John & Mick's BIG AdventureCrimea to Russia
Day 13 – 330 kms (4526 total)
In the morning we left Eddie and headed off and down to the Black Sea coast. 
It was a bit bleak but as it wasn’t the weekend, it was probably to be expected. We drove along to the east coast and got to the border formalities at Kerch at 14:00, bought our insurance for Russia (124Ukr thingies each ) and our ferry ticket (50 thingies each) which left us enough cash for a coffee. Next boat is at 16:15.
We boarded the rickety, old, ferry, which has capacity for about 20 cars and arrived in Russia at 17:00.
We were handed a declaration form (in Russian) which I failed to navigate, but a friendly chap in car behind translated for us.
We then did passport control, where they entered all our passport and vehicle details into computer, (hi-tech stuff). John got the tasty looking passport control wench. Mick’s was a bit doggo.
Then we had customs who chatted a lot, had a cursory glance in our panniers, ‘um’ed and ‘ahh’ed and gave us English declaration forms to fill out, (same form but in English), and then took us to another office where a girl took our passports and vehicle details and entered them on another computer.
Then, for a fee of 300 Roubles (12 $) led us into another room where another girl entered our passport and vehicle details into another computer.
Four hours later, we are out of the port, it was only about 3km along a single road, bounded on either side by sea, before we had a police checkpoint to look at our passports and vehicle details. Fortunately, they didn’t have to put them onto computer.
Imminently due to run out of fuel, we found a station and filled up for 400 Roubles each. We failed to realise the extra hour in time zones and by the time we reached the first real town, Anapa, it was past 10pm. We had made a rule at the start of the trip: No Night Riding. Here we were, riding in the dark. As we only had dark visors, we had to stop and put our clear goggles on.
We pulled up at a garage and asked about accommodation and the lad valeting the cars, jumped into the one he just finished and led us to a guest house. Another 400 Roubles later and we were ensconced in a twin room, showered and ready for bed.
Commenting is closed for this article.