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
Friday, July 13, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
What's new?
Graeme:
Not new tyres ;-) Apparently it's not done out here, they just keep repairing them. That's fine though.
We started the day with a good sleep in, breakfast then a great drive to Ust Nera. Most of it was seriously good. Like much better than most of the tar roads here.
We climbed to the top of a mountain pass and pulled over to put our rubbish in the bin. Bin's here are an up-ended 2M diameter concrete pipe. Oh well, it does the job. At that point Cassie noticed our 'brand name 4wd tyre' tyre leaking. nooooo. Thankfully again in the tread of the tyre. It took four plugs... but even then not fixed and 40KM out of Ust Nera. It needed refilling every 3-5KM depending on how fast we drove. Our refilling dance is enacted very quickly. I pop the bonnet, Cassie who has the hose at her feet hops out, hands me the hose end for the compressor while she heads for the tyre. The process takes five minutes, again with a similar dance we pack up as fast as possible and start driving. Towards the end we started getting smarter. We were stopping with the puncture facing the ground so it wouldn't leak while we were filling it. That probably halved our filling time. Oh how boring it is talking about tyres.
We came into Ust Nera. We called the local contact who had mysteriously said she had forgotten her 'perfect english'. Not good. We'd passed maybe 10-20 buildings, all which looked like they had just been bombed. No signs of life. After reaching the 'town limits' sign, we crossed back over the bridge and thought we would see if we could figure this out without the contact. We got directions from the first lifeform we encountered who said drive 4KM over the bridge and tyre repairer will be on your left. Across the bridge we go again, one or two more top ups we found one! Relief we thought.
The first sign that something wasn't right is the owner (lets call him Al, as in Weird Al) said Rubles and made the money gesture before he'd even seen our car. Al was not interested in dialogue surrounding what the scenario was or even how many needed fixing. We rapidly discovered that there were no new tyres in sight. None outside, none inside. Oh crap. Al took our worst tyre (the one with the gaping bulge that we know wasn't repairable) and started working on it. Oh well, might as well see what he comes up with. All this time 'Alex' a gentleman in blue/grey camouflage was working so hard communicating with us. At this stage, Al seemed to have an assistant (which was a tall rotund smokey fellow with 3 gold teeth, we'll call him Philbert). Philbert was pulling Al into line continually. Like don't say that, you're confusing them, don't be silly etc. Eventually (some 30 minutes later) after a very intensive unrelated discussion with Alex, Philbert and Alex said that Al was ind
eed weird, quite crazy in fact, and to follow them down the road to a better tyre shop. We arrived at a padlocked door protected by the 'Extra Top Security' brand of padlock. Alex, who we have adopted as a translator who still knew virtually no english had made the call - how nice. Now we wait 5 minutes.
An older gentleman arrived who looked too soft to be working in a tyre shop. The kind of man you'd imagine making doll houses. Lets call him Gipetto. He softly pointed us towards the worlds longest trolly jack. In all seriousness, it was outside, sheltered by the weather by an old door... That covered half of it. We got him started on the tyre that looked good enough to repair whilst we removed one from our car that had been leaking today. He worked very slowly and meticulously. He used the slowest grinder in the world, and waited timed amounts for glues to set etc. It was a pleasure to see a true tradesman at work. I was desperate to take photos of him working, but between Cassie needing support from the intense language forum of three men outside, and the poor lighting inside, I only got a few rubbish photos.
It turned out Philbert was waiting at Al's to get a tyre repaired and gave up on him and lead us to Gipetto. The conversations with Alex, Philbert, Dennis and Uzbekistan were full on. Everyone desperate to practice their english and engage at every opportunity. How many children do you have? How old are you? Do you live in Sydney? What do you do for a job? We feel like we must be the most annoying people, but they seem so thirsty for interaction they put up with it.
Alex would usher me away from Cassie (just out of earshot, like just on the other side of the car) for secret men's business. It's amazing how much communication is non verbal. On one occasion he gave me a microscopic vile of 'Ross' for men - eluding to the fact that this was some magic potion and the women would come flocking. The second occasion I was ushered over to a bread loaf to Alex's closest two friends and offered a very sneaky shot of Vodka without the policeman looking. The comraderie was phenomenal even though I declined maybe four times, they still thought I was cool - One of the guys!
Alex it turns out was a military man, who had served in Chechnya (spelled wrong) as a sniper. Again to highlight the non-verbal communication, you could clearly see that it tore him up. I asked how he copes sleeping? He just shook his head very slowly and purposefully with tears in his eyes. It sent chills down my spine.
At one stage, we were escorted in Philbert's car to Alex's father-in-law's house to poach his smoked fish. I'm not a big fan of seafood at the best of times, but when offered the freshly plucked fin of a smokey, entirely dehydrated 6" long fish with such enthusiasm and sense of privledge, I had to give it a go. Well as you can imagine, it tasted of filth. Dehydrated, emaciated, unhygienic filth! Wow, did I try and pretend I liked it. As we followed him back to the car with 6 of these buggers in my hand, I made sure what was in my mouth was now on the ground. Philbert helped himself to two of them as well!
It was Philbert's car (some Toyota crown mk II with no back window) that we'd taken to drive all of two blocks. Alex had climbed into the driver's seat and quietly implied that Philbert was good at driving trucks, but not fit for driving cars. Not really sure how to take that positively because he'd just driven us here, was about to drive us back and would no doubt be barreling down the highway one day towards us!
Not sure why they have all the fancy alarm systems, climate control, but no back window. PRIORITIES GUYS! They love fake woodgrain. And I don't mean like dash insert woodgrain, I mean like keyfob woodgrain. Anything that is a remote control you can be sure it's fake plastic woodgrain.
At many opportunities, they would try and take the work away from me. Not from a 'he's not doing it right' kind of way, like a 'you're my guest, I'll do that for you' kind of way.
I was finger tightening the wheel nuts when Philbert comes over tearing strips the smokey stick of death with his teeth as easy as we'd eat a chicken tenderloin. Blood all over his hands, he gave it to Cassie insisting that she has been given the best bit. She declined. He put my wheel nuts on which are now bloody and then stepped out of the way for Alex to tighten them. Amazing.
So the net result is we now have two professionally repaired tyres, one that we fixed and one that is still shagged. I think we're going to use the shagged one first, to at least ruin it for good. If it gets us 50KM, then that's 50KM we didn't have to use one of our good ones for. That, or I might salvage the tube from it one evening if I get bored. It's a decent job breaking the bead to remove the tube, so I'll need to be very bored and energetic. 2000R ~$60AUD for half a days work, one tube and some very well done patching.
This trip is the most amazing roller-coaster. I don't think one day has been plain-sailing, but as Cassie has said below, the photos and memories are terrific. We instantly forget the bad times and remember the good times for an eternity. If anyone's read Ted Simon's - Jupiters Travells, I think he takes a few months to relax to the 'it'll all work out' mentality.
We cleaned our the fridge tonight. One of the UHT milks we brought from home inflated like a balloon and started leaking. Not really sure why, but may have had something to do with altitude changes and resulting air-pressure changes. That and the inevitable blood that leaks from meat trays encased in several plastic bags! How does it do that?!
About 40KM out of town, we threw out the fish Alex had given us. Although they probably appreciated the sunlight on our dash, we did not. Sorry world, I threw out a plastic bag too :( We were offered security escort/informed that to not camp within 40KM/60KM of town by four locals and Mum D who was relaying a comment from Jon which we shall receive shortly when we post this. We have camped 70KM out town. We're not sure what the risk actually was, except maybe baddies pretending to be broken down. Our 'No stopping for strangers' policy instituted a few days ago (after the Vodka's) was in force on our drive out of Ust Nera. Whenever we saw someone stopped, we slowed down enough so as to not shower them with rocks, but just enough to get into ramming gear! I'm sure in Australia they would call that 'threatening with a dangerous weapon' but hey, I'll deal with that later. It's weird how when threatened there is a surprising wealth of fight inside you. On our limp back to Kyumbeme
, I had certainly gone through the motions in my head of how we could slip through the Vodka's pedestrian checkpoint without running them down, but without stopping. In saying that, the my plan was less sophisticated then it sounds. It was, we'll drive 'purposefully', look and sound like we're going to run you down and hope you jump out of the way!
