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.

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