Yeah, I'm back in the almost normal civilization of Petropavlovsk Kamchatka. Another intense, rollercoaster, Siberian adventure, and one so different again. This one involves more than the same 'boring' volcanoes, bears, and salmon, but also a circus, a wedding, an outdoor movie house, a drug hangover, and 36 hours living as a truckie....

Thirteen days and 600 kilometres of big river, coldwater, paddling, in an absolutely exquisite, volcano-dominated environment. This turned out to be a real 'out there', 'one on one' with Nature, alone, experience.

As I found with my solo sailing, ocean crossings, these in-the-wilderness, real alone experiences are deeply personal and hard to relate, in their spiritual holistic-ness, to the absent reader. I can understand why from that outsider perspective they could be seen merely as pointless, day-after-hard-day, lonely, endurance struggles, staring mindlessly at never-changing, wilderness nothingness.

I can assure you that for me these thirteen days were spiritually diametrically opposite to that description, and in what follows I'll try to bring you some way into that space of mine.

I thought I'd start by sharing three of the highlights:

The first one covers days 6 to 9, where the Kamchatka River's path is still being strongly shaped by the surrounding topography. From my start point the river runs north-east towards the huge, amalgamated, volcanic massif, that forms the bases of the big four volcanoes of this area. (Mt Klyuchevsky, Mt Ushkovsky, Mt Bezymyanna, and Mt Tolbachinsky)

As the river approaches this base at one point, its path is forced, quite abruptly, more north, until it can bend east again, to follow the curvature of this massif base. From there its now dominant size and lack of similar scale obstacles, enables it to forge an almost direct course east to the Bering Sea. It's adolescent and less confident course in getting to this volcano foundation being characterized by huge oxbows. Many of these a couple of kilometres long, and making for a tortuous course with continuous 'switchbacks', that play with the river user's mind.

It is here that Mother Nature seemed to take me by the scruff of my neck and say: "Boy I am going to reward you for your risk of coming here solo, and presenting yourself as naked as you are in front of me. I'm going to let you into one of my sacred viewing rooms of this planet. A rare, four-day, private viewing. There is only one condition though: No photos are allowed! This is just between You and Me. What gets embedded in your memory and your soul is all you can take with you into the future, and share with others. I want you to be free of trying to take away trophy rewards, and focus on being at one with the specialness." Hmmm, a profound opportunity, and yet a challenging deal.

The oxbows provide Mother Nature with a continuously-moving, open air, movie house, complete with full 360 degree screen. It's only up to the director to decide how, what vistas, and under what light conditions, one views the plethora of possibilities of this extraordinary movie content. 

Mid morning on day 6, with bright sunshine and perfect clear blue skies, Mother Nature, started opening the screen curtains, and in my awestruck amazement at the volcano vista, I couldn't resist breaking 'our deal'.  Still quite far off, yet impressive on the river horizon, I wasn't going to let this moment go wasted, and one-handedly whip out my DSLR camera from below the kayak spray cover, and with what I thought was impressive balance and agility took some 'shots' from the water. Mother Nature almost immediately intervened, by 'throwing' some spray on us, and  'breaking' my cameral, rendering it U/S for the rest of the trip!

Yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry… No photos for what was undoubtedly the most amazing scenery by far of these three months. If you ask me nicely I'll give you your money back, but only after I have got over the full disappoint myself. (After then trying to use my Blackberry camera functionality and finding that it had somehow lost its zooming capability, I'm being quite philosophical about all this. I do believe this multi event, 'technology disarming' I have been subjected to is beyond coincidence or my fault. I believe some higher power is forcing a strong message on me. I also had to admit to myself that not having the distraction of the technology did make for a deeper person, 'living in the now' experience!) From this lowlight, back to the highlight...

Mother Nature stuck to her side of the deal, and for four days the weather remained, virtually clear sky, perfect.  When I add the effect of the dawn to dusk, changing light colour, and angle, into the recipe, it all made for a very rich and intense, 14-hour-a-day nature movie experience.

The river's relentless 3 km/h flow and tortuous march towards the volcano massif provides for a gentle, hour-by-hour enticing, zooming in effect.