Wow - look how much we can write when we actually have stories to tell!
Cassie: What a day! Actually, what a three day stint we've had! First the road of bones consumed all our spare tyres plus one on the car, then today on the way to Ust Nera we got another busted tyre - as Graeme has already explained so I won't go into it. Tyres are such a boring subject at the moment. I'm paranoid at every strange sound that happens and every stone that kicks up and hits the underside of the car. We're both constantly sticking our heads out the window to look at the tyres as we're rolling along. After getting the tyres repaired today we Graeme said, "No more checking tyres unless we actually do hear or feel something worth looking at them". It's a silly dance we've been doing these past few days. Ugh, we've got to drive these thousands of kilometres of sharp rocks again from Magadan! Not looking forward to that if I'm honest. I can't believe we've gone through four tyres. That's a whole set of tyres in three days! Yikes. Thanks again Jay and Corely for the ty
re repair kit. We would still be on the road of bones if it wasn't for that little kit, and we wouldn't have made it to Ust Nera today. I had tears of gratefulness in my eyes yesterday and today when we used it...seriously I did.
Well, we are definitely on our way to Magadan so we'll see what tomorrow throws at us. Hopefully it's finally a good day of driving with no problems. I'm over problems! We're totally in the adventure spirit now. It's Magadan or bust. Haha we may bust, but it won't be for lack of trying, that's for sure.
This is a tough trip. Never during the preparation and planning did we call this trip a "holiday". We knew it wasn't going to be that. At least not until we got to Europe where we could relax and pretty much have a camping/sightseeing holiday. This isn't a walk in the park, but whenever we take a breather and take stock of what we've done and where we are, and when we look back over photos and videos from previous days, we can't help but think, what an amazing adventure. How far we've come and how much it's taken from us and of us. The first part of our trip is nearly complete. To get to Magadan has always been the priority - hence TwoMagadan. We knew it would be a heck of a lot of driving. We also know we're in for a lot of back tracking on some tough roads, but we know what we're in for which is ok, and we know some great places to camp on the way back if we can find them again.
Something I do truly miss is our washing machine at home! I've washed our clothes by hand, scrubbed them to within an inch of their life in basins, showers and rivers. Between that and helping to change tyres my hands look and feel like they belong to an old babushka!
Happy 8th birthday to Charli for the 13th! We had to call you today for your birthday while we had mobile phone reception at Ust Nera.
After getting the tyres repaired, we asked Gipetto where there would be a cafe and a grocery store. Gipetto (apologies we don't know his real name!) jumped in his car and asked us to follow him because he didn't want us to get lost. He took us to this quaint little cafe that had a small grocery store right next door. We had borsh (it's the only thing we can order without a menu) and it was again different to any of the other borsh we've had on this trip so far but still yummy. Graeme then ordered a piece of cake and a tea each. As we're sitting there eating, in comes the policeman that came to the tyre place today. His wife worked at the cafe and his daughter was also there. His daughter gave me a sprig of dill as if it were a flower (nawww, so sweet!). She then gave me two little rocks shaped like love hearts and two lollies. Graeme grabbed a stuffed echidna toy from the car and gave it to her. She was going around showing everyone in the cafe then went next door to show the
lady in there. Her dad, the policeman, spoke a bit of english and said that she was very happy with her new toy. We got a photo with them which is a lovely reminder. We also wrote in the guest book at the cafe, so if any of you are going to be stopping in Ust Nera for a cuppa, you'll see our entry.
One thing we cannot find in this country is plain potato chips. Weird. We've literally bought every single different type of potato chips we can trying to find what they translate as "plain". Ended up buying crab flavour the other day. A little bit ewww really.
Thanks again everyone for your comments and for always lifting our spirits. We are continually grateful to have such lovely people in our lives. As Graeme said in a previous blog post, those who are feeling a bit too shy to leave a comment you shouldn't be. It's a great way for us to connect with you while we're so far away.
Position: 12-07-12 18:24:38 +1000 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=64.46779,144.5056&q=64.46779,144.5056&z=16
Not new tyres ;-) Apparently it's not done out here, they just keep repairing them. That's fine though.
We started the day with a good sleep in, breakfast then a great drive to Ust Nera. Most of it was seriously good. Like much better than most of the tar roads here.
We climbed to the top of a mountain pass and pulled over to put our rubbish in the bin. Bin's here are an up-ended 2M diameter concrete pipe. Oh well, it does the job. At that point Cassie noticed our 'brand name 4wd tyre' tyre leaking. nooooo. Thankfully again in the tread of the tyre. It took four plugs... but even then not fixed and 40KM out of Ust Nera. It needed refilling every 3-5KM depending on how fast we drove. Our refilling dance is enacted very quickly. I pop the bonnet, Cassie who has the hose at her feet hops out, hands me the hose end for the compressor while she heads for the tyre. The process takes five minutes, again with a similar dance we pack up as fast as possible and start driving. Towards the end we started getting smarter. We were stopping with the puncture facing the ground so it wouldn't leak while we were filling it. That probably halved our filling time. Oh how boring it is talking about tyres.
We came into Ust Nera. We called the local contact who had mysteriously said she had forgotten her 'perfect english'. Not good. We'd passed maybe 10-20 buildings, all which looked like they had just been bombed. No signs of life. After reaching the 'town limits' sign, we crossed back over the bridge and thought we would see if we could figure this out without the contact. We got directions from the first lifeform we encountered who said drive 4KM over the bridge and tyre repairer will be on your left. Across the bridge we go again, one or two more top ups we found one! Relief we thought.
The first sign that something wasn't right is the owner (lets call him Al, as in Weird Al) said Rubles and made the money gesture before he'd even seen our car. Al was not interested in dialogue surrounding what the scenario was or even how many needed fixing. We rapidly discovered that there were no new tyres in sight. None outside, none inside. Oh crap. Al took our worst tyre (the one with the gaping bulge that we know wasn't repairable) and started working on it. Oh well, might as well see what he comes up with. All this time 'Alex' a gentleman in blue/grey camouflage was working so hard communicating with us. At this stage, Al seemed to have an assistant (which was a tall rotund smokey fellow with 3 gold teeth, we'll call him Philbert). Philbert was pulling Al into line continually. Like don't say that, you're confusing them, don't be silly etc. Eventually (some 30 minutes later) after a very intensive unrelated discussion with Alex, Philbert and Alex said that Al was ind
eed weird, quite crazy in fact, and to follow them down the road to a better tyre shop. We arrived at a padlocked door protected by the 'Extra Top Security' brand of padlock. Alex, who we have adopted as a translator who still knew virtually no english had made the call - how nice. Now we wait 5 minutes.
An older gentleman arrived who looked too soft to be working in a tyre shop. The kind of man you'd imagine making doll houses. Lets call him Gipetto. He softly pointed us towards the worlds longest trolly jack. In all seriousness, it was outside, sheltered by the weather by an old door... That covered half of it. We got him started on the tyre that looked good enough to repair whilst we removed one from our car that had been leaking today. He worked very slowly and meticulously. He used the slowest grinder in the world, and waited timed amounts for glues to set etc. It was a pleasure to see a true tradesman at work. I was desperate to take photos of him working, but between Cassie needing support from the intense language forum of three men outside, and the poor lighting inside, I only got a few rubbish photos.
It turned out Philbert was waiting at Al's to get a tyre repaired and gave up on him and lead us to Gipetto. The conversations with Alex, Philbert, Dennis and Uzbekistan were full on. Everyone desperate to practice their english and engage at every opportunity. How many children do you have? How old are you? Do you live in Sydney? What do you do for a job? We feel like we must be the most annoying people, but they seem so thirsty for interaction they put up with it.
Alex would usher me away from Cassie (just out of earshot, like just on the other side of the car) for secret men's business. It's amazing how much communication is non verbal. On one occasion he gave me a microscopic vile of 'Ross' for men - eluding to the fact that this was some magic potion and the women would come flocking. The second occasion I was ushered over to a bread loaf to Alex's closest two friends and offered a very sneaky shot of Vodka without the policeman looking. The comraderie was phenomenal even though I declined maybe four times, they still thought I was cool - One of the guys!
