What goes around comes around... Dublin to New york

Update

just heard from a contact Oisin is already up and running. According to Bolot as at 8:43am in Yakutsk he's already crossed the Lena River and is on his way.
 
Possible that it is one of the best trip reports I've ever read, apart from Snoopys of course...:D


You the Man.....:bow
 
What a journey

Oisin,

I'm glued to the laptop waiting for your next installment. You are keeping us (armchair RTW adventurers) well informed of your progress and its great to read about all the places you travel through and the folk you meet. Wishing you well in your travels. Stay safe. "From the town in the County Down". Cheers (slainte), Kev :thumb2
 
Update

In his own inimitable way, this has been received 10pm Sunday;

525km from magadan, bike fucked and trying to thumb a lift off a truck driver , plenty of traffic so should be o.k, wish me luck!

Presume that means he'll stick to main federal road, rather than going via Ost-Umchug
 
Good Luck Oisin

I hope you get the bike going Oisin..

We will be in Anchorage in a week or two, hope you can make it, we will get the beers in.....:beer:

Srace have you heard anything else?
 
jonnywave said:
Srace have you heard anything else?
Click to expand...


In Oisin's world "fucked" is an over used and vague term. He says the word so much it could mean anything from I have a slow puncture to nothing remains of the bike apart from a pile of broken bits. :augie

that's all I heard.
 
:clap Even in the the worst parts of your journey, when all seems lost you still manage a cheery smile and move on to the next part of your journey.

Keep going Oisin :bow

This is so gripping ..... more please

Stay safe.
 
Update

I'm sure he will be along soon to tell his story...

But I've just heard from him that he's made it into Magadan...

Congrats Big Man
 
The road to Khandyga....

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Out of sequence video from a few days later on the road of bones....
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JI was checking the weather forecast for the area and spotted that I’d a three day window where the weather looked promising so I decided that tomorrow morning I’d bail out. Before that though I hooked up with Bolot and his buddy for a few beers and we yakked on about all sorts of stuff but mainly a strategy for me to get through the road of bones.

A couple of things worth noting at this point.

Firstly almost most all of the roads in this part of the world were built with Gulag labor, and certainly most of what is north of the Trans Siberian highway, all told over 2000 miles worth to get from Tynda to Magadan.

The other point to mention is that the road was built out of Magadan, so mile 1 is in Magadan. The prisoners would arrive by ship to Magadan which was called the “Gateway to Hell”. They were then put to work building the roads and as they died the bodies were incorporated into the roads, hence the name, the road of bones. Bolot told me that the “Road of bones” road starts at Magadan, and ends at Khandyga, but that’s merely one section of a “Road of bones” network built by the Gulag prisoners.

Back to the plan. Step one would be to get back across the River Lena from Yakutsk and start making my way north east on the Kolyma highway. I’d have to ride 350km to catch a boat to take me across the next river which goes south on the River Indigerka for over an hour. This ferry goes twice a day, once in the morning, once in the evening. It doesn’t have a schedule; it just goes when it’s full. If it’s not full it just waits till enough cars and trucks show up and then sets off. If you miss it, you just have to pitch a tent and wait, there’s nowhere to stay. Once I got the ferry across I’d a 30km hike down a road to the town of Khandyga where I’d be able to stay in a guest house which Bolot would book for me.

Step two would be to ride 550km or so to the town of Oost-Nera where again there was a hotel and I could put the head down.

Step three would be take a right turn at Susuman and veer south down the old summer road and get as far as I was comfortable, pitch a tent for the night and make my way to Magadan hopefully the next day. All going according to play I could get there in 4 days, if the weather got bad or I’d bike problems things would take a lot longer.

As we dropped our sixth or seventh beer Bolot got the call from the missus, it’s so easy to lose track of time when it doesn’t get dark and of course when your gulping away at some tall frosty beers. We called it a night and I headed back to the hotel to pack up. I went through my gear one last time. What exactly hadn’t I used yet, and why did I think I would use it in the next couple of days. Anything I could throw away to get the weight down on the bike would help me in the miles ahead.