First up as I approached the massif, was Mt Tolbachinsky, with its primary and secondary summits giving it its distinct shape. Rising virtually right from river level, at 3000 metres, it's an impressive site. To think the whole mountain was only created less than forty years ago, and is younger than me, is awesome. Evidence of that 1975 eruption's destruction can be seen for miles away from the base, and far into the valley.

The seemingly 'stuck' 'zooming in' continued for all those days until I felt like I was paddling virtually at the base of the last, and most impressive of the four, Mt Klyuchevsky. At 4 700 metres, it's the highest on the peninsula, and its totally snow covered, almost perfect volcano cone shape, makes for awesome vistas.

At times as I came round an oxbow, with the volcano base directly ahead, and it felt like the river mysteriously ended somewhere in the core of the volcano I was approaching. This wasn't just about the pretty vistas, it was about feeling the stature and dominant presence of nature, and the total human insignificance, in both time, and space, scales, of me in my kayak. To a world that is very much alive, but on hugely different, time, and magnitude of event scales, I really was just an insignificant and 'momentary flash' visitor here.

The movie director had even richer content to add....

I must have been forgiven for my camera transgression, or, I was being rewarded for my 'intensity of appreciation', because Mother Nature decide to enrich my river / volcano experience with a few special, wild life viewings:

On day 7, I had the delight of being able to closely track a grizzly mother and her cub, as they made their way downstream on the near side riverbank, a hundred metres off from me. Before catching up to them, I stopped paddling, just drifting quietly with the flow, our speeds were then not too dissimilar, and for more than fifteen minutes, they were oblivious to my presence. Every so often, their river bank 'sidewalk' ended, forcing them to scramble up onto higher ground, and then back over as the sidewalk reformed again. The mother took these high ground excursions in her stride, but the youngster often got left behind as her scrambles often ended up with lost footing and 'cute' little slide back to the river level. I could almost see its frustrated anxiety as it lost ground on its mother. This probably not ground breaking viewing for many, but somehow in the volcano setting, and being in the kayak, on the river, traveling, in quite close proximity with them, was were I really felt the specialness of this gift from nature.

Early on in the four special days, I was given my first viewing of the elusive Stellar Sea eagle. All in all, I had about ten unique sightings of this impressive eagle that is supposedly only found on the Kamchatka Peninsula. With its large black body, save for a white zig-zag stripe on its chest, white tail, and impressive yellow beak and talons, it stands out from the 'crowds', but is a very cautious bird. Seeing one perched on a tree branch overhanging the river, I'd stop paddling and aim my drift for right under the branch. As I approached, it was special watching her increasingly anxious glances down at this 'strange' river user, until the inevitable decision to take off and flee was made, and this strange, one leg takeoff movement initiated.

Disarmed of 'all' my cameras, and immersed in Nature’s special movie house, there was no option for replays, slow motions, or fast forwards, only the possibility of stopping the zooming, to allow me take it all in, more slowly. This I did occasionally by pulling over to the river bank when the right opportunity was presented, but it was all just about connecting with every moment of this very stimulating movie.  Paddling these four special days, the hours on the river flew by, and the end of the day's paddle was all about the search for a river side campsite with the best volcano vistas, and an east facing tent site... The mornings were getting colder, and having first sunrays on the sometimes frosty tent was a priority.

Almost as if my 'four day ticket' had expired, I went to sleep on the fourth night with perfect clear skies, and a wonderful volcano silhouette horizon, only to wake to a total overcast, rain threatening sky. It was clear, this highlight had come to an end, and the reality of having no replays hit me as I made a final check that the camera really was U/S forever... Thank you, Mother Nature for the splendid experience.

The second highlight was my experience of day 10, where I entered a new phase of the River's life, bringing with it, a totally different landscape environment.

After bending around Mt Klyuchevsky, and flowing through the town of Kluchi, the river widens out into an extensive marshland, where it breaks into numerous sub streams. This marshland lasted for two days, before the sub rivers reconstituted to start the final, almost direct, 90 kilometre charge, east to the sea. The only barrier between the marshland and the sea, being the Rebeg Mountain range that runs perpendicular to the river. This mountain range being uniquely impressive in its sequentially, stacked prisms appearance, and still green, rich, tundra covering.

