94. Day 63 – We are on our way again – Almaty north, hopefully to Mongolia and Siberia

Friday 19 October 2007

After our disappointment with the vehicle not being ready yesterday we were delighted when Bagdat said that he would have the gearbox back in by lunch time and everything would be going.

At the Ford dealer in Almaty with the new oil being put into the engine after the gearbox had been re-fitted

Later he said that lunch time was 2 o’clock, and he was pretty accurate.  At about 2.10 pm the gear box had been put back into the Earthroamer and the two water tanks had been put back on either side.We started the engine and drove it around the block.  We thought the oil leak had disappeared but maybe it has just reduced substantially.  We will know this in the next few days.

Dick holding the faulty part
Bagdat beside Dick with Alexey and his father getting ready to depart Almaty

At 4.30 pm we left the Ford dealership with our great friend Alexey and headed north towards Taldyqorghan following the route that we had been on seven weeks previously.  The only real difference is that it is now autumn, with beautiful yellow poplars changing colour.

Autumn colours near Almaty
We stopped at this roadside store just outside Almaty to buy some food
We saw a number of roadside stalls selling potatoes and fruit

We had a good drive through and we planned to stop at our famous truck stop where we had spent three nights, but after a bit of discussion we have driven on a bit further to the outskirts of Taldyqorghan.

Homes in the afternoon sun
The holiday resorts on the edge of the lake were now deserted
Horses grazing beside the highway

We are delighted to now be heading north again.  The vehicle seems to be going well except for a small oil leak – but it doesn’t seem to be using much oil so hopefully it won’t worry us.  Our only fear at the moment is the snow up north.  We saw a weather report when we were in Almaty and it showed heavy snow around Irkutsk and Khabarovsk – this could be a real problem for us.

Anyway, we are delighted to be on our way.  We drove 207 km for the day.  We started at 4.30 pm and ended at 8.50 pm.

Today  207kms    22,841kms since Anchorage, Alaska

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