End of the road for now. More in 2015.

I was recently admonished for not telling our reader that the previous post, re the arrival in Almaty on 17 July 2014, represented the end of the 2014 section of the trip. She had been hanging out for the next exciting episode, but there was only clear air.

Well we are very sorry folks. This was a serious breach of our communications Standard Operating Procedures and Style Guide. Since 17 July we have not driven a single kilometre. The cars are on blocks in an Almaty shed. We are Down Under, enjoying an Aussie summer and planning the next leg of the trip.

I can now reveal that the engines will be cranked over in May 2015, and it all starts again, along the Silk Road through Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara, then south to Turkmenistan, west to the Caspian Sea, across to Baku, Azerbaijan, then Georgia and Armenia and up through Russia to St Petersburg and on to Finland, by late August.

So relax, enjoy the festive season, and we'll be back in May.