Day 10 began at my campsite, right at the end of the marshland, and right in front of me, the more dominant, single stream, river, was contemplating its path through the mountain barrier ahead. The weather played an early role in this highlight, maybe a sign of things to come that day..

Since the great weather of the four-day highlight above, Mother Nature had closed her curtains on me. I'd had two coldish, overcast days with overcast cloud, and even been tent bound for one decadently lazy, rainy day. I woke on Day 10, just before sunrise, peering out from my cracked open tent flap to a chilly westerly wind, but mostly clear skies. As I ventured out of the cosy tent / sleeping bag environment, and looked upstream I was presented with a stunning view of Mt Klyuchevsky rising out of the river horizon, and stood there, once again mesmerised.

Later, as I paddled away after an inspiring, riverside breakfast, volcano behind me, I wondered: Was Nature giving me my final 'goodbye peek', before I entered the more enclosed vistas, of the mountain range, barrier ahead. Wanting to savour these last sights, every now and then I did a 360 degree pirouette in the kayak, taking in the full extent off his magnificent transition zone setting, and trying to create my own version of Nature's earlier movie house. To add further terminality to this 'stage end', a Stella Sea eagle, attracted my attention with its loud call. Another great viewing, and I didn't know it then, but that was to be my last Stellar Sea eagle viewing.

Coming out of the marshes, the river was now brown, muddy, and in its single stream solidarity, it now looked increasingly determined to somehow cut a way through the seemingly impenetrable, and fast approaching, mountain barrier.

There was a chilly tail wind blowing, and as it strengthened it felt like I was being funneled into this wind tunnel, that would somehow, blow me through the mountains ahead, if the river didn't find a way through.

I hadn't seen anyone for two days, and, the leaving behind of the marshland and volcanoes, together with the new unknown yet rapidly-unveiling-itself scenery and weather environment ahead made for a feeling of real alive, expectant vibrancy. I remember shouting out loudly: "Freedom man, you're living it!" Here I was actually living the stuff my 'Simply Adventure' dreams were made of...

I was soon immersed right in the narrow valley, that magically cut through the mountain range. The river bending gently back and forth, around a few intruding pyramid bases, but for the main, it was straight eastward paddling.

By now the wind funnel was having its maximum affect and the wind speed was up to at least forty knots, creating havoc on the river. The wave height had increased substantially, with the kayak bow often totally submerged.  With the low season, river level, the many, dry, exposed river sand banks, looked like small deserts in a wild desert storm. A close to ground, but sizeable cloud of dense, sand laden air, forming a surreal, thick, moving conveyer belt rapidly relocating the river bed sand, far downstream, as I paddled by watching.

The lee shore on outer river bends were treacherous in my increasingly vulnerable kayak. With the wind blown waves piling up wherever there was shallowing water, and eventually forced to make a the turn in the river bend, steerage of the rudderless kayak, required all my focus. Not only to keep tracking in the direction I wanted to go, but also to prevent 'us' getting into a, broadside, potential capsize, situation.

There were good surfing times too... As many a paddler would know, that feeling of getting it 'all lined up', and then surfing controllably down a wave, in the direction one wants to go, is a thrilling feeling. I revelled in the challenge of the conditions, and as I took in the full extent of my aloneness, the wildness of the weather, and the new beauty of the deep, tundra-covered mountain valley environment, I understood the one ingredient of the drug fuelled euphoria that had been building... Real adventure excitement!

The other ingredient of this addictive cocktail was provided by the risk realities of the situation: I was in icy water, where, with my clothing, submersed survival time would be only minutes. There was the real risk of the ferocious wind tearing the paddle out of my now numb hand grip. Having had tame river conditions to date, I didn't have a paddle leash attached, and navigating in these conditions without a paddle would be a challenge I preferred not to contemplate. I'd had one close call already, and there was constantly a real risk of a capsize. With the kayak's hatch covers not being 100% watertight in these conditions, there would be an almost certain loss of the boat and all my dry gear. To try and stay in the least turbulent sector, I was forced to paddle in the middle, of the probably 800 metre wide river, so the swim to a river bank wasn't 'a fun thought' either. Never mind the thought of if I did make the swim to the river bank, how I'd survive from there on with no gear!

