When the going gets tough
27 JulWe made some preparations in Atryau as we weren’t 100% sure of the road ahead. We filled one jerry with 95 grade fuel, and filled one of our three ten litre water bottles. I drove out of Atryau, and the road was the best since Germany. For 60 miles we cruised along, with Stephen sound asleep in the back. We got to this small town, (sorry, forgot to write the name down) and had some trouble finding where this beautiful road restarted. We kept asking directions, and people pointed the same way. The road took us out to a gas station, and appeared to end in the staff car park. These people must be misunderstanding us. Back to town and ask again, same thing. This time we ask at the reception of the gas station. There was a small dirt track leading away from the gas station, that was the road to Aktobe. This turned out to be a linking track to the main road. You could hardly call it a main road though. There were potholes as high as the bottom of the windows on our car. The best average speed we could really manage was about 15mph, as we weaved, stopped and started, and bumped our way along. Worse still, was that we still had about 500km to our destination of Aktobe. There were very few civilizations on the road, and none sold the type of fuel we needed. There was no way we had enough fuel to make it all of the way. We didn’t have enough water either, and all of our food was dehydrated! At least there was a truck rolling past every 20minutes, if we got into trouble we could get help. To make it all a little bit worse, last nights dinner had had an argument with both Stephen and my digestive systems. Stephen had made a good recovery, but I was requiring periodic roadside stops.
Tim stopped to take a picture of the car in a massive pothole. He couldn’t quite get the car in the picture, so he took a step backwards, off a 1.5m cement culvert. He cut his foot and his arm on the way down, but no broken bones. The wound on his foot had taken the skin off an area about 5cm by 5cm, but not very deep. There wasn’t any problems with blood, but this would take a long time to heal.
All of this was a bit of a worry...but then again the road might improve in 100km? We came over a hill, and there was Team Yorkshire and Team Panda, sitting parked. We’d seen them in Volgograd. They’d driven 48 hours straight, which shows how good time we’d been making! They were helping a Kazakh man. The radius rod on his suspension had snapped, and his car couldn’t be driven. There was nothing to be done, and we left him to hitch a ride with another car or truck. We traveled in front of the other teams, but when we stopped to get some rubbish 80 fuel (maybe we could blend it with some 95 if we got stuck? Rubbish fuel is better than no fuel? It was all a bit desperation) they caught up to us. Team Yorkshire, who were driving a SJ410, very similar to our car, were leaking diff oil from the right hand axle seal of the rear differential. It was leaking badly, and had got on the rear brakes. They were over it, having had a crash in the Ukraine and payed a lot of money to the Police. They drove on without adding any oil, which we thought was strange. A bit further up the road they stopped to add some, but it pretty much ran straight back out. For the rest of the day we crawled along at 15mph, keeping the other teams in our mirrors.
Coincidental meeting
Potholes aplenty (it’s hard to take a picture that really conveys how bad it is)
Tim stopped to take a picture of the car in a massive pothole. He couldn’t quite get the car in the picture, so he took a step backwards, off a 1.5m cement drain. He cut his foot and his arm on the way down, but no broken bones. The wound on his foot had taken the skin off an area about 5cm by 5cm, but not very deep. There wasn’t any problems with blood, but this would take a long time to heal.
As night fell, we were still on this crappy road and still in the middle of nowhere. We camped the night with the other teams, and bush mechanic Tim set to work on the broken SJ. They’d already diagnosed the wheel bearing had failed and this had flogged out the seal. On top of this it had got so hot it burnt the seals in the right rear brake cylinder, so all of the brake fluid had poured out. I’m not sure how, but the front brakes had lost their fluid as well, so the last 4 hours of driving had been only with the handbrake. The lucky thing was, they’d brought spare bearings. They had a bit of trouble getting the axle out of the diff, but Team Panda had a sat phone, and Tim’s dad in Narrabri got a 2am call asking for advice. Tim cut the old bearing collar off with a hammer and cold chisel. They warmed the new collar up on the camp stove slipped it on, hammered the axle back in, and it was fixed. 3 hours earlier they were ready to abandon the car in Aktobe, now they had a new lease of life. Team Panda helped us out with some very warm beers and 10L of much needed 95 fuel. These were great guys, and it was a good night.
Working on Team Yorshire’s SJ
Typical pictures of Kazakhstan
