Tuesday 4-6th September:

Since leaving the GPS spaghetti roads of Mongolia, it is obvious we are back in a prosperous community. The two lane bitumen road arrived immediately at the Russian border, and has grown wider and smoother ever since. Into Barnaul and it had grown into a 6 lane freeway.  The pace of society is reflected in the driving habits, they are all racing to meet their Maker; passing on top of hills, blind corners etc. Many times we have to move off the road for oncoming traffic and break as they move back in. Testimony is the many road side memorials that dot the roads; set atop with a steering wheel, a picture of the deceased and surrounded by plastic flowers.

Autumn is starting to happen, the white barked Birch trees are changing from green to gold.

Occasionally as we drive we are showered with falling golden leaves. Moving north we leave the high mountains and are in more agricultural areas. The road follows one river valley after another. The small river we camped by a couple of days ago is now a vast river with cruise boats. It hurried down the last 1200metres in grade 2 to 5 rapids, now it must slow down; it is only 250 metres above sea level and still must travel over 4,000 kilometres to the Arctic Sea.

The shops and markets are full of consumer items, advertising billboards blast their message to ‘buy me’. In reality it is like home, so unfortunately the road seems only a drive to be done. Such a change from the openness and peace of country Mongolia.

Since leaving the border three days ago we have tried to get registration of our visas at Police stations, Post offices, and even border control points but to no avail. It is a requirement that they must be registered within 3 days of arrival, so we opted to ‘shout’ ourselves a stay in a hotel and get registration. Hotel Siberia in Barnaul provided all that, and a very, very long hot shower. We do have a hot shower every night in the camper, but one always had to be conservative with the water as we only carry 60 litres.

Now totally refreshed we head tomorrow - towards Moscow.

Camp 70: Actually Hotel Siberia in Barnaul

Total Distance to Date: 17,023 Kilometres

6-11th September:

And what a road trip is was. First a 435K day then 700,785, 840, 667, and our final run into Moscow at 400kilometres. It was Bill and Gay’s part of the trip that they were responsible for and they will led us across Russia, until I pick up the lead again as we exit Russia into Estonia and to the UK. The road conditions varied continually, but generally improved as we headed west into the more populated areas. It was agreed that we should cover this part of the country relatively quickly, giving us more time in Moscow. At least 4 days for the city, and Andrey (who travelled the ROB’s with us) from the Russian 4x4 magazine suggested the possibility of seeing a 4x4 competition on the weekend.

After leaving the city of Barnaul we travelled long flat roads by endless wheat fields. The fields although vast in size were intermingled with clumps of birch trees. The country is very flat on the 600 kilometres road from Novosibirsk to Omsk the height above sea level never changed by more than 5 metres, it was to be another 1500K before we saw a rise above 100metres.

We think of Australia as a big country – think again, because Russia is hard to comprehend the size. 

I have always thought of the Urals Mountains as an impressive range; however it is mostly only low hills around 250 metres. What is impressive is that it divides Europe from Asia and stretches from the Arctic Circle to the Caspian Sea. The oil and mineral wealth of this area is driving the Russian economy.

In Tyumen, the economic centre of the Urals the sky line is filled with construction cranes.  Beside the freeway the new vehicle show rooms of BMW, Skoda, Chrysler, and VW are as impressive as any I have ever seen. 

On the streets, the vehicles are just as impressive – Hummers, Porsche, VW Tourags etc.

Most of the major towns we bypass, but in Yekaterinburg we insist we stop, to sight the place that the Bolsheviks in 1918 murdered Tsar Nicholas II and the rest of the Romanov family.

The original merchant building was destroyed in 1977 under orders from Boris Yeltin, but in its place, and to commemorate the above, is one of the most elaborate, and expensive Roman Orthodox Churches ever built.

We meekly open the large wooden doors to be spellbound with the ornate gold facade stretching 5 stories or more up above us.

Yekaterinburg has only been opened to foreigners since 1990 as it was of major importance to the military as a weapons developmental area and many of the rockets and planes are proudly on display in school yards and parks.

In fact at the entrance to the city is a sample of the SAM rocket that shot down the American U2 spy plane during the height of the cold war in 1962.

It was Saturday night, and we walked the wide streets to find a rock band playing in the town centre. The music echoed around the buildings and large TV screens carried the pictures and advertisements. The old 18th and 19th century buildings intermingled with modern structures shows the richness of this city and surrounding area. It is the gateway to Siberia from the east and the mineral wealth of the Urals just to the west.

Camp 76-79: Hotel Milan, Moscow

Distance to Date: 20,400 Kilometres