20.08.10

3 am wake up.  Sherri Jo looks up at the sky and says “but it’s pitch black.”  I was not impressed … If she was a man I would have replied “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” … In much harsher language … but that wouldn’t have worked in this case in any form.  Igor drove us down to the bikes.  Big Igor turned up too to send us off.

And then we hit the dirt road to Lensk.  Despite upgrading her lights from the piddly stock KTM item, SJs lights still were not worthy.  There was no other option, I slowed and rode beside her to share my HID50s.  When she fell 10 yards behind, she fell 100 yards behind.  As soon as she fell out of the big pool of light in front of my bike, she was blind and slowed from 60 km/h to 30 km/h.  There is simply no substitute for first class lighting, and bolt on additional lighting is always subject to breakage in falls.  The only acceptable solution I have found is to replace any stock lighting with top quality high power bi-xenon units.  This year I am running more powerful 50 watt ballasts and bulbs from HID50, usually reserved for modern light aircraft landing lights, in the Audi A6 projectors I used last year.  I had a plan to replace those projectors with newer, better Infinity bi-xenon projectors but time ran out on me.  But the A6 projectors are still something to behold.  I rode alongside SJ, supplying the light, until the dawn began to break around 6am.

As dawn broke, we were about halfway to Lensk … and both very cold.  It wasn’t the temperature, which was about +7C (44F) it was the humidity which was around 100%.  We were in and out of fog the whole ride.

We finally made Lensk just before 8am … our required arrival time.  A few phone calls were made and we had to report to the barge waiting area.  About 9am the dispatcher turned up, looked at the waiting trucks and said “no barge today …. Not enough trucks … we go tomorrow now.”

We made our way to Lensk’s very overpriced hotel, probably used to waiting barge traffic, paid US$100 for a twin room and went back to sleep.

In the evening, as we strolled around looking for dinner, an Uzbek lady selling fruit struck up a conversation in English with Sherri Jo.  She was keen for some practice and invited us back to her place for dinner – Uzbek plov.  Naturally, we were spoiled … chocolate, fruit, plov, and more fruit for the barge tomorrow.  We finally left after midnight.  Sherri Jo said its becoming normal that we get spoiled every day.  I thought about it … yes we had been spoiled every day in Mirny by Igor and the boys, and by Andrei the electrical handyman.  We had been spoiled in Suntar, in VerkhneVilyuisk, and in Vilyuisk.  It had been a long time since a stranger had not spoiled us.  We have been very lucky indeed to meet such good people on a daily basis.

- – -

21.08.10 – 25.08.10

And so it begins … the 4 day barge ride upriver to Ust Kut.  We rode the bikes onto the barge about 9am.

The guy in charge of loading opened up an empty shipping container and offered it for our gear and bikes.  They asked where we would sleep, and after a brief conversation in which it became clear that they had a cabin free in the barge tower but it would cost 5000 rubles each (about 125 EUR each) for the ride to Irkutsk, we declined, and said we would sleep in the container, with the bikes.

The barge pulled out of Lensk and we settled into life on board, preparing our steel box for 4 days of eating, sleeping and blogging.  Sherri Jo entertained the truck drivers who were already well on the way to being very drunk.  Within an hour or two, we were out of mobile phone range of Lensk and the wilderness of the taiga forest and the Lena River was all there was to see.

The crew hosed off the desks and we wheeled the bikes out and scored a free wash.

Around dinner time, Denis, the first mate on the barge, approached us and said the captain had taken pity on us and offered us a cabin free of charge.  Yet again we had been spoiled!  It was about the 12^th day in a row.  Must be the luck of the English!

We were taken up to the bridge and given a tour.  This was the best kept barge I had seen.  It was my fourth boat trip between Lensk and Ust Kut.  This barge was immaculate inside the living quarters and up on the bridge.

Overnight, the barge made its only stop – Peledui – and the barge filled up.  The acres of space we had previously enjoyed for bike washing was now taken up.

I had enquired about the possibility of getting let off the barge at Kirensk or even Chechuisk.  I had the idea that SJ can cruise on the boat to Ust Kut, but perhaps I can get off early and ride down and meet her, from Kirensk or slightly further downstream, but the barge only makes the one stop at Peledui.  Almost nothing stops at Kirensk any more.  At one time Kirensk was the main and only stop.  But now Kirensk is a shadow of its former self.  The boat I took twice last year still stops in Kirensk, but the barges don’t.  In fact the smaller boat seemed to be flexible enough to stop anywhere.  I think next time I am here, I will prearrange with the boat to get let on or off at Chechuisk.

The journey upriver from Lensk to Ust Kut is 1000km long … 1 million metres, at the rate of just under 3 metres per second.  We had climbed 130 metres, from 160m amsl at Lensk to 290m amsl at Ust Kut.  That’s 13cm every kilometre.

Evening on the barge:

Occasional villages along the Lena:

Morning Mist, River Lena:

Typical view … in 3 parts … the River, the Taiga forest and the blue sky … Its pretty much all we saw for 4 days:

15.08.10

The program for the day was the towns annual off road festival, which saw 4WDs and motocross bikes race around a track

While having a late afternoon lunch, Igor’s phone rang. One of his biking friends had spotted a new bike in town – a KTM 990 Adventure. I knew immediately who it was. I had been in contact with Joe Pichler for some time and had recommended he take the Vilyuisky Trakt via Mirny on his ride to Magadan this year. For those that don’t know him, Joe Pichler is KTM’s Adventure riding guru. The bulk of the promotional material for the Adventure side of KTM’s business comes from Joe and his wife Renate. For more detail see www.josef-pichler.at.

We went straight round to the hotel and sure enough parked in front of it was Joe’s Adventure. When Joe emerged from the shower we took his bike round to Igor’s office parking yard for a wash. Igor’s yard now was housing a Moto Morini, a KTM 990 Adventure R, and KTM 690 Enduro R and a BMW X-Challenge.

A day and half of ‘War Stories’ followed with Joe and I swapping fotos and tales of adventure motorcycling.