Alex it turns out was a military man, who had served in Chechnya (spelled wrong) as a sniper. Again to highlight the non-verbal communication, you could clearly see that it tore him up. I asked how he copes sleeping? He just shook his head very slowly and purposefully with tears in his eyes. It sent chills down my spine.
At one stage, we were escorted in Philbert's car to Alex's father-in-law's house to poach his smoked fish. I'm not a big fan of seafood at the best of times, but when offered the freshly plucked fin of a smokey, entirely dehydrated 6" long fish with such enthusiasm and sense of privledge, I had to give it a go. Well as you can imagine, it tasted of filth. Dehydrated, emaciated, unhygienic filth! Wow, did I try and pretend I liked it. As we followed him back to the car with 6 of these buggers in my hand, I made sure what was in my mouth was now on the ground. Philbert helped himself to two of them as well!
It was Philbert's car (some Toyota crown mk II with no back window) that we'd taken to drive all of two blocks. Alex had climbed into the driver's seat and quietly implied that Philbert was good at driving trucks, but not fit for driving cars. Not really sure how to take that positively because he'd just driven us here, was about to drive us back and would no doubt be barreling down the highway one day towards us!
Not sure why they have all the fancy alarm systems, climate control, but no back window. PRIORITIES GUYS! They love fake woodgrain. And I don't mean like dash insert woodgrain, I mean like keyfob woodgrain. Anything that is a remote control you can be sure it's fake plastic woodgrain.
At many opportunities, they would try and take the work away from me. Not from a 'he's not doing it right' kind of way, like a 'you're my guest, I'll do that for you' kind of way.
I was finger tightening the wheel nuts when Philbert comes over tearing strips the smokey stick of death with his teeth as easy as we'd eat a chicken tenderloin. Blood all over his hands, he gave it to Cassie insisting that she has been given the best bit. She declined. He put my wheel nuts on which are now bloody and then stepped out of the way for Alex to tighten them. Amazing.
So the net result is we now have two professionally repaired tyres, one that we fixed and one that is still shagged. I think we're going to use the shagged one first, to at least ruin it for good. If it gets us 50KM, then that's 50KM we didn't have to use one of our good ones for. That, or I might salvage the tube from it one evening if I get bored. It's a decent job breaking the bead to remove the tube, so I'll need to be very bored and energetic. 2000R ~$60AUD for half a days work, one tube and some very well done patching.
This trip is the most amazing roller-coaster. I don't think one day has been plain-sailing, but as Cassie has said below, the photos and memories are terrific. We instantly forget the bad times and remember the good times for an eternity. If anyone's read Ted Simon's - Jupiters Travells, I think he takes a few months to relax to the 'it'll all work out' mentality.
We cleaned our the fridge tonight. One of the UHT milks we brought from home inflated like a balloon and started leaking. Not really sure why, but may have had something to do with altitude changes and resulting air-pressure changes. That and the inevitable blood that leaks from meat trays encased in several plastic bags! How does it do that?!
About 40KM out of town, we threw out the fish Alex had given us. Although they probably appreciated the sunlight on our dash, we did not. Sorry world, I threw out a plastic bag too :( We were offered security escort/informed that to not camp within 40KM/60KM of town by four locals and Mum D who was relaying a comment from Jon which we shall receive shortly when we post this. We have camped 70KM out town. We're not sure what the risk actually was, except maybe baddies pretending to be broken down. Our 'No stopping for strangers' policy instituted a few days ago (after the Vodka's) was in force on our drive out of Ust Nera. Whenever we saw someone stopped, we slowed down enough so as to not shower them with rocks, but just enough to get into ramming gear! I'm sure in Australia they would call that 'threatening with a dangerous weapon' but hey, I'll deal with that later. It's weird how when threatened there is a surprising wealth of fight inside you. On our limp back to Kyumbeme
, I had certainly gone through the motions in my head of how we could slip through the Vodka's pedestrian checkpoint without running them down, but without stopping. In saying that, the my plan was less sophisticated then it sounds. It was, we'll drive 'purposefully', look and sound like we're going to run you down and hope you jump out of the way!
Wow - look how much we can write when we actually have stories to tell!
Cassie: What a day! Actually, what a three day stint we've had! First the road of bones consumed all our spare tyres plus one on the car, then today on the way to Ust Nera we got another busted tyre - as Graeme has already explained so I won't go into it. Tyres are such a boring subject at the moment. I'm paranoid at every strange sound that happens and every stone that kicks up and hits the underside of the car. We're both constantly sticking our heads out the window to look at the tyres as we're rolling along. After getting the tyres repaired today we Graeme said, "No more checking tyres unless we actually do hear or feel something worth looking at them". It's a silly dance we've been doing these past few days. Ugh, we've got to drive these thousands of kilometres of sharp rocks again from Magadan! Not looking forward to that if I'm honest. I can't believe we've gone through four tyres. That's a whole set of tyres in three days! Yikes. Thanks again Jay and Corely for the ty
re repair kit. We would still be on the road of bones if it wasn't for that little kit, and we wouldn't have made it to Ust Nera today. I had tears of gratefulness in my eyes yesterday and today when we used it...seriously I did.
Well, we are definitely on our way to Magadan so we'll see what tomorrow throws at us. Hopefully it's finally a good day of driving with no problems. I'm over problems! We're totally in the adventure spirit now. It's Magadan or bust. Haha we may bust, but it won't be for lack of trying, that's for sure.
This is a tough trip. Never during the preparation and planning did we call this trip a "holiday". We knew it wasn't going to be that. At least not until we got to Europe where we could relax and pretty much have a camping/sightseeing holiday. This isn't a walk in the park, but whenever we take a breather and take stock of what we've done and where we are, and when we look back over photos and videos from previous days, we can't help but think, what an amazing adventure. How far we've come and how much it's taken from us and of us. The first part of our trip is nearly complete. To get to Magadan has always been the priority - hence TwoMagadan. We knew it would be a heck of a lot of driving. We also know we're in for a lot of back tracking on some tough roads, but we know what we're in for which is ok, and we know some great places to camp on the way back if we can find them again.
Something I do truly miss is our washing machine at home! I've washed our clothes by hand, scrubbed them to within an inch of their life in basins, showers and rivers. Between that and helping to change tyres my hands look and feel like they belong to an old babushka!
Happy 8th birthday to Charli for the 13th! We had to call you today for your birthday while we had mobile phone reception at Ust Nera.
After getting the tyres repaired, we asked Gipetto where there would be a cafe and a grocery store. Gipetto (apologies we don't know his real name!) jumped in his car and asked us to follow him because he didn't want us to get lost. He took us to this quaint little cafe that had a small grocery store right next door. We had borsh (it's the only thing we can order without a menu) and it was again different to any of the other borsh we've had on this trip so far but still yummy. Graeme then ordered a piece of cake and a tea each. As we're sitting there eating, in comes the policeman that came to the tyre place today. His wife worked at the cafe and his daughter was also there. His daughter gave me a sprig of dill as if it were a flower (nawww, so sweet!). She then gave me two little rocks shaped like love hearts and two lollies. Graeme grabbed a stuffed echidna toy from the car and gave it to her. She was going around showing everyone in the cafe then went next door to show the
lady in there. Her dad, the policeman, spoke a bit of english and said that she was very happy with her new toy. We got a photo with them which is a lovely reminder. We also wrote in the guest book at the cafe, so if any of you are going to be stopping in Ust Nera for a cuppa, you'll see our entry.
One thing we cannot find in this country is plain potato chips. Weird. We've literally bought every single different type of potato chips we can trying to find what they translate as "plain". Ended up buying crab flavour the other day. A little bit ewww really.
Thanks again everyone for your comments and for always lifting our spirits. We are continually grateful to have such lovely people in our lives. As Graeme said in a previous blog post, those who are feeling a bit too shy to leave a comment you shouldn't be. It's a great way for us to connect with you while we're so far away.
