. I feel like so much of my life has been obsessed with this adventure, hopefully not at the detriment of any other facets. I do feel a bit guilty for pursuing this dream so relentlessly. I don't know why I've had to do this, but I just did.
I have heard you can see one or both of the bikes at a London museum. That would be mind blowing. About as mind blowing as touching a moon rock.
Don't feel sad by my occasional deep and meaningful posts, just be thankful that you've had a rare insight into what makes me tick. I'm certainly not sad or down in any way. I've had and am having the most terrific time! Who else can you say is actively pursuing their dream?!
PS. Just a heads up, I had heaps of trouble posting the last blog, so in the event we stop making posts, you can assume some element of the transaction has failed big time(sat phone, laptop etc). Hang in there, we'll make posts once we reach big cities. We're thankful for the SPOT, it's been perfectly reliable, except in cities with highrises - that stuffs it!
Position: 12-07-18 19:39:57 +1200 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=62.65812,147.6976&q=62.65812,147.6976&z=16
#END
Brett: Um, I kept most of the swearing off camera.... but I do have a piece recorded that I'm confident would get my money back ;-) Ahh youtube. It provides a podium for nobodies to get heard!
Cassie/Charlize: Glad to have you along - yeah it was fun crossing the river.
Steven: New career... no one could pay enough money to make me do this crap lol. Nah, it could be fun, but I think one risks becoming a sellout if you rely on advertisers to feed you. I can be unbiased this way. When we return, I intend to write to the suppliers who's products have worked perfectly to thank them for making decent equipment. There are some products that we use each day that make me shake my head thinking 'how is this thing still working?!' It doesn't take long before the cheap products fail and the better products prevail.
All: Glad to hear you liked the video - I thought it was stupid and was very reluctant to post it.
I'm going to manufacture run-flat tyres. They are going to be horrible and rough when flat, but my oath they will be round and enable you to get home. That, or an internal beadlock system that works as a run-flat which you can retrofit to any tyre/wheel combination. Don't anyone steal my ideas! Lucky this is only going on the internet.
Graeme's half post:
Over our cups of tea, we just finished watching episode 7 of Long Way Round - the inspiration for this trip. I had made a point of not re-watching any of the show leading up to this adventure. I'm not sure why, but I didn't want to somehow wear out the experience. We watched the episode tonight to to see if we could spot which rivers were where etc. Throughout the trip so far, I've felt that we were having a very different experience. A good experience, but different. I'm sure that frustration had simmered within me due to an inability to match my memory of the hollywood production with our real life adventure. I was wrong on several counts: 1) I didn't appreciate how scarce resources would be
2) I didn't appreciate the distances
3) I didn't appreciate that we're actually in outback Russia. I figured it would be sparse, but populated. It freaks you out to see big dots on the map, but rows and rows of buildings with smashed windows, obviously uninhabitable. It gets your hopes up, then smashes them big time.
Of this single episode we've watched, most of it is linearly correct with voice overs and video diary's being the only opportunities to flash back and tell a story. In our own very basic productions, it has proved very difficult to compose something interesting to watch, whilst retaining accurate timeline. The lesson we can take from this, is that no one will ever know if the timeline is inaccurate, but they will certainly know if something is boring.
After seeing the actors arrive in Magadan, I have a few observations:
-The chronological order of the episode was flawless.
-Seeing sights and scenes that we have witnessed first hand is terrific - it triggers that weird celebrity stalker vein in you. But about places, not people ;-)
-We stayed in the same hotel in Magadan! It's so weird to see it on TV when you were just there! We noticed that the inner door was still in their room, ours was removed.
-I'm a bit sad we've missed out on the old summer road adventure, but perhaps we were kidding ourselves thinking we could take it on our own.
-If I was to come back to do the old summer road, I'd fly into Yakutsk or Magadan. I wouldn't drive from Vladivostok JUST to do the OSR. It's exhausting. It's a bit like driving to Brisbane from Perth to go to Fraser Island. By the time you get there, all the adventurer in you is sapped.
-I've had the opportunity to DO SOMETHING in life! I get that this dream wasn't for everyone, but sometimes I'll stop and think where I am and be speechless about the opportunity I've had. -Part of me is sad that not everyone gets this opportunity, but then again, they don't just fall in your lap - they are damn hard work.