- – -

16.08.10

Igor began the afternoon toiling away for several hours on Sherri Jo’s tent. Over 2 hours of toil later in what was described by SJ as ‘surgery’, Igor had fixed a broken valve on the tent. SJ has a tent with inflatable ‘poles’ … if they don’t inflate, then the tent is not a tent. And our one and only night camping on the Old Summer Road had shown us that one of her two inflatable poles did not inflate. Igor of course just volunteered his time to fix this. He did, after all, have a business to run. He deals in home renovation supplies. Business seems to be going well. He has a very modern apartment in the centre of Mirny and a brand new 2010 model Moto Morini Corsaro 1200 – one of the most expensive bikes money can buy. But as is typically Russian, everything else gets put on hold to help a fellow motorcyclist passing through.

My bike also needed the steering head bearings examined … they felt notchy. By now a team of Mirny bikers had gathered to check out the bike show in Igor’s office yard. Joe, Igor and I were also joined by Big Igor, the towns motocross ‘dude’ and Ilya, our Africa Twin equipped main contact in Mirny. Ilya turned up with his new girlfriend, another Masha:

With half a dozen bikers around, the front end of the bike was dropped in no time and an inspection of the bearings showed they were ok. We cleaned them up a bit, added some more grease and re packed them and they felt 95% better.

- – -

17.08.10

I had arranged a day trip for SJ and I to an Evenki village a couple of hours travel away from Mirny. When Joe and Renate arrived in town I invited them to join us, and they decided to stay a couple of days in Mirny and do just that. We left early in the morning. The Evenki are one of the native peoples of Yakutia, traditionally reindeer herders, with relatively little contact with the outside world as most live in remote villages and communities not served by summer roads.

To get there the three bikes had to ride 80km north-east from Mirny to a hydro-electric plant at the town of Svetly, on the Vilyui River. From there we would travel by boat 35km downriver to the Evenki village of Syuldyukar. I had no idea what we would find there – going to Evenki villages was virgin territory for me.

The first thing that struck me about Syuldyukar was how normal it was. There was piped hot water in town, electricity, telephone lines, streetlighting and a post office. I was half expecting to see tee-pees and reindeer everywhere.

The next thing that caught our eye was an amazing home made trike. I quizzed the owner to find out more about it.

It’s used for hunting in Spring and Autumn when the ground is too boggy for anything else. In summer they can use 4WDs and in winter they use snowmobiles … but when its mud city, they fit 4 guys onto the trike and head out with their rifles for a couple of weeks of hunting.

It has a 350cc Izh 2 stroke engine, a UAZ 4WD rear axle and home made bodywork. It was incredibly cool. We loved it.

We were given a tour of the town by the local administration lady, who took us to their Evenki statue. I believe it depicts an Evenki man and woman being blessed by the goddess of the earth.

We were accompanied on our walk around the village by this handsome Siberian Husky:

As we approached the village cultural centre and museum, a group of the towns elders invited us in … blessing us beforehand:

While this community no longer herds reindeer, it was clear that their heritage was all about the reindeer. The clothes in the museum were all reindeer skin, the teepees were reindeer hide and even their modern clothing featured the reindeer emblem.

Once our museum visit was over, we were invited to sign the guestbook. They proudly boasted an Englishman had been here before. I looked up the appropriate entry in the guest book. It was only 7 entries back. The Financial Times Moscow correspondent had been here in 2002.

After lunch we headed back to the waterfront, after stopping to check out a new wooden house being built, completely from materials harvested from forests nearby.

A couple of kids were practising their tepee making techniques:

One of them clearly knew his bikes. Joe had to decline a chance to photograph him!

We headed back to Mirny for more beers and war stories.

- – -

18.08.10

We had a few final things to sort out in Mirny before we departed. Igor had been checking with contacts in Lensk to find out when the next barge left for down south. There was nothing in the next day or so, so we decided to get everything else done in Mirny. SJ had problems with her panniers falling off, so Igor remounted the clamps.

We both had problems with water and dust damaging the heated grips controllers, and this time it was a chance to call another old Mirny contact, the Andrei who had diagnosed and temporarily fixed my electrical starter problems last year.

Andrei also just donated his time, came around and pulled apart both controllers, on both bikes, found the faults, fixed them and sealed everything back up. I am in awe of this guy. He is the ultimate Mr Fixit. And he always has a huge smile on his face. One of these days I am going to do a tour and take him along as support. Probably the most useful and cheerful guy I have ever met.

We even squeezed in a radio and newspaper interview:

- – -

19.08.10

Joe and Renate left town early, headed for Suntar, Nyurba, Vilyuisk and Yakutsk, before their final destination around September 5th – Magadan. I had presented him with a Road of Bones jacket badge in advance. It was contrary to my normal rule of not releasing them ‘in advance’ but Joe is a pro. He will get the job done.

We got the call we had been waiting for … a barge was leaving Lensk for Ust Kut tomorrow morning and we needed to be there about 8am. It meant waking up at 3am and riding thru the early morning cold and darkness for 4 hours or so. But we do what we have to do. We finished up all the loose ends in Mirny, including me visiting mechanic Andrei (another contact from last year) and trying to sort a slight oil leak on my generator cover (turns out to have been a microscopic crack that we had to epoxy weld), and went to sleep early. We slept knowing every little niggly thing with the bikes that had developed on the Road of Bones and Vilyuisky Trakt had been sorted in Mirny. Loads of little jobs that require people more skilled than ourselves to sort out.

13.08.10

We left Lena’s place, having been fed breakfast, and Lena and her family followed us to the ferry across the Vilyui River.  Lena spoke to the captain and told him he won’t be charging us for the ride, if he wants to stay in her good books.  It was only then I realised she was ‘kind of a big deal around here’ – a big wig in the local city administration.

Underway on the other side and Sherri Jo was riding well.  It was like all the previous days experiences really clicked together.  Suddenly she was cruising along at 85 km/h (53 mph) on the sandy gravely roads of Yakutia.  I rode next to her for a while and she was taking the bumps, the bridges, the sand, the hazards, exactly as she was supposed to.

