hello, from an internet cafe in krasnoyarsk!

we have just worked out on vera that the distance to lake baikal is 530 miles. we are all looking forward to the fun swimming times to come.

this morning we found that another tyre was going flat all too quickly and managed to find a garage at the side of the road. the tyre was fixed and we even struggled through asking the garage to change the tyres round on larry. larry is indeed our long suffering trailer. the DIY job that was the creation of larry has thus far held out but we have lost some paint and used quite a few screws in trying to save him.

the comments from ling and reeve were particularly appreciated by me. it has to be said that this experience, so far, has been aptly summed up by ling and stories of daddy's driving amuse all (however, nothing will shock now).

i thought a weather up date may be in order:
has been coudy and overcast recently, a vast change to the heat that has been surrounding us up to this point. i have been enjoying the cool respite but the other want the hot weather back.

whatever the weather, the insects have been relentless during the evenings.

we have been trying to put up photographs but have not been too sucessful. at the moment the laptop is struggling to work with the internet properly even thougough it tells us it is connected. this post is coming to you from one of the internet cafe's own computers.

currently in kempbo(?) having not driven far today because of the vast distances we have been driving lately.

i apologise for the technical problems at the last cafe that meant i accidently posted the same entry twice.

more japes involving daddy and policemen. warnings of caution from many parties were seeminly ignored by daddy. in the central square of this town we were to find the reason the road we had been driving down was so empty: it was a dedicated bus lane. the cost of the enlightenment- Rb 200, down from $200 (bargin!). the amusement (mainly me) and tension- priceless.

a couple of hours later we saw all the policemen of the local district lining up outside thier station to take their annual photograph. daddy was higly childish and said that we should make 'buny ears' over thier heads.

earlier today we were running low on water and were fortunate enough to come across and charming and animal packed hamlet and the side of the road. at the end of the village was, we had to admit, the best kept well we have yet to see: it was wooden with a new metal bucket and a perfect turning action. we were most impressed. daddy and i filled up the larger (30 l) water container whilst tessie and lewis took photographs of all the aminals, including partridges.

we all feel as though we have got the bulk of russia behind us as we are now 2/3 of the way through this country. the roads have also been getting smoother but we feel they are lulling us into a false sense of security as the bumps and creaters have caused us to scrap the bottom of our car 5 times already. no doubt fate will smite us down for our optimism.

greetings from the geographical centre of russia: novosibirsk.

we will not travel very far today as yesterday we travelled double the distance planned due to the weather.

when we decided to stop and put up the gazebo for a little break, about half an hour later it began to rain. the hail followed immeditely after this and the driving conditions were so bad that even we pulled over at the side of the road with the other drivers to wait for it to ease off. the rain, hail, thunder and lightening coninued for hours and we got drenched when we stoped at the service station for dinner.

we eventually found a set of abandonned buildings at the side of the road with flat enough ground and not too many trees where we were able to set up camp (this has been a problem for us in siberia).

when we got out of the car we found that the strengh of wilma and larry had been tested to the extreme: they were not in a good state. larry has been stripped of some of his paint and wilma has a broken wing mirror. this is a sad day.

however, it is not all bad for wilma as we had both of her slow punctures repaired by a lovely garage who did a great job.

the sighting of an enlish car caused much excitement as it over took us.

greetings from the geographical centre of russia: novosibirsk.

we will not travel very far today as yesterday we travelled double the distance planned due to the weather.

when we decided to stop and put up the gazebo for a little break, about half an hour later it began to rain. the hail followed immeditely after this and the driving conditions were so bad that even we pulled over at the side of the road with the other drivers to wait for it to ease off. the rain, hail, thunder and lightening coninued for hours and we got drenched when we stoped at the service station for dinner.

we eventually found a set of abandonned buildings at the side of the road with flat enough ground and not too many trees where we were able to set up camp (this has been a problem for us in siberia).

when we got out of the car we found that the strengh of wilma and larry had been tested to the extreme: they were not in a good state. larry has been stripped of some of his paint and wilma has a broken wing mirror. this is a sad day.