-I've also learned that if you put one foot in front of the other, you can do ANYTHING! Everything is impossible until you start.
-I'm indebted to Cassie. I don't know anyone else who would put up with this obsession for so long. Thank you for also giving me this opportunity through all your hard work and patience.
I feel like a huge chapter of my life will close by making it to London. I feel like so much of my life has been obsessed with this adventure, hopefully not at the detriment of any other facets. I do feel a bit guilty for pursuing this dream so relentlessly. I don't know why I've had to do this, but I just did.
I have heard you can see one or both of the bikes at a London museum. That would be mind blowing. About as mind blowing as touching a moon rock.
Don't feel sad by my occasional deep and meaningful posts, just be thankful that you've had a rare insight into what makes me tick. I'm certainly not sad or down in any way. I've had and am having the most terrific time! Who else can you say is actively pursuing their dream?!
PS. Just a heads up, I had heaps of trouble posting the last blog, so in the event we stop making posts, you can assume some element of the transaction has failed big time(sat phone, laptop etc). Hang in there, we'll make posts once we reach big cities. We're thankful for the SPOT, it's been perfectly reliable, except in cities with highrises - that stuffs it!
Position: 12-07-18 19:39:57 +1200 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=62.65812,147.6976&q=62.65812,147.6976&z=16
#END
A day without failures!
It's finally happened! We've gone a whole day without anything going wrong! I say that in jest as most of our days have been very good especially the last two.
We left Magadan yesterday after visiting the tyre shop. The manager was disappointed with the apprentice who didn't balance our tyres, but when they did, they discovered one was impossible to balance as it is warped. It sounds obvious in retrospect, but when I fitted the wheel the night previous, there was a rough, but swooshing noise when I rotated the wheel. I figured it was a brake rotor, but in fact may have been the rim touching the outside of the caliper. Oh well, it's been moved to the back and so far has posed no problem. We didn't do a post last night because we didn't have much to say, that and we were really enjoying relaxing. I got my book out for the first time this trip which ironically was on Siberia. It was difficult to get into before now, but suddenly everything is relevant. Oh, and I re-attached the kitchen unit to the car, it had rattled four screws loose and three out all together. It's also fixed by a bolt underneath the car, and the nut had only ~10 rot
ations till the nut fell off. Just in the nick of time. That reminds me, I should check the other two.
Stopped in this quarry tonight, I've grabbed a few photos of rocks that are fractured by freezing tempratures. I am naturally skeptical about everything until I have a chance to test it or do a whole lot of research. Seeing these rocks tonight now has me convinced. They are complete, but even a rock as big as your hands looks like it's been through a paper shredder but in perfect formation. Our new tyres even have cuts in the tread, it's perhaps because they are new and the tread is so deep, that the rocks are not getting a chance to cut anything important. Fingers crossed.
It's also interesting, that natural skepticism I talked of above is often satisfied by the Internet. If I need to get a decent answer about something, I can quickly use the internet to build understandong. Only once I have a fairly good understanding of something can I store it as fact, but not until. I often get rubbished by work mates because I'll ask a question, then re-ask it a few minutes later. I do this when the response given didn't match any my preconceived responses. I just can't 'lock it in eddy' until I have a complete understanding. What does that all mean??? I miss the Internet! I miss that ability to pursue an idea or figure out a problem within a few short minutes. Out here, it takes days for anything to sink in for that reason alone.
On the way up we postulated that driving back would be totally different - and it is! A smokey haze engulfed the trip to Magadan, but the return trip has been lovely and clear.
Nothing has been particularly photo worthy though - I'm not sure why. Got some footage from the waterproof camera outside the car. At one section of roadworks where they are creating/repairing a bridge a bypass through the river was created. The standing water depth was at top of the rim which I estimate to be about 600mm. It amazes me that cars (Honda Civic's, Toyota Corolla's etc.) are expected to, and obviously do cross this without complaint. This is a highway!
I'm not really sure if we're going to capture much photo and video on the way back as we've seen most of it. That sounds disapointing, but it's kind of nice to just absorb without trying to capture all the good bits for everyone else.
