I woke at 5AM to a sunny clear morning and so packed up and, once the owner had unlocked his gate (he had kindly told me to park in the back yard with the guard dogs) set off.
The road was as good as most Australian country roads for quite a while. I saw a deer beside the road early on but it ran away from the road thankfully. One thing I have noticed here is the absence of road kill. Perhaps the tigers eat the carcasses? I did see a deer scampering away from the roadside early this morning.
Over the past hundred or so km there have been warning signs and 50km/h speed limit signs to warn of dips in the road. Mostly these have been very small and not worth slowing for. However, the dips got much bigger today. One set of three were quite close together and had the Imp bouncing so much as to get airborne. Its the combination of dips and bumps that overwhelms things.
The hills have steadily become small mountains. The road planners seem to have decided that no hill should be steeper than 6% and they fill and cut huge amounts of earth to achieve this. Despite the slight grade, I'm in third gear climbing most hills. Still at least its still able to climb them.
The Imp continues to attract lots of attention both on the road and when stopped. I doubt that there is a more photographed car in this part of Russia.
I was hoping to get past the 600km to Chita mark today and have managed to do it but not by much. Its been a long 15 hour day with stops for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea probably totaling 2 hours or less.
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