Category Archives: general

Welcome to Kazakhstan

After our indulgent evening with like-minded cohorts Stephen and Caroline, the morning greeted us a little too early along with the slight reminder of the previous nights drinking habits.

Anyway we packed and headed for a supermarket which proved OK to locate but a real mission to find a way into, however once inside we stocked up and enjoyed lunch before departing!

I was in the camper loading the fridge when I heard a woman outside the car enquire, “Are you Australian?” to which I replied “yes and it sounds like you are too!”

Her reply was – “What the hell are you doing here??!!”

“We are on a leisurely drive around the world!”

Turns out she’s an expat working in Almaty and we had a discussion about Kazakhstan from her point of view! Needless to say, backward was mentioned!

Now there isn’t a car on the road at this point in any direction and it’s dual lanes each way! So we turned left across the non-existent traffic and immediately a Police car sprang from behind a parked bus with lights and batons, dollar signs in their eyes! So we pulled over – what’s the problem? It’s explained to me that you can’t turn left but only to the right! Turns out there’s a little dodgy sign under a tree near the car park with a little white arrow on it! It’s obvious to me at this point that this is their local income subsidy spot!

Give me your car registration, driver’s license and passport (in broken English of-course)

As usual we just play the goat! Anyway the next thing out of his mouth is – “You ring to consulate. You no drive in Kazakhstan!”

I enlighten him to the fact there isn’t an Australian consulate in Kazakhstan but I’m apparently wrong!

Seriously you’d think we’d run over a crosswalk loaded with disabled children in wheel chairs!

At this point a crowd is assembling and a couple of young guys catch Jens eye, she say’s we don’t even know what the problem is and one of them smiles and say’s in his best English – Welcome to Kazakhstan!

Welcome to Kazakhstan!

Anyway I point out the fact that the Police harassment of tourists isn’t making his country particularly inviting!

His response is to look at my passport and recite my name in full in an extremely slow version of phonetics whilst looking to the heavens and making a clicking noise with his tongue! I have to say that was becoming quite hilarious after about 10 minutes of repetition.

Anyway all the while he is filling in a piece of paper that I assume will be my fine! It’s not carbon triplicate or the like, only the top slip that looks like he removed it from his pocket and unscrewed it! So one letter at a time whilst clicking his tongue and looking to the heavens it’s obvious this will be a game of endurance!

After about 15 minutes I was starting to wonder whether it was just worth giving him a few dollars to piss off but if you do that the next punter gets hit harder not to mention encouraging the practice. As we have time on our hands, we decided no money would be changing hands without proper paperwork. At that moment one of the young local guys intervened and asked if we needed any help in perfect English? Absolutely yes please was our response! After a discussion between the two and the slow but steady increase in bystander numbers it all got to hard! My documents were handed back to my new best friend and no eye contact made with me at all! Very professional conduct wouldn’t you say, and the Police car disappeared as fast as it had arrived, no doubt off to the next hot spot.

After all lunch was approaching and someone has to pay for it!

Our Police Intervention Team

We thanked our intervening friend and with smiles and nods and made our way out of Almaty!

An English guy by the name of Craig we’d met in a Land Rover and on the web under Bermuda Rover also had the fortunate experience of 4 Police stops whilst here in Kazakhstan. Seems it’s an unavoidable fact of traversing this country. It did slightly taint the experience for me though as you stop enjoying the travelling and have to concentrate on not making the slightest mistake whilst driving, doesn’t matter that you were just passed in a 50km’h zone by a banged up old Mercedes with no number plates and bald tires doing 100km’h, the foreigner will be the target! Unfortunately we still have some considerable km’s to transit through this country once en route to Moscow, hopefully the experience improves!

A quick note though. The Kazakh people were lovely and we thoroughly enjoyed our time amongst them. It’s important not to tarnish a complete memory with some small aspect!

So onward ho and east we go heading toward Charyn Canyon. We stopped about 20km short as darkness was nearly upon us and found a great campsite up a small valley. The next morning we arrived at the canyon, which is quite impressive. I guess it’s a miniature version of the Grand Canyon. If you have a 4×4 and pay a little extra you are able to drive down into the canyon and along a stretch of lovely scenic cliffs for about 6km’s to a nice flat area with a river running through it. There is a really tight rock arch about 300m from the end and we were unable to get under it by about 2 inches due to the camper body but the drive saved us the walk! I mention the walk because in true Kazakh style, (that is to say no idea!) a coach load of tourists were dropped at the top of the gorge and walked the 6km down and 6km back in above 30 degree heat whilst their tour coach driver slept in the vehicle. I am not exaggerating when I say I’m surprised they all made it back and would not be surprised had some sported extreme sunburn and dehydration from their day out! Unbelievable….

Charyn Canyon

Road at bottom of Canyon

Just a bit too tight

We had considered spending a couple of nights here as we have quite a bit of time on our side before we need to be in Bishkek to apply for our Uzbekistan visa’s. I probably should elaborate a little here…

Our original yet rough plan was to head south from Kyrgyzstan into Tajikistan and drive the Pamir Hwy before heading across Uzbekistan into Kazakhstan. This route would only require a transit visa for Uzbek! But whilst in Almaty it would seem there has been some inter-clan violence and some shootings in one of the towns along the route, hence the required GBAO permit is currently not available. This happens from time to time in the area; apparently it generally resolves itself within a few weeks. If the visas/permits are not available it really effects the tourism dollar injection into the area of the Pamir.

So we decided that as a backup plan, should the Pamir be off the table, we would apply for 30 day visa’s for Uzbekistan instead, this however requires the all too expensive letter of invitation! Basically a money making scam. So whilst in Almaty we applied for out letters through Stan Tours, it takes a couple of weeks so there in lies the reason that we have some spare time. Once in Bishkek we will try and get the GBAO permit and see how we go. I know other vehicles, motorbikes and bicycles have made the crossing this season so we are still hopeful.

We spent only the one night at Charyn Canyon as although interesting it wasn’t overly exciting. After leaving the Canyon we only traveled 20 km’s before descending into the Charyn river valley, which was quite spectacular and from our vantage point on the highway as we crossed the bridge we spotted a vehicle camped below and decided to investigate. After locating a track down we found a fantastic campsite below a cliff right on the rivers edge and relatively well hidden, that was it for the day and camp was set!

Charyn River Camp

The Kyrgyzstan border came into view the following morning and we were delighted to find it open as it is a seasonal crossing and generally opens around mid May.

This border crossing turned out to be a great and friendly experience, camper roof up and piles of interested officials inspecting our comfortable little home.

They did offer to swap us a UAZ van for the Patrol, an offer we had trouble declining!

Thumbs up and 20m to the Kyrgyz side, the whole experience repeated including the customs official who wanted to know where our visas were! When we said we didn’t need one for Kyrgyzstan! He started laughing and said, “just checking!!”

45 minutes and we were in Kyrgyzstan! To contrast how border experiences can go. Our drinking buddies from Almaty, Stephen and Caroline, crossed from Almaty to Bishkek and were ushered into a room without cameras whilst being asked indirectly for money! They withstood the game plan and although it cost them some time they eventually made it across in something like 3 hours. The harassment was only on the Kazakh side, the Kyrgyzstan border was, as with our experience, not a problem!

Toward Lake Issyk-Kul and a few km’s down the rough gravel road we came to a Police checkpoint, just recording passport and vehicle details as we are still within the border control zone.

We arrived in the town of Karakol on the eastern end of Lake Issyk-Kul and managed to get some Internet coverage at a tourist bureau! Stephen and Caroline were also in town so a quick catch up was enjoyed before we did a little shopping and headed off in search of a campsite.

There is some very pretty country around the lake with high mountains ringing it along with lovely valleys heading from the shoreline up into the high mountains with waterfalls and stark rock formations of red’s and greys that provide stunning scenery. Shorts and T-shirts along the lakeside with warm temperatures and then 20km up these picturesque valleys and it’s thermals and snow! A day trip to the snow followed by a cold beer and a swim in the afternoon, sensational!

We found a beach camp on the lake’s edge and parted with 30 som for the privilege, which is about 70 cents!

Wandering along the lake the following day we headed up another valley to a beautiful waterfall and found locals in mass enjoying the scenery and cooking their various treats. At the site of the waterfall there is a bust of Yuri Gagarin made of concrete. It has absolutely nothing to do with this location but apparently Yuri had a holiday in the town of Tamga about 20km away after the first manned space flight! What ever gets the punters in I guess?

Yuri Gagarin #1

Yuri Gagarin #2

Up this valley a further 20 or so km’s is the massive Kumtor gold mine run by a Canadian company. The locals seem to have mixed views about it – of course it provides jobs and some wealth for the economy but the 2 tones of cyanide that ended up in the magnificent little stream flowing down the valley after a truck rolled over seems to have taken the shine of the enterprise! Oh by the way it was a local truck driver employed by the mine with a few arkhi’s (vodka) under his belt that lost control! Doesn’t that open a plethora of discussion that could be had regarding how to operate in far away places! Anyway the show must go on!!

Apricot Orchard Camp

Back along the lakeside and we found a great campsite on the edge of an apricot orchard with plenty of locals around who were enjoying the warm afternoon and clear waters. Generally the road along the lake is quite close to the water so it’s not all that easy to find a concealed location. After a couple of hours the farmer that owns the land wandered by in pursuit of one of his cows and we spent some time chatting with him. Upon his departure, he invited us to his house the following morning. As agreed at 9am he arrived at our camp and we all piled into the Patrol for the short drive to his home. We were greeted by his wife Buroo and their neighbour’s 6 year old daughter Amina! Tulant ushered us inside and a fantastic spread of treats was delivered. We had milk tea and then home made bread with apricot and black berry preserves from their land followed by a form of fermented milk, which took a little getting used too! Just as we thought the meal was over Buroo retrieved what I’ll describe as a batch of freshly baked pasties filled with onion, potato and mutton locally known as hashaan and they were absolutely delicious!

Kyrgyz Feast

Kyrgyz Family Visit

We retired to the garden and relaxed for a while whilst snapping photo’s and chatting as best we were able. A few hours later we said our goodbyes and were promptly given some jars of preserves along with a traditional Kyrgyz felt hat for myself and a lovely headscarf for Jen. Once again it felt like leaving old friends from whom generosity knew no bounds.

With 3 home visits to date we are feeling very fortunate and have enjoyed them all very much! I think the fact we camp in the car and avoid where possible tourist campgrounds enhances our chances of such invites. We are more approachable to the locals in such areas I think.

Sometimes however we are too approachable and you crave a little solitude.

Continuing west along the southern shore of the lake at a slow pace we soaked up the warm weather with frequent stops, some of which included a quick dip in the aqua blue water of the second largest alpine lake in the world. It was bloody freezing although Jen seemed to manage the temperature far more easily than I! After a lazy morning we found another reasonable campsite although once again not far from the passing parade of traffic. Being camped by lunch time turned out to be fortunate for as the day warmed and the allure of the lake was too much it wasn’t long before the locals once again started to show and no doubt we’d not have enjoyed the use of the camp we were in had we arrived much later.

Jen Swimming!

Awesome Camp!

A similar trend the following day with a fantastic diversion along the western end of the lake, the main road diverts further south from the water giving up a nice little gap of around 5km by 30km where there is no infrastructure. We drove through a small village until we found a track out in the direction we wished to travel and it turned out to be a gem! 10km which included 5km’s of stunning driving at the base of a small river canyon. The track continued along the shoreline as we’d hoped and revelled a few locals camped sporadically. We travelled past the last camp which no doubt consisted of some sore necks that evening (the rate at which heads turn when your off the tourist trail is quite astounding) and found a great spot including something we’d been missing lately – isolation! A campfire and apricot chicken hot pot were in order!

Rainbow Colours

River Canyon

Camp Fire

After leaving the lake, we began the journey south along the highway, a pleasant change except for a really long and very rough section over a high mountain pass, which is under construction. The drive was nice but as usual you have to deal with the locals as they try and become carrion!

Fuelled up in the town of Kochkor and subsequently found the reserve fuel tank electrics had failed. Anyone with a Patrol will know this is a common complaint. It really makes me wonder why manufacturers do some of the things they do? For me personally, when I look at different vehicles I can usually come up with something I like and something that makes me shake my head. For instance the Toyota sub fuel system is far superior to the Nissan and much simpler, so why go the way Nissan went! But then Cruiser Ute’s are 100mm out of track front to rear – what the? Wouldn’t it be nice if they just got together and got it right!!

Anyway as I was aware of the sub fuel tank issues I was ready for it and so it was only the time required to enjoy one beer at camp that that saw the system sorted. The ute now has 170000 km on the odometer though so I guess it’s taken a while for this fault to appear!

Nissan Repairs

Camp was close to, but hidden from, the road near an abandoned farm house.

Farmhouse ruins

Continuing south and now back on rarely experienced smooth black top and whack! A large black raven like bird sprang up and went between the camper and the cab roof!!!! Jen could see him out the back window between the camper and the cab rail, how the hell are we going to get him out of there? Coming to a stop and luckily the unfortunate creature had somehow extricated itself from it’s enclosure and as I exited the vehicle with euthanasia on my mind, it stood up looking a little dazed before flying away!

We arrived at the location of Tash Rabat, believed to have been accommodation used by wealthy travellers as they made their way along the Silk Road. Thought to have been constructed as early as the tenth century it’s an extremely interesting site set at around 3200m altitude up a lovely valley, only accessible a few months of the year due to snow and descending temperatures.

Tash Rabat

We spoke to a tour operator here regarding a track marked due north that would eventually get us to Lake Song Kol. Whilst he hadn’t personally driven the route he knew of 4×4 tour groups using it and believed it was in good condition. So we headed off and the next couple of days delivered without doubt the best scenery we have had to date! The first section of the road gained in altitude quite quickly, massive grey clouds were assembling as we ascended and looked more than ominous. Sure enough they soon provided lightning and very heavy rainfall, just to add a level of slippery to the clay surface. To sum it up, high mountain passes with switchback after switchback before descents into heavily watered and eroded valleys of stark and stunning scenery. Campsites easily found and hardly anyone to be seen! Apart from the wrong turn that we endured for a few km’s resulting in a rather uncomfortable U turn in a less than optimal location along a steep track, the drive only really required 4×4 due to the rainfall and lack of traction, when dry it wouldn’t be an issue! Some sections were quite muddy and when your looking out of the window and it’s a few hundred feet down to an uncomfortable ending it’s less than pleasant when traction becomes an issue and Isaac Newton takes over! Just as we approached the high pass of 3400mtr we came across a poor young lad that was having trouble convincing his donkey to move despite the deteriorating weather. Jen got out and gave him a little gift to try and brighten his day!

Poor Little Fella!

A couple of days later and we were at the northern most section of this traverse, a long winding switchback descended into the valley bellow! From our vantage point we were again spoilt with post card scenery. From wet and snow spattered mountain passes, we were now looking down on a dry and yet stunning landscape of beautifully coloured and heavily eroded ranges. Reaching the town of Baetov we continued north and onto one of the more well used roads that provide access to Lake Song Kol. We were keen to top up with water and had been on the lookout for a while now. To date we have obtained almost all of our water from creeks and snowmelt but with the amount of rain over the last few days the creeks had been laden with mud and debris and hence not really suitable. We have 120 liters and another 10-liter container and whilst only around half way through our capacity I like to get water whenever I see it! As luck would have it a crystal clear fast flowing creek appeared and we were able to give the Patrol a well-deserved wash whilst topping up. The location was too good to pass up so camp was promptly set and clothes washed and showers had!

Pamirs Bridge Camp

The following drive was again stunning as we ascended toward Lake Song Kol which sit’s at around 3000m. The road, which ascends toward the lake, is really spectacular with a long section of switchbacks that provide magnificent views back down the valley. The road is in good condition and is no barrier to normal passenger vehicles hence allowing for a little more traffic.

Switchbacks

Spot the Nissan!

After around 50km we arrived at the western end of the lake and headed east along the southern shore line passing a smattering of tourist Yurt camps as we went.

Just before arriving I’d been thinking- “it’s lunch time and we are both hungry but we should look for a campsite. If we can’t find anything soon we’ll stop for a bite and pursue a site after a snack!” The following situation removed lunch from the menu completely!

Hmmm those 2 people on the side of the track look like westerners with back packs! She is flagging us down…. Do you speak English from an obviously distressed tourist – yep what’s up?

