Saturday 30th June - Thursday 5th July 2007: Once out of the port we had a mission to meet the journ

Across Australia, or Across the World, Goanna Tracks is a collage of Off-Road adventurers undertaken by Kym Lyn Bolton and Friends. From quad biking down the Eastern Side of Cape York, crossing the Great Sandy Desert by GPS, or more distant overseas logistical challenges, our holidays have always been unusual. Generally, where the dotted alamo rent a car disney world line on the map ends our adventure begins.
Saturday 30th June - Thursday 5th July 2007: Once out of the port we had a mission to meet the journalist Andrey alamo rent a car disney world Sudbin in Yakutsk some 3,300kilometers away, in five days. And what a mission that was. The distance is vast and the roads are very slow going. Yesterday was our biggest day 761Kms in 18 hours, and a big part of it at 35km per hour. This far north, the roads are built on the permafrost. Being ice it is constantly moving with the passage of the heavy trucks. The trucks just destroy the road surface. alamo rent a car disney world In places the road has up to 1 meter high 'hills' and valleys of slop where the trucks have broken through the surface to the swamp below. We see the construction methods and are amazed that they just push the trees and scrub over onto the swamp then dump a few truck loads of soil and rock followed by a dozer blade producing an instant road. Hence our vehicles rock and roll, occasionally breaking through the soft under layer to the bottomless peat bog below. The people are wonderful and friendly. Always a smile is returned. Only very occasionally do you find someone ignoring you. We had a coffee at a road side truck shop, and another customer in the shop, telephoned his wife to bring us a present. He indicated politely to us by tapping his watch "Please wait ten minutes" Neither of us could speak Russian/English but we managed to communicate nonetheless. With great pride he presented me with an old Red Russian hammer and sickle flag, immediately that becomes a prised possession. All along the roads are the 'transporters'. That is what we were calling alamo rent a car disney world the hundreds of second-hand Japanese cars and trucks that have been purchased in Vladivostok and Khabarousk and being driven right across Russia. These are both private individuals and companies employing young drivers to do this vast delivery run. On the little bitumen that was there they drove like crazy up to 120kph, and on the dirt they were down to 40kph. Travelling in packs, on the dirt they either zigzagged in formation alamo rent a car disney world looking for a line to dodge the potholes or spread them selves across the road 4 abreast to keep out of the dust. Occasionally these inexperienced drivers would pass on the crest of hills and around blind corners, mostly driving too fast for the conditions, inevitably an accident would follow. There were numerous wrecks along the road and in the repair shops. My estimation is that only 60% survive the journey. The leading edges of the vehicles alamo rent a car disney world are taped up for stone damage, numerous spare tyres on the back seat, and they just drive and drive and drive. They stop only to refuel, repair, change tyres, and finally fall asleep in road side bays. Crazy! The roads are rough, not corrugated just pot holed from no maintenance. There is no real 'line' between the holes so one must just select the least number of holes to hit as you bounce along. Bill unfortunately wrecked one of new his Mickey Thompson tyres. We think he may have got a puncture, and with the tyre being already hot, it self destructed in only a short period alamo rent a car disney world of time. These are a rather unique size but we will need to find another one similar size, as this is his only spare, and the trip is still young. From my side we fractured the weld joint in the fuel tank and broke the axle support for the front twin shock absorber. Following a 5 hour stop in an isolated and very busy road side repair shop, we had the fuel tank repaired. At this stage I was not impressed with the manufacturers of the camper because they had mounted the tank to the sprung camper but bolted the bash plate from the tank to the chassis. With two opposite moving objects, something had to eventually crack, and the fuel tank was the weak link. Our little translation book came in handy translating the word for welder (spar-koiya) and arranging for its repair. Although the technology used was rudimentary the quality of the work was excellent. Diesel fuel prices were around 18.50 to 20 RUB (A$0.70-0.80c) per litre. Fuel is purchased by the litre and you need to know how much fuel you need. Firstly we must find the cashier hidden behind alamo rent a car disney world a small window about 300mm square and it can be a challenge asking for the required litres, in Russian. It is always a woman cashier, and she then turns the pump on. The diesel pump is recognised by the oily ground surrounding the pump if not by the Cyrillic letter for 'D' that looks like a flat topped 'A'. As we headed north the country slowly changed, alamo rent a car disney world from coastal hills covered with the white barked Birch trees to slowly higher country alamo rent a car disney world with rolling hills covered with pine