Momentarily, I looked down at the life jacket strapped, out of the way, on the foredeck, and thought about how I always put heavy weighting on Freedom, and Nakedness, in my adventures... But maybe today I'd got the priorities wrong? Anyway, gripping the paddle a bit tighter, there was no chance of rectifying that in a hurry.

This was more about the product of thought, rather than the probabilities of these events happening. After all, there was no official race, no tight deadlines to meet, not even a waiting, 3rd party, commitment to honor. Nobody even knew where I was, or what I was dealing with.  I didn't have to continue on this path, and could have relatively easily paddled my way across river to either river bank, call it quits for the day, and be in a warm tent within minutes ... It's all too easy when one is doing solo stuff like this, supposedly, 'just for fun', to 'be chilled', and contemplate taking the easy safe and relaxed, options. But therein lies the source of high level purpose and personal meaning... 

After years now of doing similar solo pursuits, I know that stopping is not an option, and would take away the very special thing I get out of these adventures: Personal height. I had a goal and plan for the day, and dealing with all the challenges thrown at me along the way to reach that goal, is the basis for this personal height, and internal integrity account, credit deal.

It may not be clear to all, but I do see these adventures as my replacement for work. I sense they are often compared to closely related, traditional, fun and 'holiday' pursuits, where the main purpose is to provide escape relief from the rigors of the disciplined routine, and goal related performance demands of regular work. For me it's my work....  

Am I over dramatising the adventure risk element, in the above, some may ask?

In the company of others, or the context of an organised race, with all its safety regulations and support, I have paddled in significantly more challenging, turbulent river conditions, so it wasn't just about that. Here the added dimension of being totally alone, and virtually 'naked' in this real wilderness, is what made for the whole increased level of 'excitement' and 'anxiety'. The all too familiar pair of conflicting emotions, whose internal battle for supremacy, makes me feel very so very alive, and at one, with my passion and soul.

There was no stopping, and after a full three hours in these gradually moderating conditions, I was magically through the mountain range, and was suddenly into wide open space, low, flat land, tundra, and a wider river. The now, inverted wind funnel, performed its new function, and the dispersed wind was now just down to a light, yet chilly tail wind. Another whole new world.

A few islands in the river forced me to focus on staying with the main river stream, and soon I was dealing with the almost hollowness of the hangover from my three hour, drug binge. It didn't take long before nature provided another treat to get me back on track...

About forty kilometres from the river mouth I was given an early maritime welcome: In search of salmon, six, large, light grey, seals, had come that far up the river from the sea, and were clearly intrigued by this new, unrecognised river user they saw. Positioning themselves strategically in a circle around me, they slowly closed in a team effort to ascertain whether I was friend or foe. Constantly popping their instantly lovable round faces, with big eyes and long steely whiskers, above the moving surface. Always in unpredictable places, for a quick visual check on my movements, before disappearing underwater to surprise me a short while later, somewhere else, quite far away. These large seals were the same as the ones I saw off the beaches of the Sea of Oshkosh. They too were almost overly inquisitive. I was even convinced, that one, a couple of hundred metres out to sea, followed my progress for an hour or more, as a cycled just above the shore line. If only we could talk to our animal / mammal friends, hey! These seals stayed with me for about half an hour, as I journeyed downstream, before they returned to their salmon hunting activities.

The river had changed its character to such an extent that now there were steep vertical river banks, the river every now and again, still claiming huge pieces of bank, into its flow. For the first time of 13 days on the river, finding a suitable riverside campsite was a struggle. Eventually my search was rewarded with a site that was good, other than its direct exposure to the very chilly westerly wind, still blowing. A campside fire was no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity, and soon the tent was up, all the gear from the wet day's paddle was up drying, and a hearty, 'you can eat all that's left', meal was on the go... Barring some unforeseen disaster, I'd be in Ust Kamchatsk the next day,  so need to have rations onboard. A three portion meal, with three course variety', was a welcome sustenance luxury, for the slightly fading away, boy! The last dregs of a small bottle of Russian cognac I'd kept for the moment complemented the dinner and celebrated this wonderful day of adventure.

