Every year Jeep Club Latvia tries to organize shorter weekend breaks and longer holiday expeditions. A year has already passed since the 14 day expedition of Jeep Club Latvia enthusiasts to Murmansk in the "Polar day '09" event, so this it was time to explore Kaliningrad. Jeep Club Latvia was represented by 3 Grand Cherokees driven by a few of the most devoted Jeep fans of Latvia, who have been testing the capabilities of their Jeeps already a number of times: Submarine, Dinamo33, and Judge and Jeeper. The "Koenig Expedition" to Kaliningrad was organized in cooperation with "4x4 travelclub".
All teams were invited at the meeting point in Bauska in the early morning of May 20th, and at 07:00 we were launched into our adventure. Our planned route was: Bauska - Panevezys - Kybartai - Nesterov - Tchernyakhovsk - Ozersk - Druzhba - Mamonovo - Ozerki - Kaliningrad - Primorsk - Kurshi dune - Kaunas - Riga. The total length of the route was 1200 km., including off road and high complexity stages.
In order to make the expedition more interesting, the decision was taken to use the experience of local guides, who were able to show real off road tracks, which are the dream of every Jeeper. Our guides themselves were travelling with a Jeep Wagoneer and a Jeep Cherokee. The guides helped the expedition members to reach the highest point of the Kaliningrad region: the Kalinka hill top at 230 m. above sea level. This was done by negotiating 10 rough km. over the course of 2 hours and by moving across flooded meadows and off road tracks, covered by wet clay. We all were excited to cross swamp territories for 5 km and to visit an inactive military range, which still hosts maneuvers from time to time. There were numerous crossings of small rivers, but the top of all was a scenic route along the coastline of the Baltic sea.
The accommodation was extreme, and the participants had to cope with local cultural specifics, as well as with the lack of daily comfort rituals: no breakfast coffee, no internet, or shower. Also, similar expeditions cannot be imagined without events such as idling for border crossing for 4 hours, having lunch in the amenities of a former female prison, finding a pig farm in the ruins of an old church, and unexpected meetings in the woods with local police to discover that you are in a special restricted border area which can be visited with a special permit only... During the expedition, the participants visited many places remaining from periods of WWI and WWII, still bearing their historic charm.
"Up to now there are few clubs who have the courage to organize similar runs, and therefore this is a kind of unique happening in the history of Latvian automotive clubs.", says a member of the expedition, "We recommend to explore this route, and in case of any questions about this route, write to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ! We will share our experience with pleasure."
Impressions of this expedition can be found in the photos. Enjoy.
More photos http://www.jeepclub.lv/en/news/?id=80