It was around 2000ks and took about a week. We were driving through desert almost the whole time. We passed road works pretty much every day but a lot of the time in the north we were driving on a brand new road. [Dad: Wonderful!] The old road was pretty bad but we have had a lot worse.
We got stopped by police a lot…most of them then waved us on once they found out we spoke English. Me and dad think a hitchhiker we picked up asked to come to London with us! He didn’t speak English but he had a crappy translator on his phone. He showed it to me and it read ‘I came Englishman’ [Dad: ...I said to Will I think he wants to come with us and become an Englishman! We didn’t really encourage that line of thought and he eventually got out…]
We camped one night in sand dunes, just off the road. We cooked on a fire for the first time (since Australia) because the pump on our stove has broken. That should be the last time we need to camp. [Dad: this camp was memorable - a cheery fire makes such a difference and we also spoke to Ros.]
[Dad: what Will has not mentioned is the environmental disaster of the Aral Sea. Very briefly, what was a large inland sea was devastated some decades ago by Soviet planners when the rivers replenishing it were diverted for irrigating a then new crop - cotton. The Aral Sea retreated for many tens of km and has never recovered. In Aralsk we viewed small ships in the previous Port, now high and dry on blocks, with the sea water long gone. Sixty km away, in desolate and wind blown Zhalangash, ‘a crappy shithouse town in the middle of nowhere’, (Will’s accurate description) we saw water of the slowly replenishing Little Aral (small northern area), way off in the distance. A few km from the town rusting hulks could also be seen where there was once sea, but is now sandy desert. In this same town camels roamed freely - an extraordinary sight for amazed eyes!]
Next stop Russia…
[Photos: two boys on donkeys cart firewood; Will and Kazakh camp fire; camels roam in main street, Zalangash, near Aralsk]
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