Svaneti second time round.....

After a short journey north I stopped at the cracking little Aghvi campsite run by the friendly and welcoming Mzia who lives nearby in the village of Larchvali. Reached by crossing the fast running Tskhenistskali river via a rather decrepit steel and concrete bridge the site has shaded parking and excellent facilities with good hot showers and a small camper kitchen and relaxation area with a fridge full of cold beer. Initially I was the only guest but a Dutch family arrived later on followed by two Georgian families with roof tents. I offloaded the bike and put a tube in the rear as the tubeless set up had deflated over recent weeks and distorted the rim tape - a job for when I get home. Next day I cycled up to the Chkumi monastery up a side valley and realised I had stayed there in very wintery conditions last year. A young German couple were parked up by the fast flowing river so I stopped for a chat on my way back which I extended by riding on to Tsageri for fresh bread. Back at the site I enjoyed a couple of beers as rain fell overnight and slept soundly. 

Another gentle run north brought me to a sign on the Ushguli road declaring 'Movement Prohibited' between two kilometre posts 20km ahead and 25km apart which I didn't really understand. Fortunately an oncoming Georgian car stopped and he explained that they were now obsolete as the road works had been completed. As there was a very nice parking spot nearby alongside the river I decided it was time to stop anyway and enjoyed masses of wild strawberries from the flower filled meadow. A local passed by on his way to rotovate some land but otherwise it was a serene spot to spend an afternoon near the hamlet of Mele. The following day the excellent new road climbed steadily higher up in to the mountains with plenty of snow on the summits and in the shadier gullies with a final set of hairpins bringing me out at the top of the Zagaro Pass at just over 8,600'. I parked up to walk the half mile or so to the small chapel known as the 13 Assyrian Father's Church which had stunning views across to the ridges leading up to Vakhushti's summit a little under 13,000' high. 

Dropping a few kilometres in to Ushguli soon had me turning off to a perfect park up on the edge of the village, one of the highest permanently inhabited villages in Europe. There were a couple of other vans but masses of room and I parked up so as to keep the fridge in the shade as I planned a two day stay. The stone towers that in days gone by were vital fortifications for the individual families are UNESCO protected and I wandered around the village's unsurfaced back streets admiring them under a warm sun but with a welcome cool breeze. It must be a very harsh place from October to April when the village is usually cut off by snow and the highly seasonal tourism trade disappears. At this time of year though there were a steady number of visitors and a good choice of cafes and restaurants to grab refreshments. I scaled the Queen Tamar tower, initially by a rickety external wooden ladder and then four more internally that brought me to the top floor where outlets on each wall under the eaves would allow the occupants to repel invaders.

Back at the van various trekking groups on horseback were returning from the valley which led up to the walk out to the snout of the Shkara glacier five miles further on. This was my intended destination for the following day and I had a good chat with three British walkers who had just returned and were grateful for the offer of chilled water.

I set off fairly early and was soon locking the bike up at the end of the track and then walked the hour or so along the river, across a terrace of boulders and reached the grey blue wall of ice strewn with rocks and gravel and with the river emerging at the foot a greyish brown and of course icy cold. It was a dramatic spot with rocks on top of the ice regularly slipping over the edge and crashing down rather like those coins games at fairgrounds. As others arrived I made my way back to the van grateful that the bike saved a long and dusty walk and then dropped back for another look round the village. The hilltop church had some faded frescoes inside and occupied a lovely spot looking right up the valley to the Shkara summits at over 17,000' and beyond which lies the Russian border.

The cool nights at altitude were very welcome but a squally spell at breakfast the following morning saw me firing up the Eber for the first time in months. Heading downhill and roughly southwest on the newly surfaced road was an absolute delight with snowy peaks, wooded slopes and the occasional small village before I finally reached Mestia where I had had to turn round last year after coming up from Zuguidi. A small garage had a powerful vacuum cleaner to attack the Truma vent once more and I bought some fruit and veg from the adjacent shop where my confusion over the lari exchange rate caused some amusement as I offered ten times the requested amount. Yet again total honesty from the assistant who soon put me right. After lunch out I picked up one of the huge Georgian flat breads and drove out past the small airport and up the valley I had stayed in last year. This looked very different with flowers and plants growing profusely and none of the two metres of snow that I had encountered. I parked up on one of the many tracks along the valley floor just along from two Russian families, one with a trailer tent and the other a rather tired caravan.

