Overland with Kids

Initial conversations had en-route from the Russian border to Kostanai city:

 

Mum “Love your style Jessica!” (about her now expert way of wee’ing by the roadside unseen)

Jessica “First class and for free……I wonder what God would think about me wee’ing on his garden?”

Mum “I don’t think he’d mind”

Mum “What do you think of Kazakhstan so far?”

Jessica “A bit empty. It’s just fields”

Mum “It’s very clean though”

Dad “That’s because there’s nothing and no-one here”

Mum “The roads are good”

Dad “That’s because no-one drives on them. They were probably built 50 years ago but because they’re empty, they look like new”.

Dad “It’s vey bleak” (repeats about 50 times)

Mum “I never expected the roads to be so good” (we learn later in our trip through Kazakhstan that this isn’t always the case).

Our First Impressions on Entering Kazakhstan

Very flat, very empty - just bleak green fields, telegraph poles and a railway line. Single lane carrigeway, no traffic - a desolate place and very quiet - but it was getting late so we thought maybe this was a contributing factor and we were still near the border. One hour later - still an expanse of nothingness. Excellent road (pretty much only one road that we could see). We were expecting horses somewhere on the horizon - but nothing - not a soul in sight except for an odd car now and again. We passed through a small village which looked drab and uninhabited - like a nuclear blast had hit it and then onto a town, slightly more modern but resembling ghostville. The land was so flat and open, going on for miles and miles, we couldn’t find anywhere to pull in without sticking out like sore thumbs for the night. We drove onto the first major city in our roughly planned direction called Kostanai. Quickly checking it out, we located a cashpoint for some local currency, then pulled away a little outside the city, out of sight behind what looked like a dis-used bus shelter. Making sandwiches from left over provisions in the car and the children long asleep, it was 1am in the morning - the lights went out completely along the motorway - complete darkness. By the time we’d eaten and chatted about our day and our next plans, it was 2am before we slept.

Kostanai and Onward

Next morning, Andrew was up at dawn and chomping at the bit for us to move on. He was keen to drive onto the capital Astana rather than double-back to Kostanai, convinced there was nothing there. Children still asleep with blankets and seatbelts, we pulled off heading for the capital. Along the road so far there had been plenty of petrol stations and we had just under a half tank. It dawned on us after a good while driving, there were no more petrol stations and hitting almost empty, we started to worry. Out of the blue, we bumped into Iain the biker riding up behind us - we’d met back in Russia a couple of days ago. Iain was in the same situation - in the red with his bike almost empty of petrol. Luckily, our chance meeting had occurred just then, right by 3 fuel stations grouped together along the roadside. There was also a cafe. The first station had no fuel except a sub-standard petrol called 80. We bypassed the second which looked closed and had a cow wandering around it but visited the third - we were saved! Diesel cost for 80L approx 18 Euros. We could have filled our tank to 120L but were being careful until we understood the exchange rates and to make sure we had enough money for breakfast (payment is up front for fuel in Kazakhstan).

We hit the cafe called FA CUP and went straight over to a table of locals to look at the food they were eating and to ask them if they could pronounce the names in Kazak for us. We realised there were huge similarities to Russian which is also spoken but Kazak is the main language). We used the nice clean loo’s, chatted with Iain and had a good breakfast. The children had what looked like pasta tortelinni shapes filled with meat - a traditional dumpling dish garnished with chives. AJ said they looked like rabbit poo with grass on top - he didn’t finish his meal and Jessica just managed. The adults had beefsteak (hamburgers) with rice and a fried egg on top. Driving on, the landscape was still bland but suddenly we started to see eagles, beautiful clouds, cranes, cows, sheep, horseback herders, then more animals in herds crossing the road every so often. We had to stop every so often to let them pass. It was a cold morning but getting warmer. Peaceful farming activities in the fields began and the roads still remained unbelievably empty. There was only one long single road leading us through. More eagles with wing spans as wide as the car hovered over us as we drove on, plus other birds of prey we couldn’t identify - amazing! Our journey through Kazakhstan had begun…..