The temperature today is brilliant. Hot in the sun, cool in the shade of the car. The weather as a whole has been very generous, with only one morning of rain since we left Vladivostok.
Cassie has done the washing up tonight which is impressive while I've been writting this - nice! There's a tip for you guys, if you look busy, no one interrupts you with more work. Refer to Seinfeld the TV series for acomedic dramatisation of this rule. Sorry, I can't remember the name of the episode.
And sorry this post isn't real interesting. We'll see what the next few days have in store.
Position: 12-07-18 17:40:14 +1200 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=62.65787,147.6975&q=62.65787,147.6975&z=16
#END
We left Magadan yesterday after visiting the tyre shop. The manager was disappointed with the apprentice who didn't balance our tyres, but when they did, they discovered one was impossible to balance as it is warped. It sounds obvious in retrospect, but when I fitted the wheel the night previous, there was a rough, but swooshing noise when I rotated the wheel. I figured it was a brake rotor, but in fact may have been the rim touching the outside of the caliper. Oh well, it's been moved to the back and so far has posed no problem. We didn't do a post last night because we didn't have much to say, that and we were really enjoying relaxing. I got my book out for the first time this trip which ironically was on Siberia. It was difficult to get into before now, but suddenly everything is relevant. Oh, and I re-attached the kitchen unit to the car, it had rattled four screws loose and three out all together. It's also fixed by a bolt underneath the car, and the nut had only ~10 rot
ations till the nut fell off. Just in the nick of time. That reminds me, I should check the other two.
Stopped in this quarry tonight, I've grabbed a few photos of rocks that are fractured by freezing tempratures. I am naturally skeptical about everything until I have a chance to test it or do a whole lot of research. Seeing these rocks tonight now has me convinced. They are complete, but even a rock as big as your hands looks like it's been through a paper shredder but in perfect formation. Our new tyres even have cuts in the tread, it's perhaps because they are new and the tread is so deep, that the rocks are not getting a chance to cut anything important. Fingers crossed.
It's also interesting, that natural skepticism I talked of above is often satisfied by the Internet. If I need to get a decent answer about something, I can quickly use the internet to build understandong. Only once I have a fairly good understanding of something can I store it as fact, but not until. I often get rubbished by work mates because I'll ask a question, then re-ask it a few minutes later. I do this when the response given didn't match any my preconceived responses. I just can't 'lock it in eddy' until I have a complete understanding. What does that all mean??? I miss the Internet! I miss that ability to pursue an idea or figure out a problem within a few short minutes. Out here, it takes days for anything to sink in for that reason alone.
On the way up we postulated that driving back would be totally different - and it is! A smokey haze engulfed the trip to Magadan, but the return trip has been lovely and clear.
Nothing has been particularly photo worthy though - I'm not sure why. Got some footage from the waterproof camera outside the car. At one section of roadworks where they are creating/repairing a bridge a bypass through the river was created. The standing water depth was at top of the rim which I estimate to be about 600mm. It amazes me that cars (Honda Civic's, Toyota Corolla's etc.) are expected to, and obviously do cross this without complaint. This is a highway!
I'm not really sure if we're going to capture much photo and video on the way back as we've seen most of it. That sounds disapointing, but it's kind of nice to just absorb without trying to capture all the good bits for everyone else.
The temperature today is brilliant. Hot in the sun, cool in the shade of the car. The weather as a whole has been very generous, with only one morning of rain since we left Vladivostok.
Cassie has done the washing up tonight which is impressive while I've been writting this - nice! There's a tip for you guys, if you look busy, no one interrupts you with more work. Refer to Seinfeld the TV series for acomedic dramatisation of this rule. Sorry, I can't remember the name of the episode.
And sorry this post isn't real interesting. We'll see what the next few days have in store.
Position: 12-07-18 17:40:14 +1200 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=62.65787,147.6975&q=62.65787,147.6975&z=16
#END
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Leaving Magadan
Graeme: I thought I’d do a quick post before we take off this morning. I’m excited yet nervous about leaving. Perhaps now, knowing the distances and times, that the enormity of the trip is setting in. I had no problem having breakfast, but I feel like the trip is starting now and perhaps the trip this far has just been getting to the starting line. Meh, now that I’ve written this, all the nervousness has gone. There is a sadness leaving this place. It is very nice and represents availability of supplies to us. We’re a sentimental pair of crazies. We do ‘lasts’, like the last time we have breakfast here, knowing we’ll never be back. Last shower etc.
