Australia to Europe

Finally! After a nearly 3 week delay, Lola has arrived yesterday!
It was very late when I brought her home.
To get the car into the container I had to let some air out of the tyres. After unloading, I wanted to pump up the tyres, but when unpacking the air compressor I found that the curled hose had totally disintegrated and fallen into lots of pieces. Waiting for help. Yuri, my Russian shipping agent and I had still some shipping business to finalise, so he brought along an air compressor. What would we Overlanders do without Yuri!
After dinner with Yuri I drove home. As I wanted to get a head start for the next morning, I drove to the supermarket to stock up with all the stuff I still needed.
The carpark is very narrow (oh we spoilt Aussies) so I took one corner too short and bumped into a super loved and polished old timer car. Got out of it with 200$US . Sounded like a good deal to me, but involved a lot of discussion, talking and waiting.
And then the welcome Rexel gave to Lola! He was overjoyed, jumped onto his bed and did not want to come into the house with me.
This morning, after packing up and sorting out the van it was time to say goodbye to my new found friends Katya and Vera. Katya has extra baked some apple and berry pies for me, Vera presented me with Vietnamese Coffee ( you should try it one day. Really yummy!), Russian chocolate and honey.
Now I had to get a hose for this air compressor and fill up my gas bottle. After driving around Vladivostok for hours I did not succeed with any of it. I had to find different solutions.
So I ended up buying a cheap compressor to make use of its hose and a gas cooker. In the process I got to close again to another car in an even tighter car park in China town, which this time resulted in no damage to the other car but to mine.
Just a small dint, doesn't bother me, but my driving confidence is shaken by now. I only dinted two vehicles in my hole life and now 2x within 24 hours. What is going on??!!
Finally at 4o'clock I'm headed out of town.
Now , at around 5 Rexel is making himself known. He had been extremely patient with me so I drove off the highway to find a spot where I could take him for a walk.
Once you leave the highway there are mainly really bad dirt roads. So I travel along this really horrible dirt road, when I, I kid you not, drive the left front wheel into a ditch, so it is air borne. Here I am stuck again! Can you believe this? For no reason! Thank goodness a truck comes along and to my rescue. He has really deserved some of Katja's apple pies!
I took this as a sign to call it a day! I hadn't realised how stressed I must have been. Time to rest and have a good sleep. There will be a new start tomorrow!Read more