It's Day 31, the expedition is halfway through Russia, and with the traffic getting worse the further west they go, the crews opt for a back road. But Russian back roads are always a struggle, and the million dollar Spyker ends up in a ditch. It's pulled out unscathed but at day's end there's been 12 hours on the road averaging just 9 kilometres an hour. At the end of a day like this, it's hardly surprising that everyone's left feeling edgy about the way Lang handles things. But Lang's unrepentant. For him, a day like this is what it's all about. There's rain. Lots of it and it's very cold. Stijnus's support crew, Rob Spyker is worried about hypothermia, but they can't stop. It's 450 kilometres to Moscow and there's a big reception at the Australian Ambassador's residence to attend in just two days' time. Stijnus keeps driving, but Rob eventually abandons him for the warmth of a backup vehicle - and no one really blames him - except Stijnus! At the Australian Ambassador's reception one of the guests is a cartoonist from Pravda, one of the world's most famous newspapers. He invites Warren to draw a cartoon for the paper. An interesting scenario - the cartoonist from Australia's largest capitalist newspaper drawing for one of the world's oldest communist newspapers. Moscow marks the first farewell from the expedition: Keith Brodie's wife, Louise has to head back to Australia so his mate, Peter Brown is flown in as co-driver. After Moscow it's on to St Petersburg. On the original expedition, Prince Borghese was 14 days ahead of his nearest rival, and so cocky was he that he took time out to go to a ball at a palace in St Petersburg, dance with some pretty women and still got to Paris first. This expedition is doing the same thing - entirely in the interests of historic authenticity! After heading north and west for more than six weeks it's time to head south. Paris seems almost within reach but just when everyone starts to think they're hitting the easy par