House bound in Wineham..:) Saturday 6th June.

A little over a week ago we had temperatures in the mid 30’s and much of our days were spent inside out of the heat. Fast foward and we have 13deg at 4pm on Saturday. Central heating on and watching England play Germany in a colourised replay of the 1966 Football World Cup. The rain is belting down and Poki is looking forlorn. The game of soccer has changed dramatically and to my mind, not for the better. 1966 was 60 years ago and friend Ernie and I had just arrived in England. We had bought a new motorbike and were test riding it on a trip to Aberdeen while the game was being played. So, this is the first time I had seen the game and it evoked memories.

Poki

Talking about Poki, it’s just back from the workshop after having a new rear crossmember. The old one looked like Swiss cheese with rust. There was no way it would pass an MOT (WOF), without that, there would be no expedition later this month. With this upgrade we should get another 20 years out of it, no trouble..:)

Brand new black rear crossmember.

The Caucasus

As Jen discussed in the previous blog, we are heading to Eastern Europe. A little about the evolving political climate in the Caucasus countries of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan that we are heading for in a couple of weeks. With the war between Russia and Ukraine reaching a dangerous phase, and Ukraine exerting huge pressure on Russia, Russia are doing their best to rein in other former Soviet Satellites for support. There are elections in Armenia this weekend and Armenia have been trending towards EU influence. Russia are pulling out all stops to thwart that, as they did in the recent Hungarian elections. * Update Mon. 8th.. The Armenias chose to take a closer EU course and patch festering relations with its neighbours Azerbaijan. This is great news though access to all for us, is by no means assured..

Our route

Jen has been adding to our map library with gaps being filled. There has been discussions over the best route out, and back again. A ferry to Dunkirk then into and across Belgium, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia and if possible, Azerbaijan. At present we can only enter Azerbaijan from Georgia but here’s hoping that has now changed. How far we get, will evolve and we’ll keep you posted daily, once on the road. We have to be back in the UK by 28th August as Jen has booked us another mystery destination, fly in and out.

Treasure trove of maps and travel books.

Our departure home for New Zealand sees us leaving the UK, on 26th September via Vancouver, and arriving 1st October.

Sunday 7th June.

Caroline, Jen’s little sister, and family, are deeply involved in officiating at Grass Track motorcycling racing and this day we visited a race meeting not far from where we live. Despite a gloomy looking day, the rain held off and we were entertained by some brilliant racing. Several of the events were for British National Championship points. The side car racing particularly was sensational with blistering times posted.

News of other adventurers. Worldsafari.ca.

Sarah, Tim and family are working their way back to Cartagena in Columbia and were recently impeded in their journey through Bolivia and Peru due to strikes by the locals against their governments policies.

Nobody passes us!

Troy & Kez.

Meanwhile Kiwi and Pom travellers Troy and Kez, in their Defender, ‘Daffy’, are toughing it out in difficult Andean environments with night time temperatures of -14deg and rarified air making Daffy reluctant to start..

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