With SJ in the groove, we made Nyurba in less than 2 hours and stopped for lunch.  I had the chance to say hi to the café folks there who had looked after Tony and myself so well last year.  Then we pressed on – through Yakutian fields.

I had been telling SJ about this challenging half bridge across a small river for some days now.  It was a spot for great video last year, with the bikes needing to ford half a river in half metre deep water and then ride up out of the water up a steep narrow steel ramp to the bridge, which spanned the deeper part of the river.  But when we reached the bridge, it was a real anticlimax.  Water levels were very low this year.  I noted this morning on the ferry across the Vilyui River that the water seemed 3-4 metres lower than last year.  Even this tributary was a good 2 metres lower than last year.   The half bridge was accordingly a full bridge and we just rode straight over it.

By 3pm the days planned 300 km ride to Suntar was almost over.  It was a day in which we would take 4 ferries, 3 across the Vilyui and 1 across the Markha River.

It was also the day in which we rode completely in the Yakut heartland along the Vilyui River.  Most of the day villages were only 15 km (10 miles) apart.  The scenery was divine, and the people friendly and generous.

And then with just 30 km to go to Suntar, we hit wet roads.  Instantly we went from cruising at top speed to struggling along at 45-50 km/h. It was a slippery stressful end to the day.  By the time we took the ferry across the river to Suntar, SJ was the walking dead.  That stressful last 30 wet kilometres had taken a lot of energy out of both of us.

I stopped at an autoparts shop and asked around for a hotel.  For the second day running, the lady chatted to us for 3 minutes and then stepped into her van and said follow me.  We were led thru the muddy, swampy, back streets of Suntar to a big new house and were told we would be staying here tonight.  It was her house and Lida (our host) ensured we were extremely well looked after.  We had lucked out again!.  A fantastic big banya, home cooked meat and potatoes, great company, a huge widescreen TV … we keep landing in the lap of the gods somehow.

This Vilyuisky Trakt ride has been incredible from a hospitality and scenery viewpoint.  It’s been challenging riding for Sherri Jo in parts but I can see the fruits of the challenging riding paying off … every day on the bike she looks more and more comfortable and accomplished.   She is off riding around the world alone once we part ways in Irkutsk, and after this Siberian experience she will be able to tackle any dirt roads with confidence and speed.

- – -

14.08.10

We left Lida and her family around 10am for the final day on the Vilyuisky Trakt.  It was 240 km from Suntar to Mirny.  The roads were still wet but there had been no more rain overnight.  That meant they were dryer than yesterday.  Best of all, was that it hadn’t rained at all in Mirny.  That meant the roads had to get better somewhere between Suntar and Mirny.  But that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of greasy patches in the first 50 km.

By the time we reached Krestyakh, the last primarily Yakut town on our route, the roads were dry.  Krestyakh has the last of the 4 ferries across the Vilyui River, and it’s a ferry service that sometimes runs as little as once every 6 hours.  Last time I was here I felt lucky that I only waited 90 minutes for the ferry.  This time we took the ferry across the river almost immediately.  It was our lucky day.

The next highlight on the track was the crossing of the Vilyuchanka, a small tributary of the Vilyui and the scene of a few cars not making it across last year.  Again we had been lucky.   The low water levels this year, meant the crossing was a breeze.

Again Sherri Jo was flying along the roads.  It was another day when yet again her riding was better, faster, more relaxed and more comfortable than I had seen before.  I had the feeling that things had really clicked now.

I passed a GAZ71 full of hunters out on a hunting trip.

The final obstacle was the river at Muad.  I saw a Wazzik take the truck over the river, so I lined up and waited for Sherri … I rode the bikes onto the back of the truck and it began to buck and roll its way across the river.  Half way across I was kicking myself.  We could have forded that river.  We had done worse.  It was a waste of 1000 rubles.

From there it was a quick 25km ride into Mirny on fast dirt roads.  I was going to head into Mirny, get some lunch and then call my friend Ilya to tell him we had arrived.  But I didn’t have the chance.  A car pulled me over on the edge of town and said he was a friend of Ilya and we should follow him.  He took us to his business base, ordered a huge amount of shashlik, and told us to relax.  Yet again we had been taken in by people and looked after.  Igor, the guy looking after us now, had a jet washer and we cleaned off the bikes, before starting to do maintenance work.

10.08.10

We packed our bags up from the 3 day Yakutian slumber we had enjoyed in Yakutsk and hit the road after saying farewell to Artyom, Katya and Tanya.  But not before Katya had fixed up a scrambled eggs breakfast with very tasty “Sibirsky Sauce”:

Sherri Jo impressed with her riding … making good time on some rough roads, but her energy levels were low. Must have been zapped out of her with her 120 C (250F) banya last night. We stopped for lunch at the first village, Mageras and finally called it a day about 3pm at Berdygestyakh, 200km from Yakutsk. It was a short day, but we have the luxury of short days now that the sparsely populated Road of Bones is behind us.

As we checked into a hotel, Sherri Jo was surprised to learn we were the first foreigners to stay here. “Doesn’t everyone who does the Road of Bones come through here?” she asked.

I explained we were now on the Vilyuisky Trakt, a road that continues west across Yakutia rather than south to the main Trans Siberian Highway. Until 2009, parts of this road were winter roads only, and unuseable in Summer. Since 2009 less than half a dozen bikes have been down here. The Vilyuisky Trakt is not exactly a tough road, but it does have its moments, and it is the real heartland of Yakutia. From Berdygestyakh to Krestyakh about 900 km away, we were unlikely to even see many Russians. This is pure Yakut country now.

- – -

11.08.10

40 km into the day we had the moment I had been fearing since hooking up with Sherri Jo. It was a tragedy waiting to happen. I knew it would happen … the only question was when. And here in the middle of Yakutia, it happened. Sherri Jo’s fuel tank / subframe bolts broke.

