Crossing the border into Estonia

The heros at the backstreet garage in Perm, who worked all night to mend our suspension leaf

Priscilla preening herself in St Petersburg in fron of the Hermitage. Annoyingly (but thoughtfully) the garage there valet cleaned her, so we have no more Gobi desert patina...

On the drive from St P to the border with Estonia. I had expected more churches along the route through Russia, but methinks Mr Stalin wasn't too keen.

Just incredible, that as soon as we enter Estonia, and stop for some "Food" and "Coffee", that lo and behold we find that Daily Bread, like Oxygen, has become a household name globally.

....and this one's for you, H. I am just sick and tired of having to wetnurse your husband. Iron his shirts, pack his bags. I knew he was no mechanic or map-reader, but oh dear...


First of all, a thank you to all who have written comments back to us on the blog. It's been fun doing the blog, and great to hear back from you too.

We crossed into Estonia yesterday. Again feeling slightly like naughty schoolboys we left St Petersburg, 24 hours BEFORE the appointed time. We just felt we had spent 3 days there already getting the car fixed, and were getting cabin fever to move on. I sense the Rally organisers are used to having cars catching up (one/two three days late etc), but not used to people heading off much in advance. We had a great day, tho, as we had no queue at the border.

Wow, once again, the difference when you cross the borders. From pot-holed roads and shabby houses in Russia, to EU-financed smoooooooth tarmac in Estonia. From grumpy service in Russia, to all smiles in Estonia. Etc Etc. (We had start differences on each of the China/Mongolia, the Mongolia/Russia borders too. Fascinating.)

We all head off tomorrow morning to drive to Riga in Latvia. Lots of time trials, and gravel roads, to test Priscilla's new suspension out on. She goes really well now. Maybe she needed 5,000 miles to run herself in?!

We have had our challenges with her (namely would she even be able to make her way out of the Shangri-La car park in Beijing etc), but compared to the extraordinary challenges that some of the drivers/teams have faced/overcome, we have had it easy. Some cars have just had such catastrophic/systemic probs, that retirement was unavoidable, but Tim and I are still dumbstruck and in awe of the challenges that some have overcome, to keep in the rally. People having been a week, yes, A WEEK behind, having been starnded in some god-forsaken town, with no mechanics/support sytem etc, and yet have been able to draw on the incredible ingenuity and goodwill of the locals, (whether Chinese, Mongolian or Russian) to help them on their way. And then, for them to have to drive 28 hours a day to catch up. Inspiring.

Tallinn is charming, and quite rightly is so proud to be a nation-state once again. The cars congregate in the centre of the medieval square in a minute, so we'll post some pics later.