So yesterday I set off to revisit my failed attempt of last year to reach the Chaladi Glacier which descends from the 4,280m peak of Bzhedukh that again straddles the Russian border. After an hour along the valley floor a wood floored suspension bridge crossed the fast flowing Mestiachala river and the path began to climb through pine woods to the Tchalaati river. This was fast flowing and I reached the point where deep snow had forced me back last year but was now able to carry on with the snout appearing way ahead - a point was reached where the snout had been in 1974 : it has receded by about 800m horizontally and 100m vertically. This last stretch was therefore on the jumbled rocks left behind that made for hard going but it was worth it as on reaching the upper level there was an impressive river barreling out from under one section and disappearing beneath another. 

I had got chatting with another walker who was from London, had a Georgian wife and two kids and was planning to relocate back to the UK next year when their teaching contracts at an International School in Tbilisi ended. They were all heading to Ushguli as part of a tour of Georgia and I reassured him that his kids would be able to reach the Shkara glacier as it was a much less strenuous walk in. A welcome beer at the small pop up bar by the bridge brought an excellent day to a close and back at the van I fired up the genny briefly to give me hot water for a much needed shower. Despite the vacuuming the Truma is still unhappy running on gas and I really don't want to risk a fire so have decided not to try it on gas again. As I'm usually pretty remote a genny session will do the job and after checking out various YouTube videos I am confident that fitting a new unit will be the way to go. Servicing a 25 year old unit would no doubt require parts such as the flame control device and jets plus a new vent and still leave me with the old electric elements, wiring and water tank. As the same model is still available it should be a pretty straightforward task once home.

Today I stopped briefly in Mestia for some shopping and have dropped partially out of the hills to stay on a shady terrace at the Wonderland Svaneti restaurant that allows camping as well. I had a closer look at the Truma installation and it does indeed look to be an easy one to replace once my clobber has been removed - the surrounding space is taken up with guide books, spare front and rear brake pads, a set of bulbs, air, oil and fuel filters, a large allen and torx key set, soldering irons, 12v water pump, via ferrata kit and other bits and bobs.......

So I now continue south west and out to the Black Sea coast where I hope it will be cool despite the loss of altitude, returning to the Svaneti has been a great success and in about a fortnight I will enter Turkey and stay up in the mountains where possible during August to steer clear of the heat. I need to be in Thessaloniki at the end of August so with far shorter distances to cover than in the Stans I can take my time and explore places at my leisure.

A return to extra photos sits HERE

Rushing Russia but settling back in to the Caucasus...

With Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries causing widespread shortages of fuel across the country I brimmed my tank and the two jerry cans a few miles short of the border and then headed west to the border at Kotyayevka where formalities were completed in under two hours. It was all much more streamlined than crossing over from Georgia, largely I think because both countries are part of the Eurasian Economic Union, the EAEU, which promotes the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour and has abolished customs controls.

A car load of Kyrgs asked to borrow a pen to complete their migration cards and then came back again asking me to actually fill them in as they could not read the Russian or English (or possibly not at all). Two documents each for five of them asking for all the usual information from their brand new passports took some time but they were hugely grateful and a Kyrgyz trucker who had watched throughout insisted on giving me a huge watermelon from his wagon.

Before Astrakhan I crossed the bizarre floating steel bridge once more and decided to stop the night on the Volga as I had on the way through back in April. As the sat nav was now wildly inaccurate I relied on memory to pick my way through the suburbs to the centre where the Kremlin stood. Access to the river bank was however blocked off for the summer as it is a popular promenade so I found another parking area and went off in search of coffee and cake. Whilst at the border I had obtained insurance easily enough but local SIMS were unavailable due to restrictions from on high and in any case need 24 hours for security purposes before becoming fully activated.

As my border crossing had been so quick the combination of fuel, GPS and SIM issues persuaded me to crack on for the rest of the day. The roads were very quiet and queues at the filling stations very long so I made good progress and stopped for a quiet night in the tiny village of Artesian.

A few hours south towards Makchetka included an internal border check for both Dagestan and later Chechnya and the Mapy.com app's navigate function saw me around Vladikavkaz and heading south towards Georgia. The downloaded maps didn't require an internet connection and by skirting round the city I avoided the GPS discrepancy. There is only the one major road south and before long I was at the Verkhnii Lars border point.