Christoff and Stephanie from Germany (who have asked that their photos not be published) were on a 2 week Kyrgyzstan hitch-hiking holiday and had unfortunately found themselves stuck here at Song Kol for the last few days! They needed to be in Osh to catch a flight home the following morning with check in at 4am!!!! There is no regular transport to Song Kol and definitely none to Osh, which lies a couple of hundred km’s away as the crow flies! That crow would need oxygen and jet propulsion to get there however as it’s mountain pass after mountain pass in that direction and would take us the best part of 2 or 3 days consistent driving.

The only possible way they had of making it, as far as we could see, was a long loop that would require some 600km’s of driving. It was mostly on the highway though and that would be their best shot of getting transport/hitching!

Story cut short, we promptly loaded their gear into the camper and with now 4 people in the cab began the drive north from the lake the 60 or so km’s to the nearest town where we thought they had a chance of hitching a lift!

Their cards and cash had been stolen adding a layer of distress to their situation and with only a few dollars on them, they were really up against it! A few uncomfortable hours later we reached the town of Chaek and dropped them on the outskirts of town where they thought they had the best chance of obtaining a ride. We made them some sandwiches and topped up their water. They had been living on bread the last couple of days and Jen gave them a little cash to hopefully get them through! These guys were really in a bad situation.

Whilst parked with them, the locals seemed to think that we were in some kind of difficulty and one local in particular stopped to see if we were ok….

Do you need help?

We agreed to come back to where we’d dropped them off in half an hour in case they were still there! After leaving them we talked about our options and whether we could get them to a better location, but realistically we couldn’t do a lot more. Osh was a 1000km detour for us and as it was we were 120km off track. They did get a ride out of town however and we didn’t see them again, I hope they made their flight but it was always going to be a struggle to get there.

We stocked up with a few supplies and weren’t really sure about how to proceed, we had only seen Song Kol for about 20 minutes! Jen found a track on the map that would hopefully lead us to the northern shore of the lake and so that became the plan.

Heading east and then finding our way onto the track took some time and when we eventually turned onto the track we were met with a Sangyong 4×4 full of locals stuck on a rock the size of a jerry can! You do have to wonder if they actually look out the windscreen!! Anyway with a shovel we managed to extricate the stricken vehicle and no sooner had the task been completed some horse riding locals appeared and once again the Patrol became the centre of attention. Fortunately however the locals were able to provide us with some directions to the lake and that there was indeed around 10km to go! They didn’t mention it was 10km straight up, I knew we were going to have to gain some altitude really soon as the lake sits at 3000m and the pass is at 3400m whilst we were currently at around 1500m.

First Low Pass

Sunset Over First Low Pass

We probably should have camped as twilight was washing down the valley but we really wanted to get back to the lake and spend a few nights relaxing in one location. So onward and most definitely upward, over an hour in first low on a reasonably well maintained track consisting of the now ever familiar switchback after switchback before cresting the pass at 3400m and in semi darkness. It was a little weird having been ascending for the last couple of hours and then only descending a few hundred meters to the lake.

A late camp was had on the lakeshore, but we were happy to have arrived. The following morning we moved a few hundred meters to a more protected location but only a hundred or so meters from a tourist yurt camp.

Tourist Yurt Camp

To put you in the picture, there isn’t really any location around the lake that provides secluded or protected camping as with the altitude comes the treeless scenery.

A few hours after moving camp and we have a consistent stream of locals passing within feet of our campsite and standing on a rock on the lake’s edge!! Would you believe they can apparently get phone coverage from this rock and no where else…. So with a hundred km’s of shoreline we camped next to what turned out to be a well used mobile hotspot!

Local Encounters

Anyway it worked out OK as we met a lovely family who run the Tourist camp. One of their daughters spoke good English and we gleaned much information from her about their lives.

The only downside from our few days at the lake was that it was once again the beginning of what has since continued – the Kyrgyz men will come up to you and shake your hand whilst the only words leaving their mouths will be in the form of wanting Vodka! When you decline their request they generally about face and disappear. You really have to wonder how often they get a result; I can’t imagine many tourists handing out vodka and cigarettes when requested. It’s all very low key however and I guess you just have to tolerate this behaviour as a trade-off to such beautiful scenery.

Whilst we were fortunate to experience lovely weather, two of the three nights spent at Song Kol were accompanied by thunderstorms of quite a spectacular nature although the worst of it was fortunately to skirt our location. Strong wind squalls were accompanied by quite heavy rain at times, but fortunately not for prolonged periods of time. Sitting in bed watching the sky illuminated by such tremendous examples of power is always a reminder of just how insignificant we are.

10pm and that’s lightning!

Whilst relaxing and overlooking the vista of the lake we were greeted by the appearance of a GU wagon with a Swiss couple on board. Christina and Giuseppe are in their third month having crossed Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan and Usbek to arrive at Son Kol. A discussion ensued regarding our respective plans; they were heading for Kazakhstan and on to Russia before returning home. Giuseppe had heard of the problems with the Police in Kazakhstan and wasn’t looking forward to the drive ahead and I don’t think I did anything to relieve his skepticism. Diesel had been unavailable across Uzbek and they had to obtain it on the black market, always a challenge! Good advice for us as we will endeavor to have ample on board before entering the country. Goodbyes again and they headed off toward Issy Kol lake.

Swiss Couple

Back the hundred or so km’s to Kochkor and finally some Internet access. We hadn’t bothered with a local SIM card in this country and locating Internet cafe’s wasn’t all that easy.

When you do find one it’s either closed or not working.

We stocked up on some supplies and spent some time just absorbing the town atmosphere including watching a Mazda 121 cruise past us and the local Police on 3 tires and very impressive space saver in the form of a rim only!

With emails responded to we decided to head northwest toward Bishkek over a mountain pass that Jen and I spotted on the map! Keeping it short we found ourselves in heavy rain amongst the clouds slipping and sliding up muddy tracks that it appeared hadn’t seen anything other than hooves in recent history and we still had a 1000m of elevation to make the high pass, we had to call it!

Mountain Weather

We made our way back down and found a great camp bathed in sunshine and well hidden from view! In a normal days driving here you will go from running the air-con flat out to cranking the heater within minutes and back again. Takes a little getting used too!

Back in Kochkor and a quick check of the email once again and our Letters of Invitation for Uzbekistan had arrived so we can now make our way toward Bishkek and the ever-enjoyable task of pigeon English and obtaining visas.

Having not been able to make it over the pass toward Bishkek, we followed the blacktop for a couple of hundred km’s back around the mountain ranges that effortlessly block any direct passage. (We later found out that even horses struggle with the pass we were heading toward. Apparently it was in use during Soviet times and receiving maintenance but has been left to suffer land slides and the like, making it impassable since the demise of the Soviet Union) We decided to make our way up the other side of the pass toward the area that we would have arrived in, had we made it over the mountains, and we found a great little campsite on a grassy ledge above another picturesque mountain stream. It’s a popular area with locals and we certainly didn’t have it to ourselves during our stay but were again left undisturbed.

Kegeti Valley Camp

View from our window!

80 or so km’s and we deviated on the outskirts of Bishkek to the Tajikistan Embassy to hopefully obtain our GBAO permits. YES they are issuing them again and about half an hour later and $150 USD lighter we had our little stamps. A week or so in any direction in this area can define your passage, as it does seem visa suspension can happen at any moment.

We navigated the, as usual, ridiculous traffic and found our way to Nomads Home, a well-known overland hostel. There is only room for one 4×4 with a pop-top and fortunately we now fill that space. The family that run the hostel are more than friendly and have assisted us in making our appointments with the Uzbekistan Embassy which are now set for Wednesday morning in 2 days time. All going well we hope to be on our way toward the second highest road in the world by Wednesday afternoon.

8^th of July tomorrow and that date holds some significance for us as it’s Jen’s Birthday, so Bishkek will play host and I’m sure a great day will ensue!

Next post may be a little late as we aren’t expecting Internet for a few weeks so stay tuned!

Justin.

PS we’ve uploaded 2 short YouTube video’s of a couple of our campsites, you can view them at….

http://youtu.be/wGGAn2vG12o

http://youtu.be/Thcc6oKMAv0

Now who’s the Muppet!

4 Replies

For those of you who have been following our posts you would have noticed the reference to me as a muppet when I deleted one of Justin’s draft posts! A fairly deserved comment in the circumstances but I couldn’t resist a little shot back….

Now Who’s the Muppet!

Cheers

Jen

AK47’s On the Afghan Border!

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Our first evening at Nomad’s Home was spent enjoying a few tasty beverages with some of the other travellers whom were in habitation. One character in particular had us looking wide-eyed as he told us some of his travel experiences! German George hadn’t been resident in his homeland for many years. He is currently approaching the end of his fourth year solo travelling the world and his only real plan was to make it to 5 years and see what happens. Germany held no tether in any shape or form for George as he had escaped East Germany during the dark days after spending 4 years in a gulag from the age of 18 for his outspokenness regarding the East German regime.

German George!

Nomads Home

The morning of Jen’s birthday arrived and with George taking the lead we headed off to a local restaurant for the required celebration, 3 tasty plates of local treats arrived promptly and with cold Ice Tea we toasted Jen’s slide that little further into the abyss! I decided to shout the table as it seemed to be the thing to do and $8.50 lighter, the bill was settled and we were on our way into Bishkek!

An interesting enough City with the usual smells and sights associated with Asia, monuments and plenty of Police mixed with absolutely chaotic traffic. It was quite hot and we wandered for many km’s around the city center ticking off sights and the like as we went. Before we knew it the day was ending and we once again found ourselves back at the rear of Nomads attempting to help with the collection of aluminum for recycling.

The following morning we headed off to the Uzbekistan Embassy and found ourselves on time and outside with a group of around 25 others. What a farce this process turned out to be! We knew what to expect as pretty well anyone that has enjoyed the experience of obtaining this visa in Bishkek is more than animated in either telling you first hand or plastering it on the web! Anyway this surly young woman eventually emerges from a door in the front of the embassy with a piece of paper and starts reading names from it at a volume that would require you to be within inches of her mouth on a windless day inside an eggshell lined room in order to stand any chance of hearing her. Now we are 15 feet away behind a steel fence with traffic behind us and water running along a storm drain! Anyway I won’t go on other than to say that a few hours passed accompanied by lots of the usual cue jumping but we did eventually obtain our visas.

The only enjoyable part of the process was chatting to another in the cue who turned out to be an ex Australian Surveyor General. Our own clever Australian Government had decided that his passport alone wasn’t proof enough that he’d spent 2 years in Uzbekistan and wanted a letter from the Uzbek embassy to back it up before he returned to Australia permanently.

We had lunch with George once again at the establishment of the previous day and after goodbyes and a quick resupply of food and fuel, we left Bishkek in the rear view mirror.

Goodbye Bishkek

The drive was excellent and the black top was for the most part in really good condition for a change. I was expecting the high pass that we encountered but was taken a little aback by just how beautiful the scenery was. The rough hewn traffic tunnels caught me a little off guard however with no lighting, full of exhaust fumes and with just enough room for you and the oncoming Semi – Trailers whom of course do all they can to make sure you have enough room! (sarcasm for those who missed it) The steeper sections of the highway were engineered with the now familiar switchbacks and second gear was often in use to make life a little easier on the Patrol as the weather was very hot and hence quite hard on the vehicle. It was good to see the locals sticking to the same ethos as always – get there as quick as possible without any real concern for the car! The circus continued as time and time again an old Mercedes or Audi would scream past us before slamming on the brakes at the next switch back and then on the gas up the mountain. I couldn’t understand why we ended up passing nearly every one of them as we approached the highest section of the pass! Apparently they all needed to stop and lift their bonnets for an engine inspection and some appeared to be running on steam as that was generally the cloud being emitted from under the bonnets!!!!

Tunnel

We travelled a little later than expected as we had some trouble finding a suitable campsite. There were yurt camps littered along the highway and in between them steep valleys that didn’t really provide us any suitable options. Eventually we found a steep disused track down to a lovely but very fast flowing and noisy alpine creek and although close to the road, we were completely out of sight to passing traffic.

Beautiful Campsite

Right next to our chosen location was a little rickety footbridge that was obviously receiving some intermittent use and I was sure we weren’t far from a yurt camp but nothing could be seen. A relaxing nights sleep was had, upon waking in the morning Jen exited the camper for the morning nature call and relayed back to me that the loo shovel was missing! We keep a small shovel handy for it’s convenience of size and it’s the only thing we ever leave out at night. Fortunately we had stuck to our ritual of locking all external compartments and the cab for it would seem that with the noisy creek providing cover, a local herders sticky fingers had found our toilet shovel too alluring to pass up.

It was all that had been touched but it did remind us of the need to be vigilant.

As we continued south the temperature went north, we were now descending from the mountains and into the Fergana valley. You could see the haze associated with the heat for many km’s before it struck and intermittent touching of the windscreen went from cold fingers to cooked fingers in a very short space of time.

The town of Arslanbob was to be our only real detour enroute to the border, believed to be the location walnuts were first discovered with natural forests of these trees remaining to this day and still being harvested.

We hoped to be able to camp somewhere near the town, which lies nestled amongst yet another vista of eye catching snow capped mountains.

Upon arrival I was immediately struck by the hustle and bustle in the central square market mixed with the aroma of spices and the like, the place was a buzz!

Wonderful Spices

It was late afternoon at this point so we headed a little out of town in the hope of gaining a campsite but weren’t having a great deal of luck, retreating to the town square with the intention of perusing the map again and coming up with a plan.

A local appeared at my window and introduced himself as Ibrahim – a CBT representative (Community Based Tourism) and would you believe we’d just read about him in our guidebook! After telling him we were looking for a camp for the night, he promptly gave us instructions to the local animal market, which is only used on Wednesdays so we were in luck. It was all of 200m from the center of the village and with walnut trees to camp beneath and a gated area for the Patrol it was exactly what we needed.

Animal Market Camp

We spent the late afternoon wandering up to a small 25mtr waterfall at the back of the village and knew we were on the right path when it became lined with vendors. Quite pretty and as luck would have it we departed at just the right time as we managed to grab a lift in a UAZ back to our camp Luckily it was all down hill as the UAZ would only run for a couple of minutes at a time so down hill billy cart style was the order!

UAZ Transport

Waterfall

Vendors

Into the bazaar the next morning for a wander and a little shopping before we hit the road southwards. The Fergana valley slid by and we soon found ourselves in the main street of Osh and after finding our way to Jayma Bazaar, we managed to change some $US into Tajik Somoni as we needed some cash before crossing the border.

A fairly modern city centre greeted us and we spent a little time looking around town before heading off in search of a home for the night. About 30km’s from the border we found a great little spot up a side valley off the highway and although receiving one lone visitor in a Daewoo we were able to enjoy some isolation.

Onward to the border and the Kyrgyz side was quite simple and painless. The Tajik Side, which involved quite a steep climb up to 4280m where the crossing is situated, was like something out of the 40’s! Nothing here has been updated for a very long time other than some solar power!

GBAO Zone

Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan Border pass 4280mtrs

The formalities were easy enough but the price gouging was a little offensive – US$60 to have our tyres sprayed with some chemicals from 2 weed sprayers (that I might add has cost little more than a dollar at every other border!), followed by fee’s for this and that. US$105 later and we were free, well sort of! We were only given 15 days validity for the Patrol to remain in Tajikistan, don’t really know why and it didn’t really matter as we figured that would be enough.

It was really exciting to finally be on the Pamir Hwy!

Pamir Highway

We pushed on and descended to Lake Kara-Kul, which we found very uninspiring. We stopped and chatted with a lone cyclist from Germany for a while and topped up his water but with the mosquitoes in plague proportions we continued a little further and with some perseverance found a reasonable camp about 5km off the main road and out of sight at 4060m.

Camped on the moon!

It was our highest camp and quite a jump in elevation – I’m really respectful of altitude sickness and as such had ensured that over the previous couple of weeks we’d been spending time at camps around the 3000m mark. We both experienced very mild headaches that night but that was about it.

Next morning saw us crest the highest pass on the Pamir Hwy and the trip at 4655m. It was spartan and in some ways quite an ugly pass and the scenery along the Pamir so far hasn’t been all that inspiring but given the altitude it wasn’t really a surprise. I’d also heard that the Wakhan Valley and Western Pamir region is where the eye candy is so we were content for now!

Selfie at 4655 mtrs!

On to the town of Murgab and mud brick homes emerge from the ground and seemingly disintegrate back into it just as easily. I can’t think of a tougher place to live with dust and nothing green in any direction and yet there seems to be no shortage of residents.

