stray: 2019-05-13 Day 228 Mon

The herders passed with their stock with a wave, but one guy with his sheep and donkey stopped for a chat. And a long chat it was. He stayed for at least half an hour and we tried to communicate. He had lost his wife a few years ago, she is buried in the cemetery just up the hill and has 3 small children. He was very interested in the vehicle.

Although we often leave camp around 11am we still get 8 hours of driving in as the sun sets around 20:00hrs.

It gives us time for the paper work and photos and blog or at least occasionally it is enough time.

The last village around the corner with a new bridge being built, and once we had found the track across the wide river bed we were on a sealed road.

It had been a great track, but very slow and bouncy.

This Truck was probably looking OK until the load slid off the back!!

We headed north to the Caspian coast near Khudat. Here, parked on the beach close to the water, we had a roll-up for lunch and rotated the tires. As the last tire was being fitted the thunderstorm hit. We sheltered inside for a while then when the rain had stopped we finished the job. It only takes about one hour to rotate them and we know it is done right and the wheel nuts will be removable!!!

John had a quick dip in the Caspian.

I just got up to my knees still a bit cold.

Some police drove passed and back again we said hi and invited them to have a look at the vehicle. They were there obviously to see what we were up to. But all good. They drove off.

A slow trip down the freeway. The left lane was good but the right had big dips in it, and lumpy repairs so although trucks are supposed to stay in right hand lane they were in and out of the left lane. But when you came up behind them they move over just as I did when a car came up behind me.

One town we came through had many many statues of Grecian urns, teapots, lamps, goats on rocks, men on horses, all manner of things, we are still puzzled..