Time to leave our good friends in Mirny. Still blown away by how much we were looked after again and again.. Igor had made a connection with a barge in Lensk and we needed to be there by 8 AM. Lensk is 250 km down the dirt road, so Captain Magadan decides we should leave at 3:00 AM to get there on time. 3:00 AM!! Why don’t we go a day ahead? Well because hotels cost...
Welcome to Mirny!! Large diamond mining town of 40,000.. AND, we made it to the motor-cross event! Big Igor, as we call him is racing today in the Monster Energy suit.. I am behind him, Ilya directly behind him, and the Igor we stay with is next to me, as well as lots of their female friends. They use the dug out areas around the mine for a track...
Another beautiful day on the Viluisky Trakt in Siberia! Another day, another challenge… Did I ever tell you how much I LOVE MUD?? I had to wait for the car to be pulled out by the Wazik before I could go past. Those Waziks can do anything and go anywhere.. I’m not sure why anybody around here would own anything but a Wazik. They can even kit them out with wood...
Continued Blog…. Wonderful Nina took such good care of us that night. She took Walters’ and my laundry. Which was seriously dusty dirty I might add, and put it in the washer and then into the bana (dry sauna) with promises it will be dry by the morning. She brought me her special shampoo AND conditioner for the shower – whew! I love conditioner getting...
On yer bike… A good ol’ Australian saying comes to mind. We got off the ferry and had some fairly nice roads. The one thing Walter brought up before we left is that today is the half bridge. It’s a bridge that crosses the water, but it just ends half way across and you go into the water to finish. How weird!! He told me the trouble they had with it last year...
Had a really nice run on the Viluisky Trakt today.. rigidy again (that’s my new word), but feeling comfortable and cruisin’. Walter waves me into a café for some lunch. The villages are more frequent along this stretch and there are roadside café’s for travellers. This is a true pleasure. After travelling the Road of Bones, new road and old...
I spent my first day in Yakutsk just catching up on regular life stuff. Doing laundry, and washing each piece of our riding suits one by one. Two hours in the...
Walter did carry on that night so as to meet his French friend Arnaud, who was staying in the next town called Khandyga, but needed to move on the next morning. I arrived in the rain about 9 AM, and called Walter to get instruction of where to go. Arnaud was just ready to leave and they would meet me instead. As upset as I was the night before, I was really glad...
We had ridden 150 km from Tomtor and crossed the big river. Walter doesn’t tell me, but we actually still have a full day’s ride ahead of us. It’s 3 or 4 in the afternoon by time we had crossed the river at Kyubeme and started the main road again. He does tell me there is some of the most beautiful scenery of the whole trip coming up.. So what was all...
After leaving the deserted town, it’s just a small hop to the turn off that officially begins the “Road of Bones” Walter pulls off for a quick photo and all he says is “Now the hard part..” After the hundreds of kilometres on dirt roads, which is not particularly easy, as well as that gruelling test to the Gulag… I thought that was hard! You mean it gets...