The last 'highlight' is a short one, and takes off the next day from the camp site above. As it got colder, and lighter later, each morning involved a quite delicately planned, 'voluntary' exit from the warm sleeping bag, tent environment, into the chilly, morning nakedness of outdoors. From there it was breakfast, pack up, change of clothes into 'riverwear', and the final lightning slip off of warm dry socks, and their courageous replacement with frosty, neoprene booties!

I say "voluntary", well, I have to admit, that without the proverbial sergeant major present, each day the volunteer was slower in coming forward! (Yes, ok this was more of a holiday than the serious business of solo sailing, or skiing to the poles!)  Strangely, the 'volunteer moment' wasn't clockwork driven, but rather just happened impulsively, and never outside of a half hour window, the whole trip!

This highlight day, was different.... The impulsive 'volunteer moment' came up, I acted, headed out, but the biting wind, and real cold environment out there, had me back in my sleeping bag with aching hands, and a damaged ego within 15 minutes! This was by far the coldest morning, yet, and my last!

So on this last day, was I a wimp?

To be honest, with just 24 kilometres to go it felt like 'home' was in the bag, and it was ok to be a bit easy on the schedule. The warm sunrise rays soon shone onto the campsite, and impulsive, 'volunteer moment' two, happened, this time to conclusion. I was soon on my way, for Nature's last special showing....

Paddling about 200 metres off the north bank, in the river well over a kilometre wide, I saw the outline of an adult Grizzly, on the same shoreline but quite a way downstream. It was scanning the river as it walked down the river bank in the direction of flow. It looked like it was planning to enter the water, and I assumed searching for fish. As I got closer, it still hadn't seen me, it waded into the river, and was soon swimming full speed, across stream. I realised, it wasn't on a fishing mission, but had just commenced a huge swim to the south bank, and we were on virtual collision course. My courage for a real close-in water encounter surprisingly rapidly waned, and I made a slight course adjustment. Soon after that, clearly surprised, the bear saw me. Still swimming strongly, it launched its neck and head further out of the water to have a better look. A couple second stare must have concluded I was no threat, and it went back to the more streamlined, focused, swimming posture, with no further interest in me. I passed by, maybe eighty metres from it, our paths virtually perpendicular, and it was very special to see, fairly close up, the powerful, focused swimming effort, and the focus on the far off river bank goal. I pirouetted down the river, keeping my eye on it until after about ten minutes it was out of sight, but I estimate still only 70% across the river. "What a calorie consuming effort that must be?" I pondered, curious as to what the motive for the river crossing, and huge effort was. Mere instinct, a return to a familiar domain, or a pure new territory exploration, or maybe, it was just fun?... Well, I guess that's exactly what the fishermen later on in this e-letter were also asking of me! Once again this may not sound like a 'gee whiz' experience, but in the whole context of the whole environment, and mind space I was in, and the fact that I'd had this fairly intimate in-water grizzly experience from the kayak, made for another very unique and special piece in my now rich, grizzly experience tapestry. That final half day brought a lot more seals as I came closer to the river mouth, and before I crossed the 'finish line', at the ferry river crossing point at Ust Kamchatsk. I was surprised at two locals waiting for the ferry, who actually took out their phones and proceeded to take photos of this strange siting! I'd never seen that 'need to capture' something different impulse, before... Almost an emotional slip, and there was no thought of offering me a 'trophy pic'! Haha! Other than that unpresented trophy, there was no finish gun, no cheering, and no outside kayak transport assistance offered, this was not about that....  Inside me I had this euphoric sense of satisfaction, knowing it was just for me, and the 13 days I'd just experienced will remain treasured in a special place in my soul, and nobody will ever be able to steal it away from me. Although the challenge of getting the kayak back to Petropavlovsk, that followed, almost made it worthy of being included, (it is touched on later) that ends the 'highlights'.   

