Arrivederci Italia

It is with some sadness I left the land of wine on tap, pizza sold by the meter and ATM's that dispense milk instead of money but spring is in the air and it is time to get on the road again.

Cycled across the top of Italy via Lago de Garda, Breschia and Cuneo before climbing up over the Alps at the Colle della Madellena.

It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.....more of a long, slow death with 85km of a continuous grind uphill, gaining over 1600m in 7 hours

2007 in hindsight

Christmas in the Costa del Sol

This festive season was spent in Southern Spain alternating up and down the coast between Sebanillas and Gibraltar, enjoying the company of an old friend, the warm sunshine and high density housing.

I arrived with dreams of exotic Spaniards and paella, aquamarine seas and small villages of whitewashed houses clinging tenaciously to seaside cliffs. What I got was quite different.......

My arrival was preceded by a car washed up on the beach complete with dismembered body in the boot (well most of it anyway. I still don't think they have located the missing leg yet!). Santa Claus came early to Sebanillas!

Gibraltar was a step across into another world; a duty-free tax haven separated from the Spanish mainland by the runway of an airport and an arbitrary border where a wave of your passport sufficed. Consisting of little more than a rock with more roads under it than around it and more cats and seagulls than residents, Gibraltar is a portal back to the lost motherland complete with red phone boxes, Bobbies, British pubs and a fish and chip shop for every inhabitant.

Our accomodation ranged from luxurious apartments with sky tv, to small hotel rooms with an excess of bathroom fixtures and balconies barely big enough for a gnat.

My most memorable though was the dusty cupboard in the building site. For all those singletons out there....my friend Dave knows how to show a girl a good time so if you are interested........

Lake Balkash

The road to Lake Balkash via Karaul and Aktogay was rough and it won the dubious award of 'worst road to-date'. I wouldn't recommend it unless you have strong masochistic tendencies.

It did, however, supply me with a few "firsts".

My first flat tyre......

The first time I bottomed out completely and seriously did not enjoy where I was and what I was doing.....

And.....

My first swim in Kazakhstan!










I was given the use of a small shack on the side of the lake so I made the most of it and spent 2 days trying to regain my sanity after the steppes.

The Kazakh Steppes

By the end of the first day I was bored....

By the end of the second I was going loopy.....

After 500km I started to consider watching grass grow and paint dry to be stimulating activities......

And still it kept going.

I even began to toy with the idea that watching test cricket could be entertaining.......

Stamp, stamp, stamp.....

.....What stamp?

I emerged from the back roads into Rubtsovsk after a week camping next to rivers and lakes. In desperate need of a shower I went to check into a hotel and discovered that I was lacking a certain vital document....namely a collection of registration stamps. Despite being in Russia for more than 2 weeks, this was only the second time I have stayed in a hotel and with no record of me for the interim, this proved to be quite a bureaucratic issue. Before I knew it the police arrived.
All very KGB'ish, 3 plain-clothes police, replete with translator, ushered me up to my room for a 'chat'. For more than an hour they plied me with questions about what I was doing, where I had been, what I had seen, who I had met.....but eventually it all came back to the stamps. I should have registered every 3 days in the towns I was staying. It was almost incomprehensible to them that I was happy just to set up my tent for the night anywhere that looked good.
Eventually, still a bit bemused by what I was doing, they left and all I had to do was write a letter detailing where I had stayed each night.

This they then stamped.

The Chuysky Trakt

What sounds like either a new Country 'n Western dance or obscure part of anatomy is actually the stretch of road that runs through the mountains of the Russian Altai.

Like a yo-yo it winds its way down from the border, following rivers that would be a rafter's wet dream.

All on perfect tarmac.... Welcome to Russia.

Everybody grab your partner..Pass the border, don't look back, Now its up and down along the Chuysky Trakt.