Internet
was not to bad so spent a little time them we left about 11:00. I walked
on ahead swatting Marchies and stopping only briefly to take photos
of flowers.
The track became more track like and by the time John
picked me up it was a scrubby track. We
pushed through and out onto the road.
The
villages are neat, tidy and clean with lots of vegies growing. The
houses are mostly wooden with wonderfully decorated windows.
We
stopped to swap drivers and John noticed the back left shock was
broken at the top. So he took that off while lightning an and thunder
threatened us. The wind was picking up as we drove off.
Soon
chucks of ice were slamming into our windscreen. I had never seen
jagged ice rocks before….
I
was very concerned for the windscreen and the solar panels. We turned
left onto a new road and that lessened the impact on the windscreen.
Most of the vehicles on the other side of the road were stopped I
guess to lesson the impact of the hail.We ducked into a gas station and took refuge with the other 10 cars. After about 10mins we were able to continue on.
Puddles
had formed quickly in the rain and the gutters were struggling to
cope. We followed the hail storm for a while hoping that we would not
catch it again.
It
still amazes me how green and big the spaces are here. Reminds me of
Australia ('cept for the green part). The wild flowers are abundant in
every color imaginal. We are here at a very pretty time. It makes me
wonder how it would be in winter at -30℃??
We
arrived at Krasnoyarskoye Reservoir. We drove through the cabins and
down onto the foreshore. Lots of campers. We drove around the waters
edge till we found a large empty space. We backed up to the cliff
wall and John dug in the back wheels.
Two
guys from the camp beside backed over and jumped out. They were so
excited to see EC. They were the most animated Russians we had seen.
And no, they did not appear to be under the influence...of Vodka.
As
john opened the door the broken shock rolled out. The guys said they
could fix jumped back in the car and raced away. To return shortly
with it welded. The guy wanted to make the end round for the bush and
when he hammered it the weld broke so back in the car and off they
went.
They
were a long time returning.
They
have been camped here with their girlfriends for a week and are
heading back to Krasnoyarsk tomorrow.
We
put a can of beer (1 liter) in the freezer for them.
They
returned with it properly welded. Asked us to come drink vodka, which
we refused saying we drank wine. So one ran back and got us a bottle.
We tried to refuse but couldn’t.
So
I handed the ice cold beer out the window and that won many points …
simply by being cold.342km Camp site 235m alt.