OK, so as far as I can tell, Magadan airport has been closed since 2006. What does this mean for the trip? It means our plans of Magadan been the last stop are probably broken. This is not the end of the world, we have more options.
A) Catch a boat out of there.
B) Start the trip in Vladivostock, drive to Magadan, then to London.
C) Continue as normal, but upon arrival, back track to Vladivostok or Yakutsk and fly home.
Each option has a plethora of variables which need to be thought through... But for now, this is just listing options.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Car Update
It's not that I am having a huge number of troubles with the car, it just the way I use it, the damage catches up. I've been having a great time pulling it to bits to learn how everything works. I had the starter motor last week to try and find why it would only spin the starter occasionally. You could just hit the key a few times and it would start, but I can't see that being ideal when waiting at a border crossing, or if we have to get moving in a hurry. I have a new starter motor coming tomorrow hopefully so I can install it on the weekend.
Last weekend we tried to repair a tiny coolant leak. First you must drain all existing coolant and fill with clean fresh water...to the untrained person, it's surprisingly difficult. The thermostat only opens as the engine gets hot, so you think you've drained everything until it gets hot and you find an exploding mess of coolant that you were sure you drained.
Afterward I was confident it was drained, I ran a radiator flush, then drove around for 20 minutes while it did it's job. Then repeat the flushing process again.
Then, the ran some some seal-up which looks like nail polish suspended in clear oil. Then run for 30 minutes. Oh and of course flush again and replace with new coolant. All the other products said you needed to overheat but not boil the cooling system by means of blocking the air through the radiator. That didn't sit well with me - so this product got my vote.
So far a week on, and no leak! I'm very impressed and it will certainly be featuring in our toolkit.
All this learning time is so valuable. Like I was continually monitoring the temperature gauge and cabin heater and it was amazing how easy an airlock in the heater core develops. I can't help but obsess as to where and when this knowledge may be used again. Perhaps beside a track in Mongolia, with no one for miles? Oh well, I'm excited - either way, the knowledge isn't heavy to carry.
I've started another interesting (to me) experiment do determine the linearity of the fuel gauge. I often find the half to quarter fall in the gauge to be surprisingly fast. I'm glad I started this experiment because I am surprised to see interesting results already. I consumed all of the fuel till the gauge was exactly on the empty marking. Filled the car, but it only took 72L when the tank is 92L. After reading the manual, it mentions when the 'low fuel indicator' illuminates, there is approximately 11L in the tank. Ok well I didn't see the light so that could explain 9L. The tank does have a large dent in it, but I wouldn't imagine would be more than 5L large. I'm going to refill at different intervals on the gauge to determine if the gauge is linear. I also intend to run it till stall to really get a worst case scenario figure. This is for two reasons.
Firstly, most fuel stations in the parts of the world we will be visiting are prepaid. And not prepaid where you imagine they give you some change when you are full, but more like the pump keeps pumping until your credit is used. This means we need to know quite accurately how much fuel we can purchase without overfilling based on the gauge reading. Another traveler has a trick to deal with this. He estimates but has jerrycans on the ground when filling so that if he over estimates his requirements, he can fill these rather than spill.
The second but perhaps more obvious reason for knowing is so we can more accurately predict our range based on gauge (in addition to calculated ranges). We need to be able to know if we can make it to the next fuel stop, or if has a problem, to the next fuel stop after that.
I feel that managing our fuel and water requirements is going to be difficult. We are limited to around 90L plus 20L in jerrycans. On my 15L/100 estimates we could cover 700KM max safely. Currently I'm only getting 400KM for 70 litres (Which is more like 17.5L/100) but alot of that was spent driving recklessly in snow and mud and a good hour of running the motor to clear coolant.
Further thinking reveals that my speedometer is out by 5-10 kph, which could account for some innacuracy in the L/100 figure.
Last weekend we tried to repair a tiny coolant leak. First you must drain all existing coolant and fill with clean fresh water...to the untrained person, it's surprisingly difficult. The thermostat only opens as the engine gets hot, so you think you've drained everything until it gets hot and you find an exploding mess of coolant that you were sure you drained.
Afterward I was confident it was drained, I ran a radiator flush, then drove around for 20 minutes while it did it's job. Then repeat the flushing process again.
So far a week on, and no leak! I'm very impressed and it will certainly be featuring in our toolkit.
All this learning time is so valuable. Like I was continually monitoring the temperature gauge and cabin heater and it was amazing how easy an airlock in the heater core develops. I can't help but obsess as to where and when this knowledge may be used again. Perhaps beside a track in Mongolia, with no one for miles? Oh well, I'm excited - either way, the knowledge isn't heavy to carry.
