UK - Oz, XT Adventure 2006

Hi, and welcome to my 'diary' of mine, Allens and John's trip to australia on Bikes.
For those of you that know me out there some of you are perhaps thinking this is a little out of the blue, but hopefully as you read on you will find out more about me than I have let you know in the past, and perhaps this will help you understand why I am involving myself in this whole thing.

So why ride to oz on a 16 year old bike, leaving my hot girl gemma behind and spending a large portion of your savings to do it? Well... why the hell not. you only have one life, don't realy fancy sitting in my rocking chair at 60/70 years old thinking i wish i'd done this and i wish i'd done that and it being to late to change it.
Since moving back from spain after a 2 year jolly i have prity much worked 7 days aweek for 3 years so it was time stop working like an idiot and go and have some fun.( can think of cheaper ways).

Well with a week to go I guess It's my turn, I not good at this computer 'stuff' so appologies in advance,
At 42 I seem to be the 'old codger' on this trip (again) I bicycled around the world last year with a 19 year old German lan named Michael, www.noboundaries.de

So, here we all are sat around a computer in Bare Mare in Romania, and to be honest this is the first chance we have had to enter a post.

After setting off on Wednesday (19th) (John and I) a few days late we have been pushing on through the countries to catch up with Al who left a day earlier to try and spend a bit more time in Europe.

France we spent the first night in a turnip field, see our accomodation here.
image

Thats John all tucked up nice and cosy, and the straw in the foreground was my
bed for the night. Toastie!!!!!!!!!

So, here we are, still in Romania, in Isia just East of the Moldovian border where we plan on crossing in the next few hours. I shalll continue where we left off last time.

The lunch i mentioned in the end of the last post turned out to be a little diffferent.
John and Al had chicken and chips, and i hadpig brains and chips. Yup, pig brains, and yes believe it or not they were grey. but fried with a little onion they were actually quite nice. Can't say as they have done anything for my intelligence level mind you.

Well, since the last entry we have had some experiances.

So, since our last post we have managed to get into and out of Russia pretty much unscathed. Apart from the four and a half hours it took us to get in all went well, and to top it off the cafe next to the border crossing was closed when we were in so we couldn't even get a coffee.

All the stereotypes you have of Russians are true, they are nice people but can be a little loud at times. They struggle to make ends meet and they love to drink vodka.

So, since our last post we have managed to get into and out of Russia pretty much unscathed. Apart from the four and a half hours it took us to get in all went well, and to top it off the cafe next to the border crossing was closed when we were in so we couldn't even get a coffee.

All the stereotypes you have of Russians are true, they are nice people but can be a little loud at times. They struggle to make ends meet and they love to drink vodka.

Across Kazakhstan we came via Aktobish, Kostanie and now we are in the capital Astana.

thought i'd better add an entry as it seems some people have been a bit worried that we havent entered anything in a while. (thanx rob for putting the notice up, i'll contact you soon and have a chat.)
al and colin are back in the UK and john is in the US,