The Road of Bones

The Kolyman Highway is also known as the Road of Bones, because the skeletons of the forced labourers who died during its construction were used in many of its foundations.

The Dalstroy construction directorate built the Kolyma Highway during the USSRs Stalinist era. Inmates of Sevvostlag labour camp started the first stretch in 1932, and construction continued with the use of Gulag labour until 1953. (Source Wiki)

I have read that one person perished for every 1 meter of the road, perhaps 2 – 3 Million.

I found the above image, which shows the 8 sections of the network that makes up the Road of Bones.

1. Yakutsk to Khandyga

…….and we are off the Yakutsk ferry, one of the first to leave and onto the sand ramp, the road north is not difficult to find as there is only one, our target is a small town called Khandyga,  the roads are tough, we have everything thrown at us, paved sections, mud, gravel and fairly deep sand…and the dust from the trucks just gets everywhere, into your eyes, your nose, your mouth, everything is hot and dusty and dirty.
Just before 7pm we are making good progress, we arrive on the edge of Khandyga only to discover there is no road, its another ferry service…and one is there waiting, what luck, we zoom onboard….silence…….we wait and eventually after trying to attract someone’s attention we get to understand that the ferry is moored for the night and will not go until the morning…….it’s getting dark so we look at our options, we ask if we can camp on the beach, there is a shrug of shoulders and we are good to put up our tents ….the location is beautiful, however the mosquitoes are driving us crazy, a Russian truck driver suggests we all light a fire, we all gather drift wood and with some of Gary’s “Magic water” we soon have a smokey fire and no mosquitoes.

We all sit together and watch this very long sunset……absolutely perfect end to a very tough day. 

OK, now I should have done more research about travelling this far north, I sleep well but wake a few times and it never gets fully dark, just a low glow in the sky, like a full moon but lighter, then by 1:30AM its getting light again and then about 45 degrees from where the sun set it starts to rise again…….we are closer to the Arctic Circle here….I have never experienced this before and it is totally amazing…….we wake early to get on the 6am ferry, we are packed and on the ferry that has been there overnight by 5.45am, clearly then no real timetable and eventually it leaves at 7:15am, not quite full, other passengers seem quite relaxed about this so I guess its normal.

It turns out the ferry runs until October then the river starts to freeze, during November the ice road opens as indicated on our maps, because of the permafrost the river freezes from the bottom up! I am showed pictures by fellow passengers and there it is a aqua blue slightly transparent ice pathway across the top surface of the frozen river, it is truly wild here….We have a another challenging ride but get to the fuel station by the start of the Old Summer Road at Kyubyume…as we stop I turn to my right and blow me, it’s THAT fuel station, the one I have seen in so many adventure bike magazines, a silver, circular booth plastered in stickers from other riders…..I cannot believe I am here….

Throughout Russia you have to pre pay for fuel….no exceptions unless you are perhaps local, there is the small window in the middle of the stickers where you hand over the money. I turn to Gary and say “three priorities, fuel for the Bike, somewhere to sleep and food for us”, he agrees, as we go to prepay I note some motorcycles beyond on some wasteland….wow fellow bikers that will be nice….….we fuel up and the guy says no problem to us camping (well he shrugged actually) and we enter the cafe, intrigued to find the owners of the Motorcycles…..We walk in carrying our helmets and its like entering a Wild West saloon bar, everyone turns and we say  “hello”
So this is where things change big time…..it turns out the motorcycles are owned by a German and a Polish biker….these were the guys we were told were a day ahead of us on the road, we talk and eat together and it turns out the German guy also has an ambition to do the “Old Summer Road” as well but has been warned off by locals, the Polish guy speaks Russian and some English and also wants to go to Magadan, could it be that we arrive this late and bump into two bikers with similar plans….we talk and it seems so, I go to sleep that night pleased at these new additions to our team for the challenges ahead.

There are more strong warnings from the locals not to do this, the road is bad they say in Russian and English, you must go by Ust-Nera (the northern route) it is not possible by the Old Summer Road, Hannes our new German friend sums things up perfectly, “they dont understand why we are here”

We agree to get to Tomtor and ask the locals there, seems sensible enough… 

We wake and are all quite  quiet as we pack, it turns out after some late night conversations that Vladi will leave for Magadan by the main gravel road to the north  and Hannes will come with us, I feel awkward that our arrival has split these two friends up,  but even after just a few hours I am so happy to have Hannes with us, he is young, very travelled, articulate and I like they way he thinks, this was so like it was meant to be…I tell everyone later  “He was sent to us by someone upstairs on the eve of our expedition” 
We have a picture together, say our goodbyes and we are off.

