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Published: August 15th 2006
Chelyabinsk city sign
Rory, happy that he's made it to Chelyabinsk. This is where he'll meet his dad, and also friends of the family. It's also a place we can chill-out in for a few days.Day 75, 14th August.
Miass - Chelyabinsk
(link to current route map) http://www.travelblog.org/gmaps/map_1Lj.html
I was up and ready to go before the others, so I set off alone to find the first roadside café and have a coffee and cake. The others turned up and we ate a big breakfast in the better café next door.
It was a 75 mile ride today, we were out of the mountains, and the landscape flattened out considerably, the wind behind us made good speed. We saw some roadside *Samovars and stopped off for a real cup of Russian tea, only to be disappointed. The samovars were only aesthetic, the tea inside was cheap and nasty!
The last 20 miles into the city were of Russian motorway standard. The city wasn’t difficult to negotiate and we found Revolution Square with no problems, it was the place with the big Lenin statue in the middle, and also the place where Viktor and Natasha, Rory’s friends, lived. By coincidence, Rory’s dad, Carrick, bumped into us on the square. Reunion time! We took our bikes up to the lovely flat and were shown up to our rooms and given the luxury of towels.
Revolution Square
The square as seen from our apartment, with the statue of Lenin in full stride as Lenin only can. I jumped into the shower and couldn’t believe the dirt that came off me, it was like washing a dirty bus off! But what do you expect after over a thousand miles of cycling without a was… yuk!
Later on, I met Natasha and her two daughters, the whole family is extremely nice. Carrick had bought me a package from Kathryn with loads of letters and ten rolls of slide film inside. I couldn’t wait to start reading the letters but I’d have to wait till tomorrow morning. For now it was food and drink time, plenty of drink, too much in fact - vodka!
*Samovar - an ornamental tea-urn from the east. It’s 3 feet high and is used to brew and to serve speciality teas, although the ones we found just contained hot, brown, water!
Total Miles: 4370.46 Todays Miles: 72.03 Average speed: 13.5 Time on bike: 5:20
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Tot: 0.327s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 22; qc: 111; dbt: 0.1029s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
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china_by_bike
non-member comment
Hello again
I did your trip on google earth. Every story. Every Point. I can't wait to do my trip in china in september. I am really impressed about your trip. more than 100 mile a day. wow! Lets see whats happend. Sylvia