Hydrofoils at the river port. The water level can rise and fall as much as 10m over the course of the seasons.
At Nizhny-Bestyak.
I soon became quite accustomed to this sort of view.
Truck stop food!
Some people including the English teacher from Churapcha.
Twins? This is in the yard of the guest house.
Ethnographic museum.
Internet must be somewhere!!!
Churapcha had more monuments than almost any other town.
After failing to fix a faulty fuel gauge in a petrol station, I walked back to the highway through thick smoke.
This is the Uaz Patriot, a more modern car by the same company that produced the Hunter and Van.
Guys who gave me a lift to the Aldan river.
Too wide to jump.
Building materials for Ust-Nera. The container is lashed on with webbing.
Petrol is expensive in Ust-Nera, therefore this man, delivering pharmaceuticals 1000km from Yakutsk, brought enough for the entire trip.
I've just waited about 3 hours for this ferry. The river's flow was swift so the crossing took another hour and a half.
Khandyga.
The hotel had a semi functional kitchen.
At this point I thought I might still make it to Tomtor on the same day. 3 days later I was still at Kyumyume, about 200km from Tomtor, and decided to go a different way with more traffic!
I waited here for 3 hours.
Sun in a puddle.
After getting sick of waiting I decided to walk - once a few ks out of town drivers, who feared bear attacks, stopped to pick me up. This family drove a lada. The wheel is currently pointed straight ahead, and there's a pineapple hanging from the rear view mirror. The tinting has a 'SONY' motif.
I saw these flowers outside a shop and decided to talk to the girl inside. 10 minutes later she'd asked a truckie to drop me 100km down the road - something he was initially not keen on!
The orange truck was delivering parts for the truck carrying the yellow machine, and dropped me about 10km short of Razvilka. I set off on foot.
Soon it began to rain very heavily. I was fully waterproofed, and it keep the mosquitos at bay.
This truck, with building materials for Magadan, stopped for me in the pouring rain. I stuck with him and his mate for the next 24 hours or 200km - fully loaded trucks are very slow.
Razvilka, with about 300 people, represents the largest population for 100km in one direction and nearly 500km in the other direction.
This bridge is no longer passable by heavy trucks, so we forded the stream.
This was one of the sketchiest roads I have ever been on. Cut into a muddy bank high above a raging torrent, the road looped and bit around large landslides and washouts, red and white markers and frequent memorials being the only thing between the slippery unstable road with an overloaded truck on it and a long plunge to certain death below.
The gravel in the foreground is the edge of the road. The trees in the background are probably 40m tall!
I think I'll need some fresh pants.
The view out my window.
Note the remains of an earlier bridge!
We slept the night at the district border - I pitched my tent between two trucks. The drivers joked that I would be like a lolly or banana for any passing bear! I was counting on them ripping my sleeping bag and choking on the copious feathers that would surely fly out.
People leave strips of cloth here or coins wedged in cracks in the wood as offerings for safe passage on the road.
This driver's friends have left a drinking mug, some beer, a watch, a screw driver, a washer, plenty of cigarettes, and a litre of petrol for this guy - the bare minimum to get to the first truck stop on the other side. Given that this place is far from cliffs and rivers, he probably froze to death after failing to restart his truck while stopped here.
The guys dropped me at the turn-off to the bridge. Cars, I later discovered, turn off a few kms later near the petrol station.
The ladder enables pedestrians to cross half the river without getting their feet wet. The other half is much shallower.
Kyubyume, once a junction and truck stop, is now completely abandoned. I like the record player next to this ad-hoc campsite.
This house is missing some structural supports.
The theatre.
Electronics supply depot.
Found a scythe.
Truck workshop.
This pond is a sizable spring bubbling odorless gas, and full of old tires.
Hard landing.
I waited more or less here for about 18 hours. Didn't see a single car.
This is where I first played the excellent game 'throw rocks at distant targets'.
Five blokes from Tomtor were dismantling the least destroyed building. These logs, once painstakingly removed, would be packed on a truck and sent to Yakutsk. One man had cut his arm quite badly on glass about a week before.
Work safety anyone?
I considered getting out my leatherman and getting this to a working standard to ride to Tomtor. No luck.
Filtering drinking water at the river.
Walking around with my bag!
This sign says something like 'last beer before Oimyakon', which is near Tomtor. Sadly they are not in business anymore.
Banya anyone?
More electronics.
Part of the telegraph repeater station.
Spasmalgon.
Manuals.
No entry.
No digging - telegraph cable. All towns in the area now use satellite.
Cooking dinner at the road junction.
At evening, the sun comes out.
Volleyball net outside theatre.
The sky at 1am.
At the main road petrol station.
Leopard snowmobile.
Strange clouds.
Road building.
The last pass before Ust-Nera.
Ust-Nera
All the surrounding hills have jagged stone tops.
Food!
Taxi?
Don't leave home without one!
Went for a walk to look for bears.
This sign says 1017km on both sides - half way! A few hundred kms further down the road they decided the road was 10km shorter, and the final marker says 2025km from Yakutsk.
In the environmental protection laboratory.
A Yakut soldier at the close of the war is visited by a heavenly appearance. The 65 years since the end of the war have seen a LOT of banners, particularly in Sakha. Interesting stuff.
Waited here for a lift for 2 hours, then gave up and spent another 2 days in Ust-Nera. The rock just emerging from the pool on the right was my target of choice.
Roof-space!
A friend had a spare flat. I stayed there!
This was apparently a short-lived reality TV show in Russia. Still - funny!
