The news from day twelve...After a monster night out in Helsinki Matt and Dave are once again up early to fiddle with the Lady Penelope's car...various bodges are considered including the use of cable ties, gaffer tape and Pot Noodles, in the end Dave opts for violence, rips the broken spring out and bends the valve in half to stop it falling down the cylinder bore...the girls are off and running again - albeit on 3 cyclinders!
From Helsinki the teams head for the Russian border near Vyborg from where they will head for St. Petersburg. This would prove to be a turning point in the trip...perhaps we should have taken the hints from the Finnish who merely shook their heads when we said that is where we were headed...4 hours later we would find out why...
The border crossing seemed straightforward enough...until you tried to cross it. First the Police checks, then Passport Control, then Customs...and none of it in a hurry - you play by their rules or you don't play at all - you got the distinct impression that these guys were not to be pissed about with... After literally hours of waiting it transpires that the Delorean, Dukes of Hazzard and Starsky & Hutch are refused entry...they do not have their car registration documents with them and without this they can't get insurance for Russia and are turned away. The rest of the teams eventually get through and everyone agrees to meet up in Estonia in 2 days time. Hoo and Jane in the Delorean head back to Helsinki but the Duke Boys and Starsky & Hutch refuse to admit defeat and contemplate running the border - until a wise local informs them of what will happen to them if they do..Siberia was not on the route...
Still undeterred they check in to a hotel in a nearby Finnish town and next morning would set about finding some "insurance" documents. Meanwhile the other teams braved the rain in St. Petersburg...
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