however, it is not all bad for wilma as we had both of her slow punctures repaired by a lovely garage who did a great job.

the sighting of an enlish car caused much excitement as it over took us.

thank you to ling and kay for wriing comments and keeping daddy happy.
all contributions are most welcome.

we have arrived in omsk (siberia, mid-russia)
i have been reliably informed that this is the home town of the girlfriend of bruce, a friend of dave rocker.

last night we celebrated our triumph of reaching the half-way point in russia, and wilma making it to 100 000 miles (on the clock) by staying in a hotel. this was to be out first proper bed since leaving for dover. it proved to be quite the ordeal what with our getting lost and being completely unable to communicate our room requirements.

the first hotel was a disaster and once daddy established it as being dirty and got angry we swiftly left. the second hotel was fully booked by a football team- this was a suprise as the guide book had refered to the 'drab concrete block' as being 'very rarely full'. the third time was a charm- the receptionist even called her english speaking friend to help us book a room.

the hotel created a permanent and very special place in our hearts when we were serenaded by the local dj/singer/karaokee man in the restaurant.



we, the group, would now like to take the time to retell some amusing anecdotes that have have involved us during this trip (a backlog, if you will) that have unfortunately, up until this point, slipped our minds.

1. we have seen a stoke-like taxi with the phone number of 777 777 (lucky seven).

2. the whole car is really into 'thunderbirds are go' by busted and 'oh my god' by the kaiser chiefs. this first for obvious reasons; the second because it contains the line 'oh my god i can't believe it, i've never been this far away from home'. cool.

3. we have, as yet, been so inconspicous that we have only been stopped at the numerous police check points once. however, in the early hours of two days ago, daddy was hailed down but sped on through. we have been reliably informed that a slow speed chase ensued but the policeman didn't really care and went back into his hut. it was a close run thing that we were not stopped at the next police check point as daddy though that our descriptions would have been called through.

if you have managed, thank you.

we have reached tyumen and found some lovely toilets.

every night lewis insists on catching insects. his parents condone animal cruelty by making no attempts to prevent him. last night's green spider has been the highlight of the trip to date.

we were going to sleep in a hotel last night but, in the end, decided that the side of the road would be better. however, i am still holding out for a hotel in omsk (mid siberia), where we will hopefully stop for a rest.

siberia is so far proving to be very flat but the whole camp feels excited at the prospect of traveling through such an exotic region. at the same time we are being wary of ticks that we a told are rife during this season by our lonely planet guide book.

we are on track so far and making sufficient time.

a note to our sponsors,

thank you for the compass dave and vicky. have not got lost yet.
greg rowe sr- he hand pump filter is coming into its own.
janice- the air bed is still pumping up.
mike earl- the torch is still lighting our way.
granny- for the lightweight mug, russia money and chuney (just finished).
all- the great advice.

dwight wood.

Hello To Trevor

hello trevor, thanks for your preview comment, from Dwight. we have a good giggle.

we thank you for your comments.

great to hear that tim and family will be camping in devon (wish we were there).

we are glad to hear from the family and were happy to see that reeve did not manage to cock it up.

i am the only one who can write. despite exams, i am still the front-runner in the literacy stakes.

glad you recieved post. were a bit nervous about it. hope trip goes well, granny. take lots of photos.

lewis would like to say hello to PR.

we are writing from the legendary chelyabinsk.
daddy thinks it's very exciting and thinks everyone will want to hear about it.

we have not yet seen any tanks but we are still holding out.
we have, however, taken discreet photographs of some officials.

there are some lovely bronze statues in teh pedestrianised zone of the city. we have taken photographs of all of them. i am upset with lewis as he ruined one of my photos by scowling and would not stay out of the next one. he cried, but it's ok because im not in trouble.

this area is surrounded by lakes and we will stay by one tonight. lewis has been told that he is not to drink the unclean water: he did the first time and got the 'runs' (for one day only).

