TriumphRally.org - Triumph Rally

Yak!

This one’s for Jon at Linda’s work:

This has to be one of my favourite pictures I have ever taken!

Tons of pictures yet to be organised - will post them when they are a little more structured.

Kazakhstan - in pictures

Russia, act 1

Ukraine was good to us, until we got to the border where I had my first encounter with the phrase ‘present?’! $20 later and we were through to the Russian side fearing things would only get worse. Apart from the hours it took (including changing the clocks it took 5 hours) things went pretty smoothly, and we were eventually on our way to Volgograd. We had planned to stay there but needless to say we didn’t make it, not being helped by being pulled over at a police check point on the motorway where I got change for a bribe! So we stayed in a small room in a small motel, with three beds, a tiny window and no fan, and needless to say it was an increadibly hot night.

When we did get to Volgograd, we made our way towards a large statue park overlooking the river Volga:

where we are sure we were beinge watched!

After seeing 8 mongol ralliers, and even talking to a few, we made our way to Astrakhan where we arrived with enough daylight to find a hotel. A few dodgey directions later and we had our soviet style rooms and beds for the night. The hotel was a romantic setting next to the river with a cafe on a boat playing jazz and onlooking four russian battleships, lovely!

One ’speeding’ fine later and a mongolia rally t-shirt lighter,

we headed towards the border to Kazakhstan. At least we weren’t the only ones!

And we got our first taste of propper off-roading:

Now onwards to kazakhstan!

Ukraine

Ukraine consists mostly of

&

The main methods of transportation are

&

There are also a few police cars about. But we found that they were all quite nice. We were only strip searched for narcotics once, and all went well, after the initial supicion over some OXO cubes.

Prague - Bratislava - Budapest

We drove to Prague:

and camped in a lovely field/campsite:

Then Chris C didn’t want to go to Poland so we decided  head south instead. We drove to Slovakia:

And just wen we start thinking we’re in a Soviet Bloc country

Something will come along to remind us we’re not that far from home:

What’s this beast?

We had lunch in Bratislava near a castle:

…and camped in the moutainside outside of Budapest for two nights.  It was raining too much to get the EOS out, but ook some pics of the aswesome campsite. Steps lead up the montainside to plateaus made for tent pitching:

And now we’re off to Ukraine!

the Road to Nurnberg - views from the Autobahn

Our Triumph Herald has been STOLEN!

When we went out to go shopping this evening we noticed to our disbelief that Tallulah was missing from her spot in the car park. After confirming with the landlord and care taker of the property that they had not removed it, we came to realise that she must have been stolen.

Who on earth would steal a £281 classic car? It wasn’t even in a roadworthy condition. We hadn’t even thought about insuring it because we didn’t think anybody would be able to steal it, let alone want to steal it. There is no way they could have driven it out of there, the fuel tank was disconnected, the rear had been taken off, if anyone had seen this car on the road they would have surely called the police straight away. If anyone were to steal it, they must have had a van or a trailer. We just can’t believe anyone would go through so much trouble for a car which monetary value is so low.

However, this lovely characteristic car certainly had a lot of value to us. And we want her back. I just hope this isn’t someone’s sick idea of a April Fools joke. Or maybe not, at least then there would be hope of getting her back.