Novosibirsk

Day 112  Friday 22^nd July 2011 

 

The morning air was crisp as we got up at 4am. We had only around 4 hours sleep and eaten not very much and so we felt a little off balance. I looked at myself in the bike mirrors and saw a dishevelled, unshaven tramp like person staring back – no wonder we kept getting a no at the hotels.  Our plan today was to ride the short distance to Novosibirsk and find a hotel to get ourselves back on track – a quick look at the odometer told us that we had travelled over 600 miles the previous day.

As we approached Novosibirsk I found that the Garmin sat nav software was picking up hotels and after false starts the hotels Barracuda  (no room at the inn) and Metropolitan (didn’t like the look of it) we settled on the Hotel Severnaya which, after much translation problems, sorted us out with a room for which we are eternally grateful.

We showered and slept a bit then went out for a walk to the nearby shop for some fruit. Back at the hotel I caught the eye of the hairdresser and got her to give me a haircut and then we were collared by the security man said that we had to move our bikes because of hooligan problems at night. This was sorted by riding the bikes up the hotel steps and into the reception where we parked very securely !

We went back out to the local supermarket and bought ourselves a veritable assortment of goodies and went back and had a picnic in our room before sleeping for a good twelve hours solid – happy days again.