The sadness comes from knowing that in all likelihood that we’ll never be back. If you knew you’d be back, the sensation may not be there. I find it hard to positively absorb good bye’s – I see them only as sad, seldom ever happy. I guess that’s the measure of if you’ve been touched by a place or person by how reluctant you are to wave goodbye to it/them.
On a logistical level, Magadan also represents an ‘opt out’ point. It’s here, or Vladivostok. Leaving from anywhere between Mongolia and France is pretty much out of the question. Well, it’s not out of the question for us as people, but bringing the car I suspect would prove too expensive. Oh well, we’re not quitting so it doesn’t matter.
We’re just going to take our time. Going slower may be the whole tortoise and hare analogy. We may end up winning by not stopping for failed tyres.
I realised I forgot to put this video in the blog. It was a bit of fun way before we had any problems with tyres. Hope you enjoy – certainly no offense intended for Mr Moon or the associated brand.
Don’t worry people, we’re fine, it’s just a nice way of saying we liked Magadan and we’re sad to say good bye to it.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Responses to comments
Tom/Kelly/Jon: Lol – I wonder how I’d go about hiring one. I think they would frown with confusion when we turned up in our lovely white machina and asked to hire one of there's. It would make for a good review. ‘Um, yep, windscreen, er um, no power brakes, no syncro’s in the gearbox’ etc.
Warren: The silver bit tilts up and they sleep up top.
Li/Anthony: Hi – welcome! Glad to have you along!
Steven/Others: Although that video looks like we crossed the river just to clean the car, there was two days between when we crossed over, drove to tomtor, then crossing back – I should have made it clearer, sorry.
Paul: Cheers – Well, destination is now London, via Mongolia, Khazakstan, Ukraine, Slovakia, Beligum, Germany, France.
Warren: Yeah, we’ve had to drive under the bucket twice now ;-) And yes, stunning scenery. The cameras don’t do the scale justice.
Mum D: Thanks mum – yep stocked up.
Can we have a guessing competition? We’re not sure what these were. The posts in the far right of the shot lined the road in roughly 1M spacing. Pictured in the middle is a junction box. My guess is some kind of moisture detection, like in an automatic watering system. But why for 10KM out of Susuman? Large sections of it are disconnected, so not sure how useful it is? The probes are about 10CM long and made of steel. I do have a model number off the top of one, but googling it would be cheating!
‘New Rubber Shoes’
was the translation using Google Translate at the western style tyre store today.
We were unable to get BFG All-terrain’s in the correct size – niet. The only ones available in our size were some no-name Highway Terrain or Bridgestone Dueller Mud Terrain tyres. I tried to convince them to let me get 285’s but niet, even these 265’s stick out a little, so the 285’s would have stuck out an inch.
For once our car was dirtier that it’s environment. This was the cleanest tyre shop we’ve ever seen – thanks Jon. After much ‘back and forth’ surrounding tubes, no tubes, which tyres go where etc. we got it done. I find even in Australia, there is usually confusion about what you’re trying to achieve. I find it better to trickle-feed information in scenarios like this. Once each stage is done, we make a new request. A bit annoyingly they insisted on fitting tubes to maybe two or three of the tyres which prevents us using the plug kit, but I suppose we’ll get a tube repair kit now. It’s not a deal breaker, and we may not even have another puncture, but it’s the difference between a 10 minute repair and a two hour, back breaking repair. Tubeless tyres by design, don’t want to come of the rim!
We fitted them tonight and went for a quick spin but they are out of balance – dammit! We’ll have to drop in tomorrow morning to have them balanced. I thought that was just part of buying tyres is having them balanced – maybe you have to ask here? I noticed only one of the front wheels has a wheel weight on it. I may end up just pulling off the lone wheel weight – they may be pretty much OK unbalanced?
We found a car wash – local knowledge only it seems!
The kitchen unit has pretty much rattled itself free from the side of the car. It’s difficult to re-attach without removing it, fixing the mounts, then reattaching the unit. I’ve tightened up what remains and we’ll see how it holds.