Position: 12-07-12 18:24:38 +1000 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=64.46779,144.5056&q=64.46779,144.5056&z=16
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Today & Responses to comments
Graeme: We've stopped about 15:30 by a river, half way to Ust Nera.
Virtually no mosquitoes, but a few big flies. I've had a proper wash which has been a long time coming.
The day started with us leaving for Kyubeme with plans of checking our emails to see if we'd heard about tyres in Ust Nera. We took off from our camp near Tomtor driving very cautiously with our 'no spare tyre' mentality. About half way (as far as you could get from the destination, and as far as you could get from the starting point), we pulled over to yet another flat tyre. Thankfully (if you can say that) this puncture was in the tread which meant we could fix it with the plug kit... we hoped. It looked a bit wide, like it couldn't be fixed by a single plug. We followed the directions and it seemed to work. A bit skeptically we began to re-inflate the tyre. It held, just enough to do maybe 5KM before needing to re-inflate. We put one more plug in and it seemed to hold enough to not hear air coming out. We hit the road again and after maybe 10KM it needed re-inflating. I think we put one more plug in, re-inflated a bit higher and drove. We now could get 20KM before needing
to re-inflate which although slow progress, would get us there. We came across the site where Earl & Shaniqua Vodka (made up names) left their half finished bottle of vodka. Whilst I got the hose ready to top up the tyre, Cassie picked up the bottle, moved it off the road, and got the biggest rock she could fine and smashed it in one fowl throw. I'm not sure if the feeling was one of rebellion, the lifting of a curse, or some kind of vendetta but everything seemed to look up from there. I checked the tyre pressure at the moment cassie smashed the bottle and it hadn't dropped a single PSI. I'm starting to get superstitious!
We received all your messages and we'll reply to them below at the bottom of this post. The consistent message is that we must push on to Ust Nera as resources are scarcer and the distances larger if we were to return to Yakutsk.
Cassie is making a scene bathing in the river as she fights flies off. This might sound odd but she's struggling more then I would have expected. Maybe the difference is that I got a good nap in this afternoon where I think she did not. I do genuinley feel we're getting in the spirit of this adventure. The depressing post I made last night was just that. We're good now. As quick as we go down, we bounce back just as quick. We're looking forward to resting, repairing and restocking in Magadan.
Thank you Jay and Corley for the tyre plug kit - it seriously saved our arses today.
Cassie: Ok, first thing's first, let me set the record straight on my complaining whilst bathing in a river. The water was shockingly cold, massive flies were buzzing around my head constantly (you know that constant whirring sound they make...annoying as!), I had to wash my hair and did I mention the water was bloody cold!? But, alas, it's so wonderful to be clean again! And I managed to wash a bunch of clothes too which are now hanging around inside our car and should be dry by tomorrow.
We're quite exhausted from the ups and downs and stresses that we've experienced over the past two days. So we've decided to stop early and head to Ust Nera tomorrow when we feel more on top of things. Having gone through our two spares and then busting another tyre today, I couldn't believe it. I was so angry and cursing the road, cursing the mosquitoes and their plague proportions, cursing the Mr & Mrs Vodka - the drunkards who left me feeling violated yesterday. To try and explain it further, they pretty much just forced us to take them to their property and we thought oh well, not ideal having them perched up in the back with no restraints but surely it must be close by because they were on foot afterall. Getting the flat tyre in their "driveway" was awful enough. They didn't offer any help or any water, nothing, while we struggled to change a completely flat tyre in the dirt and rubbish around their property. Then, just as we're packing up after successfully changing the
tyre, they come out again carrying a sack of something and saying that we will now take them to Tomtor. I was saying "Nyet, nyet" and kept packing up trying to discourage them. There were a bunch of four and we were to take two of them. So they threw their sack of crap in the back and jumped in. I at least managed to tell them not to smoke in the car. Only a small win. When we got the second flat just up the road I lost it. I had to walk away for a bit then came back, the guy was already getting out of the car, I told the lady to get out, grabbed their sack of crap and put it in the middle of the road and waved them bye bye. I was so disheartened to see that they had been drinking their vodka in the back of our car, spilling it everywhere - on the floor, on our bedding. And to top it off they stunk to high heaven! I felt totally violated that these people didn't give a rats about us, our precious few belongings or our situation. They just perched themselves on the edge of t
he road and continued to drink their vodka, watching as Graeme and I were working on the car. I can't type the words here that were going through my head. Our car is our home whilst we're on this trip. So imagine if a stranger knocked on your front door and said let me in, I want to sit on your lounge and didn't let up until you let them in. Once in they spilled alcohol all over your lounge and your floor and stunk up the place. It's exactly the same. Needless to say, that's the last person we help like that. No more people in the car. It's not safe for them and it's not safe for us. I realise that sounds really harsh, and we may be the people in need at sometime during our trip, but this last experience was just too much for me to handle. When we first picked them up they weren't drunk. They must've hit the bottle hard during the length of time it took for us to change the tyre. Anyway, in the end, a small truck came down the road heading in the direction of their home. The
guy stopped the truck driver and obviously asked if he would drive them back to their property again. Thank goodness they left when they did, otherwise we'd still be stuck on the road of bones with flat tyres.
The people who helped us in Tomtor were so lovely. I was going from place to place asking if anyone could fix our tyres and at one stage a rough as guts looking Russian lady was so rude to me from the moment she realised I was a tourist and not even Russian. It was clear there was no help to be had there. So after that I rang Bolot. It was lovely to hear a familiar voice of someone who was willing to help us. Then before we knew it, a little truck pulled up beside us with the kindest looking couple in it. The gentleman's name is Yakov and sadly I can't remember his wife's name. They took us back to their home where they made a number of phone calls. They didn't speak a word of english so the conversation was certainly interesting. In the end, we waited in their lounge room until Andre and his wife, Sargolini came to help us. Andre and Sargolini took us to a place to buy tyre tubes then back their home to put the tubes in our tyres. Sargolini and I had a conversation for the h
ours while we waited for the guys to finish with the tyres. We used the language translator on her iPhone extensively which was funny at times. She even took me to the Tomtor airport just out of interest. Amazing little place. The runway is in the cow paddock and the plane comes every Thursday. We gave their children a gift of a little stuffed kangaroo and a koala. Thank you, Denise for giving those to us. They were a brilliant way to say thank you, they loved them.
It's certainly been the toughest 48hrs of our trip so far. Way too much stress for me if I'm honest. I hope we aren't put in such a predicament again, although, we've still got the rest of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Europe to go through. Woah, it's sounding too immense at the moment. Hopefully we can get brand new tyres in Ust Nera tomorrow and our worries will go back to manageable again.
Now for our replies to comments:...
Sean's friends and family: Thank you so much for passing on that message to us. Found the fuel station no problem.
Gary: Yep, the tyre pressures may have been part of the problem. But then again, once we got off that road we haven't had any more problems. Fingers crossed!
Denise (Mum D): Yes we do have the Long Way Round DVD with us. It's a little bit edited and not quite what we're seeing, but it still made for some good inspiration.
Green Chris: Don't be green. "It's not that easy being green" - Kermit the Frog - YouTube it.
Jon: Thanks for reassuring our family and friends of our situation. We continue to be amazed and humbled by your generosity. Thank you also for the advice to go to Ust Nera. Both you and Bolot said we should go that way, so that's really helped our decision making process.
Nora: We were totally despairing earlier today. But we're good now and will hang in there!
Paul: Cable ties are our friends, yes they are the duct tape of the plastic world. We have some of that too! Thanks for the encouragement. Eating our way through Europe is really tempting, but we're going to keep on truckin'! ;)
David: I'm super appreciative of your kind words and everything. Speachless in fact.
Everyone else: I know there are a lot of people reading that may not have the confidence to post a comment. We encourage you to and we appreciate your interest in our adventure. I hope it helps people in future.
INSERT GPS LOCATION BEFORE SENDING
Virtually no mosquitoes, but a few big flies. I've had a proper wash which has been a long time coming.