The van had returned 48mpg so I had half a tank left and hadn't touched the spare cans. The border was again a surprisingly quick affair as vehicle numbers were low, the staff on both sides were friendly and helpful and the customs searches thorough but not onerous. The customs guy asked me for a specific vehicle import document that I didn't recognise - he showed me a specimen example but I still didn't recognise it from only a day or two earlier. I rooted through other paperwork and he spotted the required form. This had actually been issued entering Kazakhstan almost three weeks earlier before the Charyn Gorge and due to the aforementioned EUEA had been valid throughout Kazakhstan and Russia. An important lesson : keep all documentation from all countries for your entire trip as you never know.

Thus in under two hours I was out of Russia, with some relief, and in to Georgia via the Larsi checkpoint where I soon had most of my last few roubles changed in to lari, a month's insurance and a month's unlimited internet, both around £20 each. I spotted a trio of Belgian and French vans parked up so stopped to say hello. They were heading to Russia and the Stans but were completely unaware of the fuel situation. Thus they were very keen to buy both the fuel and jerry cans off me for what I had paid and with trust established they were also happy to give me euros for the Kazakh tenge that the money changers had not been interested in. I threw a map in for good measure and the small ruble notes and coins that would cover the steel bridge crossing and wished them all well. It's a tough time of year to be heading to the Stans as the heat was already building when I had left a fortnight or so ago and reading a couple of fellow travellers blogs quite a few were foregoing their vans and trucks for rooms with aircon.

A large number of wrecked cars lined the road as I headed up the dramatic Dariali gorge, through a couple of intimidating tunnels and began climbing towards the Kazbegi Pass. Trucks are held in batches to tackle the tunnels and hairpins so there was the odd line of drivers patiently parked up but nothing like the miles of wagons I had seen as the backlog from the snow closures were cleared back in April. So before long as dusk was falling I was back on the outskirts of Stepantsminda in the same carpark, had a decent but overpriced burger served by a friendly lass with good English and fell asleep quickly after a challenging couple of days.

I confirmed within the family in Tbilisi that it would be OK to stay for a few days and after giving the van a thorough jet wash treated myself to a Georgian pork dish before arriving at the accommodation. There was a Dutch van and German overland truck parked up but the owners of both had flown home so apart from an endearing kitten I had the place to myself.  

I spent two days giving the van a good clean out including the fridge, bathroom, all cupboards and so on, put a new tyre and tube on the bike which also got a good clean and lubrication and enjoyed their shady chill zone as several loads of laundry were washed and dried. A Swiss couple turned up on the second night with plans to get to Vietnam via Mongolia so were keen to pick my brains and good company. Hot nights and limited shade encouraged me to cycle up to the nearby mall and check out the parking for overheight vehicles and a large well stocked Carrefour and I strolled around the numerous shops that contrasted so sharply with much of what I had seen in recent months but also also chimed with the malls of Tashkent, Qizylorda and Samarkand.

I loaded everything up, blitzed the mall for food that was at last vaguely familiar and drove the couple of hours to Gori where my man once more filled the 907 cylinders for £2 apiece. Hot weather, limited cooking and cool showers to combat the heat had seen each cylinder lasting a month which was I thought good going as of course the fridge had had to work hard. The Truma water heater is back in service again after I'd stuck a vacuum nozzle in to the exhaust and inlet ports followed later by a jet of air at a tyre depot and touch wood all seems well with the van for the few thousand miles home. The park up at Gori lacked any shade so I walked in to the town, birthplace of Stalin, found a repair kit at a builders merchants for plastic tanks as my waste tank took a hit on rough ground a few weeks ago and then grabbed a much needed and rather severe haircut. Back at the van I dug out my glue gun and two glue sticks, plugged it in to the EcoFlow and filled the hole before slapping the repair tape on as well, all of which seemed to do the trick.

With Mandy due to arrive in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, in two months time I can now enjoy a much slower pace of life covering far fewer miles - partly necessitated by my insurance policy nearing its 20,000 mile limit. I'm not sure if the 12,000 miles outside of the EU would count, it seems illogical that they would as the company has no exposure beyond the EU and I have had local insurance in every country. However on renewal in August I will get a policy with a higher limit even though I doubt any future trip will be so extensive.

