YAKUTSK
I t I s D one !
I
detect some movement from the
crew manning the winch of the
massive barge-like ferry that will
take me across the wide Lena Riv-
er to the beginning to the Kolyma
Highway, the legendary Road of
Bones. Then, with a loud clanking,
the anchor is raised followed by the
loading ramp. We pull away from the
bank and swing into the stream as
the current catches the battered steel
hull.
At last I am on my way …
On the other side, the dirt road is,
shall we say, acceptable: not great
dirt that makes one happy to be a
biker; nor, fortunately, is it bike-kill-
ing dirt - just slightly corrugated and
bumpy, wet and puddled from last
night's rain. A gentle enough intro-
duction to the Kolymer Highway, I
think to myself, feeling cold and in
need of coffee. And then, as if it has
been planned, a small village appears
with cows wandering about the dirt
streets and, yes, sweet, strong coffee.
TRAVERSE 41
This is how adventure biking ought
to be ...
A raised causeway across flat
swampy land - not the usual taiga
where trees predominate and thou-
sands of small ponds and lakes gentle
an otherwise uniform landscape;
here it is mostly water and reeds and
mud and the dead, drowned bowls of
trees. Mosquitoes cloud the air and
descend upon you if you are unwise
enough to pause, immediately attack-
ing any exposed flesh.
Abandoned settlements with rot-
ting wood and leaning walls, wrecks
of cars, collapsed roofs and the emp-
tiness of glassless windows that speak
so sadly of lives ruined by this harsh,
unforgiving land. I pause to explore a
strange wood-and-mud construction
surrounded by the broken walls of a
house and rusted machinery; in an
overgrown yard a large metal boiler,
two metres high, stands over a smoul-
dering fire. I look about me, remem-
bering the warnings about feral men