The day started with us leaving for Kyubeme with plans of checking our emails to see if we'd heard about tyres in Ust Nera. We took off from our camp near Tomtor driving very cautiously with our 'no spare tyre' mentality. About half way (as far as you could get from the destination, and as far as you could get from the starting point), we pulled over to yet another flat tyre. Thankfully (if you can say that) this puncture was in the tread which meant we could fix it with the plug kit... we hoped. It looked a bit wide, like it couldn't be fixed by a single plug. We followed the directions and it seemed to work. A bit skeptically we began to re-inflate the tyre. It held, just enough to do maybe 5KM before needing to re-inflate. We put one more plug in and it seemed to hold enough to not hear air coming out. We hit the road again and after maybe 10KM it needed re-inflating. I think we put one more plug in, re-inflated a bit higher and drove. We now could get 20KM before needing
to re-inflate which although slow progress, would get us there. We came across the site where Earl & Shaniqua Vodka (made up names) left their half finished bottle of vodka. Whilst I got the hose ready to top up the tyre, Cassie picked up the bottle, moved it off the road, and got the biggest rock she could fine and smashed it in one fowl throw. I'm not sure if the feeling was one of rebellion, the lifting of a curse, or some kind of vendetta but everything seemed to look up from there. I checked the tyre pressure at the moment cassie smashed the bottle and it hadn't dropped a single PSI. I'm starting to get superstitious!
We received all your messages and we'll reply to them below at the bottom of this post. The consistent message is that we must push on to Ust Nera as resources are scarcer and the distances larger if we were to return to Yakutsk.
Cassie is making a scene bathing in the river as she fights flies off. This might sound odd but she's struggling more then I would have expected. Maybe the difference is that I got a good nap in this afternoon where I think she did not. I do genuinley feel we're getting in the spirit of this adventure. The depressing post I made last night was just that. We're good now. As quick as we go down, we bounce back just as quick. We're looking forward to resting, repairing and restocking in Magadan.
Thank you Jay and Corley for the tyre plug kit - it seriously saved our arses today.
Cassie: Ok, first thing's first, let me set the record straight on my complaining whilst bathing in a river. The water was shockingly cold, massive flies were buzzing around my head constantly (you know that constant whirring sound they make...annoying as!), I had to wash my hair and did I mention the water was bloody cold!? But, alas, it's so wonderful to be clean again! And I managed to wash a bunch of clothes too which are now hanging around inside our car and should be dry by tomorrow.
We're quite exhausted from the ups and downs and stresses that we've experienced over the past two days. So we've decided to stop early and head to Ust Nera tomorrow when we feel more on top of things. Having gone through our two spares and then busting another tyre today, I couldn't believe it. I was so angry and cursing the road, cursing the mosquitoes and their plague proportions, cursing the Mr & Mrs Vodka - the drunkards who left me feeling violated yesterday. To try and explain it further, they pretty much just forced us to take them to their property and we thought oh well, not ideal having them perched up in the back with no restraints but surely it must be close by because they were on foot afterall. Getting the flat tyre in their "driveway" was awful enough. They didn't offer any help or any water, nothing, while we struggled to change a completely flat tyre in the dirt and rubbish around their property. Then, just as we're packing up after successfully changing the
tyre, they come out again carrying a sack of something and saying that we will now take them to Tomtor. I was saying "Nyet, nyet" and kept packing up trying to discourage them. There were a bunch of four and we were to take two of them. So they threw their sack of crap in the back and jumped in. I at least managed to tell them not to smoke in the car. Only a small win. When we got the second flat just up the road I lost it. I had to walk away for a bit then came back, the guy was already getting out of the car, I told the lady to get out, grabbed their sack of crap and put it in the middle of the road and waved them bye bye. I was so disheartened to see that they had been drinking their vodka in the back of our car, spilling it everywhere - on the floor, on our bedding. And to top it off they stunk to high heaven! I felt totally violated that these people didn't give a rats about us, our precious few belongings or our situation. They just perched themselves on the edge of t
he road and continued to drink their vodka, watching as Graeme and I were working on the car. I can't type the words here that were going through my head. Our car is our home whilst we're on this trip. So imagine if a stranger knocked on your front door and said let me in, I want to sit on your lounge and didn't let up until you let them in. Once in they spilled alcohol all over your lounge and your floor and stunk up the place. It's exactly the same. Needless to say, that's the last person we help like that. No more people in the car. It's not safe for them and it's not safe for us. I realise that sounds really harsh, and we may be the people in need at sometime during our trip, but this last experience was just too much for me to handle. When we first picked them up they weren't drunk. They must've hit the bottle hard during the length of time it took for us to change the tyre. Anyway, in the end, a small truck came down the road heading in the direction of their home. The
guy stopped the truck driver and obviously asked if he would drive them back to their property again. Thank goodness they left when they did, otherwise we'd still be stuck on the road of bones with flat tyres.
The people who helped us in Tomtor were so lovely. I was going from place to place asking if anyone could fix our tyres and at one stage a rough as guts looking Russian lady was so rude to me from the moment she realised I was a tourist and not even Russian. It was clear there was no help to be had there. So after that I rang Bolot. It was lovely to hear a familiar voice of someone who was willing to help us. Then before we knew it, a little truck pulled up beside us with the kindest looking couple in it. The gentleman's name is Yakov and sadly I can't remember his wife's name. They took us back to their home where they made a number of phone calls. They didn't speak a word of english so the conversation was certainly interesting. In the end, we waited in their lounge room until Andre and his wife, Sargolini came to help us. Andre and Sargolini took us to a place to buy tyre tubes then back their home to put the tubes in our tyres. Sargolini and I had a conversation for the h
ours while we waited for the guys to finish with the tyres. We used the language translator on her iPhone extensively which was funny at times. She even took me to the Tomtor airport just out of interest. Amazing little place. The runway is in the cow paddock and the plane comes every Thursday. We gave their children a gift of a little stuffed kangaroo and a koala. Thank you, Denise for giving those to us. They were a brilliant way to say thank you, they loved them.
It's certainly been the toughest 48hrs of our trip so far. Way too much stress for me if I'm honest. I hope we aren't put in such a predicament again, although, we've still got the rest of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Europe to go through. Woah, it's sounding too immense at the moment. Hopefully we can get brand new tyres in Ust Nera tomorrow and our worries will go back to manageable again.
Now for our replies to comments:...
Sean's friends and family: Thank you so much for passing on that message to us. Found the fuel station no problem.
Gary: Yep, the tyre pressures may have been part of the problem. But then again, once we got off that road we haven't had any more problems. Fingers crossed!
Denise (Mum D): Yes we do have the Long Way Round DVD with us. It's a little bit edited and not quite what we're seeing, but it still made for some good inspiration.
Green Chris: Don't be green. "It's not that easy being green" - Kermit the Frog - YouTube it.
Jon: Thanks for reassuring our family and friends of our situation. We continue to be amazed and humbled by your generosity. Thank you also for the advice to go to Ust Nera. Both you and Bolot said we should go that way, so that's really helped our decision making process.
Nora: We were totally despairing earlier today. But we're good now and will hang in there!
Paul: Cable ties are our friends, yes they are the duct tape of the plastic world. We have some of that too! Thanks for the encouragement. Eating our way through Europe is really tempting, but we're going to keep on truckin'! ;)
David: I'm super appreciative of your kind words and everything. Speachless in fact.
Everyone else: I know there are a lot of people reading that may not have the confidence to post a comment. We encourage you to and we appreciate your interest in our adventure. I hope it helps people in future.
INSERT GPS LOCATION BEFORE SENDING
Correction
I quoted the wrong tyre size last night. It's LT265/75/R16
We're just emailing Bolot now to see if he can sort some tyres. We're just about to set off back to Kuyubeme.
Wish us luck.
We're just emailing Bolot now to see if he can sort some tyres. We're just about to set off back to Kuyubeme.
Wish us luck.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
I don't know where to start
Wow - I have no idea where to begin. I feel almost catatonic, perhaps it's fatigue. Perhaps I just need to document this
Today started really well, great sleep, relaxed start to the day. I spent about 30-45 minutes walking up down and across the river we needed to cross. We crossed it successfully, got some decent video, and enjoyed the first 50km or so in our wonderful adventure on the old summer road.
