I’m currently sat by a beautiful lake 100km from the Russian border.  We’ve driven all day long so we can cross the border tomorrow morning.  We’ve pulled off the road to set up camp, Dave is cooking dinner, Pete erecting the tents whilst I write the blog wearing a head net to keep all the mosquitoes off.  We’re all enjoying the messages coming in on the sat phone.  Many thanks to everyone who’s sent one.

It’s been an eventful time since our last update.  We managed to blag our way onto a free boat trip down the River Dnipru which through Kiev, organised by one of the candidates in Ukraine’s forthcoming election to swing voters.  Driving beer down the river we were definitely swung, although we can’t actually remember his name! We then spent the evening securing the services of a translator for the next day’s case study near Chernobyl.

Up early and heading north we got to the check point at the edge of the 30km exclusion zone.  We thought we’d try to get through the checkpoint without a guide, as we couldn’t afford an organised tour that would’ve cost over £400.  The guards reaction to our attempt was summarised as “You three and that thing going in there – no chance!”  Still, we’d tried our best and then did a case study near the boundary with a charming 85-year-old farmer.  He looked incredibly healthy for his age and we left him after the interview to get back to ploughing the fields with his horse.

On the way back we came across three Ukrainians in a broken down car.  After some basic communication we discovered they needed a tow back to Kiev.  We attached a tow rope and set off toward the capital.  I was driving the Ukrainians’ car, a very old Volvo and Pete towing me in the Landy.  The tow was made more interesting by other Ukrainians’ complete disregard for the traffic laws and “stealth bumps” – sleeping policemen that are nearly impossible to see.  Two hundred metres from the end of the tow Peter pulled away from some traffic lights.  Unfortunately as he gently pulled away he took the bumper of the Volvo clean off and dragged it across the junction whilst the rest of Volvo stayed put.  The Ukrainians didn’t seem to mind, simply reattaching the tow rope to another, less rusted, part of the chassis and chucking the bumper in the boot for the rest of the tow!

We set off toward Kharkov and soon attracted the attention of the Ukrainian police once more.  He relieved us of a particularly fine bottle of Ukrainian red we were planning to enjoy at camp that evening and sent us our way.  Luckily it had only cost us £1.20.  For the last two days driving the landscape has been very monotonous.  Giant flat fields growing cereals stretch into the distance in every direction.

The existence of lanes as we drove through the city of Kharkov is completely open to debate as drivers jostled for position.  Fortunately we have a big vehicle so they tend to get out of our way.  We entertain ourselves along the route with a great range of tunes on the iPod and challenging each other with Articulate and Trivia Pursuit cards.

Dinner is nearly ready, the stars are out and the full moon is slowing rising in the east.  Below us there is a cacophony of unusual noises coming from cicadas, frogs and other creatures.  Off to eat now.

- Spike

Firstly we’d just like to say a big thanks to everyone who has sent us the text messages to the sat phone – it’s always a highlight of the day when we turn it on and it bleeps away at us!

Kiev…funny place.  We can’t quite make up our minds about it.  One minute we get really annoyed at the gruff unhelpfulness of the unsmiling people, then we meet some lovely helpful ones who give us excellent directions.  The city mirrors this, with charmless streets of mish-mashed architecture opening onto glorious tree-lined squares around golden-topped cathedrals.

It’s far too expensive anyway, so we’ll be off soon!

Usually we will not be giving day by day accounts of what we get up to but Friday makes for an interesting story.

Having successfuly made it into the Ukraine we woke up on Friday morning in good spirits. In the morning Dave and I had a relaxing time listening to Test Match Special in an internet cafe while Spike went to do a favour for a friend. We left at about one, hoping to cover about 300km before our first wild camping experience (camping not in a campsite). With ‘Born to Run’ playing and the road looking pretty good we were making good time, and thinking about a lunch stop. The next thing we knew we rounded a corner and were waved down by a very grumpy looking policeman. He came to the window and from a lot of sign language we established that we had come round the corner at 90kmph and the limit was 50kmph. This apparently was going to be a problem. So after more inventive communication (and thankfuly some laughing) Spike (who was driving) followed one of the policemen into the station.