tomorrow, although at the eastern edge of the urals today, will be our last stop in the urals. we have to go north so as to skip out kazakhstan.

last night was an evening of contrasts. the flies appear to be growing in size the closer we get to singapore. daddy in particular looks like a blotchy pin cushion. the locals appeared friendly at first but we were later to find out that they were buttering up to tourists in the hope that we would supply alcohol euros. but there was a nice honey man washing his car in the river.

the roads during our drive this morning (170 miles) were the hilliest we have yet to encounter ('they walk the tighrope between diabolocial and perfect'- daddy). this means we have been using more fuel, but we still manage c 450 miles to a tank. it has also created somewhat of a sport out of overtaking: today tessie had her foot to the floor and was really pushing 30mph.

we have passed many police checkpoints this week and we always ensure that lewis gives the illusion of being strapped in for them. today he was rewarded for knowing his 4 times table: i was similarly rewarded.

(horses on the latvia/ russia border)



we are now in camapa in the food section of a shopping centre a little bit like the ilford exchange. it has a bouncy castle and arcade games also.





daddy would like to request that anyone who is out there reading this writes a comment on our blog so that daddy knows people are reading it and for some interaction.

last night we had some more visiters to our tent (outside a grave yard). the were a group of young 'lads'. daddy went out in his underwear; this coupled with language barrier caused much amusement. they stayed for 1 1/4 hours, during which time daddy said that he loved everything about russia, we heard some more techno russian beats (on phone- also used to take pictures of daddy and tessie). as they were drunk (the 'lads') they left only after autographs were exchanged. we were reliably informed that one of the boys saw putin's son.

we have not stayed in a campsite now for over a week and are not feeling too clean.





camapa is around the urals and has lots of pretty, but run-down, houses lining the streets.





we have recently been driving further than we need to so that when we come to the less tarmaced roads closer to mongolia we can afford to go a bit slower. we travel over 200 miles a day.





we are hoping to find a campsite tonight but it is getting late and we are told that water and the washing up bowl will be fine.

writing from a lovely internet cafe in penza, raussia (with techno blaring in the loos).

the first proper city we have come accross that is not in our guide book.

we have just bought a sim card from the local phone shop; slow process due to limitations of phrase book.

last night we were going to camp at an abandonned garage with 2 thunder boxes (this is posh). we managed to undertake minor repairs on wilma (the car) and managed to find more things to organise and throw out. however, at 21:00 a lady said that we would have to move on as we were a fire hazard. this was a shame but she did give us directions to a wonderful spot on the local river, rna. it showed on vera (sat nav) so we knew we were going somewhere good. that night daddy built the most spectacular fire i have ever seen: he was suitably modest about his acievement.

this morning we drove past some live sheep on the road as we left our 'camp'.

driving to this city today i discovered that daddy loves a bit of dicing with death. i was driving and he told me that the road ahead was clear to overtake the truck in front but in reality that was a massive car coming towards us. when i tried to quickly bring the situation under control daddy got really angry and said that i should have held my nerve. we switched places.

we are off to find a nice place to camp next, hopefully next to another river as we have all been enjoying practicing our swimming. although i fear that daddy does not wish to get beaten by me a 3rd time and so has mixed feelings about finding another river.

we have made it to russia!
we are currently using the internet in a post office in shack, just out side moscow.

the night before we crossed the border we slept next to a dusty road with lots of lovely horses int the next door field. we slept close to the border so that daddy could wake us up at 05:00 (at time i have become all too familiar with) to get to the border early. despite this, there was still a large queue when we arrived.

it took us 8 hours to cross the border from lativa. the exciting bits of that were: tessie getting her passport inspected for being foregin, me filling in a form incorrectly and the trailer needing a passport. we started queueing for the border at 06:00 and cleared it at 14:00.

after clearing the border we asked some locals it we could camp at the end of their land; they were extremely friendly and they even helped us put up our tent amoungst the mosquitos (this may have been because we inadvertenly asked them to).

