An uneventful day of long driving (324 miles) with nothing much to report. The scenery was glorious: high light-brown rounded bare hills with the occasional brown or olive green bush and the motorway continued round…

Day 126 (1st November) Findikli to Gumushane The road to Gumushane thankfully turned left at the eastern edge of Trabzon, a million-strong city where we got lost in May. The left turn was at the…

We succeeded in driving from the Russia/Georgia border through the whole of Georgia despite the Tbilisi-Batumi motorway still under construction and we had to make frequent diversions with inadequate signposting. However we got to the…

Day 124 (30th October) Groznyi to Verkhnyi Lars We stayed at the hotel until the chucking-out time of midday and then drove to the border past Vladikavkaz (where we got lost) ad reached the border…

Day 123 (29th October) Groznyi After changing some dollars into roubles at the Sberbank, we went to look at the beautiful Russian Orthodox church, and then strolled down the road to the “Groznyi Mall” where…

Day 122 (28th October) Gudermes to Groznyi After a Ukrainian drone hit the university in Gudermes, we realised why there were so many police and soldiers in the city. Actually we first noticed them the…