With the air-conditioning cranking all night keeping the temperature and humidity in our room under control I had one of the bests night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time which was welcome after the last few nights where I’ve not…
We’ve (gone to) Gonbad (stage 87)
A cool and surprisingly damp night as clouds rolled in overnight – it’s the first cloudy day I can recall since Almaty which is many days and several hundred kilometres away. We decided to do a ‘term photo’ for the…
Off to the national park (stage 86)
…Goleston National Park includes partly cultivated steppe and contrastingly thick mountain forests of 500-year-old trees… Lonely Planet, Iran All of which sounds really interesting but so far all we’ve seen are brown hills that look like Central Otago though we’ve…
Bojnord bound (stage 85)
Another chilly night full of disruptions – it seems the park is the place to go after dark so we had a constant stream of people walking and driving past our tents along with a visit from the police at…
Back to the hills (stage 84)
After our late night last night we were supposed to be having a sleep in and a late breakfast, but people were up and shuffling (crashing) round from 0600, so that didn’t really work out. The one thing it was…
Let’s go to Iran shall we? (stage 83 – kind of)
Yip – it was damn early at 0530! And the ‘hurry up and wait’ began almost straight away with us all having our bags down by 0550 but then no rider’s meeting at 0600 and no bus ready at 0700.…
Permission granted (Ashgabat rest day two)
Another good night’s sleep, followed by another mediocre hotel breakfast – though I did discover that you can ask for fried eggs which improved things slightly. The first group of people to submit their Iranian visa applications then headed off…
Whiling away a day (Ashgabat rest day one)
Finally a good night’s sleep! I was in bed by 2130 and didn’t wake until 0645 all of which made me feel a whole lot more alert. The hotel breakfast is decidedly mediocre again with the same boring things as…
Off to Ashgabat (stage 82)
Another crappy night’s sleep – last night it wasn’t so much about the distractions as just not being able to get to sleep – I was still awake at 2330 so went for a wander out to the road in…
Blowing in the wind (stage 81)
Not a great nights sleep was had – too many dogs barking, trucks arriving and general movement on the road to make for anything particularly restful. It also got surprisingly cool, to the point that I needed a second layer…