There's a an old asphalt road going NE from Chelkar on to the main highway, in broken up condition of course but pretty good by standards of old Kazakh roads. M32 around there is totally undriveable, didn't see a single vehicle trying to drive on it, but the sand tracks running by the side that everyone uses are pretty good. They got roadworks starting so maybe in a year or two Almata-Aktobe will be good tarmac all the way.
My road atlas showed a track running direct from Chelkar to Aralsk; later on I was having a conversation with someone who wanted to go that way and they'd been told there deffinately wasn't a usable route that way. However the railway goes that way so I reckon it'd be an easy ride as long as you don't mind the sand.
With a GPS I don't see why it wouldn't have been possible to drive direct from Bozoi to Aralsk hugging the coast of the aral sea. It's not step in that area, it's really sandy desert with hollows and dunes, and lots of dry bushes and tumbleweed etc. But I managed to drive on it a couple of times when sand tracks finished at farms and I carried on off-piste.
Just over two days. Lyosha would probably just about remember me as I was there with Eva and the french guys in citreons.
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