Murgab

We managed to pick up 20litres of diesel from an old dilapidated service station and after decanting it into a jerry can and funneling it through an old rag into the tank we were on our way.

Diesel available here?

Just west of the turn off to the Wakhan Valley, we made our way 20 or so km to the north of the Pamir Hwy to Yashil Kul Lake. The description we’d read of turquoise blue water with stunning ochre coloured cliffs surrounding the lake was, well, very exaggerated! I don’t want to talk it down however as it’s a beautiful location and served us very well as our home for the evening. A hidden campsite was difficult to find as there is no vegetation but luckily we were able to navigate our way down to the shoreline and find a spot completely out of sight.

Yashil Kul

We headed back to the Pamir and then onto the Wakhan Valley road and immediately back to the joy of very heavily corrugated track! About 20 minutes into the drive we passed 3 Hilux’s going in the opposite direction, each a dual cab ute with a large gun turret mounted to the rear tray and loaded with Tajik soldiers. Each soldier was attempting to cover his face to avoid inhaling the plumes of dust being emitted by their very fast transit! It seriously looked like something you would expect to see on CNN in Somalia or the like…

Anyway we looked at each other and figured they were there for our protection so we should feel safe in that knowledge….?

Some time later we descended down to Khargush and the Pamir River which forms the Tajikistan/Afghanistan border. Here there is another passport check and we spent some time waiting to have our information laboriously hand written into a ledger before being able to proceed. The soldiers manning the station were quite friendly and allowed us to check the ledger and see if there were any other tourists ahead of us, it appeared there was one vehicle a couple of days prior which gave us some faith that we weren’t alone!

Khargush Border Post

We were now driving along the Afghanistan border and spending most of our time looking into Afghanistan, the Tajik side is generally quite steep next to the track and therefore your eye is inevitably drawn across the river. After a few kms and numerous stops for photo’s we found a fast flowing creek of lovely snow melt water and stopped to fill our water tanks. Out of the car only minutes, we were greeted by a local herder who promptly invited us up to his house for the now familiar milk tea! Upon arrival we were met by his wife and with the usual Central Asian hospitality, out came a large assortment of food.

Tajik Family Visit

Central Asian Hospitality

First was milk tea and then bread with butter that they had churned themselves, yoghurt and a very strong flavored goat(?) cheese biscuit thing! 2 of their 3 daughters arrived home from herding the goats and joined us for our discussion of life in Tajikistan. It was a great visit and we found out that they sometimes host bicycle tourists in need of accommodation, which is a great boost to their income.

Getting out of sight for the night was again a challenge especially when we had seen an Afghan gentleman in a flak jacket running for no apparent reason on the opposite side of the river but we managed to hide behind some small hills on an old paddock, which served us well. Views across to Afghanistan and the 7000m+ mountains of Pakistan beyond were astounding and we spent some time just soaking up the vista and trying to come to terms with the fact that we were finally camped in this location after all of our planning!

Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan!

The next day the Wakhan valley began to come alive with fantastic driving mixed with awe inspiring scenery that took your breathe away!

Interesting Driving!

We were now driving along roads that have been cut into the faces of the mountains with, at times, hundreds of meters of very steep scree slope between us and the river. Much of the terrain the road is carved through is conglomerate and looking up at massive rocks that seem only to be held in place by a little mud smattered around them is very disconcerting! I know they come down regularly as you can see them strewn all over the place but I guess you’d have to be unlucky….??!!

Rocky Overhangs!

Slowly the valley thickens with inhabitants and townships, lots of home stay signs and the odd small shop. The people of the Wakhan are amazingly friendly; you actually end up with a sore arm from waving back at all the locals!

Friendly Locals

Our day consisted once again of many stops for photo’s and relaxation and included a fantastic detour up a very steep and quite narrow track encompassing many tight switchbacks to ancient Yamchun Fort – certainly the best to be seen in the valley with remnant watchtowers and an incredible cliff top location. A rapid gain in elevation provided stunning views of the valley and if not for the wind we’d probably have camped up there.

Yamchun Fort

Campsites were again a little tricky and we settled on a low spot along the river amongst some shrubs, which left us just visible to the road. Just settled in for dinner and the Tajik army spotted us and informed us that it wasn’t safe as we were too close to Afghanistan and should move on and stay in one of the towns. They were looking out for our safety I guess but to put you in perspective there isn’t anything on the other side of the river except very steep mountains and hardly any settlements of any sort. We finished dinner and began packing up, Jen said did you hear that and my response was “Yep – that was a high-powered rifle!,” followed closely by 2 more rounds sailing off somewhere into the valley!

We packed up with a little more purpose at this point and pulled back onto to the road and as we did the Tajik army were on there way back to make sure we’d moved on. Anyway it was probably just a farmer letting a few rounds go, I imagine if it had been cross border action there would have been more than 3 rounds but it still put the wind up us a little. It was now dark and after about 10km the next town appeared and we parked in someone’s yard behind a bus stop! No one bothered us and that was the end of the excitement.

Bus Stop Camp

Majestic mountains are the backdrop of the Wakhan -Afghanistan and Pakistan look equally inviting as you travel along the river, it’s hard not to be inspired by the view.

Afghan Village

The last stretch of the Wakhan and we were now heading toward Ishkashim and Khorog and to date we hadn’t seen another overlander! However after rounding a bend we came head to head with the Turtle Expedition.

Turtle V

Turtle Expedition

If you have experienced overland travel or are thinking about it and have been spending some time perusing the net then you more than likely have come across these guys. Anyway if you haven’t then here is their website – take a look!

www.turtleexpedition.com

Being familiar with Gary and Monika’s travel history and their current journey meant meeting them was a real bonus for us as they are a wealth of information.

We ended up spending a couple of hours on the side of the road with them sharing stories, discussing our vehicle setup and swapping suggestions regarding our respective itineraries and hope to see them again. Maybe in the US at Overland Expo!

Gary and Monika had given us some great advice regarding Khorog such as where we could park, get internet and the like – we take this info when we can as it can be a challenge finding these things on your own! Back on the road toward Khorog and another passport check came into view but this one turned out to be a little ugly. I exited the Patrol with passports in hand as I always do and was greeted with some locals sitting around the office obviously insulting me in the local dialect, no problem I just insulted them in my dialect and all was Ok! Whilst I was in the office with the first unfriendly Tajik I’d met, Jen was in the car and unbeknown to me a camouflage wearing individual and then a local in his usual goat herding attire were attempting to get her to open up the camper, she could see them making gestures to others behind the vehicle in the rear view camera and they were watching to see that I was still inside the office. Jen knew they didn’t have any right to look inside the vehicle and when they became quite aggressive she gave them a firm NO and proceeded to ignore them until they gave up! I didn’t know about this until I was back in the Patrol and by then they’d all scurried off.

Only a couple of hours earlier Gary and Monika had told us that Monika always does any type of paperwork check whilst Gary locks the doors and stays in the truck, the local men aren’t as comfortable dealing with women and are less likely to become difficult, so our strategy has now changed and we follow theirs! So far the new strategy is working a charm!

It was late afternoon by the time we made it to Khorog so we decided to camp and head into town the next day for a look around.

We drove up the Pamir Hwy back to the east for about 40km as we wanted to have a taste of this section of the Pamir Hwy as well and figured we’d had enough of camping on the Afghanistan border….

It was looking a little tricky until I noticed a rough and ready soccer pitch as we passed through a small town, a track leading in was found and camp set. A few locals wandered by during the afternoon, they had an assortment of farm animals tethered around the ground for the day and were in the process of retrieving them as evening approached.

Khorog is the location where most of the violence seems to occur between different local clan’s and is the area that has the most direct bearing on whether the GBAO permit is suspended. Due to the publicity, which is always negative around this town, we were expecting a war zone. The plan had been to get in, get fuel and get out!

To say we were wrong would be a big understatement, Khorog turned out to be as friendly as the Wakhan, laid out with lovely parks and cafe’s, a public swimming area teaming with families cooling off in the mid day sun and generally a warm and welcoming vibe! There is however no doubt this town has suffered its share of bloodshed even as recently as mid June and probably will again. The tranquility we encountered makes you realize just how fast things can change.

Khorog

Continuing toward Dushanbe we enjoyed the now spoilt feeling of having too much lovely scenery, an easy day resulting in camp being found up the Bartang Valley and about 10km from the Afghanistan border.

We were hoping to continue toward Dushanbe along the Pamir Hwy (the M41) but had been told that the road was closed and we’d need to travel a longer route to the south on the newer all year road. We were disappointed at this news, as I’d been led to believe some of the best scenery lies along the main Pamir Hwy. Disappointment was short-lived however as we found the road had been reopened and although in poor condition we would be allowed to traverse it!

The road didn’t let us down and did provide some of the most amazing scenery whilst affording us a respite from the rising temperatures as we were able to camp at around 3000m again and enjoy some cool night air!

Wildflowers everywhere!

Eventually the road improved and as we got closer to Dushanbe the traffic became fast and furious as it does in this part of the world! We had our first of 2 police stops along this road as, aside from the frequent passport checks, to date we hadn’t even drawn a Police officers eye in Tajikistan. The first stop ended as abruptly as it began – as soon as he realised we were tourists he just waved us on!

The second was a little different, Jen jumped out as per our new strategy and after a brief discussion he wouldn’t deal with her and made his way to my window, beginning with the usual handshake he then proceeded to point to the speedo suggesting I’d been speeding! I pointed to the in-car camera and said your on it and that was the end of that, he slithered back across the road to his patrol car and we departed!

I didn’t find the city overly inspiring and it was very hot which probably didn’t help so we pretty much made a transit and continued toward Uzbekistan. We fuelled up as close to the border as we could and made camp around 20km from the crossing. Jen gets credit here as she found a road up a valley and located us a great camp on a fast flowing creek between some villages and completely out of sight.

Overloaded maybe?

You can never have too many watermelons!

Local Road Sense

More local chaos

Hidden Camp

Crossing into Uzbekistan was very efficient and consisted of a lot of paperwork. The Patrol received a full X-ray scan followed by sniffer dogs and a physical search! You have to list all foreign currency you are in possession of and should you try and leave the country with more than that declared it will be confiscated!

The rules go on and on and there was a moment when I wondered if it was worth the hassle?

Depends who is interpreting the rules but to stay on the safe side you are not allowed to camp and must hotel it every night and receive a registration stamp from the Hotel!

It’s a shame that these rules are in place as we passed many great campsites in the first 200km of the border crossing and I’ve no doubt we would have spent a lot more time and money here had we had a little more freedom! Driving toward Qarshi where we hoped to find some accommodation was like being in hell! Dead flat whitish landscape with mid 40 degree temperatures and the land sporadically peppered with large chimneys emitting the flame associated with gas production, it was very eerie! As Uzbekistan has large reserves of gas most vehicles are or have been converted to gas powered and hence diesel and even petrol can be hard to find with many travellers having to resort to buying it from roadside vendors selling it in recycled plastic water bottles!

Our information for Qarshi was non existent so we drove around a little looking for somewhere to stay and eventually found a local hotel but unfortunately the establishment also has to be registered in order to accept foreigners so we were out of luck! Jen met a restaurant owner whom in realizing our needs insisted on piling into the Patrol with us (yep 3 in the cab again!) and proceeded to direct us to some Hotels, quick goodbye’s and he was on his way!! How nice was that!

The heat and flat terrain persisted and then we were treated to strong wind squalls laden with dust. Bukhara came into view and with it the terrain relaxed back into friendly surrounds with trees and greenery.

Desert Driving

I don’t know how we managed it but we ended up parking 100m from the accommodation we’d booked before deciding we were in the wrong place and moving a little further away, Jen asked a local shop owner for directions and yep you guessed it! She locked up her shop and there were 3 in the Patrol again, she directed us right back to where we’d previously been parked! We located the Salom Inn Hotel on foot and after parking the Patrol in a secure parking lot settled down to a cold beverage and a wander around this very old and interesting city. Dinner was had at Minzifa rooftop restaurant with the sun fading to a red hue as it dipped below the desert and the hassle of entering Uzbekistan seemed to be a distant memory!

Trading Domes

Lyabi Hauz

Kalon Minaret

Beautiful architecture

We had a great couple of nights in Bukhara and wandering around the old city was absolutely sensational, I’d be lying if I didn’t mention the fact that it’s definitely been tricked up to encourage the tourist dollar but the atmosphere was absolutely warm and welcoming and the detour to this ancient city was well justified.

We are now in Samarkand staying at the Emir B&B and have spent the day looking around this more modern city. I’m a little Mosqued out to be honest and tonight will include some cold drinks and a relax. Tomorrow we head for Tashkent and then back into Kazakhstan and no doubt the next experience with the Police Academy cadets! Looking forward to that….

Shahi Zindra

Uzbek Super Dog

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Emir B&B in Samarkand ticked all the boxes for us with a great location that provided us easy access to the City’s treats. Meeting other travellers here was a real bonus for us as we generally only have each other to converse with. The opportunity to chat to others about their travels has become an experience that we relish when it presents!

Uzbek Bread

Shah-i-Zinda

Registan

Emir B&B

We crossed paths here with an American family on an Uzbekistan holiday and we couldn’t help but laugh when they recalled the reactions they had received from friends at home upon telling them their intended travel destination. – One comment was “why do you want to go to a country you can’t pronounce the name of and is at war?”….

Fellow travellers from the US

We shared dinner with the Americans at a local outdoor restaurant and, due to being sold out of most other things, an Uzbek Super Dog was the favoured meal choice. Whilst looking for all intents and purposes like a true American hot dog in the pictures, it actually consisted of a pita bread pocket filled with carrot, egg, and a frankfurt along with a litre of ketchup! More ketchup was brought to the table just in case we didn’t have enough and it was an interesting take on the classic.

Obtaining a tasty alcoholic beverage, however, proved challenging as Ramadan was still in progress, but Jen came into her own and obtained the required beverages on the sly from a restaurant! For a minute it looked like a dry night and we couldn’t have that, could we??!!

It was fantastic to meet such well-travelled people with the most amazing stories that pretty much covered the globe – Africa to China and everything in between!

On the road and we eventually reached Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital. A bit of a nightmare navigating our way in as none of the major roads are marked with any sort of street names and incorrect information from the local police didn’t help, but eventually we found Hotel Safar and, with pop star parking, we settled in. We had dinner across the road from the hotel at El Cascada, which was expensive by Uzbek standards but seemed an easy option! A late start the next day as we enjoyed chatting with the consistent stream of locals peering inside the camper as we prepared to leave! We were in a really nice part of the city and surrounded by some lovely homes. Uzbekistan to my eye appears to be quite affluent as compared to other “stans” – the usual mixture of mud brick homes in the country areas but the cities are very modern!

I can’t really describe the driving skills here – chaotic and idiotic might be a start but we are becoming more than used to the style now and that makes it a lot easier!

We departed for the border crossing at Chernyaevka and after an hour we arrived only to find we couldn’t cross at the location shown on all the maps and many websites as it was for foot traffic only! (or so we were told by locals) A little confused we were directed by locals to a vehicle border crossing and with a friendly local leading the way we soon arrived at the border.

However, we couldn’t cross here either, as this one was only for locals and would have to travel back 60km south of Tashkent to make the crossing! Somewhat confused and frustrated at this point, and feeling like idiots as we pride ourselves on preparedness, we checked our information and according to our info the first crossing we were trying to use had been open for 3 years and was currently active! Anyway it’s hard to argue with border control so south we headed. It was all a little stressful as diesel is very difficult to obtain in Uzbekistan and, as such, I had planned our route taking this into account. Due to this border fiasco, we ended up over running our expected driving distance by 200km!

Eventually the Yallama border crossing appeared and proved reasonably efficient – the usual non-existent instructions or signage but plenty of helpful people who assisted us through. 4 hours evaporated by the time we found ourselves back in Kazakhstan!

We took on diesel only 10km from the border along with all of the trucks departing Uzbekistan and to say I was relieved to fuel up would be a real understatement! North to a dodgy campsite on someone’s paddock and then on to Shymkent we headed. A resupply and we settled in for a couple of thousand km driving that was really to be only a transit for us.

Story cd’s playing, we continued north but you have to register your visa within 5 days of crossing the border so the pressure was on for us to make it to Russia!

We briefly stopped in Turkistan for a look at the Yasaui Mausoleum, which despite being unfinished due to Timur’s untimely death back in 1405, was quite spectacular with a 2000kg cauldron for holy water as the centerpiece.