We picked up a husband and wife 'hunter' who were nice enough, and eventually dropped them at thier dwelling. As we pulled into the driveway, that old 'tisss tiss tiss' as the wheel rotates indicating a puncture in the rear left. That's ok I thought, we changed the tyre in their front yard accompanied by a grazy old guy and a young guy who dropped in, speaking limited english but very nice.
We changed the tire, a puncture in the sidewall, about 1" from the tread. Damn, can't fix it with the plug kit. Jinxed by my stupid video I thought.
As we were packing up to leave, the 'hunter' and his wife came out (after all the hard work was done) with a sac which sounded to be full of glass bottles. Difficult to negotiate our way out of it, we proceeded to give them a lift towards Tomtor, some 100KM away. We set off again, a bit bitter at being roped into this again, but happy to not be stranded. No less than 5KM down the road, the familiar sound was heard again, same wheel, rear left. This tyre was brand new - seriously! still had all the little molding 'hairs'. Oh crap, that's our two spare tyres consumed, 55KM into the old summer road. At first I thought it had just came off the bead. With some air and effort it seated again! success I thought, but as I ran my hand around the back side, a 1" section had busted through. I was not happy, but Cassie was loosing her cool with our passengers. She somehow escorted them out of the car. Low and behold they are drinking Vodka. Our first citation of the liquid in common cult
ure. She has a whole story to tell here, I guess I'm just unloading off my chest and she'll clarify the details. Again, unwilling to assist, they sat on the shoulder drinking whilst not ten minutes ago, I'm repeating this process. Thankfully a truck came by and they got a lift back to thier dwelling. Phew.
We then had to make the call whether to continue to Tomtor (95KM away) with no spare tyres with view to getting new tyres, or go back to Kyemebe (no doubt spelt wrong) which only had a fuel station, then drive ~270KM to Ust Nera. We were under the impression at this stage that the road was open. We nursed the car and our new (used) spare tyre at no more than 40KM/H to Tomtor. During this time, it occurred to us that maybe our bad fortune with tyres was a result of underinflated tyres from taking on 150-200KG over one wheel without increasing pressure. When we changed to the 1st spare, we adjusted the pressure back down in line with the same tyre on the axle (1.75bar). It didn't cross our mind that this could have been the problem, because without the load, we'd done at least 1500KM at these pressures. It may not be significant enough, but maybe it was the straw that broke the camels back... twice. As soon as we dumped those hicks, no problems.
Sorry Jon & Amanda, but we were not in the right frame of mind to enjoy Tomtor - I don't think we've yet learned this patience thing. Delays = stress in my mind. Well, I'm not sure if it's delays that stress me, but the uncertainty that of the fact that the tyres would not be delivered to here. We feel entirely trapped.
After maybe 30 minutes of discussions with some local contacts Bolot organised, A gentleman and his wife arrived in their Nissan GQ Safari Patrol. He (Andre) said we could fit 'camera' to our tyres which meant tubes. These are tubeless tyres, but it has been known to work. They quoted 4000R, 2000R for the tubes and 2000R for the effort to fit them. Well, he certainly earnt his 2000R because that was a difficult job. I'm very appreciative of his efforts, but I suspect the damage to the tyres can't be rectified by tubes. It may get us a few kilometers, but not much more. One tyre (which I thought had the least damage) he indicated was to be a spare, not good enough to use. The other, which has a serious bulge our the side with the tube sticking out is apparently the good one. Maybe I interpreted the wrong way around, but either way, we're rolling as if we have no more spare tyres. Andre runs at 30PSI or 2.1Bar which we have increased ours to. There's a chance we can fix damage
in the tread but we have no hope in the sidewall where the damage keeps occouring. Andre's wife (Sargolini) gifted some blue 'pole of cold' certificates so we can show the world how awesome we are. Even though, in retrospect we will have hated every second of our mechanised entrapment. Andre and Sargolini were lovley. Seriously. Great interaction today with these people. They've given us there skype and email which is amazing.
There is a very strong possibility that Ust Nera will also not have our tyres. It's been suggested that we ask Bolot to order some for us, but that is too imposing for our liking. He won't take any payment which is a concept I struggle with. I have no problem asking people for things if I can pay them somehow.
Our tyres are LT265/65/17, Toyota 5 stud to suite 2001 78 series LC if anyone wants to magically put some on our roof rack overnight?. Santa? Jebus?
I think after our dinner conversation that the plan is:
Option A)
-Limp back to Kyemebe with our four hopefully good tyres (and two very suspect spares)
-Get fuel (currently we have about 60%, which is still heaps) The diesel pump wasn't clearly marked in Tomtor, so we're not willing to risk getting the wrong fuel.
-We write/call to Bolot asking him to check stock of our tyres in Ust Nera.
If they have some, or can have some within two days, have Bolot order them, and we continue to Magadan.
Option B)
We'll also confirm if someone in Yakutsk has some. If they have some, we'll go to Yakutsk, get tyres and come back (four days wasted)
Option C)
If this all gets a bit much, we either skip Magadan and head to Mongolia, but we'll no doubt be in line for similar problems. I don't really want to do this, because I know deep down, we won't ever come this way again. Except maybe if they invent hover cars, but then again, Russia won't stock hover juice. And I really doubt we'd ever fly Airoflot to Magadan.
Option D)
Torch the car and fly to Europe. (said in jest)
Option E) Ship the car from Magadan or Vladivostok home whilst we drown our failure in French food and German autobarns.
It's embarrassing to admit defeat, but tyres is one of those things that if we can't get, we're absolutely stuck. This is Russia, we have no idea about Mongolia or Kazakhstan.
Naysayers - you might be right - we can't hack it. I think we're too young for this - there, I said it. We don't have the maturity or patience it takes for this place. Everyone always rubbishes me because I can't relax. I really think I can relax, but only when I'm confident in process. I'd say sitting for three or four days in a tyre shop full of uncertainty waiting on a delivery. We kept saying today 'Embrace the crazyness' Yep - agree. We did with big smiles and laughs, until we lost two tyres - that wiped the smiles right off our faces.
Thanks everyone for your support. I hope we don't let you down, but I'm not above admitting that we're struggling today. Lets see what tomorrow brings!
Today started really well, great sleep, relaxed start to the day. I spent about 30-45 minutes walking up down and across the river we needed to cross. We crossed it successfully, got some decent video, and enjoyed the first 50km or so in our wonderful adventure on the old summer road.
We picked up a husband and wife 'hunter' who were nice enough, and eventually dropped them at thier dwelling. As we pulled into the driveway, that old 'tisss tiss tiss' as the wheel rotates indicating a puncture in the rear left. That's ok I thought, we changed the tyre in their front yard accompanied by a grazy old guy and a young guy who dropped in, speaking limited english but very nice.
We changed the tire, a puncture in the sidewall, about 1" from the tread. Damn, can't fix it with the plug kit. Jinxed by my stupid video I thought.
As we were packing up to leave, the 'hunter' and his wife came out (after all the hard work was done) with a sac which sounded to be full of glass bottles. Difficult to negotiate our way out of it, we proceeded to give them a lift towards Tomtor, some 100KM away. We set off again, a bit bitter at being roped into this again, but happy to not be stranded. No less than 5KM down the road, the familiar sound was heard again, same wheel, rear left. This tyre was brand new - seriously! still had all the little molding 'hairs'. Oh crap, that's our two spare tyres consumed, 55KM into the old summer road. At first I thought it had just came off the bead. With some air and effort it seated again! success I thought, but as I ran my hand around the back side, a 1" section had busted through. I was not happy, but Cassie was loosing her cool with our passengers. She somehow escorted them out of the car. Low and behold they are drinking Vodka. Our first citation of the liquid in common cult
ure. She has a whole story to tell here, I guess I'm just unloading off my chest and she'll clarify the details. Again, unwilling to assist, they sat on the shoulder drinking whilst not ten minutes ago, I'm repeating this process. Thankfully a truck came by and they got a lift back to thier dwelling. Phew.