My plan is to return to Mestia in the Svanetti region of the high Caucasus via Ushguilli, regarded as Europe's highest permanently occupied village which I couldn't reach last year due to snow. Whilst on the dual carriageway from Gori heading west a police car indicated for me to pull in which I of course did. The surly officer asked to see the usual documents which were all in order and then claimed I had been on my phone a kilometre back which I strongly denied as it was patently untrue. I showed him how it sits in front of my instrument cluster to function as a satnav and is only on a short power cable so cannot be held to an ear. I also offered to show him my call log at which he just shrugged and walked off. Whilst I have the greatest respect for the police in general this, very occasional, kind of blatant cheating on a visitor really gets my back up. There are so many locals belting past at speed, undertaking, cutting in and regularly using their phones who are overlooked and I was determined not to be intimidated.

Later passing through Kutaisi I laughed out loud as another officer drove towards me clearly engrossed in a call..... After Tskaltubo with its decaying former Soviet Spas I found a perfect park up by the river which is the resurgence for the Prometheus show cave a few miles upstream. Loud frogs and inquisitive cattle were the only interruptions and with plenty of shade it was a lovely spot to spend two nights. The farmer turned up yesterday on a bizarre contraption to check his stock, a few locals dropped in for a quick swim and last night two Belgian girls stayed nearby using a roof tent but cooking outside as the mozzies emerged looked uncomfortable.

I was away this morning and heading up north once more in to the hills stopping at a roadside spring for water and I am now at a super little campsite run by Mzia at Aghvi where I will stay two nights. It is just grassland with trees on a high point above the river with a quirky range of facilities and at present no other visitors. At only a fiver a night it is a perfect stop over and if it stays dry tomorrow I will unload the bike and explore a bit. I've seen a few other vans in Georgia from EU countries so the feelings of remoteness and isolation of the last ten weeks are receding and I look forward to the opportunities ahead....

Reflections.....

The long haul north (with a side trip) has occupied the last week and the long days of steady driving have given me time to reflect on this trip so far, the next stage of returning to the UK and my plans beyond that.....

After Taras I stopped once more near the abandoned city of Sauran where a useful steel canopy provided some respite from the sweltering temperatures aided by the wind that usually blows across the thousands of kilometres of empty steppe. Train spotting was also possible as passenger and freight trains rumbled through the night not far away. A night in Qizlorda saw the overnight temperature staying above 30°C after spending the evening in the air conditioned mall.

The Baikonor cosmodrome was a rare feature on the horizon in the otherwise desolate landscape before I passed Aral once more. Turning off on to a side road at the junction in Qarabutaq I found a quiet place amongst trees for a peaceful, but again very warm, night. I could enjoy a shower as the hot water tank was heating up due to the high van temperatures as the aircon was only really effective up front.

There was no need to return to Aktobe itself so the road veered south west towards Russia and I trundled on at a steady 50mph achieving 48mpg on good roads with light traffic. There were far fewer trucks than a couple of months ago so I wondered if much of that traffic had been backlogs clearing once the road from Georgia was open after the winter. I had been in at least two minds as to the wisdom of doing a 1000 mile detour down to Mangestaw and Aktaw but with plenty of time in hand veered south and eventually stopped out in the wilds as the sun set. 

Surrounded by camels the next morning I was soon away to stop late morning at Beynew where I found my way in to a large grassy park surrounded by trees that provided the all-important shade. Later on two guys turned up asking how I had got in and I explained that a man near the gate had said it was OK. They seemed happy with that and were joined later by a number of others for a barbecue. One came over to borrow a sharp knife and invite me to join them - it turned out they were all from the local police force and their chief had put on the barbecue for them. Delicious grilled lamb, beef and a salad with bread was washed down with Czech lager although I called time on their vodka. It was a memorable occasion and followed by a quiet night. Signs to Uzbekistan only 50 miles away to the southeast were frustrating as that border is still closed and coming this way and then on to Chiva would have saved a couple of thousand miles....

During the long haul south west to the coast (300+ miles) I spotted a lone female cycle tourist heading north east in a very hot and remote area with little chance to escape the heat or obtain food or water. A couple of hours later I saw two guys also cycling that way but doubt they were all together. The huge distances, sweltering conditions and limited stops available would have made their challenges beyond arduous. Down at Aktaw which is situated over a large oil reserve and littered with donkey pumps I found some shade in a dusty carpark on the sea front and walked south along the coast following a boardwalk beneath the limestone cliffs to a small marina.

