As campsites go, Iranian Customs is surprisingly good.

Another day, another border. This one has actually managed to stretch itself out over two days which eclipses the previous border record of 7 hours set by Turkey-Georgia. As usual who knows when this will be posted but I'm writing it sat outside Iranian customs, which I have to say is probably one of the stranger campsites I've ever been too. I should probably explain how I got here first though from last time, and although I realise these seem to be getting longer and longer there is a lot to tell so best to either bear with me or stop now.

Last I wrote we were just leaving the Georgian capital Tbilisi headed for Armenia. After a relatively simple start to the journey on Georgia's 'M6' things started to get a bit tricky as we approached the border. On the M6 in England traffic often slows you down a bit but this is sort of put into perspective when the M6 in Georgia simply turns into a track for the last 60km. As well as slowing us down this took a toll on some of the cars. Although the mighty Perodua battled through without a scratch, Team Two and a Half Men's half a man Cal managed to put their Agila into a rut big enough to put a serious dent in their sump guard.

It did its job though and this looked like minor damage in comparison to Team Rub a Dub Dub, who drove their Micra over a huge rock and ripped the rear half of their exhaust away from the front half. This left the car still perfectly drivable but bypassed the silencer giving it a ridiculous rumble as if they'd put a huge exhaust on it. Later in the day this actually fell down completely and had to be taken off and strapped to the roof instead.

'You sure the exhaust is supposed to be there lads?'

We wouldn't let the M6 stop us though and made it to the Armenian border where whilst we did all our paperwork we were given coffee and some lunch by one of the border guards. This was a mere 3 hour border and it's a good job because by the time we got to where we planned to stop for the night it was still way after dark. We had already driven through a huge storm as we came across Northern Armenia, and through Yerevan where we later found out there was a gunfight with police leaving multiple people dead, and we had no campsite planned so were hoping to free camp somewhere. As we arrived it started to rain again and it looked like the storm was kicking in so we scrapped the camping and slept in the cars for a few hours instead. I have to say I was hoping to avoid this for the whole trip, and am even more determined to do so now as it is really not a comfortable experience.

'Some call it resourceful. We call it shit.'

In the morning we woke up at 6am and headed straight to the Khor Virap Monastery Cal wanted to go and see. It was very impressive, and made more so by Mount Ararat in the background; the highest peak in Turkey visible across the border. However, we didn't have time to stay as we had to drive all the way down to the Iranian border which we planned to cross the following morning. The drive to the border was largely uneventful but there were some spectacular roads especially as we got closer.

'Khor Virap Monastery and Mount Ararat'

Surprisingly, we actually got to the border town at a reasonable time of about 6pm and were all ready to pitch up and camp the night ready for an early start to cross the border. But after getting in contact with the person sorting our Iranian carnet (like a passport for the car) he recommended that we cross that night and then we could sort out the carnet first thing in the morning. So that is how we ended up camping in Iranian customs. We got some strange looks late last night when we pitched up tents and got the stoves out to cook ourselves some dinner, but it saved us getting up really early this morning and hopefully we get out before all the other ralliers entering Iran today as well get here!

'Pasta anyone?'