With little else to do, Dave and I got out the tea stuff and started to make a brew. As it turned out this was unsuccessful as we could not get the stove to light. But soon Spike came out with a big smile on his face saying we should leave. So we jumped back in the vehicle and off we went. Once on the road again Spike recounted his story. He had walked in with the Russian phrase book and the officer had had a good laugh at the ‘Can i pay an on-the-spot fine?’ bit and said he could not. Next he asked how many dollars we had, then euros, then finaly Ukrainan currency, to all of which Spike said none. Finally after a lot of ‘i dont understand’ from Spike the guy got bored and let him go. So for doing nearly double the speed limit in a notoriously corrupt country we did not even have to pay a fine. Bonus!!!!

After a quick lunch stop we headed of again and managed to complete the rest of the drive without event. At around 8 we spotted some woods of to the left where we would be able to camp and headed off the road down a logging track. Spotting a good site in the trees to the right Dave took the vehicle off the track and it promptly got stuck. Spike and I jumped out to face the onslaught of mosquitos to try and talk Dave out. After lots of backwards and forwards action we where still stuck so we decided to ‘let our training take over’. As Mike our Land Rover Experience Guru taught us we got lots of sticks and brush under the tyres and then drove out easily (Mike you’re a Legend). So finally in the woods we set up camp, cooked dinner and got a fire going. Half way through cooking we heard a logging truck, as we weren’t sure we wanted any attention we switched off all the lights and sure enough it drove past without stopping. Just after dinner Dave and I were getting the sleeping stuff from the vehicle while Spike was tending to the fire and we heard another vehicle. Again Dave and I turned out torches off, but the lantern on the table 30 meters away was still on, and then there was obviously the fire. The vehicle stopped.

Dave and I stood in the dark swearing, and trying to get spike’s attention without making too much noise. This was pretty unsuccessful, but there had been no movement from the vehicle. I jokingly suggested that he was probably getting his gun. Then a torch switched on and we heard a gun being cocked. This became less of a joke and we decided to make ourselves known. I opted for a loud Hello, and the man replied, slightly shocked, also with a Hello. He came over shining his torch in our eyes, looked at us and the vehicle and burst out laughing. After a lot more laughing and him telling us we were crazy he went to get his friend who apparently spoke French. His friend came over and with more laughing told us we absolutely could not stay there. They explained that we were on a government game reserve, and the laughing man with the gun was the game keeper. On seeing the light he had loaded his gun and come out ready to shoot expecting us to be poachers. Fortunately they found it so funny that we were crazy enough to have set up camp in a mosquito infested swamp, they let us stay. They left with a packet of Marlboro Reds and more chuckling and we had a cup of tea. It seems a lot of smiling and a bit of crazy gets you through most things!

After a fairly sleepless night of thinking poachers were going to walk into our hammocks, we left early the next morning and made it to Kiev by lunch time.

Pete (the illiterate one)

We finally hit a proper border crossing yesterday, after lots of spooky deserted ones. The Ukrainian border guards seemed to rather like Roxanne, and the organised mess in the back discouraged any searching of our gear, so after showing the same documents to four different sets of people we were through!

Our first impressions of the country were shaped by the unmarked speed bumps, and the mosquitos that came to join us when we stopped for tea and cake. The outskirts of L’viv (where we are now) did little to lift our opinions, but the centre proved much nicer and we even had a highly entertaining trio of boys, super-keen to meet us, running in front of us to direct us to a hotel!

Earlier, in Poland, we had a slight scare as a van up ahead appeared to blow a tyre and smashed into a ditch after veering across the road a few times. We were second on the scene, but thankfully both driver and passenger walked away from it.

One of the vast barbed-wire fences running through Auschwitz-Birkenau

We stop for lunch by our third case study outside Prague

Our second case study with a cheery Belgian farmer in Bastogne!

We erect our Hennessy Hammocks in Sedan, France and attract a few curious looks!  Pete’s hammock is sagging a bit because he is so fat.

One of the many cemeteries for war dead in the Somme

We make a pit stop to get some spares and more equipment fitted at Guy Salmon, Thames Ditton