It’s a major problem with the way the 690 has been designed – there is no metal subframe – the underseat fuel tank doubles as a subframe. All very well for enduro riding, but for luggage carrying adventure riding, it’s a real liability. The bolts and bushes that make up the fuel tank attachments could be considerably stronger. EVERY long trip on a 690E WILL shear the factory tank bolts. I tried to get Sherri to order some custom tougher bolts from an Australian guy (‘Mudguts’) who has developed a solution to this problem, but time was very short before she left. She just had time to get spare factory bolts. These are only a temporary fix – these too will fail.

I sat and looked at Sherri’s bike’s sagging rear end and shook my head. The biting flies were attacking us. This would be a tough miserable place to have to strip the bike down and replace the bolts I thought to myself. Then I thought …. What if I cant remove the sheared bolts? I wont be able to replace them.

I rummaged through my spare parts and tools pannier and dug out a pair of heavy duty straps. I decided we strap the subframe up. I will carry as much of the heavy luggage as possible and Sherri Jo is banned from sitting down – until we get new bolts in. This is my strap rig:

We headed off gingerly towards the next town, in search of a repair facility… with me following closely behind. After 30km of trouble free motoring, I shot off ahead to the next town, “Orto-Surt”, to try and find a repair facility, but there was none. Sherri Jo arrived and I checked the strap rig. It was holding well. “Lets press on” I said, and SJ agreed. We did another 60km, and stopped for lunch. The rig still held firm.

I got the idea that we might try and do the remaining 800km to Mirny with the strap rig, and get Andrei my mechanic friend there to fix it.

We left the lunch stop at Ilbenge and headed for Khampa, the next fuel and food stop. I had told SJ that we might as well set up camp there for the night. 80 km later on one of my regular wait to see SJ stops, I noticed SJ’s tank bag was missing. It was one of the bags I had strapped to my bike to take load of her subframe. (Her tank bag wasn’t used as a tank bag anymore as it was too big and got in the way when standing … so she had it strapped to the back of her bike … and now it was supposed to be strapped to the back of mine.

I figured it must have come off and SJ has probably stopped to pick it up. When she finally appeared, without tank bag, there was only one thing left for me to do. I told SJ to go on ahead to Khampa and wait for me in the café. I had to go back and look for the tank bag. Over 3 hours later I finally met up with SJ at Khampa. I had to go all the way back to the Ilbenge lunch stop before on my return run I spotted the tank bag down an embankment.

When I got to Khampa, the café girls recognised me from last year. SJ and I had dinner.

It was now 7:30pm. We refuelled and I began unpacking the bites in the midge infested area that is Khampa. SJ looked at me with a pained smile and said “How far is the next big town?” …
“80km” I replied …
“And it should have a hotel?” she continued
“Vilyuisk … yep it should have a hotel”
“Let’s go” she demanded.

The insects were a painful nightmare in Khampa for whatever reason, and I am always up for more riding, so I threw my tent back on the bike, and we rode off, reaching Vilyuisk about 90 minutes later. A guy on the edge of town offered to lead me to the town’s hotel and I grabbed it.

Nina was the lady who ran the hotel / restaurant / night club in Vilyuisk. She made sure we were all set for warm showers and food before we settled down for the night.

- – -

In the morning, Nina brought us breakfast.  I asked her about a mechanic in town to get Sherri Jo’s tank off.  I could probably do it myself there in the yard of Nina’s hotel, but I was more worried about the sheared bolts.  We would have to get the ends of the bolts out.  Nina made a call and said a mechanic will come to us in 30 minutes.  We did other bits and pieces on the bikes.  Adjusted tyre pressures / adjusted chain tensions / fixed mirrors etc etc.  Sherri Jo fired up her iPhone and did her facebooking.

The mechanic came and I explained the problem and what needed to be done.  I helped him take the tank off, and then the airbox out.  Once everything was out he got the bolt stubs out without too much difficulty.  We put in Sherri Jo’s spare set of bolts and she reassured me she had just PM’d Mudguts, the Aussie guy who makes the hi tensile replacement bolts for some urgent bolt replacements.

By the time the bike was back together Nina insisted we stay for lunch.  I spoke to the mechanic and asked him how much for his 2 hours of time … he said nothing … just do we have any souvenirs we could give him.  I gave him a Sibirsky Extreme sticker, and a Union Jack lapel pin badge, which distracted him long enough for SJ to slip 500 rubles into his tool kit.

It was now 1pm, and I wanted to hit the road but Nina was very sweet and we accepted her lunch invitation.  Lunch was a fantastic affair of an assortment of vegetables, all home grown in Nina’s greenhouses in her yard, of aubergines, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, dill, garlic and chilli … all baked with sour cream.  We both thought it tasted like pizza without the dough.  It was delicious.

Nina too refused payment for the night and for the meals.  We were the first foreigners to stay at her hotel.  She also explained the guy who took us here last night was the deputy mayor of Vilyuisk.  It was almost sad to go.  We had been looked after so well there.  But go we must.  It was now 4pm.

It was time for SJ to tackle the Vilyuisk Sandpit … a tricky sandy stretch of road that lasts for 10km, from just about where the hotel is on the Western edge of town.  So there was no warming up for Sherri Jo; it was sand riding time.

Fortunately for her (and perhaps for me in terms of waiting time) there had been rain last night … the sand had been compacted in stretches, but still with occasional patches of axle deep sand.  Last year most of the Vilyuisk Sandpit had been axle deep dry sand and Tony had wallowed in it for 4 hours before finally making it through!

A quick check on the edge of town showed the Sibirsky Extreme sticker from 2009 was still adorning the town sign.

I led the way through the sandpit, stopping every 500 yards or so for SJ to catch up.

It took us a good  45 minutes, but we made it.  From here on to Suntar, 400 km down the road, was the heartland of Yakutia … Yakut villages are spaced every 15-30 km.

