Travel /
Driving to Russia via Poland Info on Ukraine Border [30]
Well done the trip,
First let me say thanks to all that posted on this site, in a way I would not have had the confidence to do the trip otherwise. Just want to say My wife and I made the trip. Used my BMW 523i with ultra low profile tyres (18 inch Alloys). I bought AA breakdown cover for £86 to cover upto Ukraine for 2.5 weeks. My phone has windows mobile with TomTom 7.910 and Western and Central Europe 8.20 (I think).
Sat:
Left my house to go to Dover at 3.30 am. Got to dover at 4.45 for 6am ferry (way too early as I just hung around). about 9am arrived in Dunkirke (local Time). The drive through France, Belgium, NL and Germany was mainly uneventful, the only thing of interest is the price of petrol: france being euro 1.30 ish, Germany and NL being the most expensive E1.40. I don't know if this is because it is the Motorway Prices and it is cheaper elsewhere or not. The motorways were completely clear and struggled to keep inside the speed limit (120KPH), did manage to hit the 170 Kph, but mostly cruised at 140 kph as I did not want the car to give problems at this early stage, the German Autobahns were brilliant (but a bit bouncy). As TempDrNick pointed out the border is abondoned (pretty Much).
The Motowrway was not finished on the Polish side. The speed limits were very slow. Couple of Police radar traps along this slow bit, so take care. Drivers coming the opposite way will flash their lights to warn of police ahead. Please warn the opposite side after you pass the police. The roads are generally in good condition, it is like our country roads with half a extra lane on either side. The idea I think is that if some one is overtaking it leaves a complete lane in the middle free, if both sides use the half lane. Watch out for pedestrians, broken down cars and dead animals in this half lane though, for some reason especially in the pitch dark night.Put in petrol (Unleaded 95) about a £1 per litre, and the engine has a slight judder (really irritating as there had been no problems so far. For some bizzare reason there is a hell of a lot of 'nighclubs' at the start of Poland/Germany these are all brothels (I assume). Stopped at a hotel, family run clean, cost Euro 30 and euro 10 for dinner. Total milage about 680 miles, 35.8 Mpg and 55.8 Mph in 14 Hours.
Sunday:
Woke up at 8 am left (after breakfast) about 9.30 am. Lot's of Police and lots of flashing :). The finished motorway was a pleasure to drive on, really smooth and pretty much put cruise control and let it roll. The toll booth charge 11Z make sure that you have Zolety or the exchange rate for euro and dollars are Crap. There are 3 toll booths. The speed limit is 120 KpH hadn't seen any police enforcing limit. At the end of motorway my sat nav got lost as all of this was new, near Lodz. Headed toward Warsaw. Usually the closer you get to a capital city the better the road. Not so in Warsaw. Road a little bit rough.Turned off the main road before getting into Warsaw towards Chelm. There was a police diversion at the main lights and had to drive around till Nav picked up new route Wasted around 45 mins. Decided to stop for night in Ukraine side so pressed ahead. The border sign suddenly stop outside of chelm. Got a little lost but my wife asked direction in russian. There were only 4 cars in front at the polish border. The polish customs decided to really check the car out. They took the Vin number of the car from all different locations (including from the console display panel ???) and checked and rechecked everything, I pretty much felt like I had stolen the car. Got through after 1 Hour.
Ukraine:
Border guard took $30 fine for no insurance (ripp off), should not have paid, but did not want the hassle of having to take everything out of the car and back in and get delayed for too long, if ever I go back will not pay. Basically ask them for the tel number for the Border complaints, that should immediately cut the thoughts of any bribe. The insurance 'hut' is a short distance away and the insurance for 15 days cost about $30. We drove in the night to Rivne to Hotel Mir.I would not recommend driving in the night as in Poland there are people, bycles and animals on the road, your visibility is maybe 4m and you are driving at 50 MPH not for the faint hearted especially overtaking slow moving vechiles pretty much blindly. When you get into Rivne you have to turn left at the lights (there is a shopping mall on the right) and the road ahead goes up hill. The Hotel was luxurious and cheap $75 for a double. The view from the top floors are quite nice. We got there at 11pm (don't have the figures for the day so will continue tomorrow). Feel free to add comments.......
