Off The Rails

by Chris Hatherly

  To Mum and Dad,

  for your unending love, courage and support, and for

  letting me see the world through such a special lens. TC

  In loving memory of Jean Brown:

  your love made this journey possible. CH

  Find out what you want, find something you really care about. When you know what you want the rest follows. But don’t just drift off into something because it offers security. Security is never worth a damn. We’re meant to live and to live means living dangerously, half on the edge of trouble, half on the edge of achievement.

  Hammond Innes, The Strode Venturer

  Contents

  Map

  Diagram of Recumbent Bike

  Foreword

  Daring to Dream

  Sad Beginnings

  Breaking the Ice

  Fighting the Snow

  To the Urals

  Into Siberia

  Bruce

  Finding Our Way

  Alone

  Off the Rails

  Riding the Taiga

  Siberian Paradise

  Riding Rough

  Blood, Sweat and Sand

  End of the Road

  An Incredible Journey

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Plate Section

  About the Authors

  Also by Tim Cope

  Map

  Diagram of Recumbent Bike

  Foreword

  Toward the end of 1999, we began our journey on recumbent bicycles across Russia, Siberia and Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, to end in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. We were twenty at the time and spoke minimal Russian. To complicate matters, we knew very little about Russia itself, and almost everyone we spoke to said we were on a suicide mission.

  Why did we persevere?

  Beyond craving for adventure and wanting to turn a dream into reality, we wanted to prove to ourselves and to others that alternative ways of living exist; that with hard work and perseverance dreams can be made to come true. In the spirit of youth, we believed that the world was brimming with endless possibilities. We didn’t want uncertainty to stop us from living our dream.

  Writing a book about our experience was something we wanted to do from the beginning. The process would complete the dream, providing the opportunity for us to reflect on our journey and, just as importantly, to share our experiences with others. To do that, we had to write from the heart, honest and truthful.

  We approached a few publishers, to no avail. After many frustrating months, out of the blue, came an e-mail from Executive Publisher Julie Watts, at Penguin Books. She’d heard us being interviewed on radio and thought we were ‘role-models for young people’. Our chance to run the last leg of the journey had arrived.

  Writing the manuscript has proved every bit as difficult and rewarding as cycling across Siberia. To complicate matters, we had agreed to write the manuscript together, alternating chapters throughout the book. After fourteen months of living in the same tent, would our already weathered relationship survive another epic?

  In these pages we wish to share the people, landscapes and insights that made the journey special. We also hope that our accomplishments will infect others, so they too may turn half-baked ideas into reality. If two twenty-year-olds can ride ‘couches on wheels’ half way across the world, then surely anything is possible.

  Tim Cope and Chris Hatherly

  January, 2003

  Daring to Dream

  ———

  Tim

  The Finnish border guard looked bewildered.

  ‘Are you crazy? You are sure you want to do this?’ He shook his head.

  ‘Yep,’ I replied, feigning confidence.

  ‘Well, just be very careful. You know what those Russians are like. Russia is dangerous! Even we Finns don’t go to Russia alone, especially for such a long time. But an Australian, by bike?’

  With a look of sincere pity he stamped my passport and handed it back. I offered him a nervous smile and strode out of the swish customs building. My Russian chauffeur, Alexsei, was waiting outside.

  ‘C’mon, c’mon, Tim, faster. We are running late!’ He nagged in Russian from behind the wheel of his clapped-out old van. As usual he was wearing a worn-out leather jacket and a lopsided baseball cap over his thinning hair.

  After several attempts at starting the engine, it spluttered spectacularly into life. I leapt into the front passenger seat and before I had even closed the door, we lurched forward under the rising boom gate.

  Then Finland was behind us.

  It was only a kilometre or so across no-man’s land to Russian customs but it dragged out in a long dreamlike sequence. I held the ill-functioning door shut, and felt my head bobbing up and down with the convulsive rattle of the van. For many months I had been working towards this day but in all that time, I had not clearly thought out the reality of what I had decided to do. My plans were still as vague as they had been from the beginning: I am going to ride a bike with my friend Chris, 10 000 kilometres across Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and China to Beijing.

  Between stretched a realm of mythical places, far off wonderlands. I had a vague understanding that between us and the end lay snow, cold weather and even the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. It was a prospect that tempted my imagination and left me feeling frighteningly exposed, naïve and young. The size of the land alone was dumbfounding: Russia and Siberia cover more than twice the mass of Australia. In all that vast landscape, what kind of people would we meet? Would we come through it alive? Was it possible to ride in Siberia? If we did make it, what would I be like at the end? We hadn’t looked at any maps beyond the world atlas, didn’t know how long it would take, and I had barely been on a bike in the past two years, and then never for great distances.

  10 000 kilometres? It might as well have been a million. All I knew was that it was a bloody long way. From the outset I had been repressing a fear that maybe I didn’t have what it took to endure such a mammoth challenge. I had enough money to live on a budget of US$60 a month – and that was only if the journey took one year. What if it took longer?

  My chest grew tight and a tangle of emotion balled up in my throat.

