Day 13 Fri 24 Jun 2016 Aya to Novosibirsk, Russia (Siberia) 560kms

After our first hotel for a week we were feeling pretty good and up for a big days rallying.  

Our hotel in Aya

There were four stages scheduled, and another three trial sections where high average speeds make for fun driving.

This was not to be.  

The start was delayed an hour as Aya is a different time zone to Novosibirsk and the police who were to close roads/direct traffic were expecting to start an hour later.  

The first stage was also cancelled due to being too wet.  Some 30 km out of town we were all stopped and advised that the 2^nd and 3^rd stages were also cancelled and we should proceed to the next time control but must book in on time. 

At the next time control in the town of Biysk, chaos reigned. 100 plus cars arriving en masse at the town centre and planning to stay there for a couple of hours.  After a short while they decided to move everyone on. 

So out to the only stage for the day.  It was dusty. Really dusty. I was worried we would catch a slow car after a couple of minutes and be stuck behind it for the 14km.  

The Mustang of Rob Garnsworthy & John Teasdale, now running second

We offered Rob Garnsworthy the opportunity to go in front of us but guess what – he was happy to stay behind.  After a bit of gap engineering we started behind the Jackson's Mercedes with a 3 minute gap, and the section was a great blast. Mark enjoyed it and we actually got a bit of time back from other competitors.

After that was a long haul in massively heavy traffic to get to the Marriott at Novosibirsk.  Russian roads in this area are a bit like the Princes Highway of the 1980s.  Too many trucks travelling slowly and too many cars intent on passing everything in their way at every opportunity.

Other observations for the day:

·       Lots of police at intersections ready to stop other traffic to let rally cars through.  

"  “Never thought I’d see the day when cops stop traffic for me. Normally they just stop me", said Mark.

·       Pine trees are the natural tree and they are as common as gum trees in Australia.

We passed a concrete plant which Mark described as a 1950’s standard. Also a power station which we thought was abandoned, until we saw smoke coming from the chimney

A local motoring fan, Mexal Lesh,sent us this photo of the 240Z's arrival in Novosibirsk

(left) view from my hotel room; (right) complicated checking in for competitors.

Anyway we are here, and enjoying the luxury  of the Marriott.

·       

Every hotel is obliged to take a copy of your passport.  All pages.  The organisers have taken copies of everyones' passports and save us this delay when we check in to hotels.

·       We were given "Welcome to Novosibirsk packs" as we arrived and they contained T shirts.  Sounded great but seems they have only one size and it's XXL.  Sadly not my size.

Tomorrow is a rest day which mean washing clothes and checking everything on the car.  
Teammates Eric/Renee and Joost/Jacques have offered the workshop they have arranged for us to check our car.  We will take up that offer.

Day 12 Altai Republic to Aya, Russia (Siberia) 650 KM

 Helmut Rothenberger & Michael Schmidt’s 5-litre 1928 Bentley Super Sports in the Vintage car class

Farewelled the tent this morning. Good riddance.  We left it sitting in the middle of the camp area complete with a couple of pillows.  Others put theirs in a pile at the top of the hill.  It’s a little easier to pack the car now.

There was one short stage today where we probably lost a few seconds to Rob Grainer who is in 2^nd place.

After the stage there was several hundred kilometres of driving along a river valley through some spectacular mountains while the road followed the course of a river.  

The country side is very green. Reminded me of Canada, except the tar was pretty bumpy.

We had rain again for short periods.  

Amazingly the locals seem to love us.  When you go through a village there is always dozens of people waving and taking pictures. They were even standing out in the rain.

The rally day ended with four sections on what I call ‘shire roads’.  The times were achievable for the quicker cars, so no real effect on the results.  Mark enjoyed himself.

We are at a hotel tonight.  It’s not that flash, but it's heaps better than a tent.

Did I mention that it got down to freezing the other night?  

There was only one night of camping in Russia and I have to say they didn’t do things as well as the Mongolians.  They provided just one shower for 300 people.  Most people didn’t bother, with the prospect of a hotel the next night.  Food was in short supply and choice of wine non-existent.

Results to the end of Day 12:

Day 11 Olgiy (Mongolia) to Altai Republic, Russia (Siberia)

Note: Dave has finally linked up to an internet connection, and has updated his blog covering the last few days...Scroll down for the complete thing

We crossed border into Russia today.  A very lengthy process where the passports get checked probably a dozen or so times. It took about three hours.  

After the Mongolian exit,  it was about 8km to a Russian Millitary check. Then another 17km to the Russian in-point. There, you have to queue for passport control, customs, some other queue where it was taking 15 minutes a car to transpose data from passports and car details to a steam-driven Dell computer.

It was at the Mongolia immigration exit counter that I saw Joost van Cauwenberge's co-driver Jacques Castelein on the other side in deep discussion with an official.  

I’d last seen Joost and Jaques in the evening at Chjargas Lake when they left with their Mercedes on the back of a truck.  Their plan was to get to Novosibirsk Russia as soon as possible to get their car fixed.  They should have been long gone from here. 

Well, it seems Mongolia were happy enough to let them out but Russia wouldn’t let them in as their visa entry date was for the following day.  Then, Mongolia wouldn’t let them back in as they had only single entry visas, which they’d already used up.

 They were stuck in the “no mans land” between Mongolia Out and Russia In. 

They had camped by the road to wait for their entry date.  They were of course first in the line when Russia opened the checkpoint on the approved day but…  they were not allowed in without an exit stamp for Mongolia with the same date as they were entering Russia.  So Jacques was back at the Mongolia out checkpoint asking for their passports to be restamped with the current date.

 It must have been very frustrating for them.

We're camping just out of a town (don’t have a name for it yet) but the organisers are calling it Altai Republic.

I bought a SIM card on the way through town which was an achievement in itself.  No one speaks English.  The SIM card seems to work well.  Sent off heaps of photos and all the delayed day notes.

I think the rally will change in nature from here on. Previously there was a  GPS waypoint given with every instruction. Looking ahead, there are less waypoints and more instructions. The organisers loaded the route we were to follow in our GPSs prior to today.  From now on, it’s more about following the roadbook instructions.

We actually found a restaurant in Kosh-Agach (that’s the town name on the map) and had some lunch with team mates Eric and Renee.  

And tonight is our last camp night.  We probably won’t even bother to take it down in the morning. 


I’m over camping.  
  

The two stones are supposed to bring good luck.  Given to us by a local at the border