7. The Old Summer Road

The Old Summer Road has become a challenge for adventure motorcyclists for over 20 years. After the the fall of the Soviet government, the road was first traversed by Western motorcyclists in summer 1995, when the British Mondo Enduro team completed a crossing from Yakutsk to Magadan. The Road from Tomtor east has been abandoned since 2005 and gets worse every winter.

The first section of the “Old Summer Road” goes to the town of Tomtor this is the only route to this popular extreme tourist destination as it leads to the coldest inhabited town on the planet.. Oymyakon, where temperatures of -71 degree C have been recorded.We head off at 6am, I can only speak for myself but I am nervous, there is excitement as well but definite apprehension about what is ahead.
I am at the rear of the pack with Gary at the front and Hannes in the middle. We pass the first of what will be many abandoned structures in the weeks ahead…

The trail to Tomtor is actually quite good……certainly maintained and fast……we come to our first “Summer Road” bridge….I still cant quite believe I am here……nor can I believe how easy this is, we walk the bridge, a few holes here and there but it seems OK……then ride across one at a time……..I start to relax……but never underestimate Russia I think…

Gary suddenly stops and we pull up behind him…….holy crap a good size Bear is walking, no actually swaggering towards us…

I am about 10 meters behind Gary, a few more steps from the Bear and we need to take action….the Bear stops looks at us and then swaggers into the forest, I manage to get a few pictures and trust me it was closer and bigger than it looks!! 

The rest of the road to Tomtor (TomTop) continues relatively easy….….we do 156 km in 2 – 3 hours, I cant remember exactly….

We have lunch, just 25 miles away in Oymyikon winter temperatures have been recorded as low as -71 degrees Celsius, unbelievable as today in July we sit eating our food in 22 degrees, our coats off!

Time now for fuel, at first we can’t find the fuel station, we circle the small town, then I turn and see a woman on the back of Gary’s bike, sat on his luggage, she leads us to the fuel station….

its not a generous gesture though she wants paying and wants 1000 roubles, we give her 150 for her helps and she says in perfect English “thank you and goodbye” clearly annoyed at the underpayment! 

I tell the locals at the fuel station we are going to Magadan via the Old Summer Road, all hell breaks out again as we are warned not to go….

..at this stage I must be honest and say that out of the three of us I am the least keen to proceed, clearly you don’t come all this way to give up easily, but there seems genuine concern from the locals….we talk it over between us and agree to ride the 40Km to the first river crossing and see what all the fuss is about…

An old man crosses his arms just before we leave and says “Nyet Nyet”….. and draws 150Km on the ground….I leave pondering what this could mean, if only we spoke Russian, or maybe just as well I do not……

We  enter further into the Spiders Web!

Many pictures at first as we cross iconic bridges….…so cool that we are here right now, just the three of us with no support, on our own…the road greener now, unused.The first river crossing is easy…….where bridges are down the bikes make light work of alternate routes put in by hunters and the locals who fish just outside town….its warm, its sunny and its very beautiful.

We rest after
getting through a deep muddy  section..…Its hard physical work in the heat but we are making good progress…...another section of road down, they are getting more frequent now, but we get around easily enough……we seem more evidence of bear poo and even a large home made bear trap….

….complete with rotting meat, if the meat is moved the door drops down and the animal is trapped. We hear each pelt sells for $1000!

The day continues with many river crossings, with us checking out the decaying bridges before crossing..…nothing that we can’t do, although all now more conscious of the bears as there is fresh bear poo all along the trail.

I start to think, you know what, with it never getting fully dark lets just press on, ride through the dusk if necessary, we can complete this today….seems to make sense to me….

Its getting towards 9pm and still very light.

We are on a crossing above the valley floor on a narrow trail, Gary suddenly lets us know his clutch has gone again, its not a great spot but we need to bleed it there and then, Gary is attacking the slave cylinder, tools on the dirt, I am topping up the system with fluid and Hannes is in charge of pumping the clutch lever.
As we help him I look down to the river and there is a huge and I mean huge bear about 300 meters from us, distracted the fluid goes over Gary’s head….I say, “guys look a Bear, look at the size of that thing….

….this is a very big Bear, walking parallel with us, as we watch I kid you not, he stands for a moment on his hind legs and sniffs the air.. this bear is truly huge. We rush the repair and get Gary going again, the Bear moving on away from us but we keep our eyes on him, he bounds up the steep hill on the other side of the valley like it was not there and looks back across at us……lets get out of here!