Our machina all clean with new tyres. Oddly enough, the tyres are still quiet. I was expecting that horrible howling sound. Oh well, Magadan is lovely, more time could be spent here, but we must make headway. We did plan this trip this way around to allow the time we save to be spent in Europe. Well, we look forward to having you along for the ride.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
We now have 8 Internets!
To ensure toilet paper continuity we have developed a technique of hiding our toilet roll each day, so that when housekeeping comes around, they refill it with a new roll. Asking for toilet paper is a bit weird. We apply a similar practice when hoarding internet vouchers. Any time we see a new operator on duty, we get as much as we can!
I forgot to get the photos off my phone, so here are a few. Just a reminder, you can click them for a larger size.
Yes, that’s Ross – hopefully the scale of the laptop touchpad gives you something to go on.
2nd photo – Cassie sending the blog post (or trying to attract lightening)
When we arrived at the hotel we asked about secure parking: Yes, next to the other white ‘machina’. Oh you mean the car space protected by a rope? Yep – that one. Um, no thanks, we’ll keep our 500rub/night thank you very much.
This was the car of Ria and Gerrit – Who have been on the road for NINE YEARS! They bought their troopie brand new, it now has over 400,000KM on it – and you know what? They said the road we’ve just driven is the worst they’ve ever driven and they’ve driven in virtually every country! We shared breakfast together and talked for probably an hour. Their insight into travel and the world as a whole is amazing.
At a market today we picked up some gas canisters which is grand, enough to get us to Ulaanbaatar. Also available was an array of high-lift jacks. One was 1ft high - not sure what you’d use it for? Crushing cans?
Last night ended with a brilliant meal, and we have just returned from another fantastic meal at lunch. We have a rough idea of what things are going to cost, but were surprised when we received the bill. I ordered a glass of lemon juice which cost 250r or ~$7.50! To put it in perspective, a cappuccino was 90r or $2.70. It was awesome though! As dumb as it sounds, we’re really enjoying eating out. We only have tiny quick meals when on the road which is quickly followed up by washing up. The ability to take an hour without mosquitoes and flies to have a meal is a great luxury.
We went to one of the tyre shops today (most were closed as it’s Sunday) and did find one or two compatible tyres, but they’re just not tough enough. Not from like an aggressive looking, mud flinging perspective, but more a tougher construction with straighter sidewalls. They would probably do the job, but I feel like we’re buying tyres for the rest of the trip. They should be strong and quiet (which rules out muddies). They also don’t seem any cheaper, a basic brand name ATR tyre is still $300. We’re also going to see if we can buy the components for the service and pay the people across the road. The place were other Australians have had success is no doubt good, but all we want is a place to drop the oil and grease some universal joints. There is a place across the road which can do that, and was just visited by Ria & Gerrit. We actually have all the parts we need, but now knowing how scarce they are, we’ll be hanging onto them until our last service.
Bringing your own oil and filter is how it’s done here - in Australia you’d be laughed out of any mechanic shop if you did that!
Below is a video of some of the scenery driving to Magadan. Just a note, it may look like we’re driving fast, but that can be an effect of the wide angle lens.
Sorry, not real HD, not enough time to upload. 35 Mins max.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Hotel Wi-Fi
Our hotel although good has a stupid 35 minute voucher system for the Wi-Fi. We were given two vouchers when we arrived. Oh good - that’ll give us an hour of internet over two days. On our way back from dinner we were given a further 6 which should get maybe one video uploaded. So I’m sorry in advance, I’m not sure how much we’re going to upload. Also it’s very slow which will make Skype calls unbearable. We’ll give it a go however. You may need to text us with a time so we can go downstairs, get a voucher and then call you :(
You could look at it in another light, at least our videos will be kind of fresh when we get home, not just rehashing stuff you’ve already seen.
Here is one anyway – You may have to wait an hour or two for it to upload:
Two in Magadan!!!