We made it to VerkhneVilyuisk about 6pm.  It was only 75km down the road from the start and I was hoping to rack up another 140km today and get to Nyurba.  We pulled into the fuel station to top SJ up, but the pumps were off.  A long queue had formed waiting for the electricity to come back on and fire up the pumps.  I suggested we use the time to look around town.  I needed a foto  … Arnaud had told me about a plane wreck in town somewhere and I wanted to find it.

We returned an hour later and rejoined the petrol queue.  We queued for another hour before realising … with it now being 8pm, it was too late to begin a 145 km ride, especially when it involved 2 ferry crossings, which can take over an hour each themselves.  SJ suggested we find somewhere to stay in town and I agreed.  I stopped to ask a lady if there was a hotel in town.

She and her family piled out of the van and said yes … we can take you to it, but can we have some fotos first.  I obliged.  Then she jumped back in her van and told us to follow.  She led us to a huge house in town and then said … this is not a hotel, it is my house. You are my guests.  You can eat and sleep and relax.  I translated to SJ.  She was dumbfounded.  All we did was let this woman’s kids take fotos of us, and she takes us in for the night.  It was very cool!

The weekend in Yakutsk was a chance to relax, catch up on internet and blogs and kick back with some beer and wine.  Out of the blue, we scored an invite to go out and check out a festival being held just outside of Yakutsk by the Yukagir people.  These guys are an ethnic group of just 1500 people who live mostly in the lower Kolyma River region, 2000 km away.  There is a specific ethno-complex not far from Yakutsk where a lot of the different nationalities of the region hold important functions.

These groups also include the large Even and Evenki nationalities, the largest of the indigenous groups who lived here herding reindeer before the arrival of the Yakuts about 800 years ago and the Russians about 400 years ago.  The Yakuts, to many westerner’s surprise, are not the indigenous people in Yakutia.

As the ceremony was winding down, a priest of Tengri, the blue sky, showed us around the complex, and some of the traditional facilities they have there.

Sherri Jo, Daniele and I were taken out there by a Yakut couple, Ivan and Yuliya … who later invited Sherri and I back for separate dinners and banya sessions at their home.  Ivan had recently returned from Chukotka and offered me a Chukchi delicacy … frozen whale blubber.

Monday was a day for sorting out assorted motorcycle bits n pieces.  I needed a spot of welding done, and we both needed some material repairs. SJ needed a zip repaired on her tank bag.  Another Artyom, a local dirt biker, led us around town on his WR450.

While Sherri Jo was being interviewed for an article in a local woman’s magazine, I bumped into “Miss Yakutia 2007” … who tried out the X-Challenge for size:  At 5’11″ (1.80m) and legs to match, she was tall enough for it, thats for sure.

We were both given a parting gift from Tanya, one of the nicest people we met in Yakutia (and that’s really saying something) a Yakut good luck necklace.  Not only had Tanya cooked us up a bang up meal, but she had been the one to invite us to the Yukagir festival, and introduced us to Ivan and Yuliya – in effect, she was our linkpin in Yakutsk.

What I didn’t tell Sherri Jo was how far we still had to go … 320 km on dirt mountain roads.  Not only was it now raining, but it was cold.  Barely above 10C (50F) … when you are wet and cold, it’s a bad combination. 

First stop was some triumphant fotos on the other side of the Kyubeme Bridge:

We stopped at a film set my French friend Arnaud had built for French film back in early 2009.  There was some shelter from the rain so I pulled out my fleece, and Sherri her heated jacket.  That was the best we were going to get.  There was no choice now but to hit the road and get to Khandyga.

As usual, when the going was easy, I rode on ahead and left Sherri to deal with the road alone, I stopped for photos every now and again, and made sure I saw her at least every 15 km. 

There is a particularly steep section near the tiny village of Razvilka:

The rain meant a few sections had water over the road.  I waited ahead at any obstacles.  One section of road had been washed away and trucks were waiting for lower water levels, or a repair crew.  I thought we had a chance to cheat.  A new bridge was being built and I saw we could sneak up and use the under construction bridge, since the construction crew had closed shop for the day.

New bridges are common on this stretch as the older bridges get pensioned off.  Being a designated “Federal Road” it receives healthy Federal Russian funding and maintenance and construction is evident along the way.

By 10pm and with daylight fading, we had made it to the village of Tyoply Klyuch, still 70 km from Khandyga and the end of the “Road of Bones”.  Sherri Jo could go no further.  She was shivering with the cold, despite having a heated jacket on.  The constant light rain and our big river crossing meant that hands and feet were soaking wet.  The temperature was only 10-12C.  On top of that, it had been a long day.  We had been on the road since 10am with the only breaks from riding being the fuel stop and river crossing at Kyubeme.  I found a house with lights on and spoke to the inhabitants.  It was a woman in her late 30s with a few boys around 18-19.  She agreed to take in a cold, wet Sherri-Jo and even offered a garage for the bike. 

I left Sherri-Jo in the company of the family and headed off for Khandyga.  Four days ago I had told Arnaud, the French biker out exploring gulags this year that I would meet him in Khandyga in 4 days time.  45 minutes later I was in Khandyga and called Arnaud.  It was the first mobile phone coverage I had in 3 days.  Arnaud was staying in the Gulag and Road of Bones Museum in Khandyga – I should have guessed. 

The following morning, Arnaud prepared to leave Khandyga, heading towards Ust Nera to explore some Gulags on his DRZ400 and I was preparing to move to a nice guesthouse in town. 

I needed a nice warm shower, and the town’s hot water was off for its summer cleaning.  The Guesthouse had its own electric hot water system – a real luxury in these parts!  Sherri Jo would also need a long hot shower when she arrived.  As we were both preparing to leave the guesthouse, I got a call from Sherri Jo … she had made it into Khandyga and was already waiting for me at the guesthouse.  I drove around with Arnaud and after a brief foto-session, Arnaud hit the rainy road.  Yuri the proprietor of the guesthouse came out and greeted me… he remembered me.  He grabbed his camera, flicked through it and bingo, even found a foto of me and Tony with our bikes from July last year.