A wedding party were doing the photo shoots and away in the distance lay the commercial port - the Caspian Sea is the largest landlocked body of water on earth and to my surprise there were some huge tankers and other merchant shipping out at sea. I knew there were no passenger or vehicle ferries across to Russia or Azerbaijan so I began to retrace my steps as reaching the best sights of the area required many miles of rough access tracks. With the huge distances involved in getting home I decided to minimise the demands I am making on the van and really should not have bothered with this diversion. Whilst heading back towards Atiraw I saw a young guy walking on a parallel sandy track with rucksack and flag, showing no sign of asking for a lift and could not understand how he was going to survive the task ahead of him. 

After another long day I stopped near the football stadium at Kulsary and found a decent restaurant for an excellent meal before a hot night dealing with a few elusive mosquitoes.

Yesterday I returned to Atiraw the final city before Russia and parked where I had stayed with Fabrice back in late April. I walked over the illuminated suspension bridge remembering that last time I had needed my down jacket and enjoyed a good meal in the fairground after walking through the Memorial Park. A thunderstorm just before I arrived had left standing water in the car park which the local youths seemed keen to drive through at speed but eventually it all went quiet.

Today I returned to the plumbing supplies that are normally happy to top up your water tanks but being a Saturday they were shut so I resorted to using my 8l bottles at a drinking water dispensing machine. I stopped at a car accessory shop for two 10l jerry cans as I'm aware of potential fuel shortages in Russia following disruption of their refining capacity. If I fill up before the border then I would have almost 800 miles of range to cover the 500 miles across Russia, over the Caucasus and back to Stepantsminda in Georgia which is a healthy enough margin.

Thus I am now an hour or so from the border which I hope to cross tomorrow and have parked up on the edge of Krasilovka much to the delight of the local kids. It is cooler thanks to the cloud cover so I have dealt with this post as the internet may well be restricted over the next few days. Certainly mapping and my sat nav will be disrupted as on the way through and I will need to change my remaining Kazakh tenge and perhaps a hundred dollars in to rubles as my bank card will also be temporarily redundant.

So.... Reflections.

This post marks the end of the portion of this trip that covers the Stans and a rather daunting 9,000 miles of travelling over 9 weeks. The vastness of Kazakhstan (9th largest country in the world) has accounted for the bulk of that but the side trip to Chiva in Uzbekistan added a fair bit (see comment earlier), Tajikistan didn't happen and the loop east almost to the Chinese border in Kyrgyzstan added yet more miles.

I have seen the most amazing sights both natural and man made and the latter both ancient and modern, met some inspirational fellow travellers, and covered roads ranging from fast smooth dual carriageways to mountain tracks that tested the van almost to its limits. The van has not missed a beat and performed beyond expectations in areas where had issues arisen breakdown and recovery options were in effect non existent.

This exposure and isolation is a constant at the back of your mind and despite meeting hundreds of truly warm, welcoming and friendly locals from all the countries visited I have spent many hours in my own company and had time to look back at this trip, the many others before it, my 15 years on the farm in Wales and the cycling trips to India and Nepal in '86 & 7. Right across these last 40 years I have amassed a host of memories, experiences and learning curves combined naturally with a raft of highs and lows.  

My conclusion to all these reflections is that I have been hugely privileged and extremely fortunate to have had the health and means to follow my dreams. So many of the people I have met will never have those opportunities and many live lives of hardship and endurance that circumstance dictates is unlikely to change. The huge majority of people though are decent, approachable, intrigued and interested and share what little they have to a humbling degree which where possible I have tried to reciprocate.

I have a couple of months to cross Georgia and Turkey before returning to Europe and my exact plans and route are as yet uncertain but the outcomes will continue to be reported here. In Tbilisi I will spend a couple of days cleaning out the van, servicing the largely unused bike and dealing with an accumulation of laundry : as ever there is a lot of dust to be addressed.......

Turning Point.....

The immense blue expanse of Lake Issy Kol occupies a flat bottomed valley sandwiched between two snow capped ranges and is undeniably beautiful, and therefore popular. The north shore is more easily accessible from Bishkek and therefore more developed but the south shore is also seeing creeping numbers of tourist yurts and camping pods with the road being upgraded to a dual carriageway. As the accommodation generally sits on the lake shore and the road is generally very close by I am not sure this will create quite the 'get away from it all' experience that people might be seeking. One development of several hundred pods laid out in a geometric grid seemed to provide no other facilities whatsoever and was a long way from any villages.

