Off The Rails

by Chris Hatherly

  I settled down in my bunk and tried to take in the day. It was only two days since I’d left Nat and although the pain of parting was still very clear, recent events had forced me out of my reverie. Tim was a fantastic guy and a great friend, but he was certainly not Nat, and I would have to try hard not to let the pain of separation affect our friendship. We had both changed, moving on and developing in ways that were yet to become clear. Adjusting to the changes would probably be a lot of work for both of us.

  Not for the first time, I wondered if what I was doing – this year of adventure in Russia and Siberia – was really what I wanted to do.

  ———

  Ten days later, dishevelled, sunburnt and dehydrated, I limped down to the bus stop on a badly sprained ankle to wait for a lift back to the train line. In the past week, I’d climbed a gigantic mountain – twice – and started getting to know Tim again. Elbrus had taken its toll. Tim had come within an ace of the summit before having to turn back with severe altitude sickness. On the way down from a second attempt, I’d fallen on a steep slope and been lucky not to break my leg. The scenery had been stunning, but we’d spent more time acclimatising than actually climbing. This meant long hours sitting around in the scorching sun. We’d talked a lot about our plans. Tim had never really travelled by bicycle before and I wasn’t sure if he understood what the lifestyle would involve. A lot of riding basically. I could only hope that the day in, day out cycling routine that I loved would suit him as well as it suited me.

  Tim was probably thinking similar thoughts about me. He had talked for hours about his love of the northern forests and the Arctic, but never having experienced them myself, I couldn’t yet share his enthusiasm.

  For me, there was a big question mark hanging over the expedition. I felt that it was still too soon to know how Nat and I would handle a year apart. As big as my commitment to Tim, to the journey and to our sponsors was, Nat would always come first. If the time and the distance began to seriously threaten our relationship, I would be back home on the next plane. I’d admitted as much to Tim – shocking him, I think, and adding yet another layer of uncertainty to the journey.

  If nothing else, we had a starting point. We’d decided to begin our bicycle travels in Petrozavodsk rather than Moscow, as this would give us a little while to build up the bikes and get organised among friends. This route would also be a more scenic and isolated way through the north, instead of the dense belt of population surrounding Moscow.

  We’d been together for nearly two weeks, but the adventure had just begun.

  Breaking the Ice

  Petrozavodsk – Babushkina

  Autumn 1999

  ———

  Tim

  I rolled my shoulder and watched the last heavy bag hit the tarmac with a satisfying thwack. Our combined gear of backpacks and boxes now stretched along the edge of the platform. We had just arrived in Petrozavodsk on the overnight train from Moscow. Sleet was falling from a leaden sky.

  The past few days had been plagued with disappointment about failing to reach the summit of Elbrus. It had left me feeling subdued and pining for the familiar northern forests of Russia and Finland. More worrying was Chris’s sadness about leaving Nat. He seemed to be wrapped up in his own notion of how the journey would turn out, his moods distant and hard to gauge.

  ‘Well, Tim, it’s time,’ Chris proclaimed. He looked surprisingly refreshed and excited.

  ‘Time for what?’ I asked.

  ‘To build the bikes, of course.’

  ‘You what? Here?’

  He was already ripping open the box that contained the bicycle parts.

  I had never seen a recumbent bicycle before and certainly never ridden one. It worried me too, that my brief cycling experience amounted to no more than learning how to patch up tubes and adjusting a seat.

  ‘Tim, can you get me a bolt?’ Chris asked, as he worked away at a dizzying pace.

  I peered into a bag packed with an array of shiny metal things.

  ‘Chris, mate, is this long bit or the round screwy bit the bolt?’ I enquired, as he paused in astonishment.

  ‘The long thingy.’

  Eventually, the boxes were discarded and I looked at the transformation. To me, with its shiny new parts and blinding white seat, the recumbent looked like a raised deck chair on wheels. The pedals stuck out over the top of the front wheel, which was smaller than the back wheel. Its steering system consisted of joystick-like handles that stuck up on either side of the seat. It was hardly the kind of bike that I had envisaged. However, seeing it for the first time rekindled a sense of excitement.

  A little gingerly, I clambered onto the contraption and lay back, semi-horizontal. The seat was made from a taut mesh similar to that used on trampolines, and extended high enough to support my lower neck. It was surprisingly comfortable, not unlike sitting on a couch.

  Passengers dressed in fur from head to toe stopped and stared down at us. I was acutely aware of how low to the ground I was sitting. My eyes were at hip-level with the onlookers.

