(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!