The highlight of today was a drive into, and a look around, the city of Chita (Чита). Though our visit was not without its challenges. First amongst these was that the entry road from the east was closed, though we only worked this out after we tried it and came to a dead end. The entry from the north was open but the road was in what you might call a rough condition. In places it was simply mud and gravel and was presenting a 4x4 challenge to some of the smaller vehicles.

In one of the norther suburbs of the city we stopped at a supermarket and resupplied, relishing the selection of goods available. We probably bought too much.

Some more rough streets, some dicing with the traffic, and thanks to our map from OSM we eventually found our way into the center of town and parked right next to Lenin Square (which of course has a large statue of Lenin). From this strategic location we did a bit of looking around, found an internet cafe and generally took in the atmosphere of this modern bustling city.

From Chita the highway changes its name from M58 to the M55 (don't ask me why) and we traveled west in warm weather and bright sunshine until we found a flat patch of ground beside the highway for our nights stop.