Monday 31st July - Alat campout
There's not too much to report today, sitting around at a ferry port is about as riveting as it sounds. We checked out of our accommodation after a cold interacting with the bloke at the front desk. We were still quite pissed off about him pressuring us to pay the night before. He'd even come to Natalie and Haylee's from at 9am in the morning demanding we hurry up and pay. No idea why they were so desperate for the money, we expected him to run off and pay some gambling debt
Sunday 30th July - Baku: The windy city
An incredible wind storm hit Baku overnight. It sounded like the apocalypse had struck the city and our hotel would be flat by morning. Definitely no chance of any ferries leaving today, we wouldn't have been keen getting on one in any case. We would have surely blown over to South Africa if we'd boarded. After a bit of research we discovered that there was a Catholic Church in Baku, an English Mass was scheduled at 11am. It seems that the church has a mix of English Masses a
Saturday 29th July - Ferry come, ferry go
We packed our car in the super humid weather of Baku. It was only 9:30am but we were already dripping in sweat. The plan for today was to purchase our ferry tickets and maybe even jump on the ferry that we knew was scheduled to leave today. There's a three day wait between each ferry to Kazakhstan. If we didn't get the one leaving today we'd have to wait until Tuesday. We drove down to Baku ferry port and saw a whole bunch of other teams already waiting. A woman who spoke som
Friday 28th July - Hello Baku
We woke up to a nice breakfast in the garden terrace of our hotel. James and Patrick got up quite late, both boys were completely exhausted from the drive the day before. James wasn't having the best morning, he was extremely drained and commented on how it was a miracle we got to the accomodation last night. James was seriously considering why he'd come on the trip; we all get our bad days on the rally, today was James'. He was getting quite sick and tired of the constant lo
Thursday 27th July - The long wait for Georgia
The two teams we'd convoyed with the day before decided to leave early in the morning so we said goodbye to them. No matter how hard we try to leave early it seems we always get on the road well after 9am, oh well, at least we avoid all the crazy work commuters. We ate breakfast downstairs. In looking around in seemed that Trabzon is a much more conservative Muslim city. Majority of the women, save for Natalie and Haylee, were wearing full Burqas. Today was a border crossing
Wednesday 26th July - The most beautiful view on earth & the dodgy Turkish man.
The hot air balloon ride over the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia is worth. Every. Little. Penny. You. Pay. Even if you don't have any money it would be worth busking for a year just to make sure you could get in that balloon basket. The view is incredible. No other word can quite describe it and no other view could ever compare. We were picked up from our cave hotel at 4:15am. James unfortunately didn't do the balloon ride and opted to sleep in at the hotel. Patrick, Haylee and
Tuesday 25th July - Tunnels and cave churches
We made it to our first rest day! In the words of Oliver Twist, 'who will buy this wonderful morning?!' We all had a wonderful sleep in at the cave hotel and ate breakfast in the garden. A little Turkish lady kept coming out to give us omelettes and fresh gozleme. A random turtle went trudging past us escaping from the kitchen. The manager explained that an Australian girl stayed with them a month ago and found the turtle on the street, she collected him and asked the manager
Monday 24th July - Turkey's Roman spa city
Pamukkale- Turkey's 1000 year old ancient version of Wet n Wild. The intense white glare of the cliff leaves you constantly blinded but you're also rubbing your eyes in disbelief that such a natural formation can actually exist. It's completely surreal. We're getting very skilled at packing our little Panda. Haylee's bag is thrown into the roof box and Pat, Natalie and James' bag go into the boot. With a big thump (that surely hurts Miss Panda quite a bit) the boot is shut an
Sunday 23rd July - The Anzac Legend
Haylee and Natalie were woken at 5am by the nearby mosque blasting prayers over their speakers. James and Patrick fortunately sleep like logs and didn't hear it. We had breakfast at our hotel and noticed a lot of Channel 7 trinkets around. We came to the conclusion that this is where the reporters must stay when Channel 7 films the Anzac dawn service. Numerous posters on the wall were old Australian war recruitment propaganda and there was a framed Australian war medal poster
Saturday 22nd July - Bee stings and borders
You know you're on the Mongol Rally when you read the estimate on the gps and think, '6.5hrs isn't that far, it will go by quick'. Today turned into much more than that though because of two border crossings. We had the dreaded Turkish border to look forward to which we hadn't heard good things about, we were expecting 2 hours minimum there and angry border guards. We've all come to the conclusion that Bucharesti roads are insane. At times there are no lanes on the roads and
