off the beaten track in KZ

[Nath]

Just been playing with google maps satelite view and managed to pick out the route and villages I visited crossing from Beineu to Chulkar down near the Aral sea near to the Uzbek border, earlier this summer.

Obviously the road goes up north near to Aktobe and I wanted to take the direct route to get onto the main road near Aralsk to head towards Almata, rather than going north then south again. I did this with basically no proper information, only an old road atlas which marked a few tracks in the area which didn't actually exist, no GPS, and no knowledge of Russian or Kazakh languages. On my own. It was a real advenutre, and a test of mental toughness as much as sand riding technique.

I never actually got to sea the Aral sea, and seeing how close I ended up to it I'm now hitting myself in frustration!

Here's the map showing my route if anyone's interested. Now I can see there's a fairly sizeable looking track which goes most of the way from Beineu to Bozoi, running north of Turush, which was described to me but that I never managed to find my way on to. Had to go via Matai because it was the only place name isolated farmers seem to recognise.
3Untitled - Google Maps

Oh yeah, I met Lyosha in Beineu, and when told of what I wanted to do it was translated to me that he said without a GPS or a guide I was guaranteed to get myself killed.