Anyway after buying 8 x 10l bottles of water as a planned stop was no longer accessible due to roadworks I turned off down to a quieter section and parked up 100 yards from the water's edge and enjoyed a warm evening and pleasantly cool night with magical views. 

Heading to Karakol the next morning the final 50 miles was a horrendous experience with unbroken roadworks and heavy traffic throwing up clouds of dust. At times tankers were spraying the carriageway which just produced slick mud which covered everything so that by the time I arrived in Karakol the van sported a fetching two-tone paint job. I found the P4N suggestion of the Riverside Guest House, nipped through the pedestrian gate, had a chat to a young lady and was instructed to open the double gates and park on the concrete yard. There were toilets out there and showers available in the main house but I didn't use them and set off down to town to check out options for the oil and filter change that was due. One place nearby seemed busy and had a couple of pits so I then walked back to the van and dug out my oil and filter. I also retrieved a new air filter and soon had that fitted with the old one certainly reflecting the dusty roads of the Stans. The owner's little lad came over with some of his toys and before long had them all set up in the van - he was quite engrossed in his little world but before long we had to create a building site outside as I wanted to go back in to town.

I visited the beautiful Russian Orthodox Church with it's shining domes, enjoyed an ice cream in a shady park and then walked over to the wooden mosque built a century or so by Chinese craftsmen. On my way in I got chatting with a retired teacher of English who offered to show me round and was good company with our discussions ranging across a variety of subjects.  Returning to the yard I went to bed around 10 but shortly after a minibus full of guests arrived and disappeared indoors - the huge distances in these countries mean that tour groups start early and finish late with only fleeting visits to the various attractions.

Thus they were off at 6am but I figured the garage wouldn't open before 9 (if at all, it being a Sunday) so I dozed for a while. I had seen the  guesthouse owner the previous evening to pay the 300som so was off out through the gates to the garage which was indeed shut....

Further down in to town though I found another place which was in fact much smarter, had a huge stock of oils and filters and were able to get on with it straight away. I had driven far enough to get the oil warm but not so far that it was at high temperature as draining the oil on a hot engine can cause problems. The lads removed the tray but decided to drain the oil using a suction tube down the dipstick opening - I was pleased they did it this way as it would be all too easy to overtighten the drain plug. Once the filter was changed they topped everything up, replaced the tray and all was well. I took the opportunity to have a quick look round underneath and all seemed well although the mud from the previous day obscured everything. They only charged £1.70 so I upped that a bit and left with everyone happy.

An hour out of town I found a perfect park up on an inlet of Issy Kol under good shade and set to to do my laundry in a bucket. A line between two trees soon saw it all dry and I enjoyed the perfect location with a couple of families a mile or so away having a picnic. With the place to myself after sunset it was a quiet evening and with no one around to be disturbed I fired up the genny, plugged it in at the end of my long lead and later enjoyed my first hot shower since mid April. The shade kept the early morning sun off me and it was very tempting to stay longer.

Back in Karakol I pulled up in the central parking area and spoke to two Italian couples from Verona in large coachbuilt vans who were heading west. The large well stocked supermarket did some excellent preprepared salads so I stocked up and headed out east towards Jyrgalan.A side turn up to Engilcek 60 miles away to the north would have taken me in to the mountains but the road was in a terrible state so mindful of my many thousands of miles needed to get home I returned to the Jyrgalan road which turned out to be even worse. Twenty miles of horror brought me to the middle of a scruffy village in the middle of nowhere and somewhat disgruntled I turned around and headed back out. Cutting across north to the Kazakh border the road climbed to a pass where I met a German couple in one of the Soviet era 'bread vans' that go on for ever. They said the track was largely OK so I carried on passing remote shepherd's camps with yurts or other temporary structures dotted around the lush pastures. A tricky descent on a scrabbly surface with steep hairpins yet again reflected the remarkable abilities of my humble home and once back on tarmac firma I was ready to pull over and found a short track down to a dry riverbed out of sight and sound of the road. 

Fifteen miles further on with the Tian Shen mountains rising above 4,000m to form the Chinese border I stopped to take a few pictures feeling slightly melancholy that the turning point of my trip was fast approaching. Others I have met are continuing east in to China and far beyond and I hugely admire their determination and ambition but for me this has been, and will be for another few months, as much if not more, as I had hoped for and for which I am supremely grateful.

