Back to Odesa

The journey from Khmelnytskyi to Odesa is about 550 km, which we realised is about the same as Leeds to London, return. But not on good motorways, which are few and far between here. There are a lot of single track roads, where you have to concentrate really hard on overtaking at the right time, as well as avoiding the crazy drivers who think it's ok to overtake with a centimetre to spare - even lorries! Then there are road surfaces that are buckled with the heat, where you have to concentrate on not running off the road!

Because the driving is so tiring it's important for us to have regular breaks, and so we have to wake early, usually about 06:30. We also find that it helps us, psychologically, to be in the countryside, especially by water.

Today, looking for a 'new' lake to stop by, we found ourselves at this amazing entrance to a village of a few hundred people, somewhere near Nemyriv. We thought there may have been a brick factory here, due to the brick entrance and a number of brick houses - one of them derelict and crumbling, but very grand. Even the date on the archway - 1866 - was made from raised bricks...

We also found an abundance of sunflowers, which are still in their early stages but will be glorious in a couple of weeks.

At one of our stops, at a service station, we found a little stray dog with an injured back leg. Infuriatingly, the open bag of dog food was buried under a mountain of aid. So Bob bought a pouch of dog food from the shop, which the dog wouldn't eat until it was put on the ground, rather than on a slightly raised surface - and then she devoured every morsel and let us stroke her.

At the same service station, as we were about to leave, a young man came up to us, shook our hands and thanked us, profusely, for what we are doing - in Polish! ( We drive a Polish van.) Another of those moments that mean so much.

The final stop, on the hot highway south to Odesa, was beside one of the huge fields of sunflowers that stretch for miles beside the road.

And now we are back in Odesa on a very warm, muggy night. Bob has English lessons again tomorrow. We will be taking the aid in the van to Kherson in a couple of days. We need to give some thought to how best to distribute it - a large amount of valuable, but very varied, aid.