Yasaui Mausoleum

2000kg Cauldron

Clocking up the hours driving with the associated km’s meant that meeting 2 Italian overland vehicles on their way south provide a nice break from the road! On a whirlwind trip from Italy, they were heading to Uzbekistan and then home so with maps spread we swapped stories and contact details before once again hitting the road. We hope to enjoy the offer of delicious spaghetti with them once we make it to Italy!

Italians!

Baikonur Cosmodrome came into view and we idled along the road for a while with binoculars and zoom lenses trying to see what we could see! You can only gain access to the site via a few select tour agencies, only if there is a launch and only after parting with a large quantity of cash and even then it seems somewhat difficult to organize! Apparently there is an amazing museum of space travel and Yuri Gagarin paraphernalia on site but access is prohibited. Quite sad really! The Italians had sent letters 8 months in advance to the Russian Government to try to arrange access to the museum only, but to no avail!

Baikonur Cosmodrome

The Kennedy Space Centre in the US has tours and the like and really gets you involved and wanting to buy souvenirs and spend your money whilst here our only interaction with anything to do with the cosmos was the Police questioning us whilst we parked outside the main gate for a photo opportunity, very welcoming! They certainly do things differently here!

No point hanging around and so it was on to the next destination, Aralsk – the site of the once blue and fish stocked waters of the Aral sea before the rivers and source of it’s life blood were diverted to grow thirsty cotton in the incredibly arid Uzbek landscape. Clever move that one! Anyway, if your interested just Google it and have a read, what a disaster! We eventually found the site where some fishing boats have been put on display giving a glimpse into a life that seems could never have existed when you look around this desolate and somewhat depressing place! Fortunately for us however we were able to locate an immigration police office and an hour or so of waiting patiently saw our visas registered and with that the pressure to make the border was removed! A good thing too as it was looking like an all night drive to make it and I really wasn’t looking forward to that even with our sensational lighting.

Aralsk harbour

Aralsk Fishing Fleet

2 more days slid by as we traversed more and more modern large towns with obvious Russian influence. We did pass a convoy of around 12 motorhomes with European plates heading the other way and couldn’t get a wave out of any of them! I think they were too fixated on sticking with the group to look sideways!

Russia Kazakh Border

We finally arrived at the border and said our goodbyes to Kazakhstan, we’d only been stopped twice more by the police and then only one suggested we were speeding, so all in all it had been a smooth transit. One and half hours and we were back on Russian soil and heading for a rendezvous with some local Russians who were friends of friends back in Perth! Little did we know that we were once again about to be soaked in Russian hospitality and would look back on the next few days with amazement and fantastic memories whilst adding another group of Russians to our list of best friends that we sincerely hope to see again!

Maxim, Olga, Sasha and Sasha (long story) along with their friend Sasha, his son Vladimir and father Peter along with a few more extended family members made us feel like royalty.

Our wonderful Russian Friends

Justin and Peter

The American icon of McDonalds also made more than a few appearances as we reached the larger Russian towns although it looked a little different!!

McDonalds

Just outside of Tolyatti city, Maxim and family met us on the side of the road and guided us into the city and to their friend Peter’s fantastic house that was to be our home for the next couple of nights. Russians seem to do hospitality at a level that leaves most other nationalities well and truly in their wake! Chai (Tea) served on arrival and then a fantastic summer soup of fresh seasonal greens mixed with Kvass (a local drink) and sour cream, which might all sound unusual but was very refreshing.

Kvass Soup

Peter has a Russian Banya (like a sauna) in his back yard and an invite to a traditional Russian bath wasn’t going to be passed up! We’d been in the car pretty solid the last few days and Maxim had played it perfectly in suggesting the experience! A serious amount of body cleansing was in order and it was provided!

Russian Banya

An exercise in male bonding including being smacked with birch leaves was a truly relaxing experience and one I feel fortunate to have enjoyed. I was able to enjoy this Russian tradition in a private banya in a Russian home whilst being made so welcome that I’ll never forget it.

Jen had her banya experience after the male bonding session and together we emerged freshly birch leafed and refreshed!

Wandering into the backyard and Peter’s son Sasha was hard at work preparing shashlik and trout for dinner – this was just too good!

Justin, Sasha and Peter

Later in the evening whilst the throng of people were trying to sort Jen’s Internet connection out, Peter grabbed me and suggested we head to the neighbour’s for a little drink! This particular day is a celebration here in Russia – I’ll call it Para-trooper day. You see flags being carried all over the place along with beret wearing locals sporting very red faces after having consumed more than a couple of drinks. Arriving at the neighbour’s, I was greeted by a two Russian navy lads, one the size of a battleship on his own, who were refining their shooting skills by lining up apples and shooting them with an air rifle on the picket fence! Clad in blue and white striped shirts and berets, they certainly looked the part!

So here I am in backyard Russia eating shashlik and toasting with the locals whilst communicating in a language none of us understand and all the while having a truly fantastic experience!

Maxim and family took on the role of tour guides the following day and from mid morning until well after dark we were treated to a tour of there locality, from restaurants and museums to walking in the forest before meeting some of their friends and whiling away the evening in great company.

A wonderful day and the bar was again set higher. Maxim’s son Sasha who said he couldn’t speak English earlier in the day through shyness, was actually quite adept and treated us to some lessons in Russian over the course of the afternoon! I came away with my new favourite word – kruto, which means “cool” in English!

The morning arrived and with it Maxim and family. We needed to arrange a new Russian third party insurance policy for the Patrol and looking back on the experience, without Maxim, I think it may have been almost impossible.

Goodbyes were said and with a truly heavy heart we departed Peter’s house, it had been a true respite from the rigors of travel and we could have easily stayed! A supermarket restock and lunch with Maxim, Olga and sons and we were on our way to Moscow!

Peter’s House

A couple of hours on the road and we found a great campsite on the Volga river. It took a little snooping but it was definitely worth it. We could easily have spent a couple of nights here but the capital was calling and beyond it we hope to make Slovakia to meet a friend, which requires us to get a move on! So on we travel whilst trying not to become a hood ornament for a road train. You can count the legs on the dead insects on the grills of the trucks that tailgate you! How close must that make them?

View from Camp

Volga River Camp

Another nights camp on a relatively disused track some 4km off the highway and we are 460km from Moscow! The next day was a long one and the traffic on the M5 got heavier and heavier. We arrived at the newly located Sokolniki campground, which is just north east of central Moscow at around 7:30pm, and were greeted by a very confused security guard. After a phone call to the park manager he finally let us in. It was great to be parked and out of the peak hour rush and we celebrated arriving in this great city with nibbles and drinks. As the only residents of the recently re-opened camp ground we enjoyed a quiet night of relaxation.

Sokolniki Camp

ARB Moscow

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Like most who love their 4×4, I have always personalised my vehicles to suit my needs and I’m not at all shy in pushing ARB products. I’ve been using their gear long enough to appreciate that it’s well designed, user friendly and high quality.

By the way, it should be stated that I’m not affiliated with them in any way other than the fact I’m Australian!

So when some months ago we were contacted by ARB Moscow and offered the use of their facilities should we require any assistance whilst on our journey, we responded with a definite “yes thanks” and we would be in touch.

We advised Dmitriy from ARB of our arrival in Moscow and 30 minutes later Dmitriy arrived at the RV Park, ready to escort us into their facilities for a look around! I was keen to use the workshop for a service and was in need of a replacement tyre! One of our Cooper ST Maxx’s had developed a large vertical split in the sidewall of unknown origin that was obviously spreading and fast becoming a candidate for a blow out. This is my third set of Coopers and the first to have any issues but I am aware of other Cooper tyres failing in the same way so I’ll keep an eye on them.

Cooper Tyre Kaput!!

It’s now early Thursday afternoon and hence I was thinking we were to have a look around ARB and meet the staff whilst organizing a time for me to perform a service. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

ARB Moscow

Following Dmitriy across the city to ARB made the drive much easier and upon arrival we were greeted by another Dmitriy whom is head of engineering. The 2 Dmitriy’s had a conversation that eluded me and subsequently I handed over my keys to Dimitri number 2. For the first time since leaving Australia I wasn’t in control of my Patrol!

It was brought in and placed on a hoist whilst I was being asked what oil I would like and is there anything else that requires attention? Well yes actually! I needed to adjust one of the rear coil spring rubbers and in addition to the aforementioned tyre, needed a rebalance of all the others as we had a consistent run of lost wheel weights.

Patrol being pampered

Slowly the penny dropped! I wasn’t even going to get dirty; these guys were looking after everything. I couldn’t believe it!

ARB Mechanics

Patrol being pampered!

Leaving the mechanics to it, we wandered upstairs and had a look at all of the products; it was a little like dejavu wandering around the showroom! Photo’s of Australian 4×4’s and the exact feel that an ARB store in Australia has! The obvious change from Latin to Cyrillic the only real give away that we were on the other side of the globe.

ARB Showroom

ARB Cafe

After a look around we were directed to the in store ARB café overlooking the showroom and would you believe, treated to a 4-course meal prepared by an actual chef! Patrol being serviced we spend our time chatting with Dmitriy and enjoying a range of sensational food, does it get any better? I learnt here that ARB were also doing specific products to suit the Russian market, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised but I hadn’t really thought about it.

Apparently the local market was keen for ARB to produce an air locker to suit their old faithful, the UAZ, and ARB responded by doing just that! I think that’s fantastic, no doubt an expensive exercise for the company but to me that shows commitment to your consumer!

During our time in the café we were fortunate to meet the CEO from ARB Moscow and express our gratitude for all they were doing for us! We really felt like royalty.

ARB Moscow

Dmitriy number 2 arrives at our table; service complete, spring rubber re-seated, wheels balanced and our new tire will arrive tomorrow! Just too efficient!

We truly cannot express our gratitude to ARB Moscow strongly enough. Not only did we have someone to assist us when we were really at the mercy of a language barrier but also an organization that knows what we required and bent over backwards to assist. But wait, there’s more….

The following morning saw us arrive at the Metro for our first visit to Red Square and the Kremlin, but we weren’t going alone! Dmitriy #1 met us at the Metro and was now our personal Moscow guide.

Moscow Metro

Red Square, St Basils Cathedral and the Kremlin were to be our first points of interest. Just sensational to be standing in Red Square in front of such iconic buildings!

St Basil’s Cathedral

Us in Red Square!

Kremlin Cathedral Spires

More Red Square

The whole experience was made even more memorable by the guidance provided by Dmitriy whose knowledge of the city and warm persona were again characteristic of the warm Russian welcome that was again being lavished upon us!

Ugly Wedding Cars in Red Square

A visit to the Armoury at the Kremlin was an amazing experience, it’s easy to quickly become museummed out, so to speak, but the collection available here for your perusal is truly phenomenal, if you visit Moscow then include it on your itinerary!

As with any experience revolving around good company, the day was quickly dissipating and as the evening loomed, we met up with Dmitriy’s partner Nadya who was just lovely. After a fantastic meal in central Moscow we wandered along the Moskva River and looked at too many sights to list.

Nice Shot thanks to Nadya!

Moskva River

Love Locks!

Late in the evening, we walked into a little bar and with the easy flow of conversation filling the air, we all managed to slightly over indulge! We all had a wonderful time and that was easily expressed by the fact that we fell into a cab at somewhere between 3 and 4am for the trip back the campground!

Drinking with friends

Late Night!

Half a dozen Danish RV’s were now on site but I was a little underwhelmed with the 24 hour security as we crashed our way to the camper in the darkness without challenge! Anyway that’s another story!

Surprisingly fit and able the following day albeit arising quite late(proves practice is important!) we checked out before again being met by Dmitriy and led back to ARB where we picked up our replacement tyre.

From there we headed to the VVC Exhibition Centre and parked the vehicle before heading into the amazing landscaped grounds, which contain a multitude of pavilions from Soviet times. Each one was used to display the achievements of the soviet states and we wandered amongst the incredible fountains and generally had a lazy day enjoying the sun and fresh air.

Soyuz Rocket Display at VVC Centre

VVC Park Fountains

VVC Centre Fountains

The Russians made some really strange vehicles!!

We’d been invited to spend the night at Dmitriy #2’s Dacha (weekender), an invitation that had to be accepted! Again following Dmitriy we headed southeast around the MKAD ring road and about an hour later saw us in lovely forest around a fire with beer in hand. (Dmitriy’s beer! It seems whatever we arrive with we also leave with! Russian hospitality!)

Dmitriy’s Dacha

Our Parking Spot

The cat who came to visit

We met Dmitriy #2’s wife Julia and over the time we spent there found her always smiling face to be intoxicating, she is just one of those lovely people!

Dmitriy and Julia

There were 17 people at the house that weekend; apparently that’s a regular occurrence! The previous night with Dmitriy #1 had seen us wind up at around 4am, now I’m in the company of Dmitriy #1 and #2 and it was going take some stamina!

Jen managed to slide off to bed unnoticed and the rest of us must have had some great discussions as it was a 5am finish this time! What’s happening to me??

A sleep in was required and enjoyed, we wasted the day sitting around chatting and drinking coffee before heading off late in the afternoon to take some photo’s of the Patrol for Dmitriy. As a press attaché he will be putting together an article on our travels.

Photo Shoot

We’d originally planned to leave Moscow that afternoon but time had gotten away from us as we’d been enjoying ourselves way too much, I asked Dmitriy #2 if it would be OK to spend another night and leave in the morning? His response was – I have a full fridge! That made me smile.

Most of the 17 weekend inhabitants had, at this point, departed as it was Sunday and work called. That meant an earlier night of about 1:30am !!!! Oh those Russians!!!!

Busy night for international relations

Again we had trouble saying goodbye in the morning, I’ve had family members do less for me than these people who were mere strangers a few days ago! Words fail me.

Dmitriy and Julia spend a lot of their time travelling and being like minded, had given us some great advice on travel destinations and varying routes. It would seem our plans really are fluid as we are being strongly drawn in new directions. You will have to stay tuned and see where we end up!

Russian Driving

We parked up just outside the MKAD ring road and caught the Metro back into Moscow central. We just wanted to have another wander around Red Square and soak it up a little more!

The whole area was fenced off as it would seem there had been a parade of some sort over the weekend. Lucky we’d visited previously as that would have spoilt the experience.

Wandering into the famous and very expensive shopping plaza, GUM, which runs along the side of Red Square, we were intrigued to see a queue of around 40m in length terminating at a small shopping stall in the middle of the Plaza. There were large TV style cameras and people sporting microphones, we thought it was possibly an appearance by some one rather famous or a book signing or the like!

When close enough I was a little lost for words, Putin certainly has strong support here and I was left in no doubt just how popular! The queue of people were attempting to purchase there own T-shirt sporting a characterized Putin in different settings such as wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sporting the caption “greetings from Crimea!” Make your own judgment on that one.

Greetings from Crimea!

Putin

Once we’d had enough we departed toward Volgograd and after around 100km found a camp along a forestry track. Definitely an early night!

The next few days saw us visit towns such as Rostov and Yaroslav before turning West at Volgograd for St Petersburg. It’s always nice to arrive in a city and see the sights but it’s also exhilarating to wander the countryside. Finding hidden bush camps in such foreign lands is a challenge that I thoroughly enjoy!

Rostov

Jen located an RV park to the west of St Petersburg and that suited our needs perfectly. Sat-Nav loaded we departed the ring road and arrived at the park located on the gulf of Finland! It was the first time we’d seen ocean water in 23000km and the sight and smell was nothing short of tantalizing. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy living by the sea!

Baltic PARKing

The park was a little unusual, basically a car park next to a Government Conference center. Showers and amenities were inside the main building and were absolutely first class, whilst a restaurant occupied the second level. All of the staff were super friendly and more than keen to be of assistance.

It was easy to pick a spot as we were the only residents! Wandering in to the restaurant for dinner was interesting – a flashy affair exuding fine dining and silver service and once again we were the only inhabitants. It was actually quite simple food such as shashlik with ketchup and we couldn’t quite work out the silver service connection to the meal! Anyway it was tasty and I didn’t have to prepare it.

Russian hospitality was again about to burst forth in all its splendor! Ivan and his wife Natalia had contacted us via email after a mutual connection with Vitali and Galena whom had looked after us way back in Khabarovsk! Ivan had offered us an apartment in St Petersburg – can you believe that!! Anyway we’d ended up staying at the campground as it was a little easier with the Patrol and saved any unpacking and finding secure parking.

