Team Blog Map

We woke up this morning to a site we hadn't seen since driving through Belgium, rain. After breakfast we went round to the Go Help offices and introduced them to Clint, the Mechanic there was suitably impressed, he couldn't believe how clean he was.  Migah arranged for us to visit the Book House, as we drove out of the city it quickly became apparent how poor the area was that we were visiting, the houses become much smaller and more like shacks, there were no big shops as there are in the City, in fact I don't recall seeing a shop.  read more »

Well we have arrived in UB and what a surprise, we knew it was a large City but after travelling the last couple of hundred mies on fairly okay tarmac as soon as we hit the city it was back to potholes and dust! We booked into the Ulaanbator Hotel which by Mongolian standards is pretty good, got a nice suite and just finished our dinner and a bottle of Moet to celebrate our arrival,  it's 1.50 am ( I think) and the traffic is just as busy as if it were 6.00pm rush hour.  read more »

Hi folks, we are currently in Altai, just stopped off for cash and fuel after spending the night in the middle of the central Gobi desert, what a beautiful place to stay, the mountains in this area are amazing, the roads in Mongolia are shocking, far worse than we expected, both sets of front brakes went yesterday and Chris had to do the best he could to repair them, we got airborne several times yesterday as well, poor Clint, he drove all the way across Europe, Russia, Siberia with no issues, now he is getting hammered. This morning we were woken by the sounds of an Eagle mooching about on top of the Ambulance, when we first started seeing them in Russia we were amazed, now it's an everyday sight and there are loads of them!  read more »

Well we arrived in Mongolia last night, too late for the border so we set up home just near the gates so we could be ready early in the morning, unfortunately the Russian side did not open until about 9.30, we had to pay a fine at the Immigration Office as we had stayed longer than 7 days and not had our card stamped, still this is the only fine we paid as we have managed to avoid the Police fines through the whole journey (so far) the Mongolian side of the border was weird, we exited Russian and drove for about 30 minutes in what we assumed was no mans land, then we saw a final Russian post, a further 15 minutes down the lane we saw the Mongolian office, first Clint was sprayed for bugs, then we had a short visit through passport and immigration control, but the vehicle import part too  read more »

Evening folks, we had a good drive today through Barnaul and down to Gorno Altaysk where we are camped for the night by a beautiful flowing river at the foot of the start of the Mountains,  the drive was really good, the roads were excellent, just normal Tarmac roads, I suppose some of the last we will see for some time! We stopped in Barnaul for some supplies and it seems like a nice city, most of the Cities we have been through are built surrounding one of the many rivers throughout Siberia and the locals make it their daily enjoyment, having a swim, you often see them queuing up for buses in full swimwear! Far more liberal than us Brits, but we are a funny breed!  read more »

We drove from Omsk to Novosibirsk today, the landscape was pretty much the same all the way, miles and miles of forest, the temperature was 43 degrees in the shade and pretty uncomfortable - Dee has been bitten and yet again got bloody poisoning, still got antibiotics.  For pretty much the last 250 miles of the journey there were fires all over the forest and as far as the eye can see the air around looks like it is foggy because of the smoke, as the area is so vast and sprawled out its hard to know whether anyone can do anything.  Some of the landscape looks like it could be in the UK, except for the Eagles flying about so frequently.  read more »

Well today we drove from Kurgan to Omsk, we were planning to go via Kazakhstan but a local we met in Sim advised us not to, and to be honest we were wondering whether the next border crossing would be as easy as he one into Russia (despite the interview we had to have it was a pretty easy) so we followed the E30 via Ishim, which equated to 525 miles and about 9 hours driving, the roads for the best part were lovely, for some of the journey however they were horrific, dangerous and once we reached Omsk absolutely crazy, two lanes on either side (officially) but basically wherever a car would fit, they drive, we saw 5 different cars getting repaired in the centre of 4 lanes of traffic, people just wandering over the road during Friday rush hour, such a busy place, we are staying in a hote  read more »

Just settling down for the night in Kurgan, nice steady run over from Chelyabinsk, managed to find a hotel in the City, Suite with mini bar etc, Aircon WiFi, lots of lovely toiletries slightly different from the truck stop from last night! Just watching Top Gear in Russian, funny hearing JC dubbed over in Russian. 

I am still amazed at seeing the changes as we travel East, the local people have gone from the strong chiselled looking Russians to the "Reindeer People" who are Yukaghir people, from the Urals which is where we have just driven through, the locals here have features that are similar to Eskimos and we are trying to learn their roadside body language, we have seen them stood in the busy service areas waving their arms from side to side at low level but cannot understand what it means, they are certainly very interesting people, the service areas have rows of shacks which sell a variety of items everyone would need on such a busy highway, truckers items, seat covers, fans, mini DVD players, wipers, and of course any other bits like giant cuddly bears, Onyx ornaments, tools, inflatable bed  read more »

Hi folks, well we have just have a beautiful drive through the Mountains from Sim, en-route to Kurgan, we spent the night in a truck park, there are lots on the main routes, we thought this would be safer than any roadside layby as there are bears in the region and the whole area was a mass of deep forest, pure bear country.  Chris managed very well actually to communicate with the driver next to us and we had a beer with him, he offered us his place to stay over the next few nights if required, very good guy.  We asked about bears in the area as he parks there regularly being fairly local,  only to discover the owner of the truck park had a capured bear which he kept in a cage on the car park!  read more »