Day 3 - June 14, Petrovsky to Yellabouga

Updates from David on Patricia's Rally progress

574 km (Special Section cancelled)

Following torrential rain on Day 2, yesterday's (Day 3) Special Section was cancelled due to a waterlogged route.

Therefore the main tasks of the day were to dry everything out, extract all vehicles from the Quagmire of the Petrovsky bivouac (with the help of locals and their tractors) and then get to last nights bivouac (574km) at Yellabouga.

News from Patricia is that she arrived safely at Yellabouga but she cut her hand when making lunch (!) and is now bandaged up - claiming she is more dangerous in the kitchen than on a bike (hmm...nice try!). She is tired, and will have lost another 2 hours sleep as the clocks moved forward again for them last night (heading East).

The most worrying news is however, that the assistance van is not healthy - the cooler needs refilling every 30kms (I don't thing this has anything to do with keeping beers cold) and the right rear suspension has gone (Russian roads taking their toll). Given there are only Kamaz trucks in Russia, getting spares for an Iveco is impossible. This could mean that the van cannot go further at some point - which would be an interesting challenge as it has all the bikes spares and Patricia's Dad/Mechanic on board. Fingers firmly crossed at this stage, that the van does not get worse.

Simon Pavey's wife, Linley is driving the van, an experienced off road motorcyclist herself, so I hope she can work out how to drive a van on two wheels as well?!

As I write this, Patricia will be well into Day 4 - a long day with a long Special Section, where navigation skills are key....

Reminders if you are glued to progress and want up to the minute news:

Motors TV is a good watch each night (21.00 GMT and 23.00 GMT) , repeated the next morning (10.00 GMT) , if you have access to it...

Online progress of each stage is allegedly going to be available on the www.transorientale.com website, although it is still not working from what I can see.