Going it alone
28 JulUp at 6am, quickly packed up and on the road. Less than 2miles of 15mph bumping, and the road improved. We’d been on the rubbish road for over 100 miles. Soon we were on the way to Aktobe at 50mph. On the way a man flagged us down asking for some fuel for his old Lada. It was his lucky day. We had 20L of 80 fuel we needed to empty and he left with a full tank. I got stopped by the Police for driving without lights on, but no problems there.
Stopping for some much needed fuel
Crazy roadside things are all over Kazakhstan, as with Russia
We arrived in Aktobe with the other teams. This time we’d be better prepared. We stocked up on food, filled all 3 of our water bottles, and both jerrys with good fuel. Team Yorkshire met a Kazakh business man who spoke very good English. He advised against taking the road down to the Aral sea as we’d planned. Team Yorkshire and Team Panda heeded his advice and planned to go North instead. We wanted to see the Aral sea, so decided to continue alone.
The Kazakh man who helped us in Aktobe with Team Yorkshire and Team Panda
We rolled out of Aktobe at around 2pm, wondering what was the road would throw at us. Again the first 100 miles were beautiful, down to a town called Qarabutaq. This left only around 400k’s to Aral. From there for the next 100 miles they were working on the road. They’d graded a beautiful smooth dirt road, ready for bitumen. Next to it ran a rough dirt track. There were trenches dug either side of the new road to stop you driving on it. We were pretty much in dessert, the road was 15cm thick with bull dust, and the temperature must have been at least 40 degrees. There was a wind, but it was burning hot, and blew the dust around. The dust came up through the front arches of the SJ, and we had to wear our buffs over our mouths to prevent from ingesting it. We ran with the windows down because of the heat. All of this time there was a perfectly graded road running next to us. Imagine the frustration. The car struggled a bit with the heat and the slow speeds, with the temperature running width of the needle below the red on the gauge.
My digestive system still hasn’t recovered, and no wonder. The ride in our Suzuki on these roads is like bouncing on a trampoline.
We camped the night by the side of the road. Although we were going to sleep outside on the tarp, we got a bit of a scare when a spider ran over Stephen’s leg in the dark. If one of us got bitten by something here, what would we do? We don’t even have driving lights, so would struggle to drive out at night. We estimated another 10 hours to get to Aral. We pitched the inners of the tents for protection. Although the trucks occasionally bumped there way past, it was incredibly still and peaceful. The unrelenting daytime heat giving way to a pleasant 20 degrees at night. The inners of the tents have a gauze roof, so you can see the stars as you sleep. They’re quick to pitch as well. We ate some of the pasta we bought in Aktobe, with tinned corn and tomato paste. It was horrible. How can pasta be so different around the world? The tomato paste was thick and disgusting. We laughed it off though, and had a good nights sleep.
Roadside campsite