The Kegen border is only open from May to October and sits high on a lonely plateau with no facilities other than the border formalities on each side. I was through both sides in half an hour, the quickest and easiest yet and 15 miles down the road pulled up in the small town of Kegen where apparently insurance could be bought. There was no indication as to where this might be achieved so I asked a policeman via Google Translate who indicated I should jump in his car. This was as decrepit as you could imagine but he literally drove me less than 50 yards to the other side of the street where we went in to a car and tractor parts store. He spoke to the assistant who nodded and indicated that I should wait whilst he served a couple of customers. These were farmers sourcing parts for a hay turner and baler and at one point he locked up the shop and we all trooped round the back to a container full of all manner of spares. Once they were sorted out he asked for my passport, V5 and driving licence before filling in a form on his computer. He then asked for my phone number but it had to be a Kazakh one so I asked him to give me ten minutes and nipped out to a local phone shop where a helpful young man soon had me set up with a 30 day SIM with unlimited data for £12. 

The insurance form could then be completed and an activation code sent to my new number so that eventually a certificate was printed off with cover valid for a month : £20. Feeling hungry by then I had an excellent lagman in a cool cafe before pulling up at the Royal Car Wash where I inserted the hose of his powerful vacuum cleaner in to the inlet and exhaust ports of the Truma water heater which has restored it to full working order. Reversing back to line up for the car wash the guy fortunately stopped me from reversing in to a concrete power pole perfectly hidden in my blind spot. Several sessions with the foam lance and the rinsing lance saw a different van emerge and I was soon on my way north after a very successful morning. 

A turn off along a 6 mile smooth tarmac road brought me to the entrance of Charyn gorge where I paid a couple of quid to get in and confirmed it would be OK to stay overnight. There were a large number of coaches, minibuses and cars parked up but I found a level spot looking down in to the gorge and set off for a look round. Most people are content with (or more likely only have time for) the half-hour walk above the Valley of Castles which is impressive enough as it looks down in to the dry side valley that eventually leads to the main gorge that contains a fast flowing river. Away to the south the Tian Shen mountains were blacked out by thunderous clouds but the afternoon sun really defined the valley's geology, partly explained by trilingual information boards. Back at the van a guy approached me for a chat, he was a Kiwi from South Island visiting the region with his Mongolian wife whilst on a break from working in a commercial gold mine in Nicaragua.....

As visitors began to head off I headed down the 250 steps to the valley floor and pretty much had the four mile walk to myself as I passed superb rocks, pillars and  eroded cliffs. A couple of the 'bread vans' were shuttling visitors back up from the river where there was a simple camping area - most were young, fit western tourists who would have gained so much more from actually making the effort but as the sun set below the gorge rim I was pleased to have this remarkable place to myself. The car park was deserted and after dark I fired up the Truma and enjoyed a good hot shower. This location marked my easternmost destination and depending on the actual route plus possible sidetracking it is about 6-8,000 miles home !

After a pleasantly cool night I was away before the day's visitors arrived and started heading towards Almaty, once the Kazakh capital and located down on the plain. Descending from the mountains the sheer vastness of the Steppes stretched away to the north and reminded of the statistic placing Kazakhstan as the 9th largest country in the world. I had intended to stay a night or two in Almaty but it was way too busy and congested for me and I knew the park up lacked shade so after an hour of snarl ups and congestion I was out and heading west. At a possible water point next to a car wash the owner had said filling up wasn't allowed so I moved on deciding to divert a few miles off the new main road to Korday on the border where I could change my remaining som in to tenge as bizarrely back at Kegen the bank had said they couldn't help. En route I spotted a free flowing pipe by a small shop who's owner (a friendly Chechen Russian) was quite happy for me to fill up whilst we showed his grandson round the van.

An hour later on the well surfaced main road I turned off to Merkel and found a shady pull in under trees behind a petrol station. It had been a hot day and the aircon was much appreciated although being a 25 year old after market retrofit it perhaps lacks the power of more modern systems. It was a hot night, staying above 19°C, so I just used my silk liner and despite long goods trains rumbling past through the night I slept well.

Today I have only moved on a hundred miles to Taraz where I have parked up next to a mall whose cool interior encouraged me inside for lunch. The mausoleums of Karakhan and Dauitbek were worth a look - they are originally 12th century but have been restored and see very few visitors compared to the hotspots of Uzbekistan.

Tomorrow sees a longish day to north of Turkistan so I will return to my downloaded archive of Desert Island Discs to keep me amused on the journey.

A few extras sit HERE