#2: [07-Jun-22]

29-Apr-2018 -- After a row of raining days, the weather finally got slightly better and we decided to visit a nearby confluence point in the Beskaragai district of East Kazakhstan. The CP promised to be a nice place, as it lies in the territory of the Semipalatinsk relic ribbon forest of pines growing on sands.

We left the home town (Ust'-Kamenogorsk) at approximately 11 a.m. and set out west, towards Semipalatinsk (now Semey). The road to Semey was nothing special in itself - straight, good quality, low traffic. We ran through Semey and joined M38 highway leading to Pavlodar city.

About 20 km before Big Vladimirovka community there was some construction activity on the road, so the workers arranged a dirt bypass road through pine trees. Because of recent rain events, the road was pretty muddy and slippy, so after these 20 km of dirt track racing the car lost its original goldish color but started looking more natural.

Finally, we reached Semenovka village where we turned left and joined a sandy track going south-west. After 4.5 km, at 50°59.824'N 79°1.999'E we had to stop as there was water on the road ahead. It is still spring here and there is meltwater everywhere, even though most of it has already gone. The fact that the soil in the CP region is fine sand with some clay, meltwater does not readily percolates into the ground.

So we left the car, took everything we needed for the walk and started towards the CP.

We walked across a wetland (flooded meadow), over large humps of tussock, trying to find a relatively dry way and passing around large pools of meltwater. After a 2.5 km of a maze-like walk, we managed to get to CP as close as possible without entering a knee-deep lakelet. I caught zeroes only for E, but for N it was only 51°0.020'. Given the accuracy of 3 m, I was within some 40 m of the CP which was a good result.

The local time at the confluence point was 5:07 p.m., ambient temperature - about 12°C.

After collecting proofs, we started our way back to the car. At circa 9 p.m. we reached Semey where stopped for dinner and then continued towards Ust'-Kamenogorsk. We finished the trip at 12:15 am.

Thank you for reading this!