Day 47: Team XPD covers 736 km from Kurgan to Ufa, enters Europe leaving behind Asia

The team left the hotel at 8.15 am after having met some lovely people at breakfast and had a friendly chat up with locals and got a feel of daily life, especially in a lesser-known town like Kurgan.

The team drove into the centre of the city to the 0Km point of Kurgan, crossed another statue of Lenin, and an opera house.

Meenakshi said that she never thought that a small town like Kurgan to have an opera house.

The team then took the E30 which is also the M5 (Ural Highway) and drove through the Ural Mountains.

The Urals rose like a long and narrow spine across Western Russia, forming a natural divide between Europe and Asia.

“Suresh Joseph had told me about a Marker on the M5 where you leave Asia behind and cross into Russia. He had mentioned that it’s easy to miss, as the highway is a very busy one and to look carefully. Research on the web didn’t come up with anything but an approximate location between 2 towns Miass and Zlatoust. Both these towns are not on the M5, and therefore we all kept our eyes open to spot this marker. Luckily, we were able to spot it quite easily." noted Meenakshi.

It was a big moment for Meenakshi and Team XPD as they are literally beyond Asia now and has crossed over in Europe.

The team clicked a bunch of photos in spite of the chilly winds blowing. Meenakshi proudly said that Dhanno had made it to Europe the second time, this time with Sheru in tow. It was an Epic moment.

The M5 is a very busy highway. As the team drove, they passed so much traffic. The team had the highest traffic on this entire trip. Moving past the vehicles and overtaking was almost impossible.

The Russian route M5 is a major trunk road running across a distance of 1879 km from Moscow to the Ural Mountains.

The team was still able to do 70 - 80 Km and reach Ufa by 8.45 pm. They checked in a nice hotel and stepped out to have dinner at a restaurant named "Ugli" which served Russian food.

The team is nearing St Petersburg to complete this Expedition.