200 meters on and its clear that the repair has not worked, we now need to push Gary so he can select first gear whilst rolling, we stop at a river at around 10pm, there is good visability, water and wood, the plan being to make the repair and head on as soon as the light is good enough….say around 3AM….Its clear we are right in the middle of Bear country now, so the first thing we do is make a fire, we gather wood and soon have a blazing fire to keep us warm and deter visitors.
An hour later Gary announces that the clutch slave cylinder cannot be fixed, we sit around the fire and look at our options as it starts to get light…….we decide to continue, the logic being we are already over half way on day one, 250 Km of the whole Summer Road and 100Km into the second much harder section with about 150km to do…..at this point progress has been good, so it seems perfectly possible to complete the final 150Km the following day…

Pictures from now on are harder to take, we are in Bear country, and there is lots of evidence of them…we now need to push Gary so he has enough speed to select first  gear, as he heads off we rush back to our to our bikes to catch up with him…the final 150 Km begins…

Our days starts OK, difficult for Gary of course with no clutch, but OK, progress is slower now, sections of road are flooded and you either go through or around, either option not easy for us…..impossible for Gary so his bike is pulled through with a rope.
Then after two hours we enter a very muddy area…

…..here there are really fresh Bear prints, maybe minutes old and they are huge in the soft silt.

The trail ends abruptly, there is a whole section of the road missing where the river has changed its course…someone has made a new trail, it  goes off to the right, down to the river,  but the river its deep and wide, only a Kamaz truck could get through here…

….I would say 200 meters of the original road is just gone, washed away, there is a 200 meter high steep shale cliff to the left and a deep fast flowing river to our right…..more bear prints…. we don’t want to go back and there seems at first no way forward.

Then  a plan is beginning to develop, lets go back to the start of the missing section and build a ramp to lower the bikes down to the edge of the river (with our rope) where there is a ledge on the shore, then if we build another ramp at the other end we can pull them up, after this the road looks quite good this might be the final obstacle.

The first priority then is to make a fire, I have no idea if this is a deterrent for Bears but it makes us feel a whole lot better……now we have a plan, we are energised, we work well as a team, we gather additional wood for the fire, use improvised tools and our bare hands to make the ramps…with the ramps completed we take the bikes across one at a time, all working together first mine, then Gary……and finally Hannes…..all our other stuff is collected and we are ready to head off, moving that 200 meters took 2.5 hours but we have put some distance between us and the Bears, I take one final look back before we leave.

I think back to the old man and his words at Tomtor and the penny drops!!!We push Gary, pushing him and the bike until there is enough speed for him to drop into first gear…we are getting better at this, I joke that if ever there were an Anglo German bob sledding team were we are your men!

As Gary disappears we are back on our bikes in hot persuit……we continue to battle through the trail, making small progress, but making progress, then another huge section of road missing, this time no chance of a ramp, we have moved just 5km in 2 hours and now this.
We overcome this by moving the bikes across the river and back again, the river is quite deep certainly above our knees at points and quite fast flowing, we use the bikes as a support and all three of us man handle each bike across. Its exhausting work but eventually we have them across and we are ready to go again, this little section taking a further 2 hours…..

The trail changes now, we are in a little further away from the river so less chance of the road being swept away….this is a good thing however now the trail passes across a swampland full of bogs, the trail being covered with water sometimes nearly a meter deep…..

you get through one challenge then 100 meters later another, and another and another…..every time we get through one, another comes into view in the distance…

…we are tired and hungry but worse of all dehydrated, I mean really dehydrated like I have never experienced before, the inside of your mouth is dry, so dry, the skin on your pallet almost sticking together, everything is hard, its hard to think straight, even simple decisions, my arms and legs ache…

….we are all in a bad way, we decide we must get some water, the problem is of course we do not knowing what is ahead of us. This is starting to get serious now, Hannes looks on his smart phones, no signal of course but on Maps.Me he can see the path of the river, although we can’t hear it is just 200 meters away to our right through the forest, its hard to believe, we also see that we will we then cross the same river in 4.5km, a decision is made, lets leave the bikes, go to the river and get some water, we all trek across to the river, we must have looked comical as we walked  through the thick forest Bear spray in hand! There is a sinking feeling as we get to the top of a cliff and see the river some 20 meters below us….just too far and too steep to get down…we decide to go back and press on for the crossing just 4.5Km away…
In the next hour we move just 200 meters…

