The Landy parked up beside the rusting hulk of a small cargo ship, many miles from the shoreline of the Aral Sea today. The ships are being cut up for scrap and the area is rapidly losing their very unique tourist attraction.

A camp in the middle of the steppe, miles from any civilisation.  As you can see it’s not too hilly!

We might have done this river crossing slightly wrong.  After scouting it the river bed seemed fairly firm but 3-tonnes of Land Rover disagreed and we managed to dent the front of Roxanne a bit as you can see by the wheel arch.  Oops!

Waking up on the 50th again we were confident of making the 50Km over rough ground to the Astana road by lunch. So weset off with Dave, our morning specialist at the wheel. Once again Dave demonstrated his skills and got stuck again within sight of the campsite (this time he at least made 30 meters). On inspection we thought we were not very stuck and a bit of digging should get us free. 5 hours and two land anchor holes later we finaly got out. 50Km seemed like a tough ask, but we headed off to see how far we could get. Dave having a bit of a special day got stuck again, but we ended the day only 10km short of the road (and still bang on 50 degrees).

With our final wild camp before the capital out of the way we made good progress on some of the countries best roads and reached Astana by mid afternoon. As usual we had no idea where to stay and headed for a big hotel (they always speak english) to get some cheap recommendations. But after a chat with a guy at some traffic lights he lead us to the Tengri Hotel. The face price for a room was $80, but after chatting with the Director we were again amazed at Kazak hospitality and accepted the offer of the room for $30.

So back in a city again. Astana is the strangest place any of us have been. !0 years ago it did not exist, now there are 700 000 people living here, and some really big building, but the whole place does not seem real. I am fairly sure it is all made of lego, and people look really out of place on the streets. But we have had a great time here. The hotel have supplied us with a driver and a guide and also set up some press calls for us. So if any of you fancy looking we are going to be on Kazakh TV on monday and in a number of news papers here. The interviews were a bit of a laugh with the most common question being ‘No girls for 5 months, so how’s that going’.

Last night we met up with a friend of a friend who took us out and taught us all sorts of russian traditions, strangly they all involved vodka (that might be the reason we were not looking at our best for the TV interview). We are about to head out and meet up with the embassy staff for dinner and a beer so I expect we will learn some more traditions.

Tomorrow we head off to Karaganda and towards Russia again, aided by the pimping Garmin GPS units we finally managed to pick up after weeks of failed attempts! I suspect we will be a little sad to leave Astana. The double beds, all you can eat breakfasts and lunches and the hot showers have been amazing. Thank you Tengri Hotel!!

- Pete

P.S. Thanks for all the sports updates, we’re better informed than if we watched it! The messages to the sat phone are amazing, please keep them coming.

Playing on the iPod: ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ by Thin Lizzy

After the last blog we woke up at our campsite in the middle of a vast empty plain, at exactly 50 degrees and headed east. There’s a fantastic freedom to travelling in Kazakhstan; the horizon stretches out in front of you invitingly, with nothing to stop you going wherever you point your wheels, especially if you’re driving a lend rover! Sadly this also proved our downfall as around mid afternoon, we were in the middle of a game of cards, letting Roxanne navigate her way across more flat empty plains when we ground to a halt. The long grass had concealed a stealth swamp! We dug our way out and two hours later were on our merry wau again with a newfound mistrust of long green grass!

We were just wondering if we would go a whole day without seeing another person when we came across another vehicle at a river crossing. They all got out and approached us, looking a little bemused and brandishing badges, it seemed we had encountered the regional warden. As usual, they’re initial worry/annoyance vanished as we shook hands and smiled a lot and they realised that we were actually just a bunch of crazy foreigners. They scrutinised our documents and maps, then all got lined up for photos with us and Roxanne which we printed out for them. By the time we’d parted company they had given us directions to the best bridge over the next river and a bag full of fresh fish! That night we dined in style on chicken and fish grilled over an open fire.

The next day followed a similar pattern, making good progress eastwards until a slight mishap. We came to a pretty small river, decided on a crossing point and attacked it with confidence dented slightly by the crunching impact into the far bank. This time we were properly stuck! We recognised early on that we would need the winch and concentrated all our efforts on removing the river bank and burying a sand ladder. It worked on the second attempt, but we have given Roxanne her first minor dent (sorry John!).

We found a cracking camp site in the bend of a valley, on a sheltered shelf with a tree-lined lake – perfect for a morning swim we thought. Sadly, eastern Kazakhstan seems to get the wind during the day, and the sun didn’t manage to warm us at all, so the swim was brief and vigorous! We made good progress again today (and no accidents!), making a short stop for diesel and food in a grim industrial town with apparently more derelict buildings than people. Once again we’re camped dead on fifty degrees, surrounded by huge empty space. The foray into town felt quite claustrophobic! We aim to reach the capital, Astana, in two days, which could be a bit of a shock!

David

Playing on the iPod: ‘Hold the Line’ by Toto

“”

As regular listeners will know we set out yesterday morning with the noble aim of having a wash and reaching the 50th. We drove for a while along a road which in due course turned out to be entirely the wrong road. It was actually a Kazakh motorway, although without any road signs, lanes or even much of a road surface.

We adjusted our course and found a delightful river for lunch and a wash.

Refreshed and not stinking quite as much we headed back in search of a track. Ten minutes in I had managed to get Roxanne stuck up to the axles in the most minging mud we’ve seen. At least since we last got stuck.

Plenty of digging ensued and before long we were once again mucky and sweaty. Eventually after about three hours and a bit of assistance from our terrific winch we got out and headed on to another sandy beach for the night

- disappointingly only 30 miles on from our previous nights camp!

Today we once again we set out with the noble aim of having a wash and reaching the 50th. Within 15 metres of camp we had managed to get stuck once again. More digging and numerous attempts later we eventually got free, again taking about three hours. It can be demoralising to be able to still see your camp when you left it so long ago, especially when you’re being eaten alive by giant mosquitoes and assorted other winged beasties.

However we did get free and pushed on to towards our line – covering 200 miles on dirt tracks. We stocked up on diesel and provisions in the beautiful town of Torghay, the arrival of our Landy causing much commotion in town. Everyone wanted their picture taken with it – we printed out copies of the photos for them and they gave us vodka in return, seems like a fair deal to me.

We’ve now hit the 50th and are hoping to offroad along it most of the way to Astana. The terrain is incredible flat and featureless but there’s some salt flats and rivers to be negotiated ahead. Stay tuned.

- Spike

Playing on the iPod: “Gone to November” by Wyclef Jean

P.S. We’ve each chosen teams to support in the European Championship. I’ve got Holland, Germany and Sweden. Dave has Czech Rep, Croatia and France and Pete has Switzerland, Italy and Portugal. Any updates of scores sent to the sat. phone much appreciated.

P.P.S Keep the cricket score coming, as much info as possible. Many thanks to Iain and Ed for their messages so far.