I've started another interesting (to me) experiment do determine the linearity of the fuel gauge. I often find the half to quarter fall in the gauge to be surprisingly fast. I'm glad I started this experiment because I am surprised to see interesting results already. I consumed all of the fuel till the gauge was exactly on the empty marking. Filled the car, but it only took 72L when the tank is 92L. After reading the manual, it mentions when the 'low fuel indicator' illuminates, there is approximately 11L in the tank. Ok well I didn't see the light so that could explain 9L. The tank does have a large dent in it, but I wouldn't imagine would be more than 5L large. I'm going to refill at different intervals on the gauge to determine if the gauge is linear. I also intend to run it till stall to really get a worst case scenario figure. This is for two reasons.
The second but perhaps more obvious reason for knowing is so we can more accurately predict our range based on gauge (in addition to calculated ranges). We need to be able to know if we can make it to the next fuel stop, or if has a problem, to the next fuel stop after that.
I feel that managing our fuel and water requirements is going to be difficult. We are limited to around 90L plus 20L in jerrycans. On my 15L/100 estimates we could cover 700KM max safely. Currently I'm only getting 400KM for 70 litres (Which is more like 17.5L/100) but alot of that was spent driving recklessly in snow and mud and a good hour of running the motor to clear coolant.
Further thinking reveals that my speedometer is out by 5-10 kph, which could account for some innacuracy in the L/100 figure.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Just finished reading backtobroke
Just firstly, having a vehicle ID check done on our yaris work car. They put you in a waiting room, with no windows, and hide your car behind a big gate. WTF is happening?! Oh well.
Just finished reading backtobroke.bloodspot.com. Olsin is an Irish guy who has spent the last 12 months riding from Canada to south America, and the famous route 40 which is like 5000km of pure isolation. Then he has just completed Dublin to Magadan. He took 2 months and 2 days. What a legend!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Just finished reading backtobroke.bloodspot.com. Olsin is an Irish guy who has spent the last 12 months riding from Canada to south America, and the famous route 40 which is like 5000km of pure isolation. Then he has just completed Dublin to Magadan. He took 2 months and 2 days. What a legend!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Challis St,Dickson,Australia
Two Magadan Afternoon
Ok - I've taken this afternoon off work to get some concrete ideas about Two Magadan.
My Work
In order for most people to get 4 months off work, they just submit a form. Because I work for my own company, I need to make sure that the business will run flawlessly for the 4 month period while I am gone. I can arrange a bookeeper which is easy to make sure bills are paid, and invoicing gets done. I do however need three more people (and the workload to support them) to see that the company has enough people to cope with
A) me gone, and no work output from me
B) a person sick
We've just built a new website which will bring in more new work, and are intending to sell off some clients which should streamline our workload, and make training new staff easier.
'Mothball' the Pajero
An interesting thought occurred, cars cost money, and wear out when they are used - so why not just stop using it? I suspect it would save $5 grand a year just in fuel. Damage that is likely to occur will also be a thousand, tyres, clutch - the list goes on. So potentially I can save a minimum of $5000 per year (8-9ish grand from now) if I just stop using it. I'd imagine I'll keep it registered and insured $1000, but that will allow me to go on OCCASIONAL, low wear trips to Stockton beach, brindies and so on, but also take it to places as preparation (new tyres, servicing, test trips, fitting accessories etc). The hidden benefit is I would have to ride or walk to work which would get me fitter, and potentially in better condition for the trip.
Savings
It almost sounds stingy, but we need to get smart with our money - Sure I can rip money out of the company, but that is such short term thinking - the company IS my asset. We must be able to do this trip on just my wage.
So far I'm pretty confident that the trip will cost $35,000.
So far I've saved $11,000 towards this trip, and I estimate there is roughly 20-22 months to go, but lets budget on 20.
$20,000 / 20 means a grand a month. or $250/Week.
I've just played with the spreadsheet, and it could blow out to 40K, so should we budget for that?
I'm currently covering all of the household expenses. Mortgage, electricity, rates, food, entertainment.
Cassie is covering her schooling expenses which will exaust her savings by the end of her study.
Our household expenses are $300 a week.
My Work
In order for most people to get 4 months off work, they just submit a form. Because I work for my own company, I need to make sure that the business will run flawlessly for the 4 month period while I am gone. I can arrange a bookeeper which is easy to make sure bills are paid, and invoicing gets done. I do however need three more people (and the workload to support them) to see that the company has enough people to cope with
A) me gone, and no work output from me
B) a person sick
We've just built a new website which will bring in more new work, and are intending to sell off some clients which should streamline our workload, and make training new staff easier.
