Tom- Its been a hectic week. We were supposed to leave on Sunday but we are waiting by the post box for our Iranian Visas. The delay has however helped us get more organised this end. Hopefully our passports and visas will arrive tomorrow but if we are much more delayed we are going to have rather hideous dash across Europe to be at the Iranian border on time. Not what we had planned in a 60 year old car!

Justine is still knee deep in paperwork and tackling the lists seems to be like running in quicksand. She says she is getting there.

The delay has enabled us to test out our cooking facilities which alarmingly runs on unleaded. We managed tea without the loss of eyebrows.

Justine does not know this but I have also had time to fix a wheel stud that alarmingly came off as I was tightening the wheel nut. Luckily this has happened before so I know what to do.

I have also just come back from my final weigh-in at the local gravel yard. 2140kg full of fuel (not the jerry cans) but empty of Justine’s clothes and the four of us. The “Poid maximum en charge autorise” according to the plate on the side is 2354kg so that gives us 214 for us and Justine’s bag. Weight is one of our issues at the moment and for this reason I have had to ditch this nice HI-Lift jack. Sorry Evelyn, I know you said its a must have but lets hope Central Asia is less boggy than Africa.