The danger with highlights, is they can be just 'cherry picking', and miss the cherry tree's experience, and leaving one thinking: "Oh so that's all 'it' was about, just three, mediocre experiences!" I really hope it's not as dramatic as that, but because of MY perspective, I don't really know... Anyway, for those still with me, and looking to add more context, and go a bit further into my total kayak adventure experience, I add the following:

Starting with some different 'Russian Tradition':

It seems months ago that the night before I left for the start of this kayak trip I sat as the only foreign spectator in my first and only ever Russian circus. This was the opening night of the Petropavlovsk Kamchatka showing of the Kamchatka circus. Hating the idea of circuses and zoos I had this bizarre interest to 'just' experience an authentic Russian circus. I hadn't been to a circus for more than forty years, and was just curious to see how this weird form of human entertainment had evolved! I also guess I really wanted to see how bad the notorious treatment / display of 'my special' grizzlies would be. I don't know whether it's just a Russian circus trend, or more global, but thankfully the animal involvement was substantially reduced, and by far the most humiliation came in the form of a 'sad' clown, picking on very reluctant participants from the crowd. I must say the public humiliation took me by surprise in its basic brutality.

Two muzzled and leashed grizzly cubs made up a surprisingly passive and very humane bear performance. I was still left sadly wondering how different the life paths of these two cubs are from those I'd seen in the wild. But then again if I'd known what I would experience later on the river with bear hunting, I wonder if it was all so simple? Maybe they had the best of two bad options. The only common factor in the creation of these 'bad options' was man. Man selfishly impinging on their fundamental wilderness liberty, or is our dominant superiority the way our creator designed it to work? That's something I discuss more later. Well, from a circus to a wedding:

Right at the rainy day start, while waiting for a clearing of the clouds, I was also witness to a symbolic Russian wedding tradition. This all happened at the first road bridge, over the Kamchatka River, some 12 kilometers upstream from the large town of Milkovo. The umbrella wielding guests witnessed the bride and groom symbolically locking an ornate lock, complete with their names on it, onto the railing of the bridge. The groom then demonstrating his commitment to the old fashioned carer role ahead, carried his bride over the symbolic threshold span of the bridge. All very sweet, and after seeing so many locks, on so many bridges, I was glad to see one actual 'live' ceremony....

Symbolic for me too.... I was about to get wedded to the river for the next 13 days, and became almost an integral part of its tortuous 600 kilometre journey to the Bering Sea. Not even one hundred metres wide, and still a crystal clear bubbling 'stream' it would grow in character and status to a more-than-one-kilometre-wide, brown, muddy, yet still icy, unstoppable giant, as all the tributary rivers flowing down from the valley's adjacent snow-capped mountains joined in the charge east. Like the salmon moving the other way, a path to it's eventual destiny, demise, as it's seemingly indestructible individuality was effortlessly swallowed up into the much more expansive, and permanent, Bering Sea.

It was clear from some of the very high river banks, and the huge piles of massive torn down trees to be found on most abrupt river bends, that I was seeing the river's most mellow, autumn persona. Pondering this evidence took me on a journey of visualising its beautiful white, frozen winter hibernation, and then the ice breaking transformation into it's dominant, immensely powerful and destructive, Spring persona. 

Being witness to this rich transformation and maturing journey the river went through, provided another dimension of fascination, and reinforced appreciation, of our human insignificance, in the context of the breadth and depth permanence of the of Nature's intricate systems. 

Beyond my Siberian 'development', merely from the passage of time, it was also hard to believe this Kamchatkan region I hade just kayaked through was the self same one I biked through some five weeks earlier. What a different experience I had and how things had changed?

As expected, and described above, the river-based volcano landscape vistas were new, and truly impressive, but the big surprise was the low level of interaction with local communities, and individual fishermen and hunters 'along the way'.

In the whole 13 days, I don't think I spent more than half an hour, in total, interacting with other human beings. Almost all these interactions being restricted to the commercial formality of buying provisions from a village store keeper. This WAS a real, alone, out there on my own, river wilderness experience. I put this this largely down to the fact that being in the kayak, made me, part of, the river not the communities. 'We' were in its flow and energy all day, continuously moving along Nature's river 'road'. The bike connected me to a soulless, human creation, one whose only purpose is to transport and connect humans to each other, so yeah, I can see why I got more connected to people rather than 'the road', on the bike.

