We survived the exterme heat of Kazakhstan together with the bitter cold of Mongolia and after 47 days and over 8500 miles we can officially say we have made it!  Norbert did not take too much of a battering in the Gobi (except for when we let one of the boys have a go and within 5 minutes he had crashed into a large rock on a tarmac road and not only blown the tyre but also altered the shape of the actual wheel) and remains in good nick so on Monday we will be handing over the keys to charity.  It will be a sad day leaving our home of the last 7 weeks but it has to be done...

After a gruelling 25 hours at the mongolian border we were finally let in. Stayed in our first ger last night in Hovt and experienced the delights of mongolan throat singing. Yellow submarine is falling apart already and we're about to hit the worst part of the "road" later today...

Had a very tedious 12 hour border crossing last night into Russia - lots of unneccessary queueing and faffing about but we made it through in the end.  On the plus side, the Kazakh border guards didn't seem to notice that once again we hadn't managed to register in time due to the long wait taking us past midnight on the final day...  Currently in Barnaul, Russia and aiming to hit the Mongolian border sometime tomorrow.  With all 3 cars seeming to be running ok at the mo, we might just manage it.  Hopefully!

Having been relatively lucky so far on the breaking down front it came as no surprise that something would eventually go wrong.  We first noticed there was a problem when trying to accelerate up the mountains in Kyrgyzstan - if we stopped and tried to start off again there was very little power and even with full revs on the car kept stalling.  At the time we put this down to engines not working so well at altitude and continued over the border to Kazakhstan whdere we camped.  Next morning car wont start...  Eventually we got it going after a short tow, took it to a garage in Almaty and as far as we were concerned everything was fixed.  No.  Today when trying to start off the same thing happened so we searched out a more respectable garage where Norbert is  read more »