We then had to make the call whether to continue to Tomtor (95KM away) with no spare tyres with view to getting new tyres, or go back to Kyemebe (no doubt spelt wrong) which only had a fuel station, then drive ~270KM to Ust Nera. We were under the impression at this stage that the road was open. We nursed the car and our new (used) spare tyre at no more than 40KM/H to Tomtor. During this time, it occurred to us that maybe our bad fortune with tyres was a result of underinflated tyres from taking on 150-200KG over one wheel without increasing pressure. When we changed to the 1st spare, we adjusted the pressure back down in line with the same tyre on the axle (1.75bar). It didn't cross our mind that this could have been the problem, because without the load, we'd done at least 1500KM at these pressures. It may not be significant enough, but maybe it was the straw that broke the camels back... twice. As soon as we dumped those hicks, no problems.
Sorry Jon & Amanda, but we were not in the right frame of mind to enjoy Tomtor - I don't think we've yet learned this patience thing. Delays = stress in my mind. Well, I'm not sure if it's delays that stress me, but the uncertainty that of the fact that the tyres would not be delivered to here. We feel entirely trapped.
After maybe 30 minutes of discussions with some local contacts Bolot organised, A gentleman and his wife arrived in their Nissan GQ Safari Patrol. He (Andre) said we could fit 'camera' to our tyres which meant tubes. These are tubeless tyres, but it has been known to work. They quoted 4000R, 2000R for the tubes and 2000R for the effort to fit them. Well, he certainly earnt his 2000R because that was a difficult job. I'm very appreciative of his efforts, but I suspect the damage to the tyres can't be rectified by tubes. It may get us a few kilometers, but not much more. One tyre (which I thought had the least damage) he indicated was to be a spare, not good enough to use. The other, which has a serious bulge our the side with the tube sticking out is apparently the good one. Maybe I interpreted the wrong way around, but either way, we're rolling as if we have no more spare tyres. Andre runs at 30PSI or 2.1Bar which we have increased ours to. There's a chance we can fix damage
in the tread but we have no hope in the sidewall where the damage keeps occouring. Andre's wife (Sargolini) gifted some blue 'pole of cold' certificates so we can show the world how awesome we are. Even though, in retrospect we will have hated every second of our mechanised entrapment. Andre and Sargolini were lovley. Seriously. Great interaction today with these people. They've given us there skype and email which is amazing.
There is a very strong possibility that Ust Nera will also not have our tyres. It's been suggested that we ask Bolot to order some for us, but that is too imposing for our liking. He won't take any payment which is a concept I struggle with. I have no problem asking people for things if I can pay them somehow.
Our tyres are LT265/65/17, Toyota 5 stud to suite 2001 78 series LC if anyone wants to magically put some on our roof rack overnight?. Santa? Jebus?
I think after our dinner conversation that the plan is:
Option A)
-Limp back to Kyemebe with our four hopefully good tyres (and two very suspect spares)
-Get fuel (currently we have about 60%, which is still heaps) The diesel pump wasn't clearly marked in Tomtor, so we're not willing to risk getting the wrong fuel.
-We write/call to Bolot asking him to check stock of our tyres in Ust Nera.
If they have some, or can have some within two days, have Bolot order them, and we continue to Magadan.
Option B)
We'll also confirm if someone in Yakutsk has some. If they have some, we'll go to Yakutsk, get tyres and come back (four days wasted)
Option C)
If this all gets a bit much, we either skip Magadan and head to Mongolia, but we'll no doubt be in line for similar problems. I don't really want to do this, because I know deep down, we won't ever come this way again. Except maybe if they invent hover cars, but then again, Russia won't stock hover juice. And I really doubt we'd ever fly Airoflot to Magadan.
Option D)
Torch the car and fly to Europe. (said in jest)
Option E) Ship the car from Magadan or Vladivostok home whilst we drown our failure in French food and German autobarns.
It's embarrassing to admit defeat, but tyres is one of those things that if we can't get, we're absolutely stuck. This is Russia, we have no idea about Mongolia or Kazakhstan.
Naysayers - you might be right - we can't hack it. I think we're too young for this - there, I said it. We don't have the maturity or patience it takes for this place. Everyone always rubbishes me because I can't relax. I really think I can relax, but only when I'm confident in process. I'd say sitting for three or four days in a tyre shop full of uncertainty waiting on a delivery. We kept saying today 'Embrace the crazyness' Yep - agree. We did with big smiles and laughs, until we lost two tyres - that wiped the smiles right off our faces.
Thanks everyone for your support. I hope we don't let you down, but I'm not above admitting that we're struggling today. Lets see what tomorrow brings!
Monday, July 9, 2012
A picture - your welcome
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=63.43419,140.5943&q=63.43419,140.5943&z=16
#END
Message from:
Graeme: This post has no title because we are speechless. Is that a bit corny? Anyway, it's a result of having driven one of the most scenic roads on this planet.
The road from Khandyga to Kyubyme - wow X 3. I regretted bringing the DSLR camera as it's very bulky in it's waterproof box, and changing lenses is tiresome when compared to how flexible our new video camera is. I think however it may have paid for itself. We've captured maybe 200 stills, 100 of which are stunning. Not artsy stunning, but the subject is captivating.
These Russians know roadworks. Well kinda. They don't do it by half at any stage. If they need to repair a bit of road, they build a diversion. What they don't do well is signs. We would have sped past 30X 20kph signs all of which indicating nothing. Crying wolf gets old.... except this one time. We came over the crest of a hill at 60kph to a surprise stream having cut it's way through the road surface, by about one foot deep, by about 5 meters wide. We pulled up in time, but only just.
We got 5th gear today... in low range. In fact, we haven't used 5th gear since the turnoff to Tynda. At one stage in our road works today, we waited ten minutes for a bulldozer to clear a path for us. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful, but there is no way anything less would have made it up that muddy boulder slope.
Today, at the top of one of the most breathtaking mountain passes I've ever seen, I discovered oil... a lot of oil! my mind turned to panic, thinking the oil spatters down the side of the car and on the back window is coming from the engine. I discovered it was our half full oil bottle on the roof leaking. gawddammit! It's filthy, even after wiping it off today with a paper towel, todays dust has stock to it like paint. I _think_ I've got it all off tonight with our bin bucket, dish washing liquid and about an hour.
Damage report: The cable tie that held the trailer light connector has snapped, leaving the trailer light connector hanging. It has been reattached with another cable tie. nah I actually did stash it into the frame of the car as I won't be using it for a while.... then cable-tied it. As you might have picked up, this is a bit of a mock damage report. Thankfully nothing big has gone wrong.
From our spot message, you will have noticed we're in the middle of the river. The river seems pretty low so we're camped in the shade of a broken bridge. Don't worry people, the river is way lower than our camp site. I think we found the turnoff that Jon mentioned, it was literally in front of the sign that said Tomtor right, Kyubyme ahead. Little goat track that meandered it's way to the rocky river bed. We had grand plans of camping next to the ice shelf, but the river was a bit high to chance without having waded it. I gave the waders a test today in a river near our lunch stop. They have very stiff souls, like gumboots which make walking on slimy rocks precarious. That, coupled with flowing water meant I could only wade mid-thigh. I figured if I fell over in them, I'd have to ditch them as they would act like a parachute, filling up with water.
A gentleman from Italy in a troop carrier (yep, 2nd one we've seen now) pulled up across from our camp site and willingly informed us that the road is closed after tomtor. Which if true, is depressing. Then again, we met a cyclist named Sean from California who said no one has been down that road for four to five years. Well, we know that's not true! So hopefully it's rubbish information. I do expect the road to Susuman to be closed, but I'd already resigned to that fact.
The plan for tomorrow is to duck into Kyubyme for some fuel, then find a route across the river then drive to Tomtor. Apparently there is a wealth of things to do there, so even if the road is closed from there on, it won't have been a wasted trip.
It's funny, I was in such high spirits until that Italian man told me it wasn't an option - why has this knocked me for six? It feels like I've been told that Santa won't be coming this year.
Cassie has written her post before me, so it looks like I'm crazy repeating her... but I said it first!
Looking forward to sending this off, getting the messages from home and watching some telly. I may even be able to sneak in one photo.