….there is no way we will make the river without rest and food and more importantly water…

…we have been pressing forward for 35 hours now without sleep and there is nothing left, decisions are taking longer, mistakes are being made…
We make a fire and leave Hannes at the trail, whilst we go back to the cliff to get water, it not a case of if we can,  but we must get down, we make it down somehow and start filling containers using my little MSR purifier and it works its magic again, we drink and we drink and we drink…..I can not tell you how sweet that water tasted, it was like pouring life back into you, I am not exaggerating…..I have not experienced anything like this in my life before,  none of us have, the physical effort of getting through the trails,  plus push starting the disabled bike! For Gary it was even more difficult, riding a bike with no slow speed control, his only option the kill switch and to wait for us to catch up!

Loaded with as much filtered water as we can carry we hurry back to Hannes, we make camp on this little island between two swamp areas….…I will never be complacent about water again, please don’t leave a tap running in my company, I may react badly….…we look at our phones, we have moved just 28km in 18 hours, the same terrain seem to continue as far as the eyes can see.
We feed the fire one last time and sleep comes quickly in the weird twilight, if the Bears came tonight they would meet little resistance…We awake in swamplands….there a bit of a mix up on the times as we have nudged into a new timezone, and bodies seem unable to get going, we drag ourselves out of our tents and prepare for the day ahead, we pack up camp, put out the fire and get ready to head off when my bike wont start, not sure what happened maybe the Garmin was drawing power, did I leave the ignition on? Anyway whatever the reason we are two bikes down now…..
I suggest using jump leads but this involves removing all our luggage, Gary suggests we tow start the bike and after a few false starts it works a treat, we leave the bike running whilst we gather everything together and we are off past the first obstacle of the day, just 100m down the trail we start all over again.
I say to Gary, we have 120Km to do, if this pace carries on it could be 5 days before we get out of here, we stare at each other, we just don’t know what is ahead of us……this would not be good, we have water but food is getting very short….
We take an hour to clear the next two bogs, the road rises around the corner so we can’t now see what is the next challenge, we take another 30 minutes to clear the next section of bog then we start to make a bit more progress, after 2.5hrs we have made it to the river….…..we have covered those 4.5Km and it feels great to have moved this far…….no really, it sounds very little but we are moving forward again..…there is lots of evidence of bears at the river, and some very large prints larger than my outstretched hand….…showing this is a favoured watering hole.

We get all three bikes across and then take time to refill all the water containers….….we are all a little more optimistic now,  but we cant get caught out again with a lack of drinking water.
The trails flow a little more and its another 1hr 45 minutes before our next river crossing, its a simple one but we stop for some food and drink and a short rest…

before heading off again..

….the location is pure natural beauty, clean, no evidence of humans at all, in fact its been a long while now since we have seen another person….…you look around and there are no power lines, no distant sounds of anything, not even tyre tracks….you can sort of appreciate it at the time but not fully, we are vulnerable and we need to get out..….we move on and into the next phase as the trail clings to the hillsides, streams coming down to the river have played havoc with the trail, small sections are missing which are easily navigated but in some areas they are much deeper and challenging..

….we now use logs to bridge gaps the mud shifting under our feet like quicksand, its like whole sections are on the move….

….the bridge holds but we only just get the last bike across before it collapses into the oozing mud….….this continues for the next two hours its now 6pm and we have been going for 10 hours but we have done over double the distance of the previous day…

….nearly 60Km…….we make it to the next water crossing and refill out water container again……our objective today was a village we can see on our smart phones, surly the roads will improve once past this, we press on…….its clear when we get there that the village has been abandoned for years, its starting to become apparent that there has been a mass exodus of people at some point, the road stays the same.
Not long after the village we are making repairs to the road next to a steep incline, its raining now and getting cold we are exhausted, as we are preparing the ramp we hear something….what is that, its an engine…..a ferkin bike engine, we all stop and look up……its really weird but this is what it must be like if your stranded on a desert island or something, its been 60 hours since we have seen another human being and that is not something that you could easily achieve even if you wanted to in the UK. Like something out of a Mad Max movie, this quad bike storms over the brow of the hill, he is totally shocked to see us and our motorcycles, there is a small child with him and we get the idea that they are off fishing, its great to see someone, does this mean we are close to good roads?…we are unable to communicate and after a brief exchange we watch him speed off before we continue to make repairs to the road….
The road continues in poor shape, Gary manages amazing control considering he has no clutch and how he gets through some sections without stopping is incredible, we approach a narrow area of collapsed road with drop offs to the right, no Gary to be seen, has he come off, we continue slowly, certain something bad has happened, but no there he is ahead of us……how he got through only he knows but we think he just closed his eyes!!!
There is one occasion where we turn a corner and the bike has pinned him down, the soft panniers pressing hard against his lower leg…..we jump off our bikes to assist and luckily nothing broken!