En-route to Astana City

Our route from Kostanai to Astana took us most of the day, driving from early morning till late evening (Kazakhstan is the world’s 9th largest country with huge distances between major cities and only one single road system of single file traffic in each direction to reach each place). It was 6.30pm when Iain arrived to Astana, texting us the details of the hotel he was staying. It was 9.30pm before we arrived, finally checking-in to the same hotel. To get to the hotel, we had help from a nice lady called Saulee who jumped in our car and took us straight to the address and entrance. She asked us to call her to join her for tea while we were staying but unfortunately we didn’t get around to doing this. It was a shame we didn’t get the opportunity.

Long, long, long before arriving to Astana, about 400 - 500km away, the train line we had seen upon entering Kazakhstan was still running alongside us and we saw a solitary light mint green painted wooden train go by. The land all round us was still flat expanses of green but pretty devoid of any life. Still very quiet for the first half our journey, we felt like we were in a spaghetti western with the odd ball of tumbleweed as the only movement we could see flying by.

We stopped at some stage by the road-side during the second half of our trip when a lorry pulled up on the other side. It’s occupants came over selling us a melon out of the back. We bought one and the men on the lorry shared a second with us by the roadside in exchange for a knife to cut it. We saw strange looking cemetries, each grave surrounded by a wall with an iron domed decoration on top and finished by a half moon emblem.

About 200km+ from Astana we stopped in a small town called Astrachan and were directed along it’s high street to a small place called Cafe Alla where we had chicken and the children ended up with meat filled dumplings again - but these were much nicer than before and resembled large pasta filled pork pies. AJ and Jessica were happy, declaring that these were not like the rabbit poo with grass on top from the morning, but delicious. This was good news as these were the only things we could manage to point to on the menu in the hope we would receive something half decent and edible.

Leaving Cafe Alla after a chat with the owners, the road started to get very bad - very bumpy and rough - then disappeared to an unsealed dirt track the rest of the way in.  Then it just got worse and worse and worse. Every now and again we could jump over to a part of the new road being built, only to come off again for long periods. It was just dirt track with incredible dust kicks from the lorries in front us - we had difficulty seeing at times. If parts of the new road were built and accessible, it meant traversing (off-roading) across wide mud ruts centred between the two. Our mascot fell off the front of the car, our roof rack cracked almost to dis-integration, we lost a bolt, a hub cap off one of our steel wheels and nearly damaged the underside of our vehicle in the process. it was that rough. Nearing the end, Andrew refused to turn back and use a make shift slope - instead galloping over impassable terrain everyone else had refused - he just had to do it! Determined to see what the Land Rover was capable of. 

The underside of our vehicle just about survived but the roof rack was about to come off. It wasn’t until we were almost approaching Astana approx 20km away, that the road became good again. We wondered how Iain had fared the journey on his bike and with vision through the dust and lorries. We nicknamed the long stretch of road we had passed the ‘boneshaker’. AJ decided to have a nap and slept through the whole thing while Jessica loved every minute of the drama and rough riding. She thought it was great. Mum was a woose and worried we’d have no vehicle left! Dad was delighted at the opportunity to have a play - his arguement “well if we can’t use it for what it’s intended….etc. etc. etc.”

We arrived to the outskirts of Astana at 8.30pm and were greeted with Police checkpoints (there are many throughout Kazakhstan) but we were not stopped. We got many waves, smiles and honks from other Kazakhstan cars passing by. Approaching the city and it’s views was something we had never seen before - we thought we had arrived to another country - maybe Bahrain? - it was very rich and unique with it’s shiny, pristine and very new-looking modern buildings - all differing in the most unusual styles and shapes. Two which immediately stood out on arrival were - a giant spaceship (housing a zoo) and a giant silver tilted spinning top overlooking the river (housing a shopping centre and a beach). No old buildings or historical interests in sight - almost like a brand new city had been planted, in the middle of nowhere, just in time for our arrival. Borat had got it terribly wrong!

Pulling into the car-park of the hotel, we were amazed to find a black and white zebra Land Rover parked there - belonging to Lee, Helen and Bev. We’d left the UK a day apart at the beginning of April, meeting up in the Netherlands for one night, bumping into each other at a campsite in Bran, Romania and now here in Astana, Kazakhstan - 12,000 miles later, both at the same time, in the same hotel and in the same city. Like us with our caravan, they had left with a fully loaded Sankey trailer. and, like us with our caravan, the trailer was now missing.They had arrived to the hotel only half and hour before us, gone to their room to check-in and returned downstairs again. The faces of all us when we met in reception was a picture. Together with Iain, celebrations ensued in our room and a catch up was had by all eight of us about where we’d all been and what we’d all done until the late hours.