Cassie:
We made it through the first part of our journey and arrived in Magadan this afternoon. I think it's still sinking in where we actually are in the world. We saw the Mask of Sorrow monument on our way in today and it was solemnly beautiful. Unfortunately there were a couple of crazy people there practically yelling orders at each other. One of them even roped Graeme into a photo with one of his friends and when I snapped a picture of the guy taking a picture of Graeme he went off his tree at me. He kept saying in english "Don't shoot me, don't shoot me!!" So I said in english back to him, "Too late buddy, gotchya!". Weirdo. Then a drunken wedding party showed up yahooing and being total dweebs so we headed off. It's actually quite a sad monument. It's there to commemorate the Soviet prisoners during the 1930s - 1950s who were forced to make parts of the old Kolyma Highway. The part that we had all the troubles on to Tomtor and back is part of the old road that the prisoners ma
de. They were treated terribly, tortured and many of the prisoners died during its construction. It's said that their bodies were incorporated into the road as it was constructed, hence the infamous nickname, "Road of Bones". Anyway, needless to say we did our best to pay our respects but it's a bit difficult when there's crazies and drunk people crawling around it. It was still amazing to see it in real life though.
When we woke up this morning the rear left tyre was completely flat, as we had expected it would be. Thankfully it held the air enough for us to drive and just keep stopping to top it up every so often. We actually had another tyre failure not long before we camped last night and unfortunately it was just outside one of the derelict towns. Just as we've pulled over and Graeme's getting the jack out of the car a car load of drunk idiots stopped up the road from us and got out, still swilling from their bottles and gestured if we needed any help. Graeme said we were fine thanks, but they insisted they get a photo with him. So obviously he had to oblige to placate them and send them on their way whilst I'm hunkering down in the car praying they would just go away. They were fine, didn't bother us any more than that and after a short stop finally left. Although, when they weren't looking I locked the doors and climbed into the back where they couldn't see me. I'm over having any
interaction with idiots and crazy people. I'm sure when they see the pictures on their phones they'll wonder why they've got pictures of a random guy and his car - I doubt they'll remember.
This last tyre failure we had yesterday was the one we puncture repaired on the road of bones coming back from Tomtor. The plug kit held it for a good 800km I think. Amazing. Graeme put the dodge-illy repaired spare on the car to see how long it would take before it too went totally kaput. It was one of the ones that Gipetto tried to repair but it had busted through the sidewall and he said it's not a very good fix. Well, like I said, Graeme chucked it on anyway in desperation to get away from that town because it was the easiest spare to get to. We honestly didn't think it would last a kilometre, but hey hey, it's got us to Magadan about 500km away!
So tomorrow we need to organise a mechanic and a new set of tyres. Unfortunately, tomorrow is Sunday so we're not optimistic anything will be done until Monday at the earliest. Oh well, that means maybe three or so nights in Magadan and that's not such a bad thing really. As the past few days has shown us, the situation could be a heck of a lot worse! We did see the mechanic's workshop today on the way to the Mask of Sorrow. Thanks Jon, green door, number 23 in a line of sheds - just as you said it would be.
We have also since found out that Bolot had arranged for a friend of his in Magadan to drive two new tyres to us all the way in Ust Nera if we still needed that. That's over 1000km away on dirt roads. Amazing generosity from total strangers. I'm just blown away. We're going to contact this guy to hopefully meet up with him if he has the time.
We definitely need a very good rest here before we embark on the return journey to head towards Mongolia.
Another thing of note, I was able to order us something other than borsh and bread for lunch today! I've found that we need to have at least two choices ready just in case they say "Nyet" to something on the menu. Pretty much everytime we've ordered something we've found that just because it's on the menu, doesn't mean they're serving it. Strange. So I asked for the first thing "Roast Meat" and the lady said "Nyet". Hmmm, ok so I asked for the second choice "Meat and Rice" and that was met with a "Dah". Woo hoo, two of those thanks! And it was actually really tasty. So there you go, I can now order borsh, salad, chicken and meat with rice. Our food vocabulary is growing!
