kazakistan off road
 

hello



I will be traveling to Kazakistan in April this year by motorcycle



We have 8 full days and we want to offroad as much as possible



We already have some ideas but I would like to year forum suggestions



As much as possible we would like to make some desert crossings but we are limited to the distance from Almaty.



North of Taraz?

Desert north of Taraz?? It's steppe.

Not sure what you mean by 'limited to the distance from Almaty' - if you mean you have 8 days to leave Almaty and return then you don't really have much time to play with.

I have not done a huge amount of off-roading in Kazakhstan, but I would recommend the Mongolia approach; just map out some tracks on Google Earth and stick them in a GPS.

My favourite off-roading was in the far south-west, the region of Mangystau. The Ustyurt National Reserve has some truly spectacular scenery.

One trip I always wanted to make, but have not done yet, is to drive across the desert / steppe from Beyneu, past the northern shore of the South Aral Sea, then on to the Kokaral Dam (which I have visited - nice to see the rejuvenated North Aral Sea).

If you like risk-taking, there is also the steppe area around Sary-Shagan, the old Soviet anti-satellite missile station. On Google Earth there used to be pictures of interesting looking abandoned hardware, even some spacejunk from memory, but it's officially off-limits.

Walter Colebatch crossed the north of Kazakhstan off-road (and probably more), but I would stick to the south as it is more interesting and more scenic.

EO

Small clip from Kazakhstan..... Aktau to Beyneu.... wery dasty.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwu6rp92a2c&t=261s