Day 19

Today was another scorcher, the hottest yet peaking at 31 degrees. We arose at 8:00am and found the showers were not working so another smelly day. After saying our thankyou's to Aliback & Umit our excellent hosts for the evening at the Tahiti hotel we set off & filled the cars up and went to the local supermarket which resembled an airaid shelter, the guys working there were really friendly and insisted we took photos of them!

We are on the long road from Uralsk to Aktobe which was going to be a 472 KM trek along the Kazakhstan M32 which for a single road must have the most varied surfaces of any we've ever been on! We started off on normal flat tarmac which looking at we thought this won't take that long - little did we know what was coming our way! The road had potholes initially then smoothed out for a while. We passed our first shepherd on horseback and then we saw our first Yurt which will be staying in in Kyrgyzstan.

We then hit some rough road which obviously hadn't been completed but the LR's coped perfectly albeit we needed to stop a few times to check on the state of the petrol cans on the roof as they kept working loose. We often passed horses and cows wandering about the road that needed avoiding! Where ever we go the attention we get is amazing with people videoing and taking pictures on their mobile phone of us. Everyone waves and honks their horns at us.

Today was definitely "The day of animals" as we saw what we though were cows and when we get closer they were camels - amazing! Carrying on a bit we passed a huge statue of a golden eagle and didn't realise the relevance until we came across large nests in the trees with large golden eagles in them - amazing again and lots of photo opportunities. We were on "A road to no-where" as it was mainly straight and you could see where you were going for miles and miles but there were very few towns to see but lots of animals including marmots that kept running across the road at their own peril! We hit an area where the road stopped and we had to go onto dirt sand tracks which really put the LR's to test with a single land and the odd car or truck coming the other way we kept up a good speed for a couple of hours with all the dust going everywhere and all of us keeping a fair distance because you couldn't see where you were going.

We pulled over for lunch off the track and just as we did a large sand whirlwind occurred that was surreal right next to us - again plenty of photo opportunities - at the same time keen photographer and Leg 2 photographer Andy Powell jumped out of the car he was driving to get pictures with his 2 metre long camera lens and forgot the Discovery was still in gear and it carried on across through the rough terrain until Chris Johnson who was running frantically after and had realised the stuation jumped in and and brought it to a halt - well done Chris.

A lesson learnt mister photographer! Lunch which was very late about 3:00pm was the first time we had the stoves out so far and the fuel didn't last long - thanks Leg 1'ers!! We also put an awning up between the 2 Defenders as the sun was scorching. A Kazak white van driver came along to talk to us and gave us good information about how bad the road were for the next 150 KM's. He was right, some of the potholes resembled craters but showed the brilliant manouvability capablities of the LR's and the fact they could take the uneven roads better than all the other cars and lorries we constantly overtook in convoy.

Quote of the day came from Ben who said "Look right everyone there are cows in the bustop" and there were - we have the pictures to prove it!

Finally in the evening we have been entertained by some dreadful Kazakh disco dancing whilst eating our evening meal at the Aktobe Hotel which made us all laugh and the guy performing enjoyed the applause we all threw his way although it was more in sympathy than admiration. We all agreed that today had been the best and most varied so far and we look forward with even more anticipation to the next ones - Over and Out - Joe Congdon - I'm now off to watch the champions league final in the centre of Aktobe!!