Now on Ivan’s home turf we were to be treated to a tour of this amazing city once again by strangers soon to become friends. But first we would meet for dinner the following evening.

Bus and Metro delivered us to down town St Petersburg and we spent the day trying to take it all in, an impossible feat. It has to be said that St Petersburg’s Metro is an artistic gem with Avtovo station the highlight. The city itself is magnificent, home to the Hierarchy in times gone and absolutely no expense has been spared in making sure it fulfilled all of their desires. Today it’s a masterpiece of architecture and a plethora of tourists.

Avtovo Metro Station

Church of our Savior on Spilt Blood

Hermitage

We really have slipped from expedition mode into tourist mode quite suddenly!

Evening approached and we met Ivan and Natalia. Easy conversation ensued and we soon found ourselves submitting to Ivan’s charms as he ordered a host of tasty treats! The restaurant even had a resident piglet that was walked around on a lead!! The evening rapidly slipped away and we found ourselves back in the camper at around 11:30pm totally satisfied and with tentative plans for the next day.

Wasting the morning in the relentless pursuit of chores we eventually made our way back into the city and met Ivan and Natalia. A boat cruise of the local canal’s and waterways was the plan and we were fortunate again to be in the company of such knowledgeable locals. The tour that Ivan found for us to enjoy was not even worth comparing to the brochures and information we had, it was fantastic and about an hour after setting sail, had an extra 1000 photo’s to sort through!

River Cruise

Beautiful Bridge Support

Dinner at Zoom café, number 1 on Trip Advisor was quirky and really Kruto!!

We’d been treated to another wonderful day and were now being chauffeured back to the camp ground.

Arriving at the campground we were excited to see 2 RV’s parked near us. We had some company! Those who know us will realise we’d generally avoid crowds for the solitude of the bush but in this case we were hoping for a conversation in English. After months of struggling with language you really do long for an easy chat!

Ivan and Natalia had a look over our little home and after another round of goodbyes they departed, more people that we can’t thank enough for their hospitality! Hope to repay them one day when they visit us in Perth…. Thanks guys!!

Us, Ivan and Natalia

So 2 RV’s were parked along side us. One with English plates. The closer of the 2 whilst proudly sporting Netherland plates was however occupied by Tom and Pam from Brisbane!

Tom & Pam

Tom & Pam’s Camper

What were the odds of that, 4 and a half months on the road from Vladivostok and our neighbour’s in St Petersburg are Aussies! We could once again sport our own version of the Kings English along with all of the slang and sarcasm that we love to use.

Apparently a similar reaction had occurred in their cab as they realized our vehicle was Australian registered!

Purchasing their motorhome in Holland, these intrepid travellers had spent a couple of stints of around 6 months each touring Europe and were on their last leg and heading via Moscow back to Holland were the already sold RV was to meet it’s new owners! These guys had some serious travel destinations ticked off and a long list of locations still to pursue. A couple of nights in their company and we departed St Petersburg, once again with a lot less red wine than we’d arrived with! Great people to meet and hope to see them again.

An uneventful run to the border and a large queue met our gaze as we approached the crossing into Estonia, Jen tried to obtain compulsory third party European insurance here but was met with cold disdain from the Russian working the insurance booth and so we gave up for the moment.

Border Queue

Fortunately the line was reasonably fast moving and around an hour saw as at the front! It rapidly slowed down for us at that point as all manner of confusion broke out amongst the border control staff as to how to process us. They thought our vehicle registration document was fake and we moved the vehicle off to one side and waited around an hour for them to confirm the validity of our registration. Why they thought we’d drive from Vladivostok via all the other countries and try and cross into Estonia with fake rego is beyond me but whatever!

Finally we were free to go! Yay…. We headed into the Town of Narva as we’d been told where we could buy the compulsory third party insurance for Europe. Fortunately it’s only about 1km from the border, long story short and neither of the 2 companies would sell us insurance! Now we had a problem.

In the end we gave up for the day as it was nearly 8pm and made our way north and found a bush camp a few km’s from the town. We had to get insurance immediately and discussed our options!

Another Cat Visitor

The following morning we headed back into town and found some WiFi. We emailed the Dutch company, Alessie, whom we knew would provide Green Card insurance and asked for a quote along with also emailing the head office of one of the previously approached insurers in an effort to find out if they could insure us?

Of course this was all going to take time and we would also need to provide digital signatures and the like to the Dutch company before we would have a valid printable policy.

It was all getting really tricky so we parked the Patrol about 500m from the border where we’d previously crossed and went in on foot. After explaining the situation they were astonished on 2 points! Firstly, we shouldn’t have been let out of border control without the required TPL insurance and secondly that the local companies were refusing to cover us.

Anyway upon realising that we had tried to obtain the TPL insurance on the Russian side without success, because the sales woman couldn’t be bothered dealing with foreigners, and again tried in town before returning to the border they had quickly decided we were doing the right thing and did all they could to assist us.

They couldn’t understand why the local companies were refusing however!

We returned the vehicle to the border control area and they organised a one month policy for us, which they did with great efficiency and we were on our way.

Narva

Narva Fortress

Ivangorod Fortress

A few days later and we had a response from the local companies main management saying there was no problem and they would be more than happy to take our money, just go into a local office! Work that out…. The Dutch company by contrast responded within hours…

Estonia, what a change! How is it possible to cross a river and enter another country and it be so different. We loved our time in Estonia and especially enjoyed the city of Tallinn. I had no expectations of this country and hence found it all the more enjoyable.

Tallinn

Tallian Bastion Walls

No problem finding free camping, driving through quaint little town after quaint little town filled with the ruins of medieval forts along with lovely café’s amongst forest settings! We really are tourists now…

Padise Klooster

After a few days we headed south toward Latvia and our first border crossing that only required us to drive across and keep going, I can’t tell you how nice that was after 10 very and at times invasive crossings that actually totalled 19 border experiences. When you leave one country you have to enter the next so it’s always twice the fun!!

Estonia Latvia Border

Latvia proved just as enjoyable to the eye as Estonia. We stayed true to our likes and, where we could, travelled the back roads. Again the smattering of ruined castles persisted and the scenery remained stunning. One night’s camp saw us deep in a National Park where there were a few locals camped. Upon running into one of the locals whilst walking along a river, he asked how we had found this place? He’d lived in Latvia for 37 years and had only just discovered it! To say he was amazed to see our foreign Patrol would be an understatement.

Cesis Castle

South and into Lithuania, not much time spent here as it was continual rain and the terrain had flattened. We ended up crossing this tiny county in something like 4 hours. It was late in the day when we crossed into Poland and it took some effort finding a campsite. After being told by one obnoxious local that there were no free camps in Poland we managed to find one about 500m from where we’d received that gem of information!

As we’ve travelled south from Estonia there is an obvious regression back to the more Russian style of driving, in Estonia it is very ordered and more like you’d expect in Western Europe! There is a general slide in the quality of infrastructure and the like as well, I don’t want to talk it down it’s just that it’s obvious that there is more money in the north!

We decided not to bother with a visit to Warsaw, instead heading for Krakow. The further south we travel, the previous slide in quality of infrastructure and the like has halted and once again things are on the up! We are now in an RV park in Krakow and again seeing quizzical looks on faces as they see our number plates and try and work our where we are from. We even have people taking photo’s of our vehicle through the nearest fence!

The following should make you laugh!

Our clothes storage area was looking rather spartan when we reached Moscow, every piece of clothing we owned was sporting some sort of erroneous smell generally combined with a stain of some sort. We had worn everything we had available to the point of it being rather feral! So finally in the campground in Moscow we had an opportunity to wash some clothes and advantage of the washing machine we took!

Now with all our clothing soaking wet as tumble dryers seem to have slipped off the requirement list for RV parks we strung numerous ropes around our camper and hung everything out to dry in the nice sunny conditions!!

We’d been doing the odd hand wash along the way but you never really get that clean feeling do you? As for Laundromats, it would seem they just don’t have them in Russia!

So with everything hanging out to dry we headed off for our initial meeting with ARB in Moscow. Following was pretty much 3 solid days of rain and our clothes never even came close to drying! So when we left we were back to a few basics that we were able to dry along with what resembled a wet dog in a rubbish bag!

St Petersburg included a nice session of thunderstorms everyday we were there and so didn’t prove to be our clothing savior. I had actually bought some new clothes at this point! I can’t stand that wet dog smell..

With enough to get us through to our friend Terry’s house in Slovakia in a couple of weeks, we decided that was the easiest option. We would avail him of his washing machine and all would be good!

Arriving in Krakow yesterday we were greeted with warm and sunny blue skies, something we’ve not seen for a while. So sunny in fact that we decided to do all the washing here so as not to bother having to use Terry’s machine. We hung it out yesterday afternoon whilst wearing shorts and T’s and during the night the clear skies gave way to solid cloud and it’s rained pretty much ever since!

This could be Noah’s Ark!!!

There is really something weird going on with the weather and us!!

You Tube Videos

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Hello All! Just a quick update from the beautiful city of Prague, there is another post on it’s way shortly but in the meantime….

We have loaded a couple more YouTube videos – a quick one of Charyn Canyon in Kazakhstan and the other is of some sections of the Pamir Highway and Wakhan valley in Tajikistan. Most of it is looking into Afghanistan and it has some great scenery. I know it’s of interest to some of our followers so we thought we’d get the links up on the site.

Link to Charyn Canyon video http://youtu.be/bH3u2oePPCQ

Link to Pamir/Wakhan video http://youtu.be/T5QrM2tuNI8

All the best and back soon – Justin and Jen..

ABC Another Beautiful City!!

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NB. This is a fairly long one so get a coffee!!!

The word had been that Krakow was well worth the stopover and disappointed we were not!

After setting up in the RV Park early in the afternoon we found ourselves indulging in a favorite combination, Blue Costello Cheese and a glass (or 2) of red! A fantastic smell wafted past, my tongue fell out of my mouth reminiscent of a thirsty dog slobbering after a run on the beach!

I mentioned to Jen that if we could locate the RV emitting the alluring fragrance we might be able to sneak in and obtain a taste! Shortly after this we were approached by Daniel, one of 2 operators of a whirlwind 2-week history tour from Sweden with a group of school students and teachers. They were travelling in a large pink bus.

The Pink Bus

A little while later and we realised it was Daniel’s cooking emitting the aroma that we were finding so pleasant so we wandered over with the intention of finding out what smelled so good and were greeted by a huge Paella dish loaded with a concoction of ingredients.

Swedish Paella!

After obtaining an idea of what was in the dish we began wandering back to our camp, from behind came Daniels’ voice! Bring your plates we’ve got plenty to go around!!

An invitation that didn’t need to be repeated, we had dinner in the company of the students and teachers with Jen spending much of her time answering questions about our travels. And yes – it tasted as delightful as it’s aroma!

Students on the Pink Bus

The blue sky again morphed into grey depressive drizzle during the night and our freshly washed clothes now found themselves hanging under the awning.

Blackness slowly lifting as morning approached, we lay snuggled beneath the doona with the Webasto heater idling in the background whilst listening to the constant pitter-patter of drizzle on the roof! Looking out the window at the saturated tent in the next campsite we were suitably happy with our decision to build our camper for this journey. After some 3 weeks of consistent and at times torrential rain I’m positive we would not have found ourselves in such an upbeat mood if our accommodations and gear were all soaking wet.

So a day of grey skies and rain in Krakow was in store for us. We didn’t have to force ourselves to do nothing; the weather did it for us!

Now that we’ve been on the road for a while we are finding that we need to have the odd day that pretty well consists of doing absolutely nothing, just relaxing and recharging, so a grey day provides an excuse to be still!

After doing nothing for most of the day other than warming a camp chair and enjoying free Wi-Fi, we found ourselves suitably relaxed and ready for our next history laden tour of an historic city! Our tenting neighbors arrived back from their day’s expedition of Krakow and were more than happy enlightening us with regards what to visit and the like! They were heading home to Normandy over the next couple of days and with details swapped we hope to see them there!

Our French neighbour Angelique

Krakow has a stunning central square surrounded by facades of ornate design with spires reaching hundreds of feet skyward! As well as the obligatory castle of course.

Castle Spires

Krakow

Krakow Main Square

Krakow

Cafe where we had coffee

Streetscape Krakow

Krakow

We even caught a glimpse of another celebrity – Colonel Sanders on tour!!

Colonel Sanders!!!!

Heading off again we made for the town of Zacopane, nestled in the mountains along the Slovak border. On the advice of our friend Terry, whose house it was we were heading for in Slovakia, Zacopane proved to be a lovely detour. Most of Poland is very flat, but quickly gives rise to majestic mountain vista’s as you make headway toward the southern border with Slovakia. Nestled amongst these picturesque peaks Zacopane provides the visitor with the quintessential Alpine ski resort vista!

Orava Castle enroute to Terry’s

We had dinner plans with Terry and his daughter Bridget at 7pm and as we were a little late departing Krakow, ended up cutting it a little fine, arriving at Terry’s at 6:40pm! The house is nestled in the town of Hrabicov in the north of Slovakia in a delightful valley.

A fabulous meal was enjoyed as we caught up with Terry and Bridget. Returning to Terry’s, we enjoyed some cheese and wine before retiring for the evening!

Terry’s Kitchen

Terry’s House

After a morning of relaxation we were all heading for Vienna airport, tasked with ensuring that Bridget made her flight to London and the beginning of a stint working in the old country!

Now Terry is a little bit of a wine buff. Well maybe more than a little bit as he has a vineyard in the south west of Western Australia. So when he suggested a slight detour enroute to the airport for a little wine tasting, we didn’t really have any objections! So it was just inside the Austrian border that we found ourselves indulging in some lovely wines whilst enjoying the warmth of a sunny afternoon.

Austrian Wine Tasting

Austrian Wine Cellars

Post Bridget’s exodus, we stopped in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava for a wander around the old city and a bite to eat, another amazing old town with cobblestone streets and buildings that ooze history and charisma.

Bratislava by Night

Man at work!

Again – Bratislava by Night

Speedway is a national pastime in this country and as such we were soon invited to the local racetrack for a few drinks whilst watching a live race meet occurring in Poland on the big screen, late into the evening we were introduced to the local Russian Style 9 pin bowling alley with marionette style pins, balls with no finger holes and all around 40 years old!!

9 Pin Bowling!

Marionette Style!

All suffering slightly diminished motor skills at this point (must be the water), it was Jen that nailed the only strike of the evening and she made sure we were all aware of the fact!!

Sunday saw us back at the track for a local meet where we had a sensational day mixing with the Slovakian people and watching them cheer and scream as their local rider and third best in Poland came through with the win!

Slovakian Speedway

With lovely restaurants and day trips to medieval ruined castles we were quickly and easily becoming settled.

Post Speedway! Terry, Branislav and Jen

Restaurant beneath Hrad Reviste

Hrad Reviste

Farewell to our new Slovakian Friends

After nearly a week of thorough relaxation we departed Slovakia and made for the Czech Republic, enroute to the town of Valtice. The Moravian Region of the Czech Republic is renowned for it’s quality wines so a stop was without doubt going to deserve a waypoint in the sat-nav. I think it’s the fastest I’ve ever seen Jen enter a waypoint come to think of it!

We are still having good success in locating bush camps and this night’s was exactly what we needed – deep ruts full of rain sodden black mud that lasted only about 50m and then onto an old disused road and a lovely camp. Back in Krakow we’d been amazed when after one nights rain we were treated to the spectacle of watching not one but three moderately sized motorhomes unable to move off the lawn on which they were parked due to the lack traction combined with excessive throttle depression! I was surprised to see most drivers just sitting in the cab, holding the accelerator down with no real idea what the problem was! 50m of muddy ruts is never going to be on their agenda so once you are off the main road you are on your own!

Bush Camp

Hopefully our luck holds and we can manage to mix paid with unpaid camps and keep the budget healthy!

Many of the campsites we’ve used of late have been in locations near Hunters Hide’s. Some even sporting drums of oats that the Hunters will sprinkle within view of the Hide over the days prior to using the site. After we realized just how frequent these towers are we have taken to having a really good look around our chosen camps to assess whether any are nearby and if they are, do they show signs of recent use. We don’t really have a desire to hear rifle fire whilst camped again!

Hunters Hide

We arrived in Valtice and headed straight into the main town square and our first tasting venue at the Podzemi (Valtice Underground) a series of underground cellars that played host to our first evening and make for an interesting wander through the labyrinth of tunnels.

