12-Jul-2009 – Continue from 56°N 10°E

I was on my own now, as I had left Randy and Sean to get to the airport in Moscow for their flights back to London. I was going to drive the Subi back to Oxford as we had no troubles with her on the trip so far.

As was driving out of Moscow on the M9 towards Latvia as I did not have a visa for Belorus' and this was going to be the best way for me to get back to the UK, I looked at the GPS on the dash and noticed that I was not that far from the CP N56° E37°. It was only about 50 km's North of where I was at the time, so I decided that while I was in Russia I must at least try and get to a CP, so I set the GPS for this point and the km's started to count down, I did not know what to expect as I had not researched any previous visits or looked at the area on Google Earth.

I made my way North along the Moskovskoye Maloye Kol'tso [Ring Road A107] until I reached a service station on the left hand side, which was past the closes point I had been to the CP, but I could not see a road the direction of the CP. At the station which is about 1.7 km from the CP, I turned left onto Pyatnitskoye Shosse (P111 road) and followed this road around into what looked like small farm holdings, the road heads North and then turns towards the West, not far long here I took an other left and headed for the CP.

I followed a cement road for about a kilometre past rural homes and people walking on the roads till I come to another settlement with what I was told used to be summer houses but now most looked like they had permanent residence in them and now I was very close to the CP, it was only 250 metres when I got to the other side of this village, I turned right and could now see that the CP was in a field on a hill over looking the village that I had just driven through.

I packed the car about 80 metres from the CP near what looked like to be central rubbish collection point for the village and walked West to the CP to get the photo's so that I could log this a my first Russian Confluence Point. Very pleased with myself I headed back to the car and found an easier way back to the service station that I had past before, the road I took come out right next to the station after first passing a very interesting old wooden bridge.

Great visit, and I am glad that I looked at the GPS while I was driving out of Moscow to be able to say that I have added another country to my list of CP's. Not sure where or when my next visit will be...