There was however, some other 'antisocial force' at play with the 'other river users', which I sporadically came across while paddling. Mostly solitary, or twosome, fishermen and hunters, I was expecting some form of 'kindred spirit' bonding, like I'd had on the bike trips. Whether it was my unconscious, changed disposition, or their reluctance to allow me into their world, my interaction with these people was limited to a greeting at best. Unlike my experiences on my two earlier adventures, I sensed these people weren't happy with me seeing their world. Maybe they saw me as a spying, potential future competitor, in their informally-staked-out domain, but more likely, I think they didn't want me witnessing their illegal fishing and hunting operations. This, so-different reaction disappointed me at first, but in the end, I see how it channeled my focus onto deepening this very intimate to bond opportunity with Nature.

Nature brought her change too: The forests and tundra had mostly changed their lush green foliage to dramatic autumn yellows and oranges, and every now and then there was a magnificent, vivid crimson, leafed tree, showing show the colder temperatures can really make a difference.

Gone were the hot dry, mosquito-infested days, replaced by generally pleasant mild days, but chilling early mornings, the one I describe above as the extreme.

The first snows had already blanketed, many of the previously bare mountain peaks, and I watched as literally, day by day, the snow line crept down, adding a further coat of beauty to a already exquisite scenery.

From a personal point of view, the change was more rapid and severe than my clothes planning had anticipated! Always the minimalist, by the time I reached the finish at Ust Kamchatsk, I was just surviving the nights, with no more layers of clothing to put on, even going to bed with zipped up windbreaker on, wrapped up tight in my sleeping bag I just survived the last nights. Any colder and I would probably have taken up a permanent place on a Kamchatkan river bank! The side benefit from living on this, 'edge of coldness', was that even eating two large slabs of chocolate every day, I still lost weight. Once again putting me on the adventure side, of the 'adventure' or 'holiday' test. (Maybe an innovative, new weight loss product?: The buy line: "Lose weight while you sleep...!" Haha...! The small print warning:  "But make sure you don't have a role as a 'warm body' provider in a valued, intimate relationship!" Ok, back on focus on the changes I witnessed....

The absence of mosquitoes, and the remoteness of the river's path meant evening campsites, and the two hour lunch stops, were a totally different experience to the bicycle trip, where one was almost forced 'indoors'. These riverside settings were, almost all, truly decadent luxury, in their extreme offering of pristine, riverside, wilderness remoteness. I'm not saying that lightly, and for me that facilitated lots of real quality, solitude time. Not everyone's cup of tea, I understand. Often I'd just sit, without time constraint, on a huge dead tree, long since torn away from its upstream forest 'belonging spot', having later run aground in more shallow, downstream water, and now finally left high and dry to transform into next season's driftwood. From here I'd slowly just take in specialness of my real aloneness and the magical, wilderness surroundings, and its beautiful silence. It really was just me and Mother Nature, looking deeply into each other's eyes. Me looking up, respectfully at her, and she looking down, seemingly caringly, at me. The more I appreciated the decadent luxury, the more comfortable with each other, our eye contact seemed to become. Every know and then, ever restless me would come out of the trance and head off on a very quite walk, hoping to find that one of her wild life creations had quietly moved into my viewable space,  Never once did I feel lonely or vulnerable, in fact as scary as it may seem for many, I thought the presence of someone else here would significantly devalue this ability to get intimate with Nature. The walks before sunset would invariably involve the collection of the full range of firewood, from kindling to the larger logs, this a fascinating discovery process in itself. I even started cooking on the open fire, making MSR Inc's stove redundant, and taking another step closer to Nature. How different this all was, and I made the most of it all

As further evidence of change, the salmon had virtually ended their pilgrimage to their upstream destinies. This evidenced by the relatively meager fishermen catches I saw, the scarcity of bears at the river edges, and the quite river. Gone was the continual sound of 'aliveness' in the river. The 'plop-plop' noise of the salmon regularly breaking the river surface, seemingly in a momentary, jovial distraction from their otherwise hard, focused swim upstream. The 'plops' were few and far between now, and I also didn't see many fish swimming in the river, just the stragglers left. The season had almost run its course for another 'salmon year'.

