64. Day 56 – Towards the Ural Mountains

Saturday 7 July 2007

We departed at 9am and back onto the M7 and headed for Ufa.  We crossed a tributary of the Volga River, the Kama River at the town of Naberzcyne Chelney over a dam wall which included a power station and boat locks.

We refuelled for the first time since Moscow – we had great difficulty with the language when we tried to use our Visa card at the first petrol station so we moved on and at the next one we used cash.

We noticed on this section of the road, a big drop off in the number of trucks as this was a link road.

The fuel only cost 13 .1 rubles per litre – about 60 cents Aus.  We were pleased to find our Earthroamer was achieving 6.06klms per litre – 20% better than we used in the USA because of the higher speeds there.  

We left the forested area behind and now there were huge green paddocks with an occasional large harvester working beside the road.

We met a group of Dutch people with three campervans who were driving in the opposite direction.

It was great to speak English again and hear about their travels to Mongolia for the past three months.  We passed oil wells and this reminded us of both Canada and the USA – rich farming land with oil underneath – you couldn’t ask for more.

We stopped for lunch beside the road under some beautiful trees.

We drove on the bypass around Ufa onto the M5.  The Ural Mountains were ahead of us and we noticed the truck and car traffic increased dramatically.

Many trucks were carrying new cars all heading east – we were not sure if they were for wealthy people east of the Urals or destined for Kazakhstan?

We noticed the Russian people were out enjoying themselves on Saturday afternoon on picnics and swimming in the rivers and dams as we passed.

As we climbed the Urals we went on some of the worse roads so far – huge pot holes and ruts and bumps.

We were driving through vast areas of conifers, aspens, birches, as we climbed the mountain range.

Driving into the town of CNM
A street in CNM
Trucks climbing the hill behind CNM in the Ural Mountains

At 7.30pm we came across a huge traffic jam – don’t know why but we turned around and drove back up the hill to a wayside truck stop with a small restaurant.

The couple who operated the restaurant were delightful and allowed us to park under the trees at no charge for the night.

Truck Stop owner cooking a shazlick

The noise was staggering with fully loaded trucks heading east and empty car carriers rattling past as they headed west.  A few clouds came over with light rain – our first rain since Norway.  We slept until 3am when Macca from Australia All Over rang us on the iridium to talk to Dick on his radio programme.

Today 553 klms         20,037 km Total since Anchorage Alaska

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