My Birthday! Wow what a day, a fantastic day! First thanks to all that have sent messages, i have read them all and will not be able to reply individually because time on the internet here is not real easy to find...

Anyway i have been riding with the 3 other aussies from melbourne and we left Vladivostok on 29th may in the afternoon. While riding through town on my way to the bank to get cash for the trip i was in the rain and heavy traffic and my bike stopped, electrical drama! Pulled over to the side of the road, problem. Pushed it across 4 lanes of traffic bringing things to a standstill to a governement building and began swearing! I started pulling things apart like boxes, fuel tank and spread myself out on the footpath. a man named sergei appeared from nowhere with coffey and bread which helped and then he produced a test light. Checked over everything and after could not find problem. reasembled and it started. Beauty! Said goodbye to the guys at Silverwind and a sad farewell to all the crew we got to know in Vlad, especially Alexey and Krisy. You guys are the most fantastic people in the world and I miss you too! Thinking of you much of the time as i ride along! Oh forgot, while packing my bike the day before this was cleaning out the oil that had spilled through my pannier in the container on the way over and the only dry place nearby was also the rubbish collection area. Sure enough while i was away getting food the rubbish truck came and took my water container and it ended up in water bottle heaven i guess. Another drama!

Got going and made pretty good progress towards Khabravosk. The day before arriving there i discovered that my camera was broken, Drama! It took 2 days to get there and we camped amongst the mosquitoes and fell off the bike 3 times in mud bogs looking for somewhere dry to put tents! Fun, not drama!

Stopped just outside Khabravosk on the hwy to check maps for directions and John pulled up. He is a biker also and took us all under his wing. We followed hime through town, took me to a camera shop where i got a new one with his 5% membership discount, and then he took us on a tour through town. I guess there are not many foreigners cruising through this part of the world because there were many occasions where there were more than 100 people starting gobsmacked at us at any one time, actaully this is a pretty common occurance! Another couple of days and we began hitting s***ty roads. Met 2 italians on bikes heading opposite direction to us and they told us about Blag bikers club. That night i changed to my knobby tyres at our camp by a river which was a fun job.

We got about 30 km outside Blagovashensk on 2nd june and were waved down by 3 motorcycles and one hotted up street car. Blag bikers, a fatastic bunch of guys. they escorted us into the club house stopping traffic for us and everything! I never had to stop at roundabouts, intersections or anywhere else on the way in for that matter. we were taken straight into the the clubhouse and parked on the dancefloor of the club! Taken to a hotel for a shower - first one in a week - and then out to dinner. Ended up with a big night which finsihed at a Banya. If you have seen the long way round then remember the episode where the men get beaten in a sauna type bathouse by semi naked men with wads of leaves and branches, yep, thats a banya and it was fantastic! Thanks to all at Blag Bikers you guys could not have done more to help us out and my birthday was one that i will never forget!