trees, moss covered marshes and peat bog lakes. In the distance, we see white patches on the hills, and much discussion is over the UHF as to what it could be. It is +30 degrees so snow is ruled out, but as we climb eventually alamo rent a car disney world we drive through a mountain pass at 1400 meters with snow and ice on the side of the road. This was more the Siberia I had imagined Each evening we camp slightly off the road to avoid the noise of the passing alamo rent a car disney world 'transporters' banging over the pot holes. Normally in disused quarries or cleared areas in the forests where timber getters had previously worked. As we headed north the number of mosquitoes increased, and as dusk fell they descended alamo rent a car disney world in droves. They seem to eat the normal repellent, our solution was long sleaved shirts and trousers with RID wiped on the extremities, and our best line of defence was a $99 mosquito tent that allowed us to sit and relax in chairs and eat outside. Andrey was arriving in Yakutsk at 5.30am Thursday from Moscow hence it was important that we were in town by that time. Driving for 18hours and arriving at 1am was not the grand entrance we had planned for Yakutsk. The streets were quite in this 250,000 alamo rent a car disney world populated town. At this time the sun had only just set in a bright red glow. You could still read a newspaper by the glow in the sky at these midnight hours. Finding the location of the airport, alamo rent a car disney world we continued out of town to camp off the road pending Audrey's arrival. Now here we were, after only 3 ½ hours sleep, at an isolated Russian airport, looking at the arriving passengers wondering what Andrey looked like. In true 4x4 style he was immediately recognisable. Andrey was stocky, with a belly that obviously enjoyed a beer or two. His greying hair was wild after the all night flight, but what gave him away was the short sleeved multi pocked safari jacket. Unlike the others that disembarked from the aircraft he looked alamo rent a car disney world like someone who enjoyed the bush. He will be a welcome member to our team and a great friend. Introductions were almost nonconsequential because we seem to know each other already from the many E-mails and the more recent telephone calls. Following an extra round of strong coffees, we have the tasks of finding a welding shop for the Canter shocky mount repair and a suitable tyre for Bills Isuzu. With Andrey contacts, we had the help of Ray a member of the local Shatoon 4X4 Club. All was starting to happen. My welding at Ray's workshop was the easy part; Bill's spare tyre was a problem. Ray led the two trucks around town till 2pm, trying to find the impossible, a 37" tyre to fit on to an 18" truck rim. Finally we returned to the 'truckies hotel' we had checked into earlier and Bill, Andrey, and Ray set off again in Ray's Pajero to look further. Bill had noticed the local MAS busses had a similar 6 stud pattern, and eventually settled on a new rim and tyre from this bus. It looks like a tough truck tyre, approx 37" high but only 7" wide, on a 20" rim, certainly enough for a spare. We all realised alamo rent a car disney world we could not head off on the next 2200km on the Road of Bones without alamo rent a car disney world a spare tyre. Yakutsk is an unusual town, and so are the people. alamo rent a car disney world The town appears to have grown out of a small frontier village. Around the well developed centre of about 5 blocks are the old original timber buildings. These houses are built on the Lena River flood plain and are made out of 10cm square pine logs. Much as if you were building a house from ice cream sticks. The timber has turned very dark grey with age and many have slowly started to sink on one side into the river mud, presenting the house at some acute angles. The local Yakutian people have a Mongoloid appearance, with some Eskimo and Chinese features. There is obviously new money in town with the recently constructed buildings, alamo rent a car disney world and we have also seen a new Hummer. Perhaps that belongs to the Alrosa Company; they are the big diamond miners who have their headquarters in town. Today was successful that we found Bill's tyre but we lost Bill and Gaylene. We had caught two taxies to a restaurant but Bill and Gay never arrived. Andrey, Lyn and I sat in this expensive restaurant, waiting, we waited at the front steps, we waited at the bar, and we waited at the table. Finally after about 1 ½ hours we started to walk the streets and found that the taxi had let them off 100meters from the restaurant. Fortunately they had stayed relatively close to the taxi drop off point or we may still be looking for them today! It had been a long few days and although we all wanted an early night we finally saw the pillow at 10pm. Tomorrow we refuel, restock the food pantry and head off on the Road of Bones. 30th June Distance:700Kms Camp 2: Clearing Camp with Mosquitoes 1st July Distance:612Kms Camp 3: Quarry Camp near Apoxapa alamo rent a car disney world 2nd July Distance:600Kms Camp 4: Big Quarry camp near Aprelbskiy 3rd July Distance:572Kms Camp 5: Pine Tree Side Track Camp 4th July Distance:761Kms Camp 6: Beside Road in Yakutsk 5th July Distance: 20Kms Camp 7: Truckies Hotel in Yakutsk Position : Yaku