After a poor nights sleep I set off just after 6AM. The car started first time and drove off a little sluggishly into the drizzle. I misinterpreted a direction on the tom tom and drove about 6km down what so far is the best road in Russia before I could turn around.
It got quite busy after about 20km but was all dual carriageway and fairly easy to get along. After probably 50km came the first stretch of road works. These are where a gravel track has been formed alongside the road. The tracks seem to go on for 20km at a time but it we probably more like 5. It is mostly second gear weaving around trying to get as smooth and flat a path as possible. All the while the four wheel drives are finding an extra lane in the middle and zooming by. Much of the road is just bumpy bitumen like we would have in country WA but then there are sections where the substructure has collapsed and left 8" deep depressions surrounded by a 3" rim of bitumen. These can often be avoided by weaving around the road to find a smoother path but sometimes its too late or there isn't space and the car crashes into the dip. Most crashes didn't sound damaging but you never know.
The car got quite a bit of interest with many drivers giving me thumbs up which cheered me on. I found the drivers very tolerant of me slow speed. I did my best to get out of the way when I could.
The shaking in the roadworks loosened off some of the nuts holding the dashboard in place. The radiator has developed a slight leak. Only about 500ml over the day but it means that after the coolant expands and is pushed to the expansion tank is it not sucked back to the radiator when it cools back down. I'll keep an eye on this but do nothing yet as I've learnt that its easier to ruin a radiator than fix it.
My indicators stopped working quite early on. I think it is the flasher unit. I don't think I've ever killed one of those before. I hope to buy a new one this morning but shopping here is completely different. You don't see a Auto One or Bunnings. The only shops that stand out are the banks and mobile telephone shops. Hopefully the lady at reception can help me.
Perhaps my biggest problem yesterday was not having the inverter wired up to charge the tablet computer. This meant no navigation no translation software and no internet when I got into Khabarovsk just after 9PM (still daylight) which caused problems finding a hotel.
It was a very long and tiring day. Nearly 800km is much too far.
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