Oisin Hughes, an Irish Giant, is the first adventure biker of summer 2010, who arrived on his motobike to Yakutia on the way to Magadan. Yesterday he made it to Yakutsk from Tynda. He spent two days on the road. Really fast! This morning (pretty early, at 8.00 am) on my way to the office, I found him in Lena Hotel. Actually, I woke him up…
Here how he looked this morning :)
I learned about his arrival from messages via Facebook (by the way, join our group) Early morning. The first one was written by Jonathan Fox, the second came from Simon Race. They are also adventure bikers, both from England. By the way, I got in touch with Oisin on Facebook before as well. He asked me one question only, “Hope roads up there are ok?” I said, “Yeah, but pretty dusty.” Looking at his pics, I was right.
Back to the story. I went to Lena Hotel, where he was said to stay. Asked an administrator get me connected with Oisin. She did, but no one was answering. A lady at the desk said, “He might be having breakfast. You can go upstairs and try to find him there.” I went, but a steward said, “What? What an Irish?” Haha, I understood, Oisin wasn’t here. I told about it to an administrator. She was like, “Oh, then you need to knock at his room door.” Wow! “Is it allowed?” – “Yeah, why not?” – “Maybe, I’d better leave a note for him.” – “No, no. Just go and knock.” What a simplicity?
That’s why I woke up Oisin. Didn’t plan, indeed :)) Nevertheless, an Irish biker was able to share his impressions on the road Tynda – Yakutsk as well as his plans on further biking to Magadan and New York.
Below, please, see some pics of his journey on the route Tynda – Yakutsk via Nerungri and Aldan, and read his last travel notes about the road condition. Text and photos are derived from his around-the-world travel blog Back to Broke.
Waiting for the ferry to Yakutsk on the Lena River
From the time I left Ulan Ude to when I arrived at the turn off from the Trans Siberian to head north to Yakutsk, a distance of over 1300km the days have blurred. Even looking at the pictures I can’t see when one day ends and where the next begins.
There are a couple of reasons for it I suppose. Firstly the scenery is very unchanging in the part of the world, in this 1300km it was either flat Montana-esqe countryside, or hills with lots of trees. The land by the road side was almost always flooded on account of a late thaw of winter snow and for the most part the weather has been great.
When the land was flat, the road stretched off into the distance like a piece of black string rolled out onto a green carpet under a brilliant blue sky. The only variation in the ride came from the constant switching from gravel to asphalt roads. If I die mysteriously at some point and they do an autopsy; a question will no doubt stump the coroner will be “Now, how do you suppose he got so much dust in lungs?”
When the land was hilly, the sky was blue, everything else was a bright spring green apart from some white clouds and the white gravel path carving its way through the countryside.
When you ride down the road and in your rear view mirror you can see yourself getting chased by a dust cloud, the overwhelming feeling that runs through your body is “Dude!”
These roads are lonely. You can often go an hour without seeing a car or a truck. At one stage I got a puncture and in the whole time to strip off the bike, fix the puncture and pack it up again, not a single car passed. Every now and then I’d flick my head over both shoulders to make sure there wasn’t a bear heading my direction. Although if it was Momma bear that showed up; it’s been so long since I climbed Mount Crack, she’d probably get a lick of the cango.
Everytime I stop for gas the bike draws an every growing crowd. The more remote I seem to go the bigger the novelty a beardy Irish bollix on a BMW becomes. At one stage I came out of a café and there were 18 guys standing around the bike, you can see it in the photo above. My first reaction was “Oh shit, what the fuck do this mob want”, I walked up smiling and they looked at me like I was from another time.
One of the guys spoke English and he said you look like you’re from Braveheart the film, “Oh you mean Mel Gibson?” I replied hopefully, to which he replied “No the other guy, his buddy, the fat guy” as he motioned to a big belly; nice to know Brendan Gleeson has a look alike out here in Far eastern Russia.
The road from Chita north has been under construction for years now, and by the looks of things it’ll be a long number of years before it’s finished yet. Every now and then you pass a tiny village of battered wooden cottages and you can’t help wonder; why exactly do those folks choose to live all the way out here? What do they do all day?
I stopped the first night in a truck stop and pitched the tent and just rolled into the sleeping bag and went asleep. As soon as I woke up I got underway again.
Every long trip has a day when you do a crazy amount of miles; this was the day for that. All told I knocked out over 550 miles on mixed terrain in what seemed like a replay of the previous day. I was dying for something to come along that I could stop and take a picture of but the pickings were very slim.
As it was getting dark I arrived at the turn off for Yakutz, the sign said 1169km. I pulled in for gas and asked the pump attendant was there anywhere to sleep around here. He gave me directions to a “Rough as a badgers arse” bedsit where after a quick wing wash I drifted off sleep and dreamt of Momma bear wearing a polka dot bikini.
Similar Posts:
- Summer 2010: Biking the Kolyma Highway (the Road of Bones) – Mountain Area
- The Kolyma Highway (the Road of the Bones) by Sibirsky Extreme
- Cycling through Tynda – Yakutsk – Magadan – Anadyr – Alaska
- SibirskyExtreme back to Yakutia, made the way from Ust-Kut to the Arctic Circle successfully
- Flashback: 2010 Motorcycle Adventure Season on the Road of Bones, Yakutia/Siberia