I was up early the next morning and on the road before eight, I’d a weather window and really wanted to catch that second ferry so I was in a hurry. Of course I got lost and spent about forty minutes driving up and down every side street in the town try to find my way out of it. I reckoned as long as I was heading north east I’d hit the river which I eventually did. When I got there the ferry had a few cars waiting on it. I realized that this smaller ferry wouldn’t actually leave until it had a full load so instead of being across the river by 9am It was after 12 by the time we eventually got enough cars and trucks to go.

I’d no idea when or if the second ferry would leave, it might go and six or wait till well until the evening waiting on traffic; but I decided I’d better haul ass.

The first 40km up the Kolyma highway are in bits. If you can imagine a once gravel road which was ripped to bits by a harsh winter. Now imagine the local council not having the money to resurface it so they just put sand down and then on top of that put lots of big bits of gravel. The bike was washing around like a jet ski.

Eventually it sorted itself out and I made my way slowly to the ferry, about six hours to do the 350km.

There were a couple of lorries, cars and vans waiting on the ferry so I was pretty sure I hadn’t missed it. I wondered was there a Queue? Was I at the back? Would he let me on? By 6:30 we were ambling down the river on a gorgeous afternoon without a care world. I think the ferry took ninety minutes, I’d fallen asleep and was woken up by one of the other drivers.

I pulled off the boat up a steep gravely bank and passed through a small wooden shack town thinking to myself “Please don’t fucking tell me this is Khandyga”. I checked the map, I’d still another 20+km to go so off I went. This section of road was under construction and was a nightmare made worse by the fact that the shadows from the trees were helping to camouflage big potholes which were knocking the shit out of me and the bike. When you throw in the dust thrown up by other traffic on the road, at times you were just riding blind.

I got to Khandyga and Bolot had arranged with a guesthouse for me to stay there which is an apartment in a flat in one of the buildings. We walked in, I got the impression they would be staying but after an hour they left leaving me in the apartment by myself.

I hit the scratcher early knowing that tomorrow would be the official start of the Road of bones.

Over and out
Oisin
 
Got your message. Fingers crossed for 22nd. Will try Vancouver dealers again today for you.

Enjoy the highlights of Magadan for the week..!!
 
Going well

sounds like the Russia's nearly over for you Oisin:thumb2,

Its been a great read so far:clap
 
a thing!

Did you know that just north of where I am there over one ton of Mosquito’s per square kilometer? Think about how many mosquito’s that is. There isn’t a lot of things to suck the blood out of in these parts so when a portly Irish gent shows up with that target sign on him, I reckon I was drawing off about a hundred weight of the fuckers. I use deet 100 as a repellant, its max strength, so you can’t use it on your sensitive bits.

Y’know guy’s just wouldn’t spray deet down town. Even if it wasn’t bad for his john Thomas or town halls he still wouldn’t do it, even if it meant he wouldn’t get bit anywhere else on his body for the rest of the week. The real reason is that every guy harbors in some remote corner of his mind the 500,000/1 shot that “Ivana” the ex-Kgb agent just wearing a mink coat with nothing underneath is going to come into the tent that night and suck the sleeping bag up his arse. So it’s out of concern for Ivana that guys refrain from deeting their de-hymenisers, we really are caring souls.

Anyhoot, the down shoot of this is that when a guy goes for a number one in these climes the pork sword becomes the only bit of non deeted flesh in any given square km so a plague of blood suckers descend….”get off…get off …. Yis bollixes…..get off” can be heard echoing across the Russian steppe.

Any mosquito who tries to drink from the lad of Don Oisin Alejandro De Corn Hoolio of course pays with his life with a swift smack. No doubt from a distance all this smacking might look like this lone Irishman was having a hand shandy out in the wilds, not so, merely defending the crown jewels old boy.
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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