Yesterday was a good day in Kungar at the Ice Cave. Michail and Tina were excellent guides. Tina was an individual tourist guide who was employed by Michail because of her English. We were collected from the hotel and it was explained how the day would progress. We were given a tour of Kungar, being shown the river from good vantage points and also the local church where 3 weddings seemed to be taking place simultaneously and although everyone was dressed up, they still appeared to have been civil weddings. We then went into the cave and were guided by Olga who was very short and would never have hit her head. It was brilliant to see but Jenolen caves have many more stalagmites – our caves are certainly a hard act to follow.

After coming out of the cave, we saw the fairy tale part of the forest with all the little forest folk easy to find. And then it was off to lunch, our 1st full Russian meal of the trip and to help us recover from the coldness of the cave (even though the effects had made us 3 years younger), we chucked down a vodka with thanks to Michail who abstained because he was driving.

We then returned to the hotel before 5. Excellent day and glad we did it.

Got out of Perm via a taxi to the rail station and eventually found out where platform 4 was located – signage is not to good here and some people do not seem willing to help even though they are on the information desk.

Pines and birch trees by the lots of, some are just starting to take up the autumn colors – could be interesting in the next week or so. Sun outside is very bright.

We arrived in Yekaterinburg and contacted the hotel to arrange a taxi for us as we now know this is the cheapest method for using Russian taxis. Arrived in the room and then went off for a walk and hopefully find dinner. This has been noted in Boris’ comments on the day.