yesterday we visited moscow. it took us the longest time to find the kremlin and we asked some locals for our first directions. we have been using our phrase book quite a bit and now appear practically native. during the evening we stopped at our first knife adn fork (motorway service station with food) to wait for the rain to abate and there had been a massive storm for quite a while now. later that even the rain did easy off a bit but it then came back with a vengence and there was an amazing lighteneing storm. the rain was so heavy that we could not see the lines on the ground of the motorway. because of this we had to sleep int he car at the service station and daddy drove off again at 01:00. this was not good for daddy but meant that the day's driving was done by 10:00.

going to look at some sights now as we have come accross an english speaking russian.

here is another post from rezekene.

we are taking advantage of the internet here incase we are unable to find any in the great outdoors of russia that we are entering first thing tomorrow morning.

last night we looked for the campsite which was promised to us on a road sign; we were unable to find it but instead we found a lovely spot next to a graveyard ('it's dead funny'- daddy): it was flat (good), but had lots of mosquitos (bad). tessie braved the mosquitos to pick the group ome wild strawberries which were highly tasty. daddy tried to best tessie later that evening by collecting some rasberries.

this is also an attempt to upload some photographs- something we have, as yet, been unable to sucessfully achieve.

good day, from Rezekene, latvia (c 80 miles from the russian border).
698km from moscow.

we have been 'pottering away' and only doing about 20 miles a day.

daddy is beavering away and tryin to throw out the contents of our trailer. he tries to dispose of the underwear this morning. he was prevented.

two nights ago we camped in a field of bugs next to a rail way bridge. we sang a train song every time one went past during the evening. during the day we crossed many railway lines (seeming found everywhere) and nearly got run over by a train as daddy is above red lights.

the roads we have been driving on recently are heavily underconstruction with lots of gravel, dust and steep slopes. we suspect this is how the roads will be in russia.

we all went swimming in a lovely river next to where we camped last night. we thought it clean enough for a wash but lewis we hesitant to get in due to the temperature of the water. however, we forced him in anyway.

we all had a little trouble sleeping as there was a gathering of latvian youths 20m from our tent. they were having a trace rave/ pool party until at least 04:30.

this morning many flowers/ plants were collected and are soon to be pressed for our scrap book which is coming along nicely. many of the vegitation that may be seen here, is the same as may be found in england.

we fear that this may be our last post for quite some time as on tuesday (2 days later than expected) we enter russia, into the hitherto unknown. there will be no campsite/ washing facilities for miles around. how exciting.

riga, latvia (two nights in a campsite- luxury)

you can probably tell that a less literate person wrote the last post.

that person was daddy.

there are divisions in the camp. tempers are fraying after just 1 1/2 weeks travelling. this does not bode well.

the last field we stayed in was lovely and had lots of wildlife. lewis got in trouble for mistreating the frogs, nevertheless is obsession continued.

i do have a bad back from sleeping on the ground but last night was not my first on the ground. there has not been a single night when my air bed has remained inflated for more that 2 hours. i would say that i have held out better than the others would without an airbed.

riga has been the best city we have explored so far and it has not felt as though we have been away for a particularly long time as the countryside has been similar, in many areas, to that of the uk.

in many cases, 55mph does not allow us to keep up with the trucks as they seem to love a bit of reckless driving in eastern europe. the car has so far been holding up well but an ominous rattling may be heard from the back of the car all too frequently. we have be promised it's merely the exhaust.

one the padlocks for the trailer has been lost so we are on the look out for a new one.

the weather has been nice and wet; this makes a change from the stifling heat we we experiencing before.