Another big difference to my bike trip came in physical demands on my body: My 'king pin' cycling legs protested at being made redundant in the daily propulsion process. Forced to stay imprisoned under the cockpit deck, with not even a rudder steerage role to play. My shoulders, arms and hands had a different protest: Without a day's training, and almost having been on a Siberian holiday so far, they were forced into six-hour-a-day paddling and the primary propulsion role. It took about five days, with a few blisters on blisters as evidence of the struggle, before 'everyone' had settled into their new roles, and the day’s paddling effort seemed almost effortlessly natural. Almost without exception, every morning, as I started the day’s paddling, I experienced this exhilarating early morning, freshness, feeling of "Hey it's just great to be back out on the water in the early morning tranquility and freshness. You are a very lucky boy, and I mustn't forget this simple, special feeling!" I can't say I felt like that every day on the bike on some of those, dusty, corrugated, forest tunnels!  

Outside of the bear experiences in the 'highlights', you probably are curious about my extent of experience with bears? This is closely related to the hunter and fishermen controversy above. Firstly, at every riverside campsite, the area next to the water was always a maze of bear foot prints. All sizes, and varying time marks, it was clear at 'some point' this summer, there were a lot of bears around. Some of the prints looked pretty recent, but other than the bear stories earlier, I only saw / encountered one other, which I'll share below. So it was clear to me, that with the tapering off of the salmon run, the bears had either moved away from the river for more productive berry pickings, or they almost exclusively frequent the river banks at night. From one or two brief interactions with 'fishermen',  they shared that they also hunted bears. While on a stroll from one of my 'remote wilderness' campsites, I came across the mostly-charred remains of an adult grizzly. It had clearly been shot, and then put straight on an open campfire, whereafter its cooked meaty parts had no doubt provided the hunters with a grandiose feast of a meal. All that sadly remained was its furry head, with open mouth and large white teeth looking like it had made one last failed attempt to get at its attackers. The scene disturbed me, and the following night the sound of around thirty rifle shots around me made me wince each time as I thought of another grizzly bear going down and following the fate of this one. The final bit of information I gathered was from my brief encounter. On day two, I pitched my tent on a smallish river bank, covered in grizzly prints, and that backed onto forest. Coming out of the forest was what appeared to be a bear path, and so not wanting it obstruct access I camped 50 metres down stream. I was woken around midnight by this loud, distressed bear 'shrieking' coming from not too far from my tent. Following the 'shrieking' was a rapid scrambling noise, and for some reason I wasn't perturbed, didn't even shout "Hey bear", it just felt like all was under control, and the bear had resolved the situation itself. The situation being that I'd taken over its private beach, and it only found out about my presence after coming through the forest, walking down the river bank. It then suddenly saw my tent, had a panic attack and darted off hoping not to be shot! So....

Firstly, I don't want to be immediately judging the hunters 'guilty' for hunting.

I had to admit that I didn't have the information, nor the expertise to make judgment calls on the situation. It did even occur to me that it's maybe a case of the only problem is one tourist like me who is just wanting to SEE bears! Yes there is a lot of hunting, but yes, there still seem to be a huge amount of bears around that still make the area their 'sometime' home. It would seem the hunting activities have 'just' forced the bears to change their living habits, moving at night, and doing everything they can to avoid human contact. In this scenario the bear population is growing, the hunters are happy, but only the tourist suffers, seeing no bears, in supposedly bear viewing heaven! Oh well, the bear situation here was so different to what I experienced down south, but then the salmon were more plentiful, and as a result  the human focus seemed more on fishing. Whether this will eventually affect the bear population is for some real study group to determine. 

On to the paddling and some downloads from my endurance mind space:

Surprisingly, to me, this isn't a well-paddled route – in fact I know of only one other expedition this summer, a double partnership. The paddling hours, remoteness and difficult logistics are probably the big barriers. Whether there had been anyone solo before me, I don't know, but what I do know is I was viewed by the few fishermen I came across along the way as if I had 'something' extra terrestrial! Not just one, but two, came up close enough to me, in their long narrow outboard-driven boats to confirm I wasn't an apparition. Staring for a while, they then, almost insultingly, pointed their right hand index finger at their brain, shaking their heads with a frowned look of disillusionment, capping off the message by making a left arm arm motion of pull starting an outboard! These guys being struggling professional, or maybe poacher, fishermen, had no inkling why someone would come into their fishing and hunting domain without that intent, and then on top of that resort to the hard way of manual propulsion. All through these three months’ adventures I'd been presented with the same lack of comprehension of my higher level self-actualisation motive and endurance m