This green colour is natural - not some horrible chemical spill.
Gulag recreation in the museum.
SPID is Russian for AIDS. Such health posters are common in hospitals and clinics.
Interesting wiring!
The Indigirka river, just before it joins the Nera and races north via fearsome rapids to the Arctic Ocean. Note bumpy hills.
Friends!
Artyk main square. Lenin, of course.
Hospital.
Gold mining spoil piles.
Plane crash during WW2. American planes were also flown through Russia to the Eastern Front via Anadyr and Oimyakon, which are in the general area.
Khadykchan was abandoned 15 years ago following a heating system failure and mine closure. It was once home to 15000 people.
The main street.
Some blocks are partially subsiding, others are collapsed, but most are still solid.
Welcome to the world of knowledge!
Cinema.
Lenin now resembles a cyborg from the right distance.
The cinema theatre succumbed to fire and snow some time ago.
This room once contained reels of film.
This is the remains of the projector.
Sadface
Sports hall - it has subsided badly.
This is the highschool - all schools in the region follow this design.
Books and record covers.
The floor boards have been salvaged.
The pianos have not been salvaged. When this school was closed, neighbouring towns were forbidden to take materials for their own schools - the doors were locked and the area abandoned. Thieves broke in after about 2 nanoseconds and that was that.
Broken glass presents a hazard.
This room was once a science lab with plumbing to every desk.
Access to the roof. The level below is storage - half height, full of chairs.
Store rooms with slides and old slide projectors. Beneath the window is a heater.
Slept overnight in my hammock because it is mosquito proof.
Water on the roof was good for a drink following overnight rain. After draining it, shake the trees for more!
50 years October. 8 is the building number.
An old garage.
These are tank tracks.
Kiddy cart.
Empty factory.
Food market. There was a lift to a basement level in the back, but light was too poor for photos.
Goodbye Khadykchan.
Permafrost sometimes spontaneously forms lakes or bogs, swallowing pylons in the process.
The view of the city from the junction with the main road.
This road is the other end of the junction at which I waited in Kyubyume. From here about 250km to Tomtor across at least one large unbridged river!
Coal.
I had a chat with the truck driver taking a break here.
And he fed me afternoon tea! Hooray!
The ice rink - recently renovated (on the inside).
Bush is an arsehole. It's true. Obama rules. And who is Putin?
Medvedev (president) in the school.
Science lab store room!
Computer lab. Locked with a special key.
Medsluzhba - or ambulance.
500MW (?) coal power station. Myaundzha was originally to be the site of an enormous Uranium processing plant, but I saw no sign of it, if it was ever built.
After food - lollies!
Cabbage!
Dacha, or country house to grow vegetables.
In the green house.
Natalya is the school's English teacher and headmistress.
In Vasily's workshop. Nye kurit' means no smoking.
On the left is a bit of mammoth tooth.
Shoe repair workshop. For a hobby.
In the hospital.
Hospital access. People in wheelchairs need not apply.
Barbeque.
Waiting at the junction.
This man, going the other way, stopped and offered me food, drink, money, which I declined and finally sweets which I thankfully accepted!
Little fella came to say hello.
That dot on the right is an Uaz van.
Susuman bus station/hotel.
65 years of freedom. Interesting.
I don't remember this character in the film.
This is Jack London lake in winter.
A view from near Susuman in better weather.
Yet another repair - a sock was partially sacrificed.
The bathroom. On the left is the only working hot tap in the place - which couldn't be switched off.
Bus station and hotel.
No sooner had I taken this photo then a truck skidded to a halt and offered me a lift. Only 2 minutes of waiting on this day.
The driver stopped to gather some pine cones.
He then showed me how to extract nuts.
An unfinished and abandoned water-works at the edge of town.
Climbed the hill to have a look.
Oh noes!
The stairs look similar to the ones in Ust-Nera.
Stone skimming paradise!
In the poliklinika.
Jack London lake. 60km that way!
The bridge is in good repair.
Debin, once the capital of the Kolyma gulag, is now mostly abandoned.
This was once a TB sanatorium.
The Kolyma river. Once marched here from Magadan, prisoners would be transported by boat up or down the river towards mines. In excess of four million people perished in the region.
Got a lift with a guy driving diesel to a road crew. Here we're working on graders.
How to fix an Uaz!
In Orotukan, the last major settlement before Magadan, about another 400km down the road. A girl in a shop told me that an Australian on a motorbike stopped here about 2 years ago.
Got a lift in a newish Hilux, the road and weather were excellent, and I anticipated being in Magadan in the late evening.
Trucks throw up huge clouds of dust - a few weeks earlier two cars, concealed by dust, had a head-on collision. 7 people died.
A fine layer of just next to the ground, fluffy white clouds, blue sky, Australian looking hills.
Uh oh. This occurred here: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Russian+Federation,+Magadanskaya+oblast,+Atka&sll=34.139277,-118.129344&sspn=0.009661,0.021136&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Atka,+Khasynskiy+rayon,+Province+of+Magadan,+Russian+Federation&ll=60.601717,151.576824&spn=0.04584,0.169086&t=h&z=13
The car spun out (or in) on a curve, hit the bank (losing the wheel), and flipped 1.25 times. All three of us in the car walked away with barely a scratch.
We climbed out through the windshield.
A truckie picked me up and drove me an uncomfortable 160km to Magadan. At 1am we had tea in this workshop, then I checked in at the classiest hotel in town.
A sitting room on my floor.
