North Eastern Europe

10^th July 2014 Entered a rainy Poland yesterday, slept at a truck stop and headed for Bialowieza, close to the Belarus border, the last fragment of primeval growth forest left in Europe once owned by the Russian Tsar . It was used for hunting purposes and some of his remaining buildings are still intact.

We will have to make a beeline for Russia now due to time and insurance purposes (The Green Card Insurance runs out on the 14^th).

11^th July 2014 Entered a rainy Lithuania driving through mostly flat farm lands until stopping for the night at the Maria Angelu camping area right next to a hill of crosses well known in Lithuania as a symbol of freedom against communism.

Lithuanians have been waving to us and giving us the thumbs up all along the way and everyone seems to know that New South Wales (on our plates) is in Australia, or maybe it’s the kangaroo transfers on our car.

12^th July 2014 Lovely old town of Riga known as the Paris of Northern Europe. Lane side restaurants and bars with many bands playing and balmy temperatures. Spent the day there just taking it all in.

13^th July 2014 On entering the capital city of Estonia, Tallinn, a roadside temperature gauge told us it was 27c. This is 11c hotter than when we entered Nairobi, surprising, bearing in mind that Tallinn is well above Scotland in latitude and Nairobi is on the equator.

A member of the Estonian chapter of the Hell’s Angels just rode past us, wearing full colours (still allowed here) making this a truly first world country, but seriously the city looks modern and Nordic with the countryside full of fir trees, just what you would expect really.

We are in an urban camping area complete with NO grass and surrounding warehouses. That’s camping! With WiFi.

Our proposed entry point into Russia has a minimum 11 hour queue , due to road works, so we will travel to another entry point further south, this should be easier.

It’s still twilight at midnight.