  I had been based in Finland for fourteen months. During that time I had grown attached to the country and developed strong friendships. In recent months I had fallen into a comfortable relationship with a Finnish girl. Leaving it behind felt like severing ties with everything that had become a part of myself.

  My thoughts were interrupted as the van came to an abrupt halt in front of the Russian border post. I pulled out the little document from my passport and re-read it for the hundredth time: ‘Twelve month Russian Visa’.

  The fragile bit of paper was the only tangible security I had. I first visited Russia almost a year ago. I had felt an inexplicable connection with the country, as if a part of me had lain dormant and suddenly sprung to life. I had known instantly that Russia was where I wanted to be: to travel, live, explore and experience.

  It was also reassuring to think that I was embarking on this journey with a special friend, Chris. I remembered our brief time at university in Canberra, where we had met. In all honesty, I couldn’t think of a more ideal partner.

  I took a deep breath, clutched the passport and approached the guard on duty. The female guard smiled. Her bright red lipstick contrasted with the drab khaki uniform she wore. ‘You are really Australian?’ she asked. She made several calls and some officials whisked away my passport for processing.

  After some deliberation I was waved through customs. Back in Alexsei’s van, I was surprised to find two men squeezed into the front and three giggling women in the back with my gear.

  ‘Let’s go Alexsei. Time to go home!’ one of
the men roared. He was a little drunk, as were the others. It took me a few moments to realise why Alexsei had been in such a rush: the extra passengers were the border guards who had just finished work.

  A shot of vodka was passed over my shoulder, the volume on the crappy stereo went up, and we rumbled into Russia.

  It was a short ride to the village of Vyartsila where Alexsei lived. In fact, it was so close that from the village you could just make out a Finnish farmhouse on the far side of the border.

  We turned off the main road and immediately slowed to a crawl as the van dipped and swayed through pot-holes. Most pedestrians we passed had their hands out for a lift. Alexsei put his head out the window and yelled, ‘Sorry, we are full!’

  After dropping off the guards we made a trip to Alexsei’s garage, where I helped him load the van with beer and cigarettes. In the morning he planned to drive back across the border with the goods concealed under the seats. His business involved shuttling clients from country to country and selling contraband to buyers in Finland. Everything about his lifestyle contrasted with the ordered and intensely quiet character of Finland.

  When the van was packed, we hurried into the village centre under the dim glow of token streetlights.

  The moment Alexsei ushered me into his home, I relaxed. His elderly mother was part way through nibbling a dried fish when I entered. She dropped it on the table and rushed to tackle me in a ferocious hug. ‘Oh, well done. That’s my boy, Tim. Good boy!’ she shrieked in my ear.

  Alexsei’s pregnant wife emerged with her three-year-old son. Soon I was sitting down with a cup of tea and some biscuits, showing my updated photo album. It was my third visit to the family, and it felt as special as the first.

  As I sipped the cup of hot sweet tea, I couldn’t stop grinning. Everything, from Alexsei’s battered van to his improvised career, to the jovial border guards and the family’s warmth, indicated flexibility and sense of humour. The thought that I would be immersed in this culture for the next year was nothing less than exciting.

  After dinner I strapped my gear onto the roof of the small Lada that would be my taxi to Petrozavodsk, 400 kilometres to the east. There I planned to wait for Chris to phone me with the details of his trip to Moscow. Once the times were confirmed I too would travel to Moscow for our rendezvous.

  Before leaving, Alexsei’s wife mischievously tucked a bag of hot potato pies into my backpack and I gave her one of the many Australian calendars that I had brought along as gifts.

  The Lada is one of the ubiquitous relics of the Soviet car industry. They are like little boxes on wheels with large round headlights, and are often seen conked out on the roadside. I always savoured riding in them, as you can feel every gravel stone and bump. Somehow I preferred that to the dull drone of a modern vehicle in which it is hard to appreciate the speed.

  For six hours I sat gripping my seat, keeping the radio at full blast to ensure that both the driver and myself stayed awake. He rocketed along the forest road, treating the unsealed surface like an obstacle course, swerving around mud and football-sized gravel stones, and taking the apex of most corners. Gravel peppered the underside of the car, sending vibrations up through my feet.

  At 4 a.m. we slipped out of the forest and the lights of Petrozavodsk came into view. After being checked by road police wielding machine guns, I directed the driver to the suburb of Drevlyanka. At the base of an apartment building, I unfurled my possessions onto the street and watched the Lada putt off into the distance.

  ‘Well, Tim, this is it,’ I muttered. Shivering with cold and exhaustion, I climbed the stairs and woke the Kleshenok family. They had invited me to stay before catching the train to Moscow.

  The next day I received a phone call from Chris who was in Bucharest. ‘Hi, Tim. Can’t talk long. I am afraid the visa hasn’t arrived in the mail.’

  I had mailed his Russian visa two weeks ago and presumed it had arrived. Everything hinged on that bit of paper. If it didn’t show up, it would be at least another six weeks before I could get him a new one. Without any control over the situation, all I could do was wait in Petrozavodsk until the visa showed up and Chris could get to Moscow.