Valtice Podzemi

The following day was devoted to “Salon Vin” – another underground cellar beneath the old castle containing what have been voted the top 100 Czech wines for the year available for tasting. As Salon Vin had been a recommendation from Terry we had a short list for tasting, and taste we did! Everything around and including those recommendations saw us suitably impressed with the afternoon’s indulgence!

Salon Vin

Salon Vin Selection

September in this part of the world see’s a local favorite beverage on the menu, known as Burčak, possibly one of the most dangerous beverages in the Czech Republic…. It’s partially fermented wine from fresh grape juice, surprisingly easy to drink and can really pack a punch! Apparently the alcohol content continues to rise after consumption and from my experience that is probably true…..

Burcak

A Burčak festival was in full swing as we departed our tasting session and the rest of our day was consumed listing to live music and enjoying the local favourite.

Too many restaurants and the waistline was suffering, so back into the scrub for a few days! Staying to the back roads we found our way to Punka Caves and the Macocha Abyss where we were treated to views of the entrance to a massive cave system. Jen proved to be as arsy as ever by managing to obtain the last two tickets for the days cave walk and underground boat trip. It’s all easy access with lots of tourists, but it was really well managed and well worth the visit whilst providing some well needed exercise.

Punka Caves

Macocha Abyss

Punka Caves Boat ride

Again majestic towns are one after the other, to the point where you just can’t stop in all of them so after a few days we arrived in Prague. We couldn’t find the entrance to the RV park we were looking for due to some major roadwork and ended up stopping at a kayaking club that also had parking available. No sooner had we parked than the heavens opened and torrential is the description. We settled in for the night and as the only camper’s on site, it was certainly quiet!

The famed romantic city of Prague occupied all of the following day, a stunning central square surrounded by a mixture of architectural wonders and buildings of old! It really is a stunning centerpiece for the Czech Republic but it would seem that a few other people had also heard of it’s allure for shoulder to shoulder tourists is not an unfair description of our time spent there.

Street View

Charles Bridge

Prague Vista

Charles Bridge Traffic

Not a Place for Motorhomes!

A new take on being towed!

Church of Our Lady before Tyn

Astronomical Clock Prague

Church of Our Lady before Tyn

Prague Castle by Night

Church By Night

One evening a large RV entered the camp ground, we knew they were probably looking for the campsite we’d originally been targeting and so as they stopped I decided to wander over and help them with some directions, the door opens and I spluttered out – English? To be met with an unadulterated Aussie reply of yep! And where are you from?

A German registered Motorhome with a family of 6 Aussies on board were now the only other residents of the camp! We certainly couldn’t believe it and the camp owner was more than bemused to have 2 loads of Aussies on his turf!

Aussies Abroad!

Jeff, his wife Jutta, sister in law Leanne, Megan, Matthew and Aaron were well into the type of holiday many dream of! Hiring a motorhome in Hamburg they’d been north to Norway before heading south through Berlin and Dresden to find themselves parked next to us! Their onward plans including Austria and Slovakia along with many other stunning localities that are so easily reached once you’re in this part of the World, It was lovely meeting them and we wish them well for their continuing travels.

Four nights had left our thirst for Prague sufficiently quenched and it was time to depart. In the meantime we’d been liaising via email with another intrepid Aussie couple who had just driven from Malaysia through China, the Stans and Iran then onward to Turkey and the list goes on! We were going to catch up in the city of Cesky Krumlov in the south of the Czech Republic. I’d first heard of their plans when we made contact via “The Hubb” chat forum whilst we were all in the planning stage! Only to find they reside a stones throw from our home in Fremantle. 6 degrees of separation!!

Sticking to the back roads we headed south through stunning scenery, with roads meandering along deep dark rivers interspersed with eye catching towns and all the while hemmed in by majestic tall dark forests! Really sensational.

We managed one of our nicest overnight stops so far, dark forest with undulating hills provided an almost fairytale like feel to the terrain. Littered with mushrooms of all sorts, shapes, colours and sizes, many exceeding 200mm in height it was an extra ordinary camp.

Don’t eat this one!!

Mushrooms

Mushroom Camp

Jen now with her new iPhone App on mushroom identification spent hours out amongst the undergrowth attempting to discern the tasty from the deadly. Mushroom picking here is a huge and well patronaged pastime. Everywhere there are cars parked with locals wandering along carrying wicker baskets brimming with tasty fungi. Jen has been quite adept at identifying many of the fungi to date however we’ve steered shy of actually ingesting any so far, not quite that brave just yet!

Cesky Krumlov came into view through the blur of sweeping windscreen wipers and we camped in a tour bus drop off area that has a section set aside for motor homes, no facilities but really cheap and 200m from the center of the old city!

Cesky Krumlov

Into the city square we ventured and sent an email into the ether alerting Catherine and Simon of our arrival. A little while later and we were all swapping stories and destroying plates of local cuisine whilst ensuring the restaurant would need to reorder beer the following day! Meeting for coffee the following morning we again spent some time wandering the cobbled streets and seeing the sights before we eventually went our separate ways having had another lovely time with Aussies in a far away land. On the road now 8 months these guys will be back in Perth with their trusty Prado for Christmas Day turkey!

Catherine and Simon

West and into Germany and our first night of free camping in Germany proved a little hard to find. They obviously have a large sign making industry and plenty of those signs say no entry and find their way onto the entrance of every track! Not deterred however, we were finally successful.

Meandering at the now slow pace we are enjoying saw us pull into an RV park late in the afternoon in Kesselberg. Fortune it would seem was again smiling upon us for we were shown to a great campsite on the lakes edge. Wandering into the restaurant for a relaxing drink we found ourselves sitting next to our neighbours in the campground! Manfred and Ute (pronounced Uta) quickly took us under their wing and we found ourselves receiving translations of the menu, which we sorely needed!

The following day they were taking a cable car journey from our current elevation of 800m to 1780m and had we not met these intrepid Germans we’d have had no show in organizing this day out as tourist info in English in these more out of the way villages hasn’t been all that easy to obtain so far. We were soon invited along and the following day was planned out!

Manfred had organised free bus tickets for us, provided to guests of the Park if you know how to go about it. We woke the next morning to heavy fog in the campsite but as the sun rose above the mountains, it soon receded and we were met with a beautiful warm sunny day perfect for our day’s plans. We climbed aboard the extremely modern public bus before enjoying the cable car ride that soon deposited us amongst magnificent views of the Bavarian Alps along the Austrian Border

Morning Fog

Justin, Manfred and Ute

Stunning Bavarian Vistas

Our Camp Below

On top of the World!!

Camp in the Sunshine

Sunset on the Lake

We had a lovely lunch at the mountain restaurant before Manfred suggested we take the 2.5-hour walk down rather than the cable car. Majestic views combined with blue sky made the descent more than memorable. (Although the calves and shins were complaining a little in the following days.)

Manfred and Ute’s RV

RV’s are really popular throughout Europe and Manfred and Ute’s was more like a 5 star hotel than a Motorhome, parquetry flooring to boot!!

Anyway they can fairly move along on the highway, some of them cruising at over 140km’s an hour! The autobahn helps make their transit around Germany fast and smooth.

We don’t have the lavish space and comfort they offer and at times it would certainly be nice, but when we slip into 4×4 and navigate the dark sloppy soil’s of the forest tracks and find peace and seclusion only minutes off the main thoroughfare, we quickly embrace our vehicle selection! Not to mention the savings to date in not paying for camp grounds in Europe.

With some sadness, we departed from our new friends and headed towards more striking Bavarian scenery. Garmisch and Fussen were on the itinerary!

Back soon with tales from beyond!!

Justin

White Cliffs of Dover..

4 Replies

I’ve enjoyed being the epitome of the lazy tourist for a few weeks, the consequence being that I’m behind with our blog!

Now I know a lot of you out there are keen on reading about the more difficult to visit destinations such as the “Stans”- after all Europe isn’t quite as confronting and it’s mostly black top and RV parks, but some of the scenery really is jaw dropping!

I’ll try and keep you smiling until we manage to get ourselves back into some of the less travelled regions of Earth. We are enjoying our sabbatical, but the desire for more remote destinations is building and it will need to be quenched at some stage…

Stunning Bavarian Vista

West through stunning Bavarian scenery sporting a skyline of continuous mountain peaks made for an easy transit toward Garmisch. Approaching the outskirts of this village you’re met by the spectacle of a ski ramp rising skyward from an Olympic stadium of the 1930’s. The ramp is of modern standard after numerous reconstructions over the decades but really is quite imposing.

Olympic Ski Ramp

Tourist information in English, in these less “foreign” touristed areas, has proved as difficult to obtain as genuine photos of the Yeti! We knew that Partnach Gorge was a highlight of any visit to this town but do you think there were any signs or information to point us in the right direction??? Finally after a considerable amount of time had passed and numerous discussions in the cab had been had! a stop at a local sports store yielded a result and we discovered that the entrance was via the Olympic Stadium. Anyway that’s another story.

An amazingly beautiful, fast flowing river has obviously been toiling away over a millennia to create this stunning spectacle. A passage along one of the sheer cliffs containing the river was originally carved out by hunters for the purpose of obtaining access to the valley beyond before later providing loggers an easy yet treacherous mode of delivering freshly felled timber from distant forests.

Partnach Gorge

Open to tourists since the early 1900’s it’s a marvelous addition to an already spoilt for natural beauty region of Germany.

Onward to Füssen and the location of Neuschwanstein Castle. Looking like something straight from a fairy tale, this is a fairly young castle by European Standards, constructed in the 1800’s. It’s design and creation by King Ludwig III reveal stories of treachery and monarchy gone mad. Who’d have thought!!

As with many must see natural and man-made marvels the world over, you will certainly not be alone whilst enjoying the view! Even at the time of our visit in off season, we had to visit 2 RV parks before we could find a site, the park we ended up in had just shy of 800 bays….

Our first night in the park saw me rather irritated as the space next to us was filled quite late in the evening by a couple with a small child travelling in a VW van. The child hardly made a noise whilst it’s most ignorant parents quickly reminded me why I vary rarely camp in built up areas at home in Aus! The sliding door on the side of the van was definitely in need of servicing by morning as it had been opened and slammed every ten minutes for the previous 8 hours with no regard for those neighbouring their site. Watching them depart in the morning was almost spiritual for me, but was replaced by dread at the thought of what may park next to us the following evening. So we moved the Patrol to a location without a spare space alongside! It was a good plan but unfortunately our new neighbours soon packed up and departed leaving us again vulnerable.

(maybe it’s me, the beer drinking Aussie!)

Now a little savvier to the German way, we obtained our campsite guest cards, which provided us with free public transport to Neuschwanstein Castle. You can only enter the castle itself by joining a tour, however it was well organised and worth the entry fee. I will let the photo’s speak for themselves..

Neuschwanstein Castle

Castle visit over and feeling a little forlorn about what may await us back at the campground, we headed for our little house and found our adjoining space filled by Uwe and Roswitha, another lovely German couple travelling in their RV for a couple of weeks relaxation. I was greatly relieved and shortly found myself enjoying a cold beer with Uwe as the clouds once again crowded out the sun and the rain started.

Uwe and Roswitha

An invitation to dinner was quickly forthcoming and so it was that the 4 of us enjoyed a lovely meal in a restaurant located in the campground. Campground restaurant I hear you snort, well there were 2 restaurants and a Pizzeria along with a beer garden and supermarket and all was well above the standard you’d expect in your local area back in Aus!

Numerous tasty dishes were ordered along with a consistent stream of fantastic beer, each one generally followed by a shooter of Schnapps! The Germans certainly have a few habits that I’d readily take on board. The evening came to a close and it became apparent that the bill had been taken care of! How’s that for generosity.

A little under the weather we retired for the evening before saying goodbye the following morning to our latest friends whom we’ve added to our now very long list.

It’s become complicated to plan a route through Europe as we are finding that we change our minds all of the time as there are so many sites warranting a visit. Choosing a direction and destination in a location as varied as Europe is quite difficult. “Tough life” I hear you say!! Whilst Jen has previously visited Berlin, I haven’t and I’m rather keen to explore the capital of Germany. But with travelling through such majestic scenery as that of Bavaria we now found ourselves a stones throw from The Rhine and Mosel rivers! Decision taken and Berlin will wait a little longer as it’s just too nice where we are to dash northeast, well for now anyway!

Misty Bush Camp

Continuing northwest and staying off the motorway for most of the drive toward Heidelberg, we even managed a bush camp up a muddy track on the side of a hill! Rain has been sporadic with nice stretches of blue sky, and lovely misty mornings but it’s obvious that Autumn is showing it’s face. With beautiful burnt colours appearing amongst the leaves as the sun slowly shifts southward, we can almost see winter approaching!

On the autobahn for a spell and you really have to be careful when you overtake (which admittedly is not very often for us!!!) as cars in the fast lane appear as a speck in the rear view mirror and the next second they pass in a blur so pulling out really has to be taken seriously.

The town of Sinsheim came into view, home to an amazing museum brimming with exhibits. From an actual Air France Concorde and it’s Russian counterpart through to amazing mechanised displays, vintage cars, fashion, trains and F1 racing there were displays to meet every taste and age. Hours were expunged as we wandered around the massive complex until you just reach overload and enough is enough.

Concorde!

Sinsheim Display

Sinsheim Technical Museum

Amazing Displays

Scooters!!!

Sinsheim Display

Proof we were there!

Heidelberg is another majestic little enclave, with it’s own partly ruined castle as the centerpiece, the Neckar River on one side and large hills the other make it an obvious location for a townsite.

Heidelberg Castle

Onward toward the Rhine River and camp was had in a campground adjacent to the town of Bacharach. We were given a spot right on the banks of the Rhine under the shade of a fully laden walnut tree and watched the passing parade of Rhine boats and APT river cruises! I’ll not bore you with hours of descriptions of old towns with cobbled streets, ancient forts surrounded by motes and high buttress walls of stunning beauty, because just about every village encountered has the same stunning appeal.

View From Our Campsite

Random Castle

Visiting Swans

Townsite opposite

Another view from our campsite

Our slightly eccentric neighbour Andy swimming in the Rhine

Andy’s Camper!

Another neighbour with genuine Clogs!

Watching the cruise boats slip along the river then dock at the various towns whilst their guests disembark for a spell of shopping, you quickly work out that avoiding those periods or spending more time in the villages where these floating hotels don’t visit will be a lot easier on your wallet!

There is always a campsite adjacent to the villages and specifically for those fitting the description of a motorhome you’re able to use sites known in Germany as stellplatz. These are designed more for short-term stops and don’t make provision for spreading out and settling in as a campsite/RV park does.

Generally not much in the way of bathroom facilities but a whole lot cheaper and usually located within walking distance of the village center, hence we generally head for one of these.

Continuing along the Rhine to the junction of the Mosel River and a quick visit to the town of Koblenz, a graceful central area loaded with sculptures and ornate architecture. Koblenz is one of only a few German towns that wasn’t bombed by the allied forces during WWII. Apparently Churchill felt it was such a beautiful city that it wasn’t to feel the brunt of bombardment.

The local RV park here is situated in a great part of the city and they obviously know it as they were charging as if they were a Hotel and not a campsite, enough old forts for now so we made for the Mosel River and kept our Euro’s.

Our cat Rajah enjoying a wine also

The Mosel proved to be equally if not more stunning than the Rhine, a smaller river once again loaded with ruined forts, castles and buildings reinforces just how long this area has been inhabited. We found a few locations along here where we could have bush camped quite easily but as we want to spend time wandering the old villages we stuck to camping in the stellplatz sites instead.

Who’s the odd one out?

So many RV’s!!!!

Camping Companions – Laurent and Els

Graham and Sue

Graham and Sue’s RV

Our last stop along the Mosel was the city of Trier, one of the oldest cities in Germany. Peppered throughout the town are various types of Roman ruins, from baths to castle walls, again an area so rich in diverse history it’s just fantastic.

Trier

Bernkastel

Dog parking

Typical Stellplatz

David and Rosie

Suddenly it’s early October and we are parking in the driveway of Jen’s relatives in Veghel, Holland. I can’t quite believe we’ve been on the road for 6 months and have about 30,000km behind us! A lovely reunion awaited us, as we were last were here in 2005 – it seemed like yesterday!

The Family!