'Mothball' the Pajero
An interesting thought occurred, cars cost money, and wear out when they are used - so why not just stop using it? I suspect it would save $5 grand a year just in fuel. Damage that is likely to occur will also be a thousand, tyres, clutch - the list goes on. So potentially I can save a minimum of $5000 per year (8-9ish grand from now) if I just stop using it. I'd imagine I'll keep it registered and insured $1000, but that will allow me to go on OCCASIONAL, low wear trips to Stockton beach, brindies and so on, but also take it to places as preparation (new tyres, servicing, test trips, fitting accessories etc). The hidden benefit is I would have to ride or walk to work which would get me fitter, and potentially in better condition for the trip.
Savings
It almost sounds stingy, but we need to get smart with our money - Sure I can rip money out of the company, but that is such short term thinking - the company IS my asset. We must be able to do this trip on just my wage.
So far I'm pretty confident that the trip will cost $35,000.
So far I've saved $11,000 towards this trip, and I estimate there is roughly 20-22 months to go, but lets budget on 20.
$20,000 / 20 means a grand a month. or $250/Week.
I've just played with the spreadsheet, and it could blow out to 40K, so should we budget for that?
I'm currently covering all of the household expenses. Mortgage, electricity, rates, food, entertainment.
Cassie is covering her schooling expenses which will exaust her savings by the end of her study.
Our household expenses are $300 a week.
The Car
OK - so this is a trip across a big distance in a car. Lets be specific about the car. We had intially planned to take my '96 Mitsubishi Pajero - however the more I think about it, the one way shipping expenses would justify buying a car over there. I plan to share with you options as they have come up - There is a few
Buy something in the UK:
Cons:
Won't know it's history or little intricacies.
Chance of being sold a lemon
High cost due to exchange rate
Pros:
No cost of shipping
Still have a car when we return
Take my car but sell it in Magadan:
Cons:
Cost of transfer to UK
Sad feeling leaving it in Magadan
Chance of partial/total loss if unable to sell
Pro:
Know it's history and little intricasies
It's got a low value (shouldn't attract much attention)
I will have got 3 years use out of it
Thoughts:
It'll be worth nothing in 3 years time. With many cosmetic bumps and scratches it won't be worth anything to an Australian buyer.
Buy something in the UK:
Cons:
Won't know it's history or little intricacies.
Chance of being sold a lemon
High cost due to exchange rate
Pros:
No cost of shipping
Still have a car when we return
Take my car but sell it in Magadan:
Cons:
Cost of transfer to UK
Sad feeling leaving it in Magadan
Chance of partial/total loss if unable to sell
Pro:
Know it's history and little intricasies
It's got a low value (shouldn't attract much attention)
I will have got 3 years use out of it
Thoughts:
It'll be worth nothing in 3 years time. With many cosmetic bumps and scratches it won't be worth anything to an Australian buyer.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Long Way Round - final thoughts
Just thought I'd quickly jot down a quote that Ewan McGregor said at the tail end of LRW.
"I hope it will inspire people that it's possible. A lot of things in life, people don't do because of the 'what-if's'. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if you run out of petrol?... And it stops us doing things. and in actual fact the what if's and the might-be's are what makes it so exciting. Every time we got in to trouble, or your bike broke down, we met people that helped. It's a really optimistic view of the world that I have now... All the people that we have met all 'round the world have incredibly generous, nice people."
Most days, it definitely feels too hard, and totally not achievable. But one out of ten days i will wake up with such vigor and conviction that this is possible. I need to learn how to keep that spirit more often.
"I hope it will inspire people that it's possible. A lot of things in life, people don't do because of the 'what-if's'. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if you run out of petrol?... And it stops us doing things. and in actual fact the what if's and the might-be's are what makes it so exciting. Every time we got in to trouble, or your bike broke down, we met people that helped. It's a really optimistic view of the world that I have now... All the people that we have met all 'round the world have incredibly generous, nice people."
Most days, it definitely feels too hard, and totally not achievable. But one out of ten days i will wake up with such vigor and conviction that this is possible. I need to learn how to keep that spirit more often.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
How oh how
Just finished watching Long Way Round up to where they reach Magadan. We've taken numerious notes to try to choose the best time to travel through russia to avoid the minus 50 celcius temps, but also stupidly high rivers. But most of all, how the hell are we going to make this happen.
Saving this much money, getting the time off work, but also just my continual thought, that this is taking us 40K behind everyone else our age... I'm not so sure.
Saving this much money, getting the time off work, but also just my continual thought, that this is taking us 40K behind everyone else our age... I'm not so sure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)