Where is Kiwi...

[BruceandBobbi]

Haven't seen anything from him for a while.

[Jasonmc73]

Haven't seen anything from him for a while.

Kiwi1973?

Last I read he headed back into Russia, decided not to go through Iran.

I was wondering whether he would tackle Iran, apparently not.

From his blog 25/01/2020

Our actual route has diverted from what was shown on my original plan - by this I am specifically referring to the dynamic map embedded on the '2019 Route' page, which depicted us going across Turkmenistan and Iran. As has been noted from the outset, the final route we would take out of Uzbekistan and into Europe was always the least certain section of this expedition and something I intended to work out nearer the time. Earlier on I would have deemed the route we have now taken, across Kazakhstan and Russia, the least likely alternative. The final decision reflects that we are running later than was originally envisaged and that Iran has had a fairly tense year from a security perspective. We still wish to visit Iran in future, when things settle down and when we have more time (perhaps as part of a future route starting in Europe and ending in South East Asia). My next most preferred route to Europe would have been to take a ship over the Caspian Sea, then avoid fighting along the Azerbaijan/Armenia border by venturing through Georgia. But it was too late in the season to take our desired route through now snowbound Georgia and we certainly wouldn't want to rush any of Georgia, Armenia or Turkey. Plenty has been left on the table for a future trip to this world region. I need not elaborate further here in relation to the route we actually took into Europe, as this will be covered in future posts to the blog.

[erad]

I haven't heard from him since about mid December. He had some troubles with his engine in Russia and limped into Finland where he was tying to get his engine fixed up. He said he would eventually get round to writing it all up in his blogs. At one stage he did mention possibly going back through Iran, but I imagine with Mr Frump carrying on the way he is at present, that may not be a good idea.

[NJV6]

I asked him recently how it was going, he lost a water hose and overheated the Paj but sounds like all is well. the three kids in the back are still getting on fine and apart from the overheated the paj has been flawless - they were up to 30,000km.

[BruceandBobbi]

Thank you all.

Haven't followed his blog only what he posted here.

[benckj]

I've been following his blog as well. Seems Aaron is heading North as cannot go South through Iran and has missed the window for crossing the Capsican Sea. Apart from some minor mechanical issues his biggest worry was getting diesel in route. He calculated his point of no return in the journey and hasn't been heard from since. Wifi coverage is sketchy at the best so not surprised at lack of comms. I'd simply go with the philosophy of 'no news is good news'.

latest video...

https://www.5gooverland.com/post/searching-for-sand-castles-ancient-desert-fortresses-of-uzbekistan

[erad]

Aaron contacted me asking for some advice. As NJV6 said, he blew a heater hose and partially cooked the engine. This was in Russia and he had 3 days to get out of the country on his visa or there would be heaps of trouble. He managed to limp into Finland and some garage there stripped his engine and proposed a repair which was a little dodgy. Aaron asked my advice on the repair. I replied saying that it was probably the best of a bad choice available to him. At one stage, he was looking at buying a new head. That was towards the end of December and I haven't heard from him since.

He was very unlucky, yet at the same time he was incredibly lucky because this could have happened anywhere along the road, and at least he is out of the bureaucratic bovine excreta countries that he had traversed. That guy is as gutsy as hell. Yes - he planned the trip to the nth degree and he managed to pull it off with a lot of finesse. His blogs are incredibly interesting and the education he and his wife are giving their kids - you couldn't do better if you tried. Yes - I am very very jealous of him, but there is no way I would contemplate such a trip myself. All this is coming from a guy who has ridden a bicycle in North Western Thailand (while only being able to speak about 30 words of Thai) and Central Java (where my Bahasa Indonesia was almost useless because they only spoke Javanese to me). And no - I will not even think about going where they went...