Jan and Rosemary spent the next 10 days making sure that we were not to want for anything, and a relaxing spell from the rigours of touring (it’s tough!) was enjoyed!

s’Hertogenbosch

Whilst here we met up with Eric from Adventure Trucks, (www.adventuretrucks.com) who manufactures 4×4 truck based expedition campers of fantastic quality! You never quite know how a visit to a company overseas will go, as a few emails were the only background to go on and it was really a snap decision to visit. The result was that we managed to put Eric back a day on his schedule as we drank coffee and swapped travel stories like old friends. Along with his wife they had shipped an 80 series Landcruiser to Australia and spent 7 months doing the lap a few years ago.

Erik from Adventure Trucks

Safe to say that the overland community is an eclectic mix of travellers, sharing a definite passion for something different.

It’s probably a good time to mention our onward journey and our change in plans! Our original rough concept was to travel across to the UK before returning to Europe and then down to Morocco prior to heading around the Mediterranean to Turkey and south through Africa. It was never fixed in stone and was always likely to suffer review.

I’d hoped to obtain an extended visa for the EU in Holland and avoid the ridiculous rule of only being able to stay in any of the combined schenghen zone countries for 3 months in any 6, but it was not to be, so a change of plan is in order!

Anyway I won’t bother going into the visa nitty gritty. There is a lot of talk around on how you can avoid the 3 month rule via different entry and exit points and all sorts of other suggestions. I know many people have managed to stay longer without any problems. But if you’re caught it doesn’t bode well for any future visits to the EU and can have other consequences so abide by the rules I shall!

There is discussion of the restrictions being lifted in the next couple of years but of course the wheels of progress turn ever so slowly…

So instead of Portugal for Christmas, we will cross the Channel by the middle of November and hopefully spend 6 months (the maximum time allowed for an Aussie of my vintage) in the UK during which time we hope to explore England’s corners, including heading north to Aberdeen and visiting John and family! Yep that’s right John we are coming your way!!

From there, the plan is to re-enter Europe with a fresh 3 months and make for Norway. When we work out the next bit I will let you know!

The more we see of Europe the more we want to see and although the camping is regulated and getting off the road is difficult we hope to see as much as we can before our journey ends!

Whether it will include North Africa is up for debate at the moment! We have some irons in the fire though and should our budget hold out, we intend to hold out along with it!

Departing Hotel Jan and Rose-Marie, we made for Bergen Op Zoom and another long spell without smelling the ocean was broken, continuing south saw us depart the Netherlands and we made for Bruges in Belgium. Met with a night of constant rain in the campground we were fortunate to have perfect conditions the following day as we wandered around the eye-catching old town site.

Saying Goodbye is never easy!

Street View Veghel

On almost every corner you’ll find a chocolate confectionary shop producing famous Belgium chocolates in forms that can only be described as pure art!

Chocolate Tools!

A couple of days later and we headed for the coast of Belgium – very different to what I’d expected. The old villages inland gave way to a section of coast that is obviously a summer resort; Blankenberge is Belgium’s “Gold Coast” but on a much smaller scale. Wall to wall apartments blocks are just behind the sand dunes with a beachfront promenade of café’s and shops making up the tourist strip.

Blankenberge

Belgium Pier

Inland and southeast to Ypres, we wanted to revisit some of the sites of the battles of WWI. In 2005 we had spent a day on a tour of Flanders Fields and surrounds but now with our own transport we were able to spend a little more time at the sites of particular interest to us as Australians. Our visit to the area coincides with ongoing commemorations for the 100-year anniversaries of the Great War (1914 – 1918). Memorable to visit during this time, but also difficult as many sites are loaded with tourists, this fact along with many specific events planned at locations such as Tyne-Cot Cemetery made visiting quite a challenge.

Tyn-Cot is the final resting place for many Australian Diggers and really makes for a sobering visit. Belgium is peppered with War Cemeteries and memorial sites, throughout villages and towns, they are just everywhere.

Tyne Cot Cemetery

Since 1928 in Ypres, the Last Post is played every evening at 8pm come rain, hail or shine at the Menin Gate. It is an enormous sign of respect by the City of Ypres to all the servicemen whose names appear on the walls of the gate and who gave their lives to ensure the freedom of Belgium. We found it very moving.

Menin Gate

Last Post

Menin Gate

Ypres has one RV Park and we managed to jag the last bay for our first night but found ourselves parked along the street with a multitude of different motorhomes the following night as the RV Park was booked out. Talking to the staff at the RV Park, they said it’s only been since April this year with all the 100yr commemorations that they are fully booked most nights – a situation unheard of at this time of the year normally. It would seem that with no official alternatives, local Police are turning a blind eye to overnight street camping.

Street Camping

A few days later and we skirted Dunkerque and hit the French coast just south of Calais; Crystal clear conditions provided us with majestic views of the white cliffs of Dover. It was so clear the English cliffs appeared almost luminous as they were bathed in sunshine and capped with blue sky.

The UK In Sight

White Cliffs Of Dover

It was truly sensational seeing England appear across the channel, shortly we will be over there for a very cold Christmas!!

Au revoire!! Justin.

Au Revoir!

6 Replies

This post is a little longer, just for you Bec!

Cap Blanc Nez provided us with majestic views across the Channel, a lovely reward after a long drive! We’d been awfully lucky with the weather lately and although very windy along the coast it was pleasant.

Views Across the Channel

Our first over-sea sunset in a long while!

France is well equipped for motorhomes with short term stopping areas called “aires” and while these are cheaper than an RV Park they generally have no facilities other than a toilet drop and water supply. Generally the aires are within walking distance of the town centres in which they are located and as such the lack of facilities is made up for by location! These areas provide affordable stops for campers and as such motorhomes (or camping cars as they are known in France) are restricted from many other parking areas.

Parking Forbidden for Camping Cars

No Motorhomes! Go away..

Slowly we headed south finding an aire at Boulogne sur Mer with a lovely view across the channel from our site. Not far into France at this stage, we were still amazed at the differences between European countries given there are no borders! You just cross a line on the map and find not only a different language, but also quite often a completely different way of doing things! It’s a little bazaar really.

View from the camper

We spent 2 nights camped here relaxing and enjoying long walks along the beach. In the morning we realised just how lucky we had been seeing the cliffs of Dover with such clarity the previous day. Now there was nothing but a swelling ocean of white caps and haze making visibility less than poor. That afternoon, the winds really started to pick up and darkness brought with it gale force winds which were unrelenting for the next few days.

Sea wall at Boulogne sur Mer, the winds were picking up!

We’ve all heard of the quirks that the French are well known for, particularly their dislike of the English! Well, whilst at this camp, we wandered off for a stroll and as we passed an RV we were greeted by a jovial French man looking to converse. When he realised that we spoke English he turned the other way and walked off which we found quite amusing! Upon returning to our camper we heard a knock at the door and our jovial Frenchman was standing there with maps in hand and said “Australie?” It would seem that he had realised we were Aussies whilst we were off walking and that had made all the difference! So the stories are true! I wondered how he’d have felt if I’d pointed out that fact he’d have been German without those folk on the other side of the channel but I let that one go!!

Friendly local (once he realised we weren’t English!)

With new locations marked on the map we’d just been given, we were again the recipients of friendly assistance! The drive south provided fantastic scenery but with very heavy buffeting from the wind. Sticking to the back roads, we ambled along at slow speeds and found our way through a myriad of very skinny roads that crisscross the French countryside. The reward was not only a more relaxing journey but a consistent parade of unbelievable scenery.

Aire at St Aubin sur Mer

Continuing south we managed a reasonably protected aire behind a seawall in the town of St Aubin sur Mer. Duck shooting is a very popular pass time and it’s not at all unusual to here shot gun shells being released in the evenings and early mornings. I was a little surprised however to be camped within 50m of a pair of duck shooting hopefuls and within 100m of the local town site, the rules are certainly a little more relaxed than what I’m used to. The coast is subject to quite extreme tidal movements, like being in Western Australia’s Kimberley Region. The beaches, which are more mud than sand, have a very gentle gradient and as such the tide recedes a great distance before returning quite quickly.

Boats left high and dry with tidal movements

A day’s sailing needs to be planned carefully!

The attractiveness of the coast is very different depending on whether it is high or low tide. I think if you were selling a property along the Western coast of France you’d certainly pick your moment for a home open! As we made our way along the coast, we were continually seeing the remains of German coastal fortifications from WWII. It’s hard to believe that the Nazi’s managed to put such regular and well constructed bunkers, known as the Atlantic Wall, along the coast from Norway to the Spanish Border.

German Fortifications

Part of the Atlantic Wall

More Bunkers

This German gun received a direct hit from allied ships in the lead up to the D-day landings.

Pock marked earth from bombing

The town of Fécamp proved to be a lovely place and we wandered around looking at some of the architecture, particularly the Benedictine Palace! This is the home of Dom Benedictine Liqueur for those of you whom partake! (That’s you Graham) but we didn’t realise this fact until later and may have spent a little more time there had we known. It’s quite hard being on top of the many attractions as you travel. The tourist bureaus are very good but only ever carry information for their immediate area so this means you end up having to visit them consistently and that can become a little tedious! So we do tend to just wing it a little!

Cliffs at Etretat

Windswept Coastline at Etretat

D&G

Benedictine Le Palais -Home of Dom Benedictine

We headed inland for a camp in the hope of avoiding some of the blustery winds, as it was becoming a little tedious being buffeted all night. My birthday looming, we were in search of a nice restaurant and with the aid of our Passion France guide we found just what we were looking for! (Passion France is a guide that has locations of overnight stops for self-contained motorhomes at no cost!) We camped at L’Assiette des Mondes, which is home to a family run restaurant! We were more than fortunate for it was a Tuesday and the restaurant is not normally open, however they had a private function in one section and hence were operating.

L’Assiette des Mondes

L’Assiette des Mondes

A fantastic 4 course meal followed and at the end of the evening, feeling absolutely gluttonous we made the 20m dash back to our camper! I say dash, as the weather was deteriorating further. Fatima and her husband Yves, whom own the restaurant, told us that they were expecting a large storm to pass later that evening. After what was a very blustery night, I’d have to say that no further testing of our camper design with regard to wind resistance is required. It turned out we’d just caught the tail end of a hurricane! It was a seriously nasty night, but more for Jen than I. With earplugs in, I counted sheep and was thankful for the extra couple of glasses of red with dinner.

Stunning town of Honfleur

Honfleur

The following day was calm and that was quite a relief. After wandering the lovely streets of nearby Honfleur, we began moving along the Normandy Coast and were quickly made aware of just how strong the winds had been! Large piles of beach sand piled up against houses, earth moving equipment working furiously in an attempt to clear beach access and roads. We were pretty happy that we’d moved away from the coast the previous day!

Sand everywhere after the storms. The building in this photo is one seen in many famous D-Day photographs

We planned the next week around the D-day landings and made the pilgrimage along the beautiful coast while being in complete awe of what had taken place all those years ago. Visiting the landing beaches was quite moving, with so many memorials. In places the land has been left as it was after the landings – bomb crater upon bomb crater is a horrible reminder of what took place.

Bomb Craters

The town of Arromanches is the location of a circular cinema in which they screen a short film giving an overview of WW2. It was very moving and Jen was close to tears! There is a museum and other displays also, all perched above the British landing site of Gold Beach, and is also the location of Winston Churchill Harbour. This was a floating harbor constructed by the Allies and towed across the channel for the landings and ongoing resupply. Some of the harbour remains to this day. It’s worth reading about if you’re interested….

Churchill Harbour

First house liberated by the Allies at Pegasus Bridge

Actual Dakota Aircraft used during the D-Day Landings

Old German Bunkers

D-Day Landings Map

Landing boat used in the filming of "Saving Private Ryan"

Original D-Day Landing boat that was also used in the filming of “Saving Private Ryan”

German “Grand Bunker” in the coastal town of Ouistreham, it commands ocean views and was built behind a string of houses for added camoflage.

German carving in the concrete foundations of a gun emplacement, of unmistakeable origin!

We spent a lot of time along the Normandy coast and departed feeling truly fortunate to be able to enjoy the lifestyle we have today and very grateful to those whom lost their lives to ensure it. The outcome of those dark days was very much on a knife-edge and much more tenuous than I was previously aware.

The gave their tomorrow so we could have our today...

..for their tomorrow, we gave our today…

A tiny section of the American cemetery at Omaha Beach.

Our only real dislike along the Normandy Coast was the total commercialisation of the war, taking place at many of the historic sites and all of the towns. Gift shops sell anything from WWII soldier fridge magnets, coasters, aprons, stickers and coffee mugs to replica weapons coupled with any other WWII gimmick they think they can sell! It became quite disheartening to think that so many people lost their lives to now have people profit from their incredible sacrifice with such meaningless junk. Seemed a little disrespectful…

I must point out, however, that practically every house has a mixture of allied nation flags displayed. There is no doubt that a strong feeling of gratitude and respect along this part of France still exists to this day. The monuments and cemeteries are maintained beautifully and receive many thousands of visitors annually.

Gratitude still being shown…

Ready to move on to Bretagne (Brittany) and lighten the mood, we made for another Passion France destination. The chosen venue was a small volume organic cider distillery. A few tastings inside the 200 year old villa and with a case tucked away in the Patrol we had enjoyed some more lovely French hospitality.

French Organic Cidery

How’s this for a French cat!!!

Onward and Mont St Michel came into view. What an amazing site! However the local council knows how to make money with €20 to park your camper van in the official car park, and you’re still 1 km from the site, but there is a free shuttle bus. Alternatively it’s €16 to camp in the RV park with all facilities but it’s 2km away! That was an easy decision! There is also an aire that’s even cheaper!

Mont St Michel

Mont St Michel Fortifications at low tide.

We opted to walk the 2 km out to the Abbey from the RV Park as the walk is lovely and the bus is €3 each way per person for a1 km journey, which then links you with the free shuttle bus if you wish to join the queue for the last km! So it’s not surprising to find that most people opt for the RV Park or aire coupled with the on-foot option!

An amazing feat of engineering, built on a small island not far off the mainland. Completely surrounded by water at high tide, it really is a remarkable spectacle. I wasn’t sure what to expect once inside the walls of the Abbey, and was a little surprised to find a complete village filling the lower levels. Beautiful stonework adorns the buildings, lovely views provided by walkways all around the site. From any angle the Abbey is magnificent.

Within the walls

I have never seen so many restaurants in my life, wall to wall in every nook and cranny along with the obligatory souvenir shops selling anything that China can produce in order to remind you of your visit! I know I’m cynical but it’s a little overdone.

Restaurants

Travelling west along the Bretagne coast with remarkable scenery and lovely little villages possessing that old world charm, it can be difficult to make any distance as we keep getting side tracked with sites that we just can’t drive past.

Paimpol

It’s all but impossible to bush camp around this area. Towns are so close together and aires so frequent and inexpensive (or free) that it’s not even worth trying. Really makes you appreciate the freedom we are able to experience in Australia. I’d kill for a campfire in a bush setting! At one of our overnight camping sites, there was about 300mm between us and the next camper on one side and 500mm on the other, just enough room for the door to open!! 15 places available and they were all taken. We watched a consistent stream of hopeful occupants entering and departing whilst we were there.

Tight Squeeze

We often end up in conversation with other travellers but it’s almost impossible to describe our journey to them when asked. First they are amazed that we are still alive, (we can probably thank media mistruths regarding the world in general for those questions), then they are amazed at the distance we’ve travelled! One thing that really sticks out for me as markedly different is what we might expect from a camping or touring trip in Australia, compared to Europe. The discussion here is always about which towns to visit and where the best aires with toilet drop facilities are! The thought of heading down a remote track and camping by yourself with no facilities, not to mention no access to a patisserie is a completely alien concept to the European motor-homer! Let alone what 4×4 is used for! How can you camp alone – aren’t you frightened of being attacked?

I could go on but you get the idea!!

Continuing our tour of Bretagne, we entered a section known as the Cote de Granit Rose, really magnificent! A rough coastline covered with granite boulders, many larger than a suburban house!

Easy to see why it is called the Granite Coast.

St Jacut de la Mer was the target for the days travel. We found a good aire with plenty of space between sites whilst being located near the beach. It was a nice respite from the close proximity camps that make up most of the locations where you can stop. Wandering through the small village, I’m once again mystified at how the French actually make any money? Most small villages are basically ghost towns for the better part of the day. They open for a couple of hours in the morning followed by a long siesta before coming alive for a few hours in the late afternoon. It obviously works for them but I’m getting the impression they are rather lazy! (I make that comment as I get out of bed at 10am and am unable to find a patisserie that’s still open so that I can start the day with a croissant – very distressing!)