Less pictures now, whist Gary is going we are going, we only stop for obstacles he cant get through without a clutch and this is left often.

We know there is a campsite towards the end of the trail and suddenly there it is, and it looks very basic but open for business, surely the roads will improve, they don’t much but they are better, punctuated by large puddles/ponds that can be 20 metres long, how on earth a business can run in such conditions is beyond me!!!
Its near 23:00 now, we come across an old soviet bridge…

…one of the few still intact, I am exhausted but there is optimism now, we have done it, we will finish the Old Summer Road tonight. This could be the last of these relics, we do not know, so we set the bikes up for a picture, at this point our quad man returns, we manage to communicate that we would like a picture taken and both he and the young child oblige. We punch our arms in the air all the river crossings done just the last push out of here in the twilight…Noooooo, our Russian Quad bike man communicates there is a big river ahead, I tap on the bridge we are stood on, “bridge” I say “Nyet Nyet” he says and points to the ford we avoided below.
He indicated for us to follow him (we think) and we are off, now these quad bikes can make incredible speed across this terrain and we have to go around a lot of what he can go through, but he slows and guides us…

Eventually we arrive at the river, the river plain is wide and as it turns out the river at this point has split into three rivers separated by pebble banks, Gary is circling on his clutchless bike so he does not have to stop as our quad man goes across the first part of the river and shows us the route, the river is too deep for us to ride, so in the twilight we manhandle the bikes across to the other side, just in case as we can’t risk water coming into the engine, as the bike rises from the water its engines on and power up the bank….well for two of us.

Maps.Me shows a town with schools and even a supermarket 4km away, we decide to ride the bikes the 4km to the road were we can look for a base to camp, make repairs and even get some food, we are all beyond exhausted, the pot holes are enormous, no pictures since that final bridge not even a thought, the last hours had just been about getting out…

The bikes are lined up at the end of the trail and we all shake hands, although to be honest its a muted numbed celebration.
I go in search of the town and somewhere to camp, it becomes clear that this town is also abandoned, we can see large structures which turn out to be Soviet style blocks of flats from an abandoned Soviet Coal mine.

So now we are on the main road to Magadan, its a gravel highway, we have been there for 30 – 40 minutes and not a single vehicle has passed, the remoteness of this place beyond me.
Its hard to make decisions now, I am beyond tired, just staring really…..
There is rubbish and old tires around the junction, but we find a little space beyond the hard shoulder and quietly put up out tents….everything is difficult now, but up the tents go on the rough ground, we eat some of the remaining food stood up, we are tired filthy, my boots are full of  stinking river water where it came over the top of the boots, but we have made it, we sleep, lets get what we can before the traffic starts coming past in the morning……

It never comes, other than the odd truck every 20 – 30 minutes or so……………..this place is so remote.

We get some picture taken and we are away from the Old Summer Road……

….possibly the first Gas Head through the old summer road?

Summary of the Old Summer Road

(my top 10 tips)

1.Weather is key to success, if its cold and wet you wont have mosquitoes but it will be much more physically challenging, the weather can change very quickly and with it the ground conditions.

2.Water levels were incredibly low when we went through, we found river crossings  challenging but we were lucky as a few weeks later we heard they were 20 to 30cm higher.

3.Plan as if it were a 5 or 6 day expedition, with enough food and water for that period. Water planning is vital, the heat and physical exertion mean you will drink large quantities of water and if you  don’t your physical and mental deterioration is rapid.

4.When….we went in July 2018, at this time if your lucky with the weather it never really gets dark.

5.Plan for Bears, we saw four and I suspect many more saw us!

6.You will be building bridges, making ramps down into deep fast flowing water, and pulling bikes up the other side. Take cargo straps, Tree Saw, Spade and a lightweight block and tackle for hauling the bikes up the 1.5 meter banks.

7.Take the lightest motorcycle possible 100kg 150kg maximum.