SJ pulled into the guesthouse just as Arnaud was leaving.  We relaxed for the rest of the day and SJ checked out the Gulag and RoB museum.  They had a guestbook there.  SJ hit on the bright idea that this should be the guestbook that bikers sign in when doing the RoB.  Tradition had it that the Chinese Restaurant in Magadan had the guestbook that everyone signed in, on completing the Road of Bones, but when we were in Magadan, we noted that the restaurant was clearly under different management now.  They dont have a guestbook anymore, and all the clientelle appeared to be the towns gay community.  We felt like the odd couple sitting in there.  So unless anyone else has a better idea, we reckon the Gulag museum in Khandyga becomes the Road of Bones guestbook !

Sherri Jo cooked up a tasty stew of whatever we could find in the shops of Khandyga, supplemented with fresh garlic bread and red wine.  Life wasnt so bad … even if it was cold and raining outside.

- – -

06-08-10

After another day or rain and rest, we finally pulled out of Khandyga early in the morning of the 6^th of August.  There is a 9am ferry across the Aldan river 40 km away from town and we were advised to be there at 8am.  The road between the ferry and Khandyga is notoriously deep gravel and I decided we needed to set off at 6:30am.  I didn’t want to miss the ferry, as the next one would be at 9pm.  If Sherri Jo struggled with the deep gravel, we could be quite a while.  The gravel was not only tricky for bikes:

I need not have worried.  SJ did very well and we made it to the loading point at 7:30am, and waited an hour and a half for the boat to load up.  The ferry travelling away from Khandyga is a relatively quick one – only 30 minutes, as it goes downstream and across.  I know from experience, that the ferry going the other way, towards Khandyga, takes 90 minutes.

Sherri struck up a conversation with a Yakut geologist on the boat – unlike the Aussie one she spoke to back in Atka, this one didn’t have a beard, as most geologists seem to.

Once across, we had 400 km to do to Yakutsk.  The road was wet and in worse shape than the previous time I did it.  I had told SJ the road from here to Yakutsk would be a breeze, but it was anything but.  I was grateful we had waited an extra day in Khandyga, as one semi dry day had seen enough trucks use the muddy road to dry out some wheel tracks through the mud.

Despite the mud, I pressed the importance of making it to Yakutsk that evening to SJ.  We stopped a couple of times, once for food and once for fuel, and by 5pm we were within 30 km of Yakutsk.  Only the final 30km was a loose sand and gravel mix.  At this end of the day SJ was getting tired, concentration levels falling and hands were ready to drop off.  I waited for her near the ferry turn off for over half an hour.  On this better road I had ridden ahead and let Sherri Jo ride her own road.  I stopped to check on her every 20 km and then rode ahead.  The last 20 km took her about 40 minutes.  When she finally met me, waiting on the asphalt at Nizhny Bestyakh, just across the Lena River from Yakutsk, she was clearly knackered.  Fortunately from here it was asphalt to the ferry and then an hour rest on the ferry while it crosses the massive Lena River to Yakutsk.

We were met in the centre of Yakutsk by old friends Artyom and Katya, who I had stayed with previously, and Bolot the imformation master of Yakutia.  Also with them was an energetic Italian chap, Daniele, who had just cycled from Yakutsk to Magadan via the new road.

After garaging the bikes, we all headed back to Artyom and Katya’s for beer and dinner.

It was an early start in Tomtor, as we had a huge day ahead of us. There would be no towns on our route until Khandyga, 500 kilometres away: 165 of that was still on the old summer road. We began the day at the museum in Tomtor. The Museum had everything from typical Yakut houses and local Yakut history, to the Road of Bones and Gulag history and had a decent section on the Alaska-Siberia air bridge, that delivered US lend lease aeroplanes to support the Soviet war effort against Germany. 8500 planes left Fairbanks, Alaska, hopping via Nome (Alaska), Uelen (Chukhotka), Seymchan (Magadan Region), Oymyakon / Tomtor (Yakutia), Yakutsk, Kirensk (Irkutsk Region) and finally Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.

Our final stop before leaving Tomtor was the pole of cold monument.

Tomtor and neighbouring Oymyakon have the coldest recorded temperature of any settlement on earth. -71.2 degrees Celsius (-96F) has been recorded here. I had spoken late yesterday to the cheery man about temperature and he said in winter, -50C was normal. -60C felt cold, and -40 was a warm day in winter.

Then we hit the road. West of Tomtor, the road was better still … not quite the same as the federal road, the Kolyma Highway, we were aiming to meet up with at Kyubeme, but I was comfortable cruising at high speed along the road.

Bridges, were exactly what you would expect from the Road of Bones – wild and romantic.

Lakes dotted the countryside. We had been in mountainous terrain since leaving Magadan and it was not about to finish now. In fact, after Magadan, you are in or around mountains until near Tyoply Klyuch: 1500 km of Siberian mountain roads. Does it get any better than that?

Three hours after leaving Tomtor we reached the final 200 metres of the Old Summer Road

… only the path was blocked with one of the biggest obstacles of the whole road, the Kyubeme River. I spent an hour in the water trying to find the shallowest route across.

In the end I thought I found one we could do. It would be tough. The deeper section had a ferocious current that I was barely able to stand up in. Before committing us to that route I told Sherri to wait by the river as I had seen some side tracks leading off downstream from the abandoned village of Kyubeme. I wanted to check where they went.

Sure enough, they led to a ford, just over a kilometre downstream from the bridge. This was clearly the preferred crossing point. Evidence of truck drivers campfires, as they waited for river levels to go down, was everywhere. Despite the fact that it was raining lightly, I thought the river looked fordable at this point. I needed to check it and see if it was indeed better than the other crossing route I had worked out nearer the bridge. I walked across. There was a deeper section for the first 15 metres, but the remaining 30 metres was fine: full of boulders, but only 2 feet deep. I returned to the bridge and got Sherri Jo. We walked again across the river at the ford and carried over anything not in an 100% waterproof environment, that was valuable. Key documents, cameras, mobile phones etc.

