From Moscow we're heading towards Kazakhstan straight through one of the most densely inhabited parts of Russia so its a constant battle with the local traffic – there's a lots of it and they certainly don't use the same rule book as we do! Some of our Australian co-riders are getting quite upset about it! Progress is slow, there's lots of roadworks and long stops for long trains including the Trans-Siberian Express (nice memories of previous trips). En-route we stop off in the Golden Ring towns of Vladimir & Suzdal. This is where Russia began – where the Vikings settled, created fortified cites and set off to capture lands as far south as Kiev. The land of Principalities & Grand Duchies with buildings to match - UNESCO listed monuments are scattered everywhere. Vladimir was once the ... read more

Volgograd isn't all about the Battle of Stalingrad, there are some fairly spectacular feats of engineering here too. South of town is the start of the Volga-Don Ship Canal fronted by a giant, 23m, Stalinesque arch and the largest Lenin statue in the world. Its part of the Volga-Baltic Waterway that allows shipping to travel from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and hence the Atlantic Ocean or Suez Canal. We keep thinking of Gulags as being connected with the end of trip & Siberia but this canal was predominantly built by prisoners from corrective labour camps, in 1952 over 100,000 convicts worked on the project. From the Volga ships are lifted 88m through 9 locks then lowered 44m through 4 locks down to the Don. The first lock is surrounded by parkland full of ... read more

At 13:00 the ferry from Turkey carrying our Australian & Kiwi travel companions plus their 13 motorbikes comes into view over the horizon. However its seems there is only one berth in Sochi and its currently occupied by a large cruise ship so they have to carry on bobbling about on the Caspian Sea for another 5 hours before they can set foot in Russia. Having been re-united with the group we start to head north towards Moscow. First we wind our way along the Black Sea coast – its looks very Mediterranean under clear blue skies with 30+C heat. Its a bank holiday weekend so there are lots of Russians enjoying themselves at the beach which leaves the roads empty for us to enjoy. Just in case you get bored of looking at the sea ... read more

We managed to cross the length of Ukraine without having to pay a traffic “fine”. This is a record - the traffic police here have a fearsome reputation. We did get stopped 3 times (for doing 70 km/hr in a 50 zone, for filtering over a solid white line, for making an incorrectly executed left turn) but each time the police were very friendly, pointed out our mistake and sent us on our way. Due to the £300 Russian Visa burning a hole in our pockets we dashed straight through the Ukraine and didn't really give it the attention it deserves. Its beautiful countryside – tree lined roads passing through gently rolling hills covered by mile after mile after mile of wheat fields. The fields are enormous stretching away as far as the eye can see. ... read more

How cool are these pictures? We're so proud of them, they truly reflect what we saw – curtains of green and red light rippling across the sky. At times the lights were so active you just didn't know where to look, you were surrounded by them. And to see red – I've only seen green northern lights before so seeing red in there as well was really exciting. We spent 12 days in the north of Norway and Sweden and the lights turned up practically every night and sometimes lasted for hours – so much more than we expected. And to occupy ourselves during the hours of daylight we met up with our friends Di & Dave (who we met at the other end of the world in Antarctica) and did all sorts of exciting things: ... read more