6. Another mainly alone, tough day, and a forced river crossing and a burglar is 'electrocuted'......
"Kamchatka Peninsula" by Bike and Kayak
Wed 22 Aug 2012 05:28
Some way through the night I heard a noise near my tent, and saw the beam of a headlamp flash across my tent roof. With the light, at least it definitely wasn't a bear, this time. I shouted out "Whose there?", and no surprise as Russian words came back... I warned of the electric fence, and responded sarcastically that he was a fisherman and there was no electric fence... It all seemed a bit strange that he was so close to my tent, but I had seen him there before going to bed, and 'out here people are all generally good', so I assumed my waking had done the trick, and went back to sleep.
I woke in the morning feeling surprisingly stiff from the hard day before, and was dreading the 4km 'of more', ahead. Foggy outside, but I got up, went outside to switch off the fence, and to my horror, the cable to the fence had been disconnected, the cable earthing to the ground had been pulled out, and the power unit was lying on the ground metres away from where I'd set it up, and the battery cover was missing. The guy in the night had tried to steal it, and to my amusement must have got repeatedly shocked as he repeatedly tried, eventually having to throw out the power unit. I felt angry that, at the first time I use the fence around other people, they can't help themselves and try to steal it... I then went through the burglar's thought process in knowingly disconnecting my fence, and removing my safety protection, as I slept..? Oh well one learns, hey! Humans still often disappointment me in their selfish greed.
This didn't help my mindset for the 4km's ahead, but I soon rationalised that it should only take me an hour...! But then what if my friends distance or assessment of the road conditions were wrong? I need to just approach to day, the normal adventure way, to 'expect the unexpected'!
Looking around, I took in the wonderful river estuary scenery and reminded myself at how lucky I was to be out here living this adventure.
Well, as predicted, the going was real bad and I couldn't help myself, using the GPS to measure my progress. Well in the 1st half hour I achieved 3 km/h, which shocked me, as I thought I'd be up near 5! Oh well, now you know, what can you do about it? I decided that if things hadn't improved after 5km I'd make some changes to the pannier positions and also put some of thee heavy gear in the backpack to unload the bike The big problem was that the path was narrow and deep, which didn't allow for me and the bike to fit together, so I'd end up outside the track above the bike, trying to push it forward, but not down, deeper into the sand.
Well it was my lucky day, almost exactly 4km in, the road surface improved dramatically, going from black beach sand to reddish brown clay like mud! A few hundred metres later I was in the saddle and happily cycling again. I was forced off again with a few muddy patches but largely progress was great and the terrain and scenery quite different. There was a lake / marshland between me an the ocean on the right, and on the left a sizeable river connected by great tundra plains, rich in blueberries!
When I say cycling was good, I mean I was back to averaging around 10km/h, and this requiring serious leg power to maintain momentum. But by now, I'd got used to this terrain and cycling formula, and it accepted that this was as good as it gets!
No other traffic, as it's all linked to the 6pm ferry schedule, and I stopped occasionally to take in some of the great vistas. Around lunch time, I arrived at this river with no bridge, the road continuing on the other bank, and another amphibian military vehicle parked with it's rear open ramps in place waiting for it's next, drive-on, customer. Well so I thought...
There is a small hut, a dog asleep outside, but nobody around! I walk up to the hut, the window curtain is pulled slightly aside and an elderly guy peers out at me, and a few minutes later opens his door and rattles off some Russian. I try and establish when next he does a crossing, but after all his 'rattling off', it's still not clear, but it certainly doesn't sound like it'll run soon! I ask about tomorrow, and that seems uncertain too... It seemed like he was saying that it depended on a car / truck arriving, and he wasn't sure when...
Oh well, it was a nice relaxing location, him and his dog wanted to sleep some more, and waiting patiently was probably a good strategy...
After an hour or so, nothing had changed, the uncertainty of the situation was affecting me, and so I decided to try take back control, and explore alternatives: He had a rubber duck, no engine but oars, maybe I could use it for the bike, and the swim across my self....it wasn't flowing that strongly.. I wonder how deep it is, maybe I could just wade the bike across... Ok, time to push him for answers. I wake him, but he still doesn't want to contemplate taking me across, he doesn't like my rubber duck idea, but then when I ask him what the river depth is all is solved: It's just below waist level at its deepest, a small section, and then the rest is easy. About 150 metres in total, so that's my plan. Maybe that's what he'd been trying to tell me all along? I was spoilt with the other guys and the amphibian, but then that river was much wider and deeper.
I stripped down to speedo, sealed the panniers and waded across...Not an issue!
The only thing I've learnt about the rivers here is that they normally mean soft sand and difficult roads either side for a while. Well this proved true again! I was straight back into deep soft sand, and 3km/h ploughing! Fortunately that only lasted for 1.5 km, but the soft sand was replaced by impossible, stop start, mud. The going is slow, but the scenery is great, and about 800 metres off I see a bear fishing in a lake, and soon after that I connect to this 'broken spirit', saving grass 'highway' that I think runs parallel to the mud river road. I'd used lots of these grass roads before, but this one went for 15 kilometres... Being able to average 12km/h, saved me a huge amount of time and frustration versus the mud river road. With it and thee long grass either side, came an increased risk of bears, as I passed many bear paths crisscrossing my path. The "Hey bear" strategy was put into place and I didn't have any problems...
By late afternoon it had fogged over, wit light rain and lower temperature. As I was forced back to the mud river, the terrain became more hilly and the road more twisty making my 'as the crow flies', distance to Ozernovsky measurement 'stick' obsolete. It showed 19 kilometres to Ozernovsky,, but I had no idea how many road kilometres lay ahead, and definitely no idea how many hours (or maybe days!) it would take. I've learnt the hard way, not to assume!
I came down this longish hill, and around the corner to the left was this great lake, with a special place for my tent hidden in the tundra, yet close to water access. I immediately knew that was my overnight camp spot, bring to an end another day's 'interesting' cycling!
With the light drizzle, I decided on simple, 'non-cooking' dinner and then jumped into my cozy tent and sleeping bag with a slab of chocolate for desert...! No electric fence tonight, it just wasn't possible in the grass. After seeing the bear footprints in the lake shore beach sand, and taking a chocolate into the tent, I did wonder if I was being reckless / too carefree, but somehow I had this feeling that the bears were on my side!
Was I already asleep and dreaming!
I took