Cassie: As Graeme said, we think we've found the river crossing that meets up to the road to Tomtor, the next trick will be finding the road on the other side. Our camp tonight is beautiful but marred as usual by the horrible mosquitoes. It would be wonderful to sit outside and enjoy the surrounds, but I need to stay in the car or get eaten alive by the darn things! Graeme doesn't believe me, but they always find and bite me before him, so I always end up covered with mozzie bights on a camping trip and he might get one or two. Thankfully Graeme has made our car into a comfortable sanctuary and it's easy to be in here, particularly with the windows open to let a breeze through. Graeme's outside, braving the mozzies to wash the oil off the car and is doing a bang up job. Oil certainly isn' the easiest thing to wash off. The exterior of the troopie is starting to look particularly grimy, and I dare say we will end up giving it a proper wash at some point. The romantic notion of
letting the dust and grime build up on it to reflect our many miles is fading. To be honest, the exterior of the car is so filthy it's becoming embarrassing. And yes, embarrassingly filthy by Russian standards....now that's saying something!
It's been 11 days since we set off from Vladivostok with 2 nights stop in Yakutsk. In some way Vladivostok feels like so long ago because it's a far cry from the remote areas we're in at the moment, and in another way if feels like just yesterday we were walking the streets, sipping coffee, enjoying hot showers and clean hair and waiting for our car. Actually no, scrap that, it does feel like light years away, full stop!
I'm looking forward to seeing the remote town of Tomtor. We're not convinced that the Italian guy is correct when he said the road from Tomtor back to the main road is closed. We don't know where he got his information and people tend to flippantly say these sorts of things without questioning or confirmation. For example, Sean from California told us that no tourist has been down that road in over two years. Well, we were happy to respectfully correct his knowledge on that one! Anyway, his next breath was that he knows a guy, Walter Colebatch, who runs motorcycle tours from London to Magadan and he went via this "Old Summer Road" just last year - so yeah, that's a bunch of tourists. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we've got three different opinions in the space of an hour, and two of them were from the same person. Either way, we'll know once we get there and see for ourselves. And as Graeme has already mentioned, Tomtor is worth seeing so there's no problem if we hav
e to turn back and go to Magadan via the new road. It'll be great to have another rest in a hotel in Magadan before chucking the trip into reverse to backtrack our way towards Chita.
Position: 12-07-09 18:44:31 +1000 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=63.43419,140.5943&q=63.43419,140.5943&z=16
The road from Khandyga to Kyubyme - wow X 3. I regretted bringing the DSLR camera as it's very bulky in it's waterproof box, and changing lenses is tiresome when compared to how flexible our new video camera is. I think however it may have paid for itself. We've captured maybe 200 stills, 100 of which are stunning. Not artsy stunning, but the subject is captivating.
These Russians know roadworks. Well kinda. They don't do it by half at any stage. If they need to repair a bit of road, they build a diversion. What they don't do well is signs. We would have sped past 30X 20kph signs all of which indicating nothing. Crying wolf gets old.... except this one time. We came over the crest of a hill at 60kph to a surprise stream having cut it's way through the road surface, by about one foot deep, by about 5 meters wide. We pulled up in time, but only just.
We got 5th gear today... in low range. In fact, we haven't used 5th gear since the turnoff to Tynda. At one stage in our road works today, we waited ten minutes for a bulldozer to clear a path for us. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful, but there is no way anything less would have made it up that muddy boulder slope.
Today, at the top of one of the most breathtaking mountain passes I've ever seen, I discovered oil... a lot of oil! my mind turned to panic, thinking the oil spatters down the side of the car and on the back window is coming from the engine. I discovered it was our half full oil bottle on the roof leaking. gawddammit! It's filthy, even after wiping it off today with a paper towel, todays dust has stock to it like paint. I _think_ I've got it all off tonight with our bin bucket, dish washing liquid and about an hour.
Damage report: The cable tie that held the trailer light connector has snapped, leaving the trailer light connector hanging. It has been reattached with another cable tie. nah I actually did stash it into the frame of the car as I won't be using it for a while.... then cable-tied it. As you might have picked up, this is a bit of a mock damage report. Thankfully nothing big has gone wrong.
From our spot message, you will have noticed we're in the middle of the river. The river seems pretty low so we're camped in the shade of a broken bridge. Don't worry people, the river is way lower than our camp site. I think we found the turnoff that Jon mentioned, it was literally in front of the sign that said Tomtor right, Kyubyme ahead. Little goat track that meandered it's way to the rocky river bed. We had grand plans of camping next to the ice shelf, but the river was a bit high to chance without having waded it. I gave the waders a test today in a river near our lunch stop. They have very stiff souls, like gumboots which make walking on slimy rocks precarious. That, coupled with flowing water meant I could only wade mid-thigh. I figured if I fell over in them, I'd have to ditch them as they would act like a parachute, filling up with water.
A gentleman from Italy in a troop carrier (yep, 2nd one we've seen now) pulled up across from our camp site and willingly informed us that the road is closed after tomtor. Which if true, is depressing. Then again, we met a cyclist named Sean from California who said no one has been down that road for four to five years. Well, we know that's not true! So hopefully it's rubbish information. I do expect the road to Susuman to be closed, but I'd already resigned to that fact.
The plan for tomorrow is to duck into Kyubyme for some fuel, then find a route across the river then drive to Tomtor. Apparently there is a wealth of things to do there, so even if the road is closed from there on, it won't have been a wasted trip.
It's funny, I was in such high spirits until that Italian man told me it wasn't an option - why has this knocked me for six? It feels like I've been told that Santa won't be coming this year.
Cassie has written her post before me, so it looks like I'm crazy repeating her... but I said it first!
Looking forward to sending this off, getting the messages from home and watching some telly. I may even be able to sneak in one photo.
Cassie: As Graeme said, we think we've found the river crossing that meets up to the road to Tomtor, the next trick will be finding the road on the other side. Our camp tonight is beautiful but marred as usual by the horrible mosquitoes. It would be wonderful to sit outside and enjoy the surrounds, but I need to stay in the car or get eaten alive by the darn things! Graeme doesn't believe me, but they always find and bite me before him, so I always end up covered with mozzie bights on a camping trip and he might get one or two. Thankfully Graeme has made our car into a comfortable sanctuary and it's easy to be in here, particularly with the windows open to let a breeze through. Graeme's outside, braving the mozzies to wash the oil off the car and is doing a bang up job. Oil certainly isn' the easiest thing to wash off. The exterior of the troopie is starting to look particularly grimy, and I dare say we will end up giving it a proper wash at some point. The romantic notion of
letting the dust and grime build up on it to reflect our many miles is fading. To be honest, the exterior of the car is so filthy it's becoming embarrassing. And yes, embarrassingly filthy by Russian standards....now that's saying something!
It's been 11 days since we set off from Vladivostok with 2 nights stop in Yakutsk. In some way Vladivostok feels like so long ago because it's a far cry from the remote areas we're in at the moment, and in another way if feels like just yesterday we were walking the streets, sipping coffee, enjoying hot showers and clean hair and waiting for our car. Actually no, scrap that, it does feel like light years away, full stop!
I'm looking forward to seeing the remote town of Tomtor. We're not convinced that the Italian guy is correct when he said the road from Tomtor back to the main road is closed. We don't know where he got his information and people tend to flippantly say these sorts of things without questioning or confirmation. For example, Sean from California told us that no tourist has been down that road in over two years. Well, we were happy to respectfully correct his knowledge on that one! Anyway, his next breath was that he knows a guy, Walter Colebatch, who runs motorcycle tours from London to Magadan and he went via this "Old Summer Road" just last year - so yeah, that's a bunch of tourists. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we've got three different opinions in the space of an hour, and two of them were from the same person. Either way, we'll know once we get there and see for ourselves. And as Graeme has already mentioned, Tomtor is worth seeing so there's no problem if we hav
e to turn back and go to Magadan via the new road. It'll be great to have another rest in a hotel in Magadan before chucking the trip into reverse to backtrack our way towards Chita.
Position: 12-07-09 18:44:31 +1000 +0000
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=63.43419,140.5943&q=63.43419,140.5943&z=16
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