Sorry to anyone that tried to contact us on our russian phone, when we left st petersburg it stopped working- maybe an internal roaming issue. (Russia's mobil networks consider different Russian states in the same way european operators treat other countries.
At the time of writing we are all in a fantastic apartment in Moscow. On the 22nd floor, a fantastic view over the city.
The trip has been fairly eventful so far. Red suzi got caught in a flash flood and drowned her electrics. Thankfuly she came back to life after drying her out. She also ripped open a tire on a pothole in Estonia but thanks to the guys RengasNet, Finland (rengasnet.fi) red suzi now has a set of big bad-ass snow tires on the front. They also had fun at the russian border where they would not trust Rich's passport photo was really him. That is a story he can tell though!
The standard of driving seems to be getting steadily more eratic the further east we get. In poland and the baltics we appreciated the use of the 'magic lane' we called it in which both sides of the road move apart to make a gap down the middle for overtaking purposes. It was scary at first but we got used to it- nothing like being wedged between two lorries going in opposite directions.
In Russia they had more perminant magic lanes... in fact anywhere a car can fit seems to be acceptable including pavements, hard shoulders, grass verges.
Anyway, everyone is okay and both red and silver suzi are back together. The temperature here was about 28 degrees and will get hotter as we go on. Apparently the temperature can hit above 40 celcius in the south and going into the kazakh desert. I'm not sure how much civilisation we will have left, it seems like we have travelled a huge distance but we're only a 3rd of the way on the best roads. The easy bit is over, the hard bit is starting.
Both sump guards are unscratched despite a couple of bumps on them already. Hopefully they will hold out further. Silver suzi is currently parked on the main boulevard up to the kremlin parked with Lamourginis, Maybach, Audis and other assorted mean machines (which will never make it out of moscow centre due to the Potholed roads). We like to think Suzi does not look out of place :P
OK, a bit of sightseeing in Moscow then we head southeast.
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