Graeme: Please see all of our photos to help explain stories you've heard over the past few days:
https://picasaweb.google.com/twomagadan/YakutskToMagadan?authkey=Gv1sRgCLnW_cu5_KGInAE
We made it through the first part of our journey and arrived in Magadan this afternoon. I think it's still sinking in where we actually are in the world. We saw the Mask of Sorrow monument on our way in today and it was solemnly beautiful. Unfortunately there were a couple of crazy people there practically yelling orders at each other. One of them even roped Graeme into a photo with one of his friends and when I snapped a picture of the guy taking a picture of Graeme he went off his tree at me. He kept saying in english "Don't shoot me, don't shoot me!!" So I said in english back to him, "Too late buddy, gotchya!". Weirdo. Then a drunken wedding party showed up yahooing and being total dweebs so we headed off. It's actually quite a sad monument. It's there to commemorate the Soviet prisoners during the 1930s - 1950s who were forced to make parts of the old Kolyma Highway. The part that we had all the troubles on to Tomtor and back is part of the old road that the prisoners ma
de. They were treated terribly, tortured and many of the prisoners died during its construction. It's said that their bodies were incorporated into the road as it was constructed, hence the infamous nickname, "Road of Bones". Anyway, needless to say we did our best to pay our respects but it's a bit difficult when there's crazies and drunk people crawling around it. It was still amazing to see it in real life though.
When we woke up this morning the rear left tyre was completely flat, as we had expected it would be. Thankfully it held the air enough for us to drive and just keep stopping to top it up every so often. We actually had another tyre failure not long before we camped last night and unfortunately it was just outside one of the derelict towns. Just as we've pulled over and Graeme's getting the jack out of the car a car load of drunk idiots stopped up the road from us and got out, still swilling from their bottles and gestured if we needed any help. Graeme said we were fine thanks, but they insisted they get a photo with him. So obviously he had to oblige to placate them and send them on their way whilst I'm hunkering down in the car praying they would just go away. They were fine, didn't bother us any more than that and after a short stop finally left. Although, when they weren't looking I locked the doors and climbed into the back where they couldn't see me. I'm over having any
interaction with idiots and crazy people. I'm sure when they see the pictures on their phones they'll wonder why they've got pictures of a random guy and his car - I doubt they'll remember.
This last tyre failure we had yesterday was the one we puncture repaired on the road of bones coming back from Tomtor. The plug kit held it for a good 800km I think. Amazing. Graeme put the dodge-illy repaired spare on the car to see how long it would take before it too went totally kaput. It was one of the ones that Gipetto tried to repair but it had busted through the sidewall and he said it's not a very good fix. Well, like I said, Graeme chucked it on anyway in desperation to get away from that town because it was the easiest spare to get to. We honestly didn't think it would last a kilometre, but hey hey, it's got us to Magadan about 500km away!
So tomorrow we need to organise a mechanic and a new set of tyres. Unfortunately, tomorrow is Sunday so we're not optimistic anything will be done until Monday at the earliest. Oh well, that means maybe three or so nights in Magadan and that's not such a bad thing really. As the past few days has shown us, the situation could be a heck of a lot worse! We did see the mechanic's workshop today on the way to the Mask of Sorrow. Thanks Jon, green door, number 23 in a line of sheds - just as you said it would be.
We have also since found out that Bolot had arranged for a friend of his in Magadan to drive two new tyres to us all the way in Ust Nera if we still needed that. That's over 1000km away on dirt roads. Amazing generosity from total strangers. I'm just blown away. We're going to contact this guy to hopefully meet up with him if he has the time.
We definitely need a very good rest here before we embark on the return journey to head towards Mongolia.
Another thing of note, I was able to order us something other than borsh and bread for lunch today! I've found that we need to have at least two choices ready just in case they say "Nyet" to something on the menu. Pretty much everytime we've ordered something we've found that just because it's on the menu, doesn't mean they're serving it. Strange. So I asked for the first thing "Roast Meat" and the lady said "Nyet". Hmmm, ok so I asked for the second choice "Meat and Rice" and that was met with a "Dah". Woo hoo, two of those thanks! And it was actually really tasty. So there you go, I can now order borsh, salad, chicken and meat with rice. Our food vocabulary is growing!
