Tabriz - Erzurum

Tabriz - Erzurum

E.Route : Tabriz - Erzurum : PTD 0502 : PTA -------* : P.Dist 372 m.
A.Route : Tabriz - Erzurum : ATD 0703 : ATA 1952** : A.Dist 379 m.

Depart Tabriz 0703
0824 - 0905 Shop stop
0930 - 0940 Crewchange/bogstop
0955 - 1005 Fuel stop
1131 - 1144 Fuel stop
1150 - 1323 Frontier clearance
1445 - 1455 Bogstop
1555 - 1601 ** Bogstop
1800 - 1855 Bogstop / Crewchange
Arrive Erzurum 2022

Distance 379 m : Gross T.Time 13:19 hr : Net.T.Time 10:12 hr
P.N.A.Spd. ----* : Gross A.Spd. 28.50 mph : Net.A.Spd 37.16 mph.
Stop time 3:07 hr : Speedo TD 13919 : Speedo TA 14298

Comment : (*) No arrival time or average speeds possible for journey outward over the same section, as there is no arrival time ( see sheet 10 ) noted. (**) The clock was almost certainly put forward ( or rather back ) shortly after the frontier - All times from 1555 onward are 1/2 hr. later than in the log, and therefore times throughout are Iranian.

Gordon's letters

Gordon's letter to the /Ogilvies (relatives)

Jim Lindsay's diary:

25 September

Now that there were five navigators there was measurably more leisure time and I spent a lot of time in the comfort of the rear seats. The coach was running nicely and the roads were straightforward.

We had the same comedy at the customs post as on the outward journey, but it only took 90 minutes this time. The Turkish authorities did not want to quarantine us but we did get extra stamps in our passports that presumably verified us as disease-free.

Once back in Turkey it was just like our previous journey through this militarized zone, overtaking endless slow dusty convoys of open army lorries full of conscripts, and admiring the wrecks and dead animals by the roadside. I think this was the day that Pru, preparing a meal on the move, suffered a direct hit from a tomato lobbed by a passing lorry-driver.

We remembered Erzurum without enthusiasm and there was a lobby that wanted to carry on beyond it, but they were outvoted. It would not have been any warmer up on the hillsides and it was vehicle-stoning country. So we stopped at Erzurum. It was still windswept and if anything colder. I spent the night with some others in a dusty claustrophobic little space under a stair well, miserable in itself but at least close enough to the boiler house to have some warmth.