Vladimir Oblast, Russia
Not the best of days. Went to a garage this morning about some of the problems we've been having with the car and one of the front wheels fell off the car as we pulled into the car park. We've had to replace the entire front suspension and well we were there we decided after more than a week of trying to find cheap wheels to bite the bullet and replace all the alloys with new shiny alloys. Thought that would be the end of it but a couple of kilometres from the next city the right suspension shot right through the car and through the windscreen. We are going to crawl the car to a local garage tomorrow but are bracing for the worst.
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia
Since Kazakhstan we have been driving on alloys that are more square than round. Tried every garage since the border but none stock replacements (including two Renault garages!). All our tyres are now entirely slick so we are stuck here until we can find replacements. In other news we ran out of petrol again, drove the wrong way down a motorway and have taken to singing in the car.
Omsk Oblast, Russia
We weren't going to carry on doing updates but it still feels like we're having quite an adventure travelling back to the UK so we will carry on. Had to bribe our way through the Kazakh customs yesterday, cost two high vis vests and a pair of gloves. Started off this morning and immediately blew another tyre. As we still have not found anywhere to replace the broken wheel we didn't have a spare but as luck would have it we broke down right next to a tyre shop. All our wheels were that banged up we had to have inner tubes rather than tyres but at least we are under way again. We also called in at a Renault garage to get the dashboard fixed and had the entire workforce come out to see us and the car, must be what celebrities feel like all the time. Unfortunately though they weren't able to fix it.
Omsk Oblast, Russia
We weren't going to carry on doing updates but it still feels like we're having quite an adventure travelling back to the UK so we will ** some text is missing **
Pavlodar Province, Kazakhstan
Unfortunately we've ran out of time and don't think we can make Mongolia. A mixture of having to detour round Moldova, wasting days going to closed borders and constantly being lost. We've looked at dumping the car in Russia but that looks to be an expensive headache so instead we are going to do a big lap back to the UK via the north. We're just going to have to learn to live with the shame of failure.
East Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan
Absolutely destroyed the kazakh mileage in the last few days. Unfortunately Kazakh roads have destroyed the car in return. Had the first blown tire, the suspensions shot on the back wheels, the entire dashboards stopped working and worst of all the radios died. Also managed to spend the entire of today travelling to a closed border crossing but are now on the Russian border and should be in Mongolia tomorrow.
Almaty Province, Kazakhstan
Another good day mileage wise but the good cops have dried up, now it's bribes every other cop. Also Jim got shaken down by the police by driving him round the block so we all shat ourselves thinking he'd been arrested.
Jambyl Province, Kazakhstan
Driving an unairconditioned car in 50C heat is not much fun. On the plus side the roads have finally improved and we're ploughing through the miles at last. Also we've finally had a day when we didn't get lost.
Kyzylorda Province, Kazakhstan
Another couple of adventurous days. Made the 600km journey to kyzylorda on the promise of good roads. We presumed there would be petrol stations along the way, big mistake. Ran out of petrol and had to be saved by a combination of other teams and 200km round trip hitch hiking with lorry drivers (one of which crashed!). Drove another 100km and the last 200km of the road was still under construction, no faster than 40kph all the way. Also today Rit got pulled twice by police within a 1km stretch of road.
Astana, Kazakhstan
Slight change of plans. We can't find the 100km road to Russia so after a 5 minute long conversation with a very nice local man at a petrol station we have decided to take a 3500 km detour to Russia via Kyrgyzstan. Sounds like a good idea right...
