Little jolly close to home...

Near Mindya

Video. A bit long because I couldn't be arsed editing it. Nothing exciting in it, just a bit of easy greenlaning type stuff.

Another night out camping...

So the weather had another opening, so we thought we would go off and have a look at other parts around the lake we visited last week. We camped in the same spot, (creatures of habit), but went further afield to see what we could find. 

Si's SJ. He had issues all day with what we think is his carb. It keeps cutting out, (as you will see in the video if you bother to get that far!)

Dropped some logs off at the campsite for the fire later that evening.

So off we went for a pootle. Found a few bits to have some fun on. Again, much of our stuff is on the fly, so we never quite know what we will find as we make our way from where we are to where we happen to end up.

Down one trail it looked like either an alien spacecraft had crashed, a meteorite had plummeted to earth, or there had been some sort of nuclear test.

Trees bent over all in one direction...

...all over the forest...

Along with the logging, it looked pretty surreal. We'd had some pretty severe storms these last few weeks, so presumably the winds had buggered up the trees.

Off again, over the brow of a hill trying to find a path through the spiky, arm scratching bushes. 

Made camp. Same place, and tents in pretty much the same place. We dragged a big log from nearby as a seat/table/footrest.

Heading up a hillside to see what was on the other side. 

Found a reservoir with some sand to play in on the other side. 

Making our way up another valley, we hat some muddy stretches with some pretty deep ruts. They don't look it in the pics, but some of these were made by tractors/Ural trucks, and would easily beach you if you slid into one. Crossing them was a pain.

Up on top of a valley. This pic was taken just after Si's SJ, (hereby known as Christine), tried to kill him. He was on a steep slope, and stopped to take a pic. He put his handbrake on, and was in the process of getting out when the car slid off its brake, and down the slope, stopping a few feet further down. A bit of poo came out, apparently. I pissed myself in the Vit behind. Started raining at this point, so made our way back down before the bottom of the valley got swamped.

Nice panoramic view.

Camping on Lovkotzi Lake

So the weather cheered up enough that we decided to go on a jolly jape over a local ridge we hadn't 'explored' previously. Looking on Google maps, it looked like there were 'trails' but we had no idea if they were still there, or what condition the trails were in.

We started off from Kapinovo, and pretty much aimed at the ridge 'as the crow flies'. 

So, up the trail heads. A little slippy due to recent rain, but nothing major. The trails seem quite free of the huge ruts left by the Ural logging trucks.

Up a steel rocky incline. It doesn't look steep, but the road we are already was steep, and this went up further...

Took me a couple of goes to get up. The rocks whipping about under the tyres didn't help. Simon had 'extra' trouble with his new suspension, as it is so stiff. He seems to have lost much of his articulation. A quick tab break and he got up easily on his second attempt.

Onwards and upwards.

Getting to the ridge took a while, but we got there. The other side of the ridge was much more open, and far less 'mud' underfoot. It was more like compacted sand. 

great view from the top. The lake we are heading to is in the distance. The panoramic is a pretty good shot with Si's phone. Click on it for a larger view. 

Si's radio acting up. Nothing a quick battery disconnect didn't fix.

Recent storms left a fair amount of trees down throughout the trip. You either drive round, move them, or take another route.

Little play on the other side of the hill.

Over by the lake we looked for a camping spot. 

Found one just meters from the lake. (Like the other panorama, you should be able to click it to see the full size image)

Now just titting about...

Found a bunch of fossils along the lakeside in the rock.

View from the other side of a little wood we squeezed through

Spot the Vitara

Sasquatch spotted!

The mysterious white car with racing striped in the middle of nowhere, without a soul to be seen. Odd.

And a video of some of it, (warning, 35 minutes long!)