Goryachinsk

We were leaving to go stay near Lake Baikal for a couple of days so we had to pack up and leave the apartment again. The owner met us at 9.30 and we lugged the suitcases down the stairs - well the others did, I only carried the lighter bags, bit spoilt really. Eli brought the car around and we managed to fit all the luggage in.

We had breakfast at the usual place and then walked down to the main mall to meet our guide from yesterday to have a coffee with him and see his museum. It was a lot colder today. The weather seems quite changeable here.

We had a tour of the museum from one of the staff and learnt about the history of Ulan-Ude and how it began. It was settled by various tribes and was not particularly part of Russia. Then when Chenghis Khan started attacking and stealing, the Russian Emperor offered his protection to the area of Ulan-Ude in exchange for the area becoming part of Russia. It grew bigger due to being part of the trading route.

We then had coffee with our guide (Eli wants me to add that he was the Director of the museum - I think it made him feel important 😂) and he gave us some information about what we can do around Lake Baikal with a bit of a map. He was very friendly and even offered to show us some other things when we were back in Ulan-Ude. It is nice to have a few people to call on if we need help or get stuck!

Then we hit the road. We were hoping to find a petrol station on the way out but we left town and still hadn’t come across one on the way. The petrol was low, so much to Eli’s annoyance we had to go back into town and fill up as we weren’t sure how far the next one would be. We went on our way again but Eli was wondering if the petrol gauge didn’t work properly as it was sitting on low again! Then the light came on! He thought the guy at the petrol station had filled the car up - so perhaps the gauge wasn’t working. We decided to keep on and stop at the next station we came across. Turned out they hadn’t filled it up properly at the last place - something must have got lost in translation! He’d only put a couple of litres in! So we had it filled up properly next time. Lucky we hadn’t assumed the gauge was just out and kept going!

The scenery was quite pretty, driving over the mountains and through what looked like white birch forests. There was still quite a bit of snow in the ground which gave quite a magical effect.

It took a few hours to get to the lake. It was completely frozen over and covered with snow drifts in areas. We could see people doing ice fishing as we drove by. This was something we wouldn’t mind having a go at if possible.

We were staying at a guest house for a couple of days - it was a nice wooden house, neat and clean. It looked relatively new. The owner / manager didn’t speak much English but with a bit of Kyria’s russian and google translate we managed to organise some dinner and breakfast for the next morning.

We mooched around a bit - I gave in to Heidi’s pleas and took her outside for half and hour to play in the sand pit and swing. It was so cold!!

Before dinner we went for a brief walk down the street - looks like there is a couple of information centres we can check out tomorrow with various activities. We grabbed some snacks from the small mini mart before heading back for dinner which was a filling meal of local fish (served whole - i much prefer my fish filleted so I don’t have to look at the head!) with potato, bread, salad and some sort of sweet biscuit thing.

We shall see what tomorrow brings!Read more