  On the upside, this would give me a bit more time to rest, reflect on the past and gather my thoughts for the journey ahead.

  ———

  There was no single moment in which the idea to cycle across Russia began. It was more a blur of emotions and events. Quite simply, a series of chance meetings, special relationships, spontaneous decisions and hard work led me to this point. During my childhood in country Victoria I had spent considerable time in the outdoors: surfing, kayaking, skiing and bushwalking with my father. Even so, I could never have predicted winding up on this journey.

  If I had to pick a starting point, it was probably when I was fifteen. While playing basketball at school, my left femur snapped clean in half in a freak accident. I can still vividly recall the resounding crack and the world spinning in a kaleidoscope of pain. To correct the break a steel rod was inserted down the femur from my hip to my knee; and despite a successful operation the leg has been a little shorter ever since.

  The following year, after some intense rehabilitation and training, I trekked in Nepal with a group of students and my English teacher, Rob Devling. It was my first time overseas and I returned home with a broadened view of the world. Up until then I had naively presumed that the majority of people in the world lived like us in Australia.

  A pivotal friend who influenced my direction was Bruce Cooper. I met the tall, athletic ginger-haired Scotsman while working at a children’s adventure camp in England. I was eighteen years old at the time and had deferred my Arts/Law degree for a year to travel and work in Europe. One afternoon he introduced me to the mountains of Wales, the first of many trips. I recalled the blue sky and the way the peaks cut a jagged horizon. There was the crisp air, the pain in my legs and our high-spirited discussion of dreams and hopes. The sweeping space and heart-in-the-mouth views gave me a great sense of purpose.

  I met Chris Hatherly the following year at Australian National University. He was studying an Arts/Science degree and, like me, had deferred for a year. In his year off he had travelled 20 000 kilometres by bicycle around Australia. We struck up a friendship on the spot. As neither of us was comfortable with the prospect of four or five years of studying, we spent much of our time musing over a world map. We believed that dreams could become reality, and that there could be nothing harder than working nine-to-five in an office.

  Then, just three months into the first semester, an opportunity arose out of the blue. Chris’s father brought home an advertisement for an International Wilderness Guide Course. It was a year long course based in Finland, including study placements in Russia and England. There were sixteen places offered worldwide with a scholarship.

  We both applied and made it through to the final phone interview. As luck would have it, I was accepted but Chris was not. A couple of months later, I deferred my course yet again and was on a plane to Helsinki.

  My interest in Russia and the north was fuelled during the wilderness course. The first of a series of training journeys was a three-week hiking expedition in a remote part of north-west Russia. The old-growth forest that spread out like a sea to every horizon was a sight I could never forget. The only signs of civilisation were several abandoned villages. It struck me that in Russia lay a chance to live out childhood fantasies of exploration. I had always dreamed about going back in time to experience the virgin landscape of Australia and its Indigenous peoples. I desperately wanted to know how it felt without the presence of white settlers. Maybe in Russia I would experience genuine wilderness and the authentic culture that I craved.

  On return to Finland I began to study the Russian language. Later that year, on my twentieth birthday, I found myself embarking on one of three expeditions to Arctic Lapland. Everything I saw and experienced in the following two weeks, from reindeer running stiff legged across the snow, to
the northern lights, felt as vivid and biting as the cold. It left me overwhelmed and intoxicated in a pure, magical way.

  I had expected to tire of the north once the novelty wore off. As my year in Finland progressed though, the exact opposite happened.

  With each visit into the forest, I became aware of yet another level of subtlety. Sometimes it could be just a bird, the way sunlight slanted through the canopy, the feeling of brushing by the pine bark, or even just a slightly different aroma. It intrigued me that the forest the Russians called the taiga stretched almost unbroken from Scandinavia to the Pacific. When considered as one large tract of forest, it is the largest in the world, constituting 22 percent of the world’s forests and covering an aggregate area the size of Australia; it contains some of the greatest tracts of wilderness left on earth today.

  Upon returning to civilisation, I reflected with disappointment that I had only just begun to tune into the forest environment. I always felt like the chance to deepen the experience was being cut short and craved a longer, drawnout journey.

  Throughout this time Chris and I kept in contact by e-mail. In January of 1999, his idea of taking horses from London to Beijing evolved to riding recumbent bicycles instead. He planned to start from London in May and cycle through Europe over summer. After completing my course in September, I planned to meet him in Russia. From then on we envisaged cycling together across Russia and Mongolia to Beijing.

  Early on, even before we had settled on the idea, I knew what kind of experience I wanted. I had learnt that it wasn’t the spectacular moments that made journeys special for me – they were always transient and rare. It was finding enjoyment and a deep satisfaction from the ordinary and routine that was most important. And the only way to do that, I thought, was to get to know a place deeply. To do that would take time and patience. I wanted to make the taiga forest, Russia and its people my focus.

  Essentially, I wanted to experience Russia and not just see it.