ARCTIC RUSSIA 'ENDS OF THE EARTH' EXPEDITION 20th - 30th JUNE 2009, 10 DAYS

Firmly establishing our reputation as one of the leading 4x4 based tour companies with the most wide reaching international tours available we will return once again to the Kola Peninsula in Russia's far north for another amazing expedition! Arctic Russia is like no other place on earth. At this time of year the water levels are high in the rivers and bogs with snow-melt, but despite the fact that there is 24 hour sunlight you will still be driving passed ICEBERGS in the river!! Snowball fights on summer solstice anyone? !!

Expect everything on this tour. We start on muddy forest tracks where broken bridges mean that we have to make a detour INTO the sea, an hour long beach drive, out to a shipwreck, through sand dunes to half deserted villages. Then we have a 100km drive north into the forest, through mud, rivers, overflowing bogs and not a sign of civilisation in all that way. We’ll stay in an ‘unofficial’ village of a dozen wooden houses before another 80km the next day, with a huge river crossing at the end of it. Then we head into the mountains. The road will still be buried by the snow drifts which were a couple of meters thick in places, so actually up the river will be our route, until at the valleys’ narrowest point we’ll have to start digging. Further up there might actually be house-sized icebergs to drive around. Then there is an optional route known locally as the River Road that leads to an old mining village. It is exactly as its name suggests, 50km of wading….. We’ll camp at the foot of a 1000 meter cliff and if we can, the next morning we’ll drive to the top, rock-crawling over a lunar landscape. We’ll finish the tour in a nice hotel in Murmansk, the most northern city in the world. Sounds too much to believe? Just look at the Past Tours galleries for the expeditions we’ve run since 2006.

PAST TOURS GALLERIES Click here to see the photo albums of all our previous Arctic Russia tours.

EXPEDITION INFO

VEHICLE Many people wonder if their vehicles are capable enough for this tour or fear that because this is Russia and is billed as a hard tour, they will get damaged. Although this is a very rough tour with many challenging routes, vehicles do not have to be tricked-up to the hilt. Most standard 4x4s will cope fine with all of the trails, as you can see if you look through the Past Tours galleries from our previous tours. We’ve had L200s, a 130 Camper, as well as a new Nissan Navara and they all coped fine. All the driving is slow and controlled and you will have the full attention of the guides on the trip. We will give you detailed descriptions of the coming routes and if you are not happy to tackle the route we will find you an easier alternative.

VEHICLE PREPARATION AND EQUIPMENT NEEDED There is no real minimum requirements for our tours, we just recommend certain measures to make sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. Both long-distance driving and off-roading are considered hard driving conditions for your vehicle so we recommend that you give your vehicle a comprehensive service before you leave, as if your vehicle is not in tip top condition 10 days of off-roading is not going to make it any better. You should also consider what spares you’d be happy carrying as parts are certainly not readily available in this part of the world. A basic tool kit is also well recommended. Road tyres WILL NOT be sufficient for the conditions. You need A/Ts as a minimum. If you want, and if your route permits it you can drive up to the meeting point in Roveneimi, Finland, leave your road tyres there and then swap them back when you pass through here on your way back. There are lots of rocks and logs lurking in the mud, so consider some sort of steering / diff protection. You WILL need recovery points, front and rear, and AT LEAST one 20 liter jerrycan, as we sometimes will be 2 days away from a fuel station. We can carry this in the support vehicle if you'd rather not travel with fuel containers in your own car. We will supply all of your drinking water and food, including lunch and snacks, and it will all be carried in the ‘bus’ so you don't really need to stock up or reserve space for storage. For driving through Europe you will need a first aid kit, a warning triangle, and a small fire extinguisher. In the event of a large mechanical failure we will do our best to get you to a garage or can tow you to the border. This is not exactly a service, but of course we’ll try and help as much as possible however we can.

PRICES Because of the fluctuating exchange rates of this present economical situation, the prices for this tour are now given in Euros.. EUR 1399 per person. .................. Price includes… *Fully guided and supported 9 day off-road tour of Arctic Russia. *Full board!! All accommodation and 3 meals prepared for you a day, for the 9 days. *Full-time escort, guide and translator all the way from the meeting point in Finland and all through the tour. *All your paperwork, worth £70 (visa invitation, visa application, visa registration). *All the help you need getting through borders, police check-points and booking into hotels on route. *We'll arrange your Russian car insurance for you, for no extra cost, although you'll pay for it. *All the taxes, charges and permits for travelling through military and controlled zones. *All the pre-trip advice you need. *Free greenlaning weekend in Wales.

What is not included: Your fuel, your travel costs to Russia, travel and vehicle insurance, and your food and accommodation on the way to and from the tour.

MORE DETAILS GETTING TO THE MEETING POINT The Meeting Point for the tour is the City Hotel in Roveneimi in northern Finland, right on the Arctic circle. From here we’ll take you through the border, translate and sort all of your paperwork out for you. There are several routes to Roveniemi, depending on where you are starting from. DFDS Seaways has ferries from Harwich to Esjberg in Denmark. There’s a ferry from Rostock in northern Germany to Helsinki on Silja Line. It takes 24 hours so you have a full day to relax before driving the 600 miles north to Roveniemi. From there you will be escorted to the border and our Russian guide will translate all the paperwork that you need to fill in and in terpret the daft questions that the guards might ask you.

FLY-DRIVE OPTION If you don't fancy the drive to the Arctic and back you can fly out and have a seat in the 'bus', an army troop carrier which has absolutely astounding off-road capabilities and is actually really comfotable to travel in!! What's more, the costs are the same per person as coming in your own vehicle!! For more details, please contact us.

This is not a rough wilderness camping trip, spending every night in a tent in the woods, it is a cultural as well an off-roading tour. We will be staying in a wide variety of accommodation; hotels, one luxury, one a bit of a throwback to Soviet times, log cabins on the White Sea shore, an amazing traditional Sami dome house, a large guesthouse in the forest, a health spa, and one night camping at the foot of those massive cliffs you can see in the photos. But please don’t expect to have 3* luxury every night. Basic, but cosy! Out of the first town there are no houses with drainage, electricity or running water, so you will go a couple of days without a shower, although you can have hot water in the saunas every night. We’ll have leisurely lunch stops where we’ll build a fire in the woods and will have excursions to things like a traditional native Pomor welcoming ceremony, a Mesolithic stone monument, a Stalinist labour camp, an amethyst mine, off shore shipwreck and the Russian version of the Arctic Circle visitor center… But there will one day at least where the route is from A to B, 170km off road and the time of our arrival to our dinner, sauna and beds will be determined by how fast we travel, which again depends on the condition of the tracks. Last year it took us 12 hours! Fantasic!! The off roading will be on the scale like nothing in the UK. We’ll be on the beach, in the sea, crossing rivers where the bridges have been swept away, a 100km road through the forest, through huge troughs of water where the bogs have over flowed, over rickety old bridges and then we’ll dig and winch our way across the snowbound passes in the ancient, brooding Khibiny mountains. We’ll even do the River Road, which is exactly what it’s name suggests! Your body clock will struggle to cope with the 24 daylight as the sun never sets and your sense of place and direction will be completely distorted after spending 10 hours driving through unbroken forest. If we can make it through the drifts we’ll climb to the surreal landscape at the tops of the mountains, where after a couple of hours rock crawling, we’ll come to the edge of the cliffs, where a rock thrown over the side takes 11 seconds to echo back!!