Aire at St Jacut Du la Mer

With blue skies and unseasonably high temperatures making T-shirts and shorts once again the clothing of choice, it was a lovely few days. If you persevere you’re generally able to drive right along the coast, avoiding the motorways, but it does necessitate a lot of slow negotiation of small villages along the way. However these villages invariably become the highlight of the drive and more than compensate for the slower pace.

We were approached 3 times by locals during our passage of this section, as they were surprised to see foreign tourists in the area, let alone an Australian vehicle! Apparently it’s not as popular as the southern part of Bretagne and receives very little in the way of international tourism. I was really surprised by that as it turned out to be one of the prettiest areas geographically that we’ve encountered along the French coast.

Again following the coast and winding our way along tiny little sealed roads we were stunned by the amount of chateaus that are encountered! When I say chateaus, I mean massive majestic buildings that are usually hundreds of years old, hidden behind large groves of trees and manicured hedges! It’s autumn here and as such the foliage of the forests is morphing into a splendor of orange and brown, creating luminescent colours as the sun manages to pass through the canopy. It’s really beautiful. The downside on many of the smaller roads is the amount of leaf litter that accumulates and then becomes a soggy trap for rain and mist due to not receiving any sunlight, resulting in some very, very slippery roads!!

Yep I’m speaking from experience.

The Tregastel area and the Plumonac’h Lighthouse are without doubt a must see in this area – the pictures will tell the story!

Plutonac’h Lighthouse

Whilst camped at the town of St Pol de Leon we were reminded of the fact that we all have different travelling styles.

Aire at St Pol de Leon

2 people in each??

The RV above, is the holiday home for not 12 people but 2!! Complete with a quad bike in the rear garage! No doubt you’d need an alternate form of transport if travelling in a large RV as the small roads and villages just can’t handle them whilst many of the campsites have entry locations inaccessible to such monolithic motor homes. Having said that however, the fit out in these vehicles is amazing – more rooms than the average house and very comfortable for the European winter. They are a choice that I understand works to a degree in these countries, as going off-road is generally not possible and is not even considered by most.

The Crozon Peninsula is one of the furthest points west that you can travel along the coast. Freezing cold winds and seas whipped into confused masses of waves made for a great reminder of mother nature and her power, after a quick walk amongst the elements we made for the Patrol and the heater before beginning our transit east.

Crozon Peninsula, a freezing wind made our stay rather short.

Iveco’s copy of a Land Rover with leaf springs spotted on the Crozon Peninsula! hmmmm….

We found a nicely protected aire after a short drive and nestled amongst a multitude of motor homes. Many of the RV’s here seemed to be quite settled which isn’t something we’d previously seen. We soon worked out that they were all heading off with buckets at low tide in the pursuit of oysters. Returning with buckets brimming, they would spend the rest of the day cooking and eating them whilst enjoying a couple of drinks – repeating the process day after day!

Oystering

Unlike those camping trips at home where we might spend a week or so fishing and swimming on a beach somewhere, campfire burning and gazing over the ocean, these guys retire to a bitumen car park surrounded by houses and roads! Very different way of doing things! I guess it’s all about what your used too!!

Morgat

Next on our agenda was the village of Rochfort en Terre. Jen had heard that it was quite a historical old town and worth a detour. All that I can say about this little place is – Wow!

Rochefort en Terre

The beginnings of this town stretch back to somewhere around the tenth century. Cobbled streets and old stone stairways, displaying indents eroded into them from the millions of footsteps that have been laid upon them over the centuries. Loaded with character, I’d have to say this town has made it close to the top of our list of favourites so far.

Although not as stunning as the beautiful scenery that surrounded the Rhine and Mosel Rivers in Germany, Amboise proved itself to be a stopover worth the effort. After arriving late in the afternoon, we were met by a myriad of tiny one-way streets enroute to the local aire, which seems to be commonplace in France. The aire we chose was well located on an island in the middle of the Loire River and we were fortunate to meet John and Mary from the UK there.

John and Mary

Should probable check the spelling before you put a monument up...

I am sure that’s supposed to be Leonardo da Vinci – Must be a french thing?

Seasoned European travellers with their motorhome, we were once again able to top up with useful tips on things to see – one being the house in which Leonardo Da Vinci lived in during his last years and located close to the edge of the town. Now a dedicated museum to Da Vinci and his life’s work, it contained a collection of models and life size working displays of his myriad of ideas and concepts and was an historic site that I’m glad we didn’t miss.

Da Vinci’s Last Residence

The region is loaded with chateaus and some of them, such as Chenonceau, are not only amazing architectural structures, but just flat out jaw droppingly stunning. Apparently when in it’s hey day, you could enter on one side of this chateau and be in occupied France before exiting at the other end of the building across the river to find yourself in Free France. It was this passage that enabled many to escape the Nazis during the War.

Chateau de Chenonceau

An overnight stop enroute to Paris and then we were met with the vista of an icon that we all know. Our first view of the Eiffel Tower from the motorway was a fantastic moment. Although we’ve been in France a month or so, all of sudden hit with the majestic silhouette of such an alluring structure it began to sink in – Just how far we have travelled and what a fantastic adventure we’ve had to date.

First View of Eiffel Tower

Paris motorway.

White vans just off the motorway are prostitutes waiting for customers!! I’m not kidding..

We made the drive to the Indigo RV park which is sensationally located on the banks of the Seine and only about 4km from the Arc de Triomphe as the crow flies. The thought of Parisian traffic was making me a little nervous, as I’d read that the park was in a great location but required driving near the city centre. Which is known to be a nightmare. As it turned out, it was easily reached on good roads and as such we were more than happy with our choice.

Not often you see this on your SATNAV

The campsite provides a shuttle bus with a regular timetable into the city centre for a small fee, which made transiting into Paris really easy. Its secondary benefit (or maybe the primary one as far as the RV park is concerned) is that it also ensures that you don’t inadvertently stray into the large park between you and the “Arc” that is home to many ladies of the night!

Paris is just one of those cities, with such amazing sights as the Eiffel Tower, Louvre and Notre Dame Cathedral that it really is a must visit. It has a character all of it’s own and strolling around the city is an easy way to make hours seem like minutes. We have visited Paris previously and this really worked in our favour as we only had a few must do things on our list unlike our last visit, which was fairly intense.

Eiffel Tower, doesn’t really need a caption does it?

Selfie at the Eiffel Tower

First was the Eiffel Tower and another excursion to the top of this amazing structure. Requiring some patience, as you won’t be alone in this aspiration, large queues of eager visitors are part and parcel of travel to such destinations. But what visit to Paris would be complete without such an ascent, the majestic views across the Parisian landscape from the 300m+ structure are just breathtaking.

Can’t take credit for this one (Photo of a Photo)

Glass platform on the first level of the Eiffel Tower

Top Floor!

Amazing Architecture!

View of the Arc de Triomphe

More Views

Engineering Mastery!

A few hours later and we made our way back to ground level, finding we’d spent most of the day doing nothing but enjoying our surrounds.

Paris Sculptures adorn the City!! He is a big boy..

We just wandered along the River Seine and around the grounds of the Louvre, slowly making our way back toward the campground via the Arc de Triomphe. As we approached this amazing monument, we found our timing was impeccable. The following day would be the 11^th of the 11^th and Armistice Day would require the transformation of this majestic monument for the purpose of remembrance. A huge French flag was suspended from the arch and with a light breeze keeping it partially unfurled; it was a truly grand sight. With military bands rehearsing, we were once again reminded of wartime history and the cost of freedom.

Arc de Triomphe

Arc de Triomphe from the Champs Elysee

We departed Paris on the 11^th and made north toward the Somme River. We attempted a detour through Paris with the aim of driving to the Basilica de Sacre Coeur, but ended up bailing on that idea. Nissan Patrols and central Paris don’t really mix all that well, and I was beginning to find the drive, well, a little stressful! You can only dodge so many little Renaults and Fiats before you’ve had enough, and I’d had enough!

Heading north we stuck to our usual game plan of remaining off the motorways where convenient and adopted the principles of “pin the tale on the donkey” to choose a destination. The town of Conty was our target, once within a few kms of this little precinct we began noticing cars parked all along the road verge! The quantity of cars increased as we closed in on the town until it was literally, wall to wall with not a space to be found anywhere. It turned out that the Conty Community Fair day was in full swing (the 11^th of the 11^th is a public holiday)

We continued following our GPS, which was navigating us to an aire in the centre of town and right amongst the festivities. Feeling rather doubtful that we’d be able to make it all the way to the waypoint, let alone have parking present itself. Undeterred and with a steady stream of French eyeballs upon us we continued to our destination, upon seeing the motorhome parking sign we pulled in and were surprised to find an acre on which we could park. It would seem that the locals had left the parking area relatively free for its intended use. A 50m walk and we spent a couple of hours digging amongst the numerous French stalls, selling anything from escargot to antiques. Jen was in heaven!

Conty Community Fair

After a relaxing day and having the good fortune of stumbling upon this quaint little town brimming with atmosphere, we found ourselves nestled back inside our camper in the darkness of the campsite preparing dinner.

Spicy eyes!

That’s when we heard the familiar rumble of an arriving motorhome. Now to put you in the picture, there is one other RV parked up and it’s some 30m away (it was parked up when we arrived!), there is a grass area to park on easily 100m long. With predictability as solid as that which tells us the sun will rise tomorrow, our new arrival camped no more than 10feet from us! They are so conditioned to camping on top of each other that even when they have an acre to choose from they will gravitate to any other camper like a fly in your coffee floats to the edge!

Aire at Conty, not much room so we will stick close together!!

Next we headed for Villers-Bretonneux – rather central to the area in which the Battle of the Somme was fought. It’s one the areas in which Australian troops fought and died in large numbers during WW1. I won’t go on about the battles; the pictures below show many of the sights if you wish to take a look.

Australian memorial at Villers Brettoneaux

Australian memorial at Villers Bretonneux, a very moving site.

The site where the Red Baron met his end as a result of Australian ground fire.

Thiepval Memorial with the names of 72,000 servicemen whose resting places are unknown

Windmill Memorial Site at Pozieres, the site of heavy engagement for the Australian forces.

Trenches at Beaumont-Hamel, Newfoundland troops (later they became part of Canada) fought furiously here in conditions that we can’t even fathom.

With only a few days left before my 3 months in the EU was due to expire; we made for Calais and the Channel crossing. A rainy afternoon was spent in transit, culminating in our arrival at the port of Calais where we set up camp adjacent to the ferry departure point. With tickets booked we spent the next day cleaning and preparing before wandering around Calais and enjoying our last afternoon on European soil.

Aire at Calais Harbour

Calais Town Hall

Calais Beach

Decorated WWII Bunker, these things are everywhere.

Arriving at the port the following day, we made our way through French customs and proceeded to UK customs where a little bit of extra time was spent. I had to convince customs that I was not going to overstay my maximum 6 months in the UK. I’m glad that I had observed the Schengen zone rules for I was now under a little scrutiny! Because we were entering with our own vehicle and no onward tickets of any kind I wasn’t surprised at having to explain the situation! A short time later and we were back in the vehicle queue and on our way.

Boarding the ferry

View of the Aire from the ferry port

31000km since landing in Vladivostok and just over 7 months later, the Patrol once again found itself at sea. The old cliché applies here – time really has flown!

Back soon with tales from the motherland..

Cya – Justin.

PS: We are now happily camped in Ramsgate just north of Dover, clocks again adjusted and it’s completely dark by 4:30pm! What the..?..?

Happy New Year!

6 Replies

Just yesterday our website clocked up 10,000 hits and has 65 regular subscribers, something we are quite proud of. Admittedly Justin’s folks have probably driven that number up by reading our site 15 times a day but we’ll take the cudo’s.

So along those lines I thought I would bore you with some “Observations and Statistics for 2014” but if you are hoping to see how much this has cost so far, then you will be out of luck as that’s not something we want to think about lest we end up in the corner of the room in the foetal position wondering “what were we thinking???” Some creative math with some of the figures will give you an idea…

So here we go…..

Boat ride to boat ride the car has travelled 31088kms and consumed 4293 litres of diesel.

We have taken 6,916 photographs.

We have been travelling 266 days so that’s an average of 26 photos per day, more when I have been drinking! (and better strangely enough!)

Our first night wild camped in Siberia!

Our first night wild-camping in Russia

The French seem to have an aversion to putting seats on their toilets.

Some cultures seem to have a problem knowing what the flush button is for on western toilets.

In the airport in Seoul, South Korea they had a special tiny toilet for kids? or maybe really small people.

Tiny Toilet

In Central Asia it was common to see shoe prints on the seat of a western toilet when there was no squat option – clearly sitting down is too difficult compared to climbing up on to and balancing upon the pedestal.

I have never been in a country before where the sun sets at 4pm. (UK)

I can now read Cyrillic – doesn’t mean I understand it but at least I can figure out where we are going!

Lucky I can read Cyrillic

Sometimes it’s face value is confusing in English

Lost in translation

The most expensive diesel we have bought was in the UK at $2.30 per litre.

Cheapest diesel we have bought was in Kazakhstan at $0.70 per litre.

Cheapest Vodka was in Kygyzstan at $2.50 per 700ml bottle (it wasn’t Smirnoff but still good for mixing!)

Vodka!

I now know what a genuine molehill looks like but have yet to see it’s creator. Next time I plan to make a mountain out of a molehill, I’ll know how much work I have ahead of me.

Molehill but no Mole!

in fact when it comes to wildlife, foxes and squirrels seem to be the only regulars! There were many road signs promising moose in Russia but none appreared and sadly the only bears seen were in cages. The best wildlife we have seen were some amazing owls that were part of a display by a rescue group here in the UK so not really wild or free but spectacular nonetheless!

Check out those Eyes!

Despite the fact that no-one drinks Fosters in Australia it is quite popular in the UK. I met a band called the Bohica’s on the Calais – Dover Ferry drinking Fosters!! Cool guys! ( and yes that is most likely Foster’s spilt on his t-shirt!)

The Bohica’s. Dominic to my right and Brendan to my left.

Hottest temperature experienced on trip: 46C – Uzbekistan

Coldest temperature experienced on trip: -10C – Siberia

I have never seen so many motorhomes being used as I saw in Germany.

Soooo many Motorhomes!

The British have very specific rules for parking in caravan parks

Strict rules!!

Number of different countries visited on trip: 19.

Countries with English as a first language: 1

Different currencies used: 12

The Dutch call a shopping trolly a winkelwagen (still makes us laugh!!!)

The French have interesting rules on swimming attire…

Read the Fine Print!

Paris is still as beautiful as ever but I should choose more appropriate footwear! 3 visits to Paris over the years and a toenail lost on two of those visits!

Poor Shoe Selection

In Mongolia a cosmetics shop was selling snail mucus hand cream!

Real holly grows everywhere in the UK and Northern Europe at Christmas time – quite a novelty

Fireworks are legal to buy in the UK, even at supermarkets – another novelty we’ll be trying out tonight!

Happy New Year and thank you for following us!

Cheers

Jen

Linda on Well that was good wasn’t it…So amazing Justin and Jen. You guys are awesome. Living the dream. Xx
Bruce on Well that was good wasn’t it…Thanks Jen and Justin, what a pleasure it has been to follow the trek over the last few years. Looking forward to the next installment! Bruce
Geordie on The CountdownHi Justin and Jen, great to read your travels, I have only just got back on line to see your finally coming back to Aus. Rose and I have been travelling off and on for most of the past two years not quite as adventurous as you guys but we managed a full lap of Australia and then a full lap of New Zealand. Canada is next on our list but have to get back to work for a while before that. Hope you are both well after your long travels and getting back into the swing of things back in Ausie. Cheers, Geordie
Stephen & Denise on The CountdownHi Justin & Jen This has been a fantastic story of what can be achieved when you put your mind to it. I have really enjoyed your writings, although they are sometimes a bit far apart. but never the less this has been a great read for us & I am sure a fantastic adventure for yourselves. Regards Steve & Denise.
Bruce on The CountdownDear Jen and Jus, Thank you very much for sharing the photos and story of your wonderful journey. I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every post and wish you a safe return to the sunburnt country. Bruce
Rod Lyons on The CountdownThanks for the adventure Jus & Jen, its time you came home I need some work done on the OKAHOME

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Happy New Year!