Then it was time for the bikes. I felt I could ride the bikes over comfortably with Sherri Jo helping for stability at the deeper first section. Her bike went first. I asked SJ to add some stability at the rear panniers. Over every rock, the front skid further down stream. Every few yards she had to switch from adding support at the back of the bike to adding support at the front – via the fuel tank … then the back slid downstream. But we made it over the deep bit and the remaining 60% of the river I was able to ride out. The I went back for my bike. Same deal. Sherri Jo could only support either the front of the back of the bike. Whichever section of the bike wsnt supported would get washed downstream as the bike momentarily lost traction over every rock. So it was 3 metres progress supporting the back, then 3 metres supporting the front. Once we had made it through the deeper section, SJ had the bright idea that we really should be getting some snaps and filming this. It was typical of my adventure rides. The toughest sections never have any photos. I get too focussed on just making it through. So I said “OK, good idea. I should be OK from here, fire up the camera.”

As SJ waded thought the rocky river bank to the other side, I looked down. I remembered my battery had been relocated to my sump. It was completely underwater. I yelled out to the girl to hurry up … If my battery dies here it will be impossible to push it over the rocks and out of the river. And thanks to SJ’s bright idea, and her scurrying across the river, we actually have some footage and fotos of the final stages of the Kyubeme River crossing. PS, pleased to say that battery in sump guard seems to have no problems even when submerged for a long time on significant river crossings.

And with my bike now safely across, we followed the path up to the back of the Kyubeme fuel depot … a lonely isolated pocket of humanity (and fuel) with no proper settlements until Khandyga (325 km west), Ust Nera, (240 km North East) and Tomtor (165 km East).

I have heard of people kissing the asphalt after doing some time on dirt roads, but Sherri Jo kissed the nice slick looking federal graded dirt road, now that we were off the unmaintained Old Summer Road.

By the time we had filled up it was raining properly.

I tried to explain to Sherri Jo what she had just achieved: knocking off the legendary Old Summer Road … and doing it in 48 hours. For a girl who had spent just one day off-road before we left Magadan, she had passed one of the ultimate tests. She had cleared falled trees off the road, she had waded her bike through muddy bogs, crossed countless water hazards … but she just asked where do we go now.

I told her, “now we have the most scenic stretch of all” … if the Old Summer Road is the most challenging part of the Road of Bones, the stretch between Kyubeme and Khandyga is the most beautiful.

02.08.10

I woke at 7am, Sherri was moving about and told me to go back to sleep as she had plenty of repacking to do.  I woke again at 9:15am.  Sherri Jo had rejigged her luggage and was all loaded up ready to go.  But by the time I was ready to ride, it was almost 10pm.

True to form, the road continued as it left off last night.  Every 100 yards, another tree had crashed across the road courtesy of the bushfires.  But we were luckier … there were no trees that we could not find a relatively quick solution for.  Most could be broken, moved or ridden over.  When we had done 5km in our first hour, I told Sherri Jo things were looking up.  I told her about the day I had on the BAM Road last year when Tony, Terry and I managed a mere 9km in a day, and 65km in three whole days.

By 11:30, with an hour and a half of struggle under our belt, I announced to Sherri that we had exceeded the 9km day from the BAM Road, and we had done it in 90 minutes.  To be even more positive I noted that we were now riding in an area not touched by the fires … and there were no trees across the road.

While the tree situation now appeared to be no longer an issue, water crossings were.  There were small sections of BAM Road-esque bogs and deep murky puddles that spanned the entire road.  While Sherri Jo was quickly becoming adept at the simpler water crossings and muddy puddles, I still helped out for the more challenging ones.  The unspoken deal was I would obviously help out less and less as time went on, and increasing I stood and simply told her what line to take and how to handle the obstacle.  The girl listens, and as a result was rapidly gaining the ability to do most of the water hazards and other obstacles herself.

We stopped for lunch at 1pm.  We had done 50km in three hours.  Our pace was picking up, not because the road was getting better, but because there were now no more trees over it.  The road was still in very bad condition.  The impression I got was it was not generally as bad as the BAM Road, many section of which hadn’t seen maintenance in 25 years, but I guessed it was at least 15 years since this section had seen maintenance.  By now we were riding with Mosquito hats on.  The bugs and mosquitoes could be avoided when moving in 2nd gear or more, but anything less than that saw then feasting on us.  Safer just to spend the day riding with the nets on.

The Old Summer Road was until 2008 still the only way to get from Yakutsk to Magadan, despite the lack of maintenance.  In fact much of the maintenance was done by passing traffic.  If trees were across the road, the first guy with a chainsaw (almost every off road vehicle in these parts has a chainsaw for this very purpose) would chop it up in small bits and clear the road.  Every hole in the road would be filled again by trucks using the road and every unpassable section of road would see a detour made around it by the regular traffic.  But since 2008, with the new Summer Road completed via Ust Nera to the North, there is no reason for any traffic what-so-ever between the hunters camp at the southerly tip of the road and Tomtor.  Everything for the hunters camp goes via the road to Kadychan, and every thing in and out of Tomtor goes via Kyubeme.  Nothing goes between Tomtor and Adygalakh any more and so even the maintenance of passing drivers is no more.  It’s 200 km of deserted, abandoned road.

Soon after lunch, we crossed in Yakutia.  We were greeted by bear tracks – but they were not that large, and not that fresh.  We shrugged them off and rode on:

I was optimistic that Yakutia, with its wealthier, growing population would have better infrastructure investment that the declining population of Magadan Oblast.  And so it was.  Immediately on crossing the ‘state line’ the road improved considerably.  I was thrilled.  Clearly the road was no longer maintained.  But I reckoned it had seen a grader at some stage, perhaps about 5 years ago.  I was overjoyed at our good fortune and several times took the bike up to 100 km/h to celebrate.  While I had been doing 40 km/h in the Magadan section after Adygalakh, with odd bursts up to 55 km/h, now that we were on the Yakutsk section I was comfy at 70-80 km.h with bursts up to 100.  Sherri Jo seemed to be picking up the pace accordingly too.  While she had been doing about 25 km/h on the Magadan side of the line, she was doing 40-45 on the Yakutsk side.  I began to think we can make Tomtor today.  Tomtor is 2/3 of the way down the road from the direction we were coming from.  It’s effectively the only town on the Old Summer Road.  It was 190km from our overnight camping spot.