Booking into the hotel was different from anywhere we’d been before. We could book in for either 12 or 24 hour chunks. Checkout would be at the same as we’d arrived if we opted for 24 hours stay - ie. checking out at 9.30pm the next evening. Cost was approx 75 Euros but for this price we got an enormous room with huge double bed, two huge singles, a 3-pce leather suite, TV and bathroom with shower. We were adamant we didn’t want to pay hotel prices anymore but when we saw the room, we thought it was worth every penny. Cost included breakfast and we could wash our clothes in the bathtub (we had two big bags worth and hadn’t washed anything at all since Estonia!). We booked for two and a half nights - effectively 3 nights, leaving at 9.30am on the third day.

Bevhelee and Iain’s Experiences

We learned from Lee, Helen and Bev that they had been in Kazakhstan for about a month and had loved it, visiting many places north, south, east, west and centre of the country. Kazakhstan they said was by far their favourite country and they could easily stay longer. Their stay in Astana at the hotel was now their second visit before heading out for Russia en-route to Mongolia. They told us they hadn’t been keen on Russia at all and didn’t visit St Petersburg or Moscow even though they’d passed through both. They’ve never liked busy cities anyway and found the busy roads and systems in both of the cities difficult. They’d also experienced bad weather while passing through Moscow where trees had blown over. They headed south to Chechyna, wild camping all the way, not realising the sensitivity of the area and were constantly subjected to many police stops and bribes every day - on one occassion having to pay 200 Euros for over-stepping a white line and on another, stopped a total of seven times in a single day. Excepting the Black Sea coastline further south which they thought was beautiful, they didn’t find people friendly or happy and weren’t looking forward to returning again to Baikal as originally planned. They’d also had much trouble at the outset at the Narva border crossing before entering Russia due, to not having any paperwork for their 1968 trailer. They had been made to go through hoops with much detailed paperwork at customs and after being made to wait 7 hours on the Russian side, they were refused entry and turned back. Another contributing factor was that they had a French number plated vehicle, were English and had more than one address.  They gave away their trailer and all it’s contents in Narva before making their second succcessful attempt to cross. They’d put much effort into their trailer - it was a shame. To explain their address, origin and number plate problem, they had to say they had two houses to explain away the issue.

From Iain’s perspective, he had also not been that enamoured with Russia and he didn’t like Ukraine due to the hard work for his bike on the roads - he had found it very tough going. In Ukraine (L’viv) he’d been stopped and caught for money - accussed off a trafffic violation he hadn’t commited. Having crossed to Russia from the Ukraine with Sevarik and Maciej who he’d met there - spending time wild camping in the potato field of a farmers houses and by lakes throughout his visit, he said he’d not really had the opportunity to meet anyone while in Russia except a farmer who reported him and his two friends to the police, suspecting them as immigrants. Iain is a well-travelled backpacker and has visited many places across the world. This was Iain’s first trip using a bike and his view was that he couldn’t get the same sense of a country in the way he could by foot. It just hadn’t been the same for him.

For Lee, Helen and Bev their Land Rover was now a wreck having pummelled it badly on the rough and non-existent tracks of Kazakhstan - they love off-roading and had plenty of opportunties to play - once even driving miles and miles with no tracks at all and just a compass as their navigation aid. Their chassis had now spiit and was being held together by industrial ratchet straps. Their breaking system had also completely worn out and was shot. They needed new tyres as they had run down their exisiting to the bare minimum. They had used one spare tyre they had due to a blow out and had only one good tyre left to use. They weren’t sure if the vehicle could make it further and were seriously considering going to Poland to buy a truck to continue their route onward to Australia. From day one, Lee, Helen and Bev had been travelling using two roof tents but the exterior roll bar was now also causing problems due to the state of the body of the Land Rover generally.

We felt releived not to have been the only one’s suffering trials and tribulations i.e.with our caravan - long since dumped after collapsing from sodden ply wood caused by the rains over a long period - then finished off by the bad roads we’d travelled through some time back. It was interesting to hear everyone’s differing perspectives, experiences and circumstance but more important - everyone of us were safe and well and just about still on the road!

Diary (Blog)