Graeme: Please see all of our photos to help explain stories you've heard over the past few days:
https://picasaweb.google.com/twomagadan/YakutskToMagadan?authkey=Gv1sRgCLnW_cu5_KGInAE
Friday, July 13, 2012
All going to plan
Graeme:
All going to plan we will be in Magadan tomorrow. As we write this, we're ~430KM from Magadan. There has been nothing to stop for today. Even our intended sight to see of 'Kadakychan' the abandoned town we missed due to a roadworks deversion. That, or it looked like every other functioning town which is entirely possible. Most of the towns look abandoned by our standards. Wait, make that war torn by our standards. That sounds really snootey, but if we knew no different, they would be fine. Words cannot describe how depressing most of them are. Entirely devoid of colour, people and sound. We've driven through the last six towns looking for a Kafe - nope. The closest we got was 'there is one, but meh, it's no good. forget I said that'. So we're stopped to have dinner, do the post and we'll do a little bit more driving this afternoon. It may sound very shotgun-tourist, but we're just excited to get to Magadan so that we can rest properly, get some photos and video to you guys an
d get the car serviced. I hope it's not like most the towns we've been through, or we'll be shipping the car back ;-) Nah I'm just kidding.
We had a great sleep last night and the roads for the most part today have been very good. Some of them feel like you're sharing them with mining trucks as they sweep through hours of mining operations. I'm not sure what they are looking for? Maybe it's shale-oil or gold, I'm not sure. If it was gold, I'm sure you could see it. If you dropped a coke can, the colour contrast alone would mean you could see it a mile off.
Tonight for dinner is spaghetti with, you guessed it - potato. We are finding a tiny trend that fruit and vegetables (other than potato) are making their way into the stores as we head towards the coast. When you're in the city, you tend not to miss things like vegetables.
We've had pretty good fortune with the tyres today. Overnight and most of today the tyres didn't budge, holding strong. We did arrive at one town to find them somewhat low. We put one more plug in and no more leaks. We pumped them back up again, and weirdly, no change since. I want to know why, but I also over thinking about them.
Thanks again to everyone that's commented. It's nice to see some of you come out of the woodwork! We're staggered to see lots of new travelers using our blog as a reference. We may even meet one set of travelers half way to London which could be very cool.
Good evening.
Position: 12-07-13 19:09:28 +1000 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=62.34269,151.1113&q=62.34269,151.1113&z=16
All going to plan we will be in Magadan tomorrow. As we write this, we're ~430KM from Magadan. There has been nothing to stop for today. Even our intended sight to see of 'Kadakychan' the abandoned town we missed due to a roadworks deversion. That, or it looked like every other functioning town which is entirely possible. Most of the towns look abandoned by our standards. Wait, make that war torn by our standards. That sounds really snootey, but if we knew no different, they would be fine. Words cannot describe how depressing most of them are. Entirely devoid of colour, people and sound. We've driven through the last six towns looking for a Kafe - nope. The closest we got was 'there is one, but meh, it's no good. forget I said that'. So we're stopped to have dinner, do the post and we'll do a little bit more driving this afternoon. It may sound very shotgun-tourist, but we're just excited to get to Magadan so that we can rest properly, get some photos and video to you guys an
d get the car serviced. I hope it's not like most the towns we've been through, or we'll be shipping the car back ;-) Nah I'm just kidding.
We had a great sleep last night and the roads for the most part today have been very good. Some of them feel like you're sharing them with mining trucks as they sweep through hours of mining operations. I'm not sure what they are looking for? Maybe it's shale-oil or gold, I'm not sure. If it was gold, I'm sure you could see it. If you dropped a coke can, the colour contrast alone would mean you could see it a mile off.
Tonight for dinner is spaghetti with, you guessed it - potato. We are finding a tiny trend that fruit and vegetables (other than potato) are making their way into the stores as we head towards the coast. When you're in the city, you tend not to miss things like vegetables.
We've had pretty good fortune with the tyres today. Overnight and most of today the tyres didn't budge, holding strong. We did arrive at one town to find them somewhat low. We put one more plug in and no more leaks. We pumped them back up again, and weirdly, no change since. I want to know why, but I also over thinking about them.
Thanks again to everyone that's commented. It's nice to see some of you come out of the woodwork! We're staggered to see lots of new travelers using our blog as a reference. We may even meet one set of travelers half way to London which could be very cool.
Good evening.
Position: 12-07-13 19:09:28 +1000 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=62.34269,151.1113&q=62.34269,151.1113&z=16
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