Siberian Bridge Crossings (90 with trailer)

Couple of video's posted on our Facebook page recently, thought you may like to see:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152590199318306&set=vb.161256027233509&type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152590395463306&set=vb.161256027233509&type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152591800478306&set=vb.161256027233509&type=3&theater

these should hopefully work, otherwise see the link to FB in our sig.

These are on the old BAM railway service road northeast of Lake Baikal in far northeastern Siberia. We drove 1000km offroad for 5 days to reach the Vitim Bridge (google it!) and then returned the same way as we were unsure about the river/railbridge crossings ahead.

In Severobaikalsk now, going to drive to Ust Kut tomorrow and get a barge up the Lena River to Lensk. Hopefully we can reach Yakutsk and Magadan but there has been a lot of flooding and the federal road has been wiped out in places.

The old summer road (road of bones) is impassable this year due to the flood waters

G

Cool!

I have been following you guys on facebook.. Nice adventure. How long is your trip taking and how is the Landy coping..?

JonnyP said:

I have been following you guys on facebook.. Nice adventure. How long is your trip taking and how is the Landy coping..?

Click to expand...

We are in month 7 of 8 now. But we ship the Landy to Aus and if the money does not run out we will continue the adventure!

Landy is good.

Up to Kazakhstan all was fine but the roads then got really bad from there on. The trailer started 1st by shearing the latches that hold the doors (I went too lightweight on those doh) then everything inside our boxes started to explode (all food related: suger, flour, canned fish etc) from wearing through tins, jars, plastic as they all rubbed on eachother.

The biggest failure on the trailer has been the brackets that hold the awning. I think they have snapped 7 or 8 times now in 2-3 diff places at both ends. Its a PITA!

Landy has been great though. Viscous fan went early on, I think it was like it at home but I never picked up on it. So I got it welded in Russia. A Tajik border guard ripped the door handle off my side so that needs replacing, the clutch sometimes looses fluid and sticks so i top it up now and again, not been a problem so far but guess I need to replace the slave soon. both headlights have cracks from the siberian roads gutted I liked these clear lens things. and the exhaust cracked at the downpipe/manifold the other day but I got it welded again within the hour.

So apart from that I think everything has been great!

Ow and we have developed a clunk from the gearbox somewhere. I even dropped the diff to take a look and it seems fine, but there is a lot of play in there somewhere.

G

Awesome vids

Awesome vids Griff although i may of got out and walked it..

fantastic vid's

Bumped incase you missed it

Excellent

Hi guys,

Just came across you, tell me, how did it go getting visa,s , Customs carnet, etc. any problems......?

A couple of mates and I, drove a Morris commercial ambulance out to Bombay, back in 1964,and I remember we had the devils own job getting the visa situation sorted.

It was then boat & plane to Australia.

Of course, in those days, all of eastern Europe and the USSR was closed to us, but I always wanted to see Siberia.

These days, though a bit older and coming to the end of a Series2a massive rebuild, my thoughts keep straying to such an adventure.

Norm.

Hey Norm. Sorry for the late reply. Visas were not much trouble if researched well in advance. We didn't go to the problem countries that required hoop jumping for visas. Carnet was only required for Australia also so that kept things simple. Considering we crossed 23 countries with 16 international border crossings it wasn't really any trouble and I would do it again tomorow if given the chance. Just make sure you know the visa situation before you leave and have a plan of where to get them onroute incase things don't work out

G