Brilliant

Graeme:
The scenery today on our way from Oshomon to Tynda has been breathtaking. Millions of pines dotted along high ridgelines, huge rivers, deep valleys. They are like a really thin tree, usually majority white and only foliage in the 2/3rd. I apologise in advance for my lack of descriptive writing here... but we have finally got out the still camera for some shots which we will share once we get to Yakutsk.

Today the car has been going great, no more missing since we drained the tank of whatever was in it. When we changed over to the sub tank which had a few litres of the fuel from that troubled spot it maybe missed twice, that's it. I guess we'll never know what caused it, but something to do with the fuel or the overfilling.
Cassie has driven the majority of the kilometers and I've driven the majority of time. The M56 today varied from the most stunning 5KM three lane highway into a horrible 100+KM goat-track.
I've spotted a pattern. We love out days... until we have to fuel up. We continuously struggle when we use one particular chain of fuel retailer. We've been avoiding them at all costs (especially because of the suspcted dud fuel yesterday) but lately they seem to be the only ones up here.

Cassie is walking around with the still camera outside looking a total doofus with her mosquito net on her head. Photos will come soon.

I've been finding Russian towns a little underwhelming. Maybe I have the wrong attitude, but no one seems to have any pride in their towns. I'm enjoying the country side much more. We do love grocery shopping however. It's like christmas, you never know what you'll get.It seems to be our modis operandi (hope that's spelt correctly) to zip through towns. We always roll like that - I don't know why. Maybe because driving is what we know, so we stick to that?
Maybe we don't want to be disappointed? Maybe we're city folk.

We're still not finishing early enough of an evening. We've had dinner on the road, but it's 9:30 now as I write my piece, it's too late because I find myself remembering the taxing things of the day as opposed to the lovely things.

In reply to comments:
Warren - yep, not able to relax, and also yes to lower tyre pressures. Today was a joke. The problem is, you don't know when the dirt ends, so you think, ah only another KM of dirt... it's not worth airing down. Well, after 100KM of filth, aired down, for about only 20KM, 10KM of which was tar.
Chris - Thank Chris - yeah it was exciting.
Dad - yep, plenty. Hundreds a day.

Cassie:
Well hello after another day of driving. Funny that, considering this is a driving adventure! We are definitely finishing our days too late but it takes time to find a camp spot off the road and with some kind of privacy and quiet. We still did some good kms today despite the goat track roads we went down. I did the morning shift again and Graeme did the afternoon shift. The drive this morning started out as the last couple of days have, on wonderful roads where we can drive at a decent rate. Then after stopping for fuel we had to turn off the highway to get to the M56 to start heading up to Yakustk. Well, straight from lovely roads to a pot holed dirt road with rubbish on the sides of the roads. Then the dirt road became so beautiful. There were fields of the most beautiful wild flowers - purple, yellow, pink, blue, orange. Then just when you think it couldn't get more beautiful a fast flowing river would appear. The most beautiful colours - red/orange road, green grass and
trees and the colours of the flowers.

Anyway, then the road turned to rubbish again by the end of it. Terrible pot holes that were bone jarring. I was exhausted after my 4.5hr drive and had to pass the reigns to Graeme. He drove up the hill and found a little place to stop for lunch. There was no menu so I couldn't even point to something. The lady was very lovely and just suggested these pastry things and a cup of coffee. The pastry things were cool. The dough was kind of chewy and the filling seemed to be cabbage and maybe onion or something. Either way it was actually really nice. The coffee was the strongest and sweetest cup of coffee I've ever had in my life! Woah.

From there Graeme started his driving shift and the poor thing had to drive the worst roads to date. But he's already described that in his part of this blog so you get the gist. It was definitely bone jarring. My back was starting to ache and the back of the car where we "live" was a mess! Stuff everywhere from the shaking and bumping around.

Hopefully it's tar roads all the way to Yakutsk. Wishful thinking?