Day 111 in cricketing terms, Nelson. 5th September. Vladivostok.

Nelson = One eye, one arm and one leg. Deemed unlucky..:)

Today is an auspicious day. Today we celebrate the day Jen was born ….mumble… years ago… 49 to be nearly precise…:)

Happy Birthday Jen. You are amazing!

A thought for Jen’s Mum today. Jen’s her first child. She’ll remember it like it was yesterday. Congratulations too, Mum. Jen’s sisters Bridget and Caroline will have been keeping you up with our progress during the journey and I know you will have been keenly interested.

It’ll be bubbles and birthday cake for dinner…:) YAY!!!

A little “discussion” is going on with Russian Rail. We have booked to depart Vladivostok at 1.22am on Friday 7th September. The confirmation notification came back confirming that time and day. However, the ETicket arrived saying departure is on the 8th at 1.22am!!!! So we are having a discussion with Anastasia, the Booking Manager, as to when we actually travel!!!

Other than that, it’s raining again when the forecast said it would be fine and we now have to inventory everything in the vehicle, for Canadian Customs. Tomorrow morning the Land Rover goes into a 40′ container.

What is it with Canadian business’s. We have written to two different companies looking to do business with them. The response has been …None. Bill and Joan, our dear friends in Vancouver are having to communicate for us by phone with the companies to get some answers from them.

Some statistics :-

Total Miles Travelled 16,796 miles = 27,030k’s

Litres of Diesel  2593 / 4.5 = 576.22gallons

MPG  29.14. After a slow start, I am happy with that.

There is still something not quite right with the Land Rover starting but lets hope the Canadians will/can fix it. Nobody else seems to be able to.

Overall, the wagon has been superb in almost every respect. We have quite a list of things to sort out in Canada over the winter with it, but they are largely superficial. Except for the gearbox.

We think it is a good time to suspend the blog till we hit the road again in the Canadian, spring next year. There may be items we will continue to post on the Trans-Siberian trip back to the UK, but that will depend on WIFI availability.

A BIG thanks to all who have followed the blog, made comments and participated in the good humour and banter with us.

Youngest brother Ash got us started with his blog at wordpress. I found his comments inspirational, great to read and looked forward to every one. So, thanks Ash for setting the bar height. I doubt we have come close to the depth and quality of your blog but it’s been fun trying.  Cathy at Mortimer Graphics in Rotorua, designed and created the site for us. Thanks Cathy. Love your humour. Brother Kelvin in Australia, always ready with a humorous quip and brotherly advice. Thanks too sister Liz, for worrying about us and advice on grammar…:). Son Steve in Australia and daughter’s Dee and family in Vancouver and Sarah and family in Whistler B.C. Love you. Jen’s family, Bridget & David and Caroline & Dave,  Mum Joan too. Son’s Tim in Kent and James in San Franciso and their families. Wonderful friends Mike & Wendy in Villars-en-Ouche, France. Bill & Joan in White Rocks, BC, Canada, Gordon too. Lindsay in Wellington, Kevin in Rotorua, Victoria and Colin in London who willed us on. John Ratsey from Swindon with his sage advise. Anton in Auckland. Roy in Norway. Mel from Wineham. Neal from Perth Western Australia and Mike too. Marian in London, Life long friends Bob, Judy & Logan in Palmerston North and Noel & Dee In Lower Hutt. Ray Cook in Rotorua. Paul and Elwyn in Adelaide South Australia who we met in Bucharest while cycling the Eurovelo 6 Route, 8 years ago. John Bowden of Gumtree in Ditching.  Bill and Penny from Drayton, Somerset. Pam in Croydon. There were many great comments and suggestions from people who we met en route or who had stumbled on the blog site. Many comments never made it past the Spam bin. Sadly there were too many to respond to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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