We are in Riga Latvia.
The weather is overcast and about 20 degrees.
The tent in water proof! It rained last night and we stayed dry.
Loong moaned abot a bad back it was her first night without an air bed.
Riag old town centre is only a half hours walk and we saw part of a local free concert n one of the town squares.
We are off the the coast to see he sea.
The car is going well and we drive at about 55 miles per hour to keep up with the trucks and buses.
We are getting ready to go to russia on Sunday.
The latesest from the chinese entry permit saga is that they can not issue any passes until 20th of september. Lets hope its nice in Mongolia!

in kaunas, lithuania.

slept in an abandonned farm that was quite nice but had loads of mosquitoes in the morning. not good.

it rained all morning and last night, so much so that water came into our tent. we then had to put away a wet tent; this occurance is not all that rare as it rains when ever daddy assures us it wont i.e. half of the time.

many lorries here.

the sat nav, vera, is now a point of frustration as she does not have a sufficient number of maps for this are of the world. daddy's anger knows no bounds.

we are getting ourselves geared up for russia; this includes putting songs on lewis' mp3 player.

we have been bird watching: storks with massive nests.

i am feeling sorry for myself as being around people of lesser intelligence is finally taking its toll.

have not started lewis' lessons yet.

we have been unable to take any good photos because of daddy's driving but mainly because we are not very good at taking photographs.

still in warsaw

daddy's birthday today.
his wish was to rearange the car.
this was done with gusto.

pancakes for breakfast.

we have done lots of domestic shopping today and bought 200 tea lights for daddy's polish cake for one 50p. rather proud of ourselves.
have been making ourselves at home in tesco. the tescos provide a far more pleasent shopping experience in poland than they do i england as they are more spacious.

daddy's cards were rather amusuing, but mine was a cut above the rest- naturally.
daddy has been proudly wearing two birthday badges all day. cool.

leaving early in the morning.

we have made it to warsaw after an adventurous evening.

after deciding on a copice to camp in, we had trouble placing the tent due to the vast amount of ants- everywhere.

the tent was eventually erected on some bumpy ground which meant that we had diffuculty getting to sleep. my sleeping difficulties were increased by a giant snail digging into my back.

daddy and tessie had lots of trouble sleeping.

at the beginning of the night a car drove up the wooded path to our (camp) but soon left us alone. later on, in the middle of the night, we heard another car and the footsteps and shouts of men followed by an extremely bright torch being flashed inside our tent. the cause of the disturbance was three large men armed with torches and rifles. we asumed that they were the villiage mob, come too check out the wierd people in the forest.

the language barrier prevented proper communication but we hastily showed them our passports and that seemed to be ok. after a little more loud talk they left us alone.

the night's events were rounded off by lewis having his first proper cry in the morning accompanied by a refusal to leave the tent.

oh the japes.

(today has been less exciting: we stumbled upon a film shoot and daddy got angry when our sat nav, vera, did not readily show us the way to this internet cafe)

greetings in polish!

today is a lazy day.
we are at a motel just accross the german/polish border.
daddy made us miss the 'welcome to poland' sign.
we have yet to sucessfully take a picture of such a sign. this does not please me.
experienced first proper rain last night and this morning as we were camped just outside berlin.
berlin was nice and impressive making us feel as though we were on a holiday which, believe me, is not the case.
daddy and tessie's first taste of alcohol since tuesday was somewhat of an event as daddy's 'withdrawal symptoms' subsided for the first time in 2 days. praise the Lord.
i am doing my best to impart my vast french language knowledge to lewis. i should take a while.
hoping to stay with friends in lodz tonight. this will undoubtedly be one of our last outposts of civilisation before russia.

we have finally got down to some good, hard driving on the open road and have made it to berlin.

slept rough for the first time last night: half way to berlin.

in the morning we were in trouble with the owner of a stable yard for disturbing the horses.

still amazingly hot the whole time but we are powering through.

Hallo! (Day 4?)

We have sucessfully made it to KÖln after an hours traffic jam.

this morning daddy and tessie had thier first theatrical row. most exciting: tessie was right and we discovered that daddy is incompetant.

we took a ferry at 02:00 on monday morning and arrived in Dunkirk at 04:00.
Lewis was the only one who was afforded sleep.

Monday night we stayed in Ypres and during the day we visited the Flanders Field Museum and Tyne Cot Cemetery. both were impressive and thought provoking.

last night we stayed just outside Maastrict and in the morning we went to service a water softener for an old customer. good customer service.