Rest day in Novosibirsk Russia

This is the first rest day since we left Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia and a well earned one at that.

I have been too tired each night till now to henpeck out a blog ready for some Internet that has only been good enough for emails of a night.

Penny has been going very well so far to date, save for a couple small steering niggles since the middle of Mongolia. On a sand track one day I bent the steering damper and have had limited steering with only about half the total angle of normal till today. The steering damper had started to leak and was failing at it job from time to time with the slight wobbles. This in turn made a steering arm lose in the stub axle. This was corrected on the side of the road the first day in Russia.

I had made arrangements for a steering damper to meet me in Poland but that was proving to be to far away, so today in Novosibirsk I got a shock absorber from one off the support trucks and with the help of some very kind Russians in a work shop under a block of flats we modified my mounts to take the shock absorber which on the drive back worked a treat and Penny drove the nicest she has for about 5 days.

This workshop was and absolute hoot of a time. The music in the workshop was provided by a old windup Gramophone and old 78rpm records. The needle and records were that worn the music was grating and I had to get it turned of so I could work.

The owner of the workshop had a passion for old WW 1 and 2 guns and jeeps so I was shown that collection in the workshop.

The workshop was filled with lathes and mills for doing all sorts of metal work so in a coupe hour the jobs was done and Penny was washed ready for the trip across the steeps of Russia.

At the end of the job the men assisting me on the repair would accept no payment of any form at all because they felt it was a privilege to help out with fixing such an old car.

While I was at the workshop Julie was around town shopping for some clothes and bits and pieces for some crews that were to busy fixing to do there own shopping

The afternoon has been spent resting and getting supples for the next few big days across Russia to our next rest day in Kazan in 5 days and 2800 kilometres

Over the next few days I’ll endeavour to put up some photos from the trip across Mongolia.