60km from Tomtor we bumped into the first people we had seen in 23 hours. A van full of Yakuts … our hunting I assume, tho they denied it.

They were able to re-assure me that there is fuel at the moment in Tomtor.  From this point on, there were increasing numbers of vehicle tracks on the road.  Obviously Tomtor locals come out this far, but don’t go beyond the abandoned village of Kuranakh Sala.

We made Tomtor by 5pm.  It was progress beyond my wildest dreams.  From here to Kyubeme is well trafficked.  It’s the only way stuff get into or out of Tomtor.  I told Sherri Jo the hardest part of her world tour was over.  From now on it will be a cruise.  She needed to hear it.  The last 25km into Tomtor had clearly been a struggle for her, driven only by the thought of a shop, some food and a warm bed for the night – civilisation.

I stopped a cheerful looking man in the street and asked directions to a shop.  He not only took us to a shop but then when I asked where we might stay for the night, he got two young lads on bicycles to lead us to a specific house, where we were greeted by Tatyana, the lady of the house, with “you are the bikers?” in Russian.  I shrugged and looked at Sherri Jo and said “yes, that would be us”.

“I heard you might be coming from Bolot”.

“Bolot?” I asked … “Which Bolot?”  I have a friend in Yakutsk called Bolot who had been following our travels  … surely no …

But yes, my friend Bolot had obviously been watching the spot tracker on Sherri’s website and called contacts in Tomtor to say we might be coming.  Accordingly an apartment had been prepared for us … a room each, and bathtub (much needed), a kitchen where we could prepare some food.  It was overwhelming.

It was almost 2pm by the time we left Kadykchan.  The reason I wanted as early a start as possible was today we begin one of the classic adventure rides … the Old Summer Road section of the Road of Bones. If I show a map of the whole Kolyma Highway / Road of Bones system, you will note that between Kyubeme and Palatka (just north of Magadan) there are four segments, Two between Kyubeme and Kadykchan, and two between Bolshevik and Palatka.  The northern branch each times the road splits is just known as the Kolyma Highway, or Kolymsky Trakt.  The southern alternative between Bolshevik and Palatka is known as the Tinkin Road or Tinkinskaya Trassa.  The southern alternative between Kyubeme and Kadykchan is known and the Old Road or Old Summer Road. Of these 4 segments, 3 are maintained roads.  One segment is no longer maintained, and is, in parts, abandoned.  That is the Old Summer Road from Kyubeme to Kadykchan.  This is the “classic” stage of the Road of Bones.

Sherri Jo, who left Magadan with a grand total of 2 half-days of off road riding under her belt, was going to have to learn fast or die trying. We made good time on a well used first section … the first 40 km southwest from Kadykchan to the Old Summer Road’s most southerly point, where there is now a popular hunting / fishing base. As we turned northwest, the road began to deteriorate and it was clearly not so heavily used.  Our speed slowed. We passed the abandoned village of Adygalakh and met a couple in a landcruiser.  They were from Susuman, but the man had been born and raised in Adygalakh, when the town had existed, and they often returned to the region to pick berries and soak up the utterly wild, unspoilt nature.  We were offered as many blueberries and redcurrants as we could fit in our mouths. Soon after saying goodbye to the berry picking couple, we were on a road that to all intents and purposes looked abandoned.  I could see only one set of vehicle tracks … made a day or two ago. To make matters worse, there were bushfires in the area and the area we were passing through was still smouldering.  A tragic (for us) consequence of the bushfires, was the large number of trees that had fallen across the road. Some we were able to move.  Some we were able to break.  Some we were able to lift and ride under.  And there were some we could nothing about at all about.  One log took 90 minutes to get both bikes over.  I had to crash my bike over it.  Get the front wheel up, and then throw the back end over.  SJ’s bike I decided to take around through the burnt out forest … through super light ash – impossible to get any traction … all the while hoping cinders didn’t burn through the tyres.  Every 50-100 metres was another tree across the road. We had said goodbye to the berry picking couple about 5pm.  By 10pm we had done a mere 8km more.  If we’d had a chainsaw, we might have done it in an hour. We reached a stream across the road at 10pm and refilled our water bottles.  The struggle with the trees across the road had resulted in me drinking a gallon of water since 5pm.  I spoke with Sherri, who was as knackered as I was.  We were both covered in soot from manhauling burnt trees and driving bikes through ash.  There was just an hours daylight left.  It was time to set up camp.  There was clearly no traffic on this section of the road, so we set up tents in the middle of the road, right next to the stream.

31.07.10

It was a day for late starts … we left Yagodnoye about 2pm and I decided on a short ride, 140km down the road to Susuman.  There was little point going further.  There are no towns down the road we were going to go.  Susuman was a good base to tackle the Old Summer Road, between the two abandoned towns of Kadykchan and Kyubeme.  And so I put my headphones in and we cruised to Susuman where we checked into a hotel for the night about 5pm.

This car didnt make it to Susuman …

And neither did these two …

01.08.10

I wanted an early start because today was going to be a key day, but Sherri Jo needed to do some packing re-structuring.  We finally got away about 11:30am after a stop for some local sightseeing – one plane buff resident has stuck an Ilyushin aeroplane to his apartment.

He can even walk through the fuselage to say hello from the cockpit.

Once underway we hotfooted it to the abandoned city of Kadykchan.

Those who read last year’s Road of Bones report will recall the history.  Last year Tony and I had arrived at 10pm and needed to do the remaining 80km to Susuman to get to a hotel.  This year I had a lot more time to explore.  And for those of you who requested more pictures of the abandoned city, I made sure I took plenty more pictures for your viewing pleasure.