8.Plan for 400km to the next fuel, that 260 from Tomtor, but when you hit the main road there is nothing south towards Magadan for 100Km…..(you might be able to buy fuel from locals)

9.Don’t be afraid to turn back, this is an extreme environment, the further in you go the more committed you are, from Tomtor it only got easier for the last 30 km by which time we were exhausted.

10.Have a minimum group size of three people.

The Summer Road is tough, it will find any weaknesses in you, your equipment and your motorcycle….make sure you are prepared!

Contact me via the contact page, happy to discuss further if your planning this. 

Heading South for Magadan

We pack and head for the nearest fuel station, as it turns out the first real station that is not abandoned is over 100Km away. As we pull up a guy is filling two huge oil drums with fuel in the back of his defender like vehicle, clearly this place is really really remote!
We fill everything we can, and ride towards Magadan, we pass many settlements some large just abandoned, decaying, rotting back into the ground….I have never seen anything like it…Telegraph Poles lean at ridiculous angles, their wires dangling….it honestly looks like a war zone I can’t describe it any other way, bleak, decaying and depressing!
At 9pm we have done around 280 km, time to get fuel and rest, “lets have an early night and push on to Magadan tomorrow” suggest Gary, nobody objects.
Its clear that only the signposted towns are not abandoned and even some of those have large sections that are……we stop at a fuel station and after a short conversation with the guy in the fuel station it is clear that Vladi had been here and camped a few days before, we ask….”could we sleep here” “no problem” he says in broken English….we head off for some food with a place to sleep sorted.
On our return we set up camp, luxury compared with our kerbside location the night before..I see the fuel attendant watching me from the window and go to offer one of the biscuits we have just bought from the shop in town..
He beckons us to come in and before you know it we are sat with him, food appearing from cupboards with tea and coffee incredible…
He notices my glasses are broken and instantly some superglue appears, just wanting to help, I have no idea why people want to help us so much, three bedraggled strangers but I am almost certain its the bikes that make the difference, make us so rare as tourists.
He offers us his simple cooking facilities and Hannes knocks up a great meal (noodles, fish, tomato sauce and peas) wonderful
We are warm, we have food and beer and even a cheeky vodka to toast our host….filthy dirty, 5 days without a shower but on the up….

We head off from our garage campsite, the roads are the usual mixture of great graded gravel tracks, mud, thick dust, rain and every hazard you can think of…We stop at a roadside cafe, its busy, the food smells great and its a wonderful feeling to be amongst people, a guy reading a book, three guys smoking, a truck driver fixing his wheel………wonderful normality, we order food, lots of food, hot food, we had eaten a little the night before but are still running on empty….my pee still Tango Orange, Gary and Hannes the same!

We have 430 Km to cover that day, every time we stop its the usual push start for Gary but these can be once every 100km now, not every 100m!

We stop to get some warmer clothing and by coincidence meet a Norwegian biker coming the other way on a Honda Transalp…

he tells us he tried the Old Summer Road two years ago and lost his bike in the swamps, he did not have the strength to free it on his own..he was in the middle of Bear country and took three days to hike out! We said “what about food, how did you manage?” he said in a very understated way “I was too scared to eat!”

We are making good progress now, we stop at a cafe 60Km from Madagan for a coffee and to sort out accommidation, it’s clear Magadan is not cheap or rather there seems to be very basic accommodation, very nice but expensive hotels but not much in between, we find the Silver Hotel……and head off in the rain, the roads are great now and we arrive in good time, we are all filthy dirty, deep mud in our finger nails, hair unwashed for over a week, I feel dirty and smell bad, the hotel is new and its time for some luxury, for clean sheets and hot showers.

Next morning we meet for breakfast, then all go our separate ways for the day, Gary thinks he has a way to sort out his bike with a temporary fix, Hannes needs to get his pannier racks welded and I need a haircut!

We meet again towards the end of the day, Gary now has a clutch, Hannes has his pannier racks fixed and a very nice foot plate to make his side stand easier to put down in soft ground. my hair is cut with some clippers after watching a youtube video. We are ready to be tourists the following day.

We walk the town and keep heading up towards the “Mask of Sorrow” a very striking image especially against the blue sky…

there is a volunteer tour guide there and it turns out she is works with compass expeditions…

…she talks about Magadan and its notorious past…

 
Its a fascinating place….

…small foxes come out to greet visitors at the end of the day…

There is even a small beach overlooking the bay that freezes in Winter. People fishing, playing Volleyball or just enjoying the short summer.

We plan to complete all 8 sections of the Road of Bones, soon it will be time to head out of here and back to Yakutsk.