04-Jun-2006 -- Confluence reached 08:15 in the morning of 04 Jun 06 after an 05:00 start from Astrakhan city, where I am posted in connection with an Oil&Gas construction project. We used a Landcruiser Prado for this trip, as we expected some offroad driving.

Locating the point posted no serious problems, main challenge was choice of road as the landscape is mainly rough plain, but criss-crossed with vehicle tracks in all directions. The location was just a few meters to the north of a main track that ran east-west from the main highway Astrakhan-Volgograd, but as this road was very rough we ended up driving on the steppe on parallel to the road in the end.

We did a detour on the way back to the main highway and saw a camel, some livestock, hares, partridges and also a sniper. The area is barren, but has some attractive scenery as far as semi-arid deserts go, with sand dunes up to a couple of meters high on scattered locations.

Altitude source: SRTM 90m digital elevation data