  Chris held the bike while I rested my feet on the pedals and waited for a push. I clasped the steering and with a jerky swivel faced headlong down the narrow platform.

  Then I was off.

  Being so low to the ground, it felt like I was riding through the land of giants. Then, suddenly, I began to tilt to one side. Attempting to avoid a fall, I turned the wheel, only to cut a path straight for the crowd. A plump woman yelped as she dived out of the way. The edge of the platform reared and the long drop to the tracks below came into view. Unable to find the brakes, I slammed my feet down, narrowly missing the fall.

  By the time sixty kilograms of gear was loaded onto the bike, I was struggling to keep it upright. Then, with a lot of patience and coaching from Chris, I covered the first two kilometres in two hours. After the umpteenth crash I lay dejected beneath the tangle of bike and bags. My clothes were wet from numerous falls. Chris closed in with precision, gently clasping his brakes.

  ‘Well, only ten thousand kilometres to go!’

  ———

  We spent the next week in Petrozavodsk making final preparations. Petrozavodsk is a small city situated on the shores of Lake Onega, part way along the train line from St Petersburg to Murmansk. It is the capital of the small republic of Karelia, one of many republics that make up a large part of the Russian Federation.

  From Petrozavodsk we planned a route east through the forest towards Vologda. By nature it was a northerly, isolated route that posed some uncertainties. We were well into autumn and there was a thin line between it and fast-approaching winter. Would the roads be in good enough condition to ride on? What would happen to the bikes in extreme cold?

  Having studied a road atlas, we had a vague idea of our route for the first 100 kilometres east of Petrozavodsk. The atlas had a scale of 1:1500000. 100 kilometres on this scale amounted to about 6.5 centimetres. Beyond that lay about 10 000 kilometres of the unknown.

  On a day when the first snow clouds of the season shrouded the city, we put foot to pedal and turned our backs on the grey apartment blocks of Petrozavodsk. I wavered all over the road in an attempt to miss frozen puddles and dodge cars and buses. Beyond the edge of town traffic petered out and we passed into the forest. With the city behind us, I became aware of the whir of the pedals and the icy wind that brought with it scattered flakes of snow. My lungs filled with icy air. It was below zero. The wind left my cheeks parched red and my fingers stung even as a sweat built up beneath my beanie. It occurred to me that from behind Chris looked like a little hunchback ambling along the road. The recumbent, leaden with equipment, looked nothing like a bike. I could understand why from a distance people had mistaken Chris for an invalid in a wheelchair.

  At lunch we huddled, shrinking into our Gore-tex jackets on the shores of Lake Onega. Onega is the third-largest lake in Russia. It is connected to the Ladoga lake system which, in turn, flows into the Baltic Sea. Swells crashed onto the rocky be
ach and a light veil of snow on the horizon made it appear like the sea. Every sensation was vivid and striking. Life in the city had been like sleepwalking, by comparison.

  I wondered how long it would take before the weather closed in altogether. Once it became too cold we planned to abandon the bikes and return to them nearer to spring. We guessed that there would be at least three months when cycling would be out of the question.

  As the light faded, we pulled off the road and came to a halt 100 metres into the forest. Reaching above the tree line the crowns of ancient pines were catching the golden glow of the sinking sun.

  It was time to introduce Chris to the taiga. Taiga is the Russian word for the boreal forest that stretches from Finland right across Siberia to the northern Pacific. To the north it reaches as high as the Arctic and sub-Arctic and peters out at its southern-most extreme on the steppes. The primary tree varieties that constitute the taiga are pine, spruce, birch and larch.

  Our camping equipment included an axe, a couple of billies, and a Finnish-made shelter called a loue. Chris also carried a tent. The loue is like a light-weight tarp that when set up forms an open semi-circle. It requires the use of three poles – usually tree branches – and resembles half a tee-pee. The fabric inside of the loue is a silver reflective material so that when a fire is lit on the open side, the heat radiates with remarkable constancy. Contrary to its appearance, it is very warm.

  ‘But what if it rains?’ Chris asked, dubiously.

  ‘Well, before we set it up you just have to check the direction of the wind,’ I replied.

  ‘But what if the wind changes direction? I’m stuffed if I’m going to trust this thing!’ he said.

  Biting my lip, I took the axe and made into the dense stand of pines and spruce. In the still of dusk, I chopped at logs for firewood until my eyes lost focus out of sheer hunger. Before returning to camp, I let my breath slow until I could just hear the odd creak of a tree branch. ‘Finally, finally I am here …’

  After the meal, we retreated to write our diaries. Light danced on my diary pages as I wrote. The embers eventually faded, glowing orange with every random breath of wind. I lay on my back, peering past the silhouettes of pine and spruce fronds to where stars glittered. Tucked into my warm sleeping bag, only my face felt the crisp frost that was falling like a blanket.

  ———

  Our route for the first few days followed the shore of Lake Onega, before turning east. The road deteriorated into a muddy dirt track with fist-sized gravel stones and ridges of bulldozed dirt. This was marked as ‘covered’ rather than ‘sealed’ on our cheap Belarussian-made road atlas. For most of the time Chris rode far ahead of me.

  Meanwhile I struggled to stay upright, let alone cover distance. It would be two weeks before my first crash-free day.

  The weather greyed further and the daylight hours shortened. Even at noon the forest cast a foreboding shadow across the road. The icy wind cleaned away the last brittle leaves of autumn, leaving the stark skeletons of birch and aspen trees. Days seemed to merge into each other as we passed through forest broken only by villages.

  Our approach to the villages usually went unnoticed – until, that is, the first dog started howling. Within seconds other dogs would join the chorus and a cacophony of barks and growls would be echoing through the damp air. For every dog that ran to the end of its chain and retreated with a choking yelp, there was another that ran free. Sometimes we had as many as ten dogs in hot pursuit as we made a dash for safety. Being low to the ground made the experience particularly harrowing; our eyes were at the same level as the dogs’. Being face to face with salivating, teeth-baring, wolf-like mutts was the most dangerous aspect of our daily routine, closely followed by the petrol tankers that roared along the forest roads.

  Time on the bike quickly became characterised by bouts of hunger that often coincided with crashes. Half an hour after a good serve of porridge, I would feel my stomach begin to cave in until it felt like the wall linings were resting on one another. In this state my reactions became slow and my dilated eyes began to lose focus. To counter this, I introduced Chris to pryaniki biscuits. These thick sweet delights quickly became an important part of our diet; with a bag stuffed under our seats we were able to eat on the move.

  As the days passed, I was getting to know Chris a lot better.

  One night I lay in my sleeping bag, feeling my legs and back relax for the first time all day. Chris lay at the other end of the shelter in his sleeping bag so that our feet met in the centre. The fire lit up a crescent-shaped amphitheatre of thick moss and a few scraggy blueberry bushes. Now and then sparks rose like fireflies into the night before blinking out in the darkness.

  I found it ironic that in this calming hush I was being driven mad by noise. Chris was finishing his dinner and each spoonful sounded like the rasp of sandpaper. Ever since I can remember I have been irritated by the noise of people eating and breathing heavily; it’s some kind of hypersensitivity, I guess.

  Eventually, he finished eating and tossed the pot clear of the shelter.

  ‘Well, mate, made a nice smoke catcher tonight, didn’t you?’ he said, with a cheeky smile.

  The smoke from the fire I had made was pouring straight into the tent.

  ‘I swear the damn wind has changed direction,’ I replied.

  Feeling too tired to study Russian, I put the dictionary away and lay back. Now there really was just the crackle of the fire and a subtle flaring every time an unburned twig caught alight.

  Chris broke the silence. ‘You know, Nat and I talked about getting engaged.’

  I let the crackle take over for a few moments. Then I sat up, coughing and spluttering in the smoke. ‘Chris, mate … did you really … you really discussed getting engaged?’

  ‘Yep, sure did,’ he replied. As the fire painted his cheeks and broad jaw in a golden orange, the vague hint of a smile crept over his face.

  ‘Jeez that sounds bloody serious!’ I said, laughing. ‘But how do you know to make such a big decision?’

  ‘Trust me, Tim, you just know. When I was waiting in Bucharest with Nat, I just knew. There are probably a handful of people in the world that I could build a fantastic life with and she is one of them.’

  He went on to describe the life that he and Nat would have together in Australia. She would continue to study while Chris found a way to earn money to travel. Later on they would start a family. He even had an idea of the kind of place they would settle down in!

  It struck me that I didn’t have a clue about my future. Beyond this journey was just a big unknown blank. I did not have the slightest idea what I would do when I returned to Australia. I wasn’t going to study and I would probably have a big debt. What did Australia mean? Surely I would feel like a fish out of water back there. It was here in the northern forest that I felt most alive.

  That Chris and I were embarking on the journey with a similar mindset had always been reassuring. We had abandoned our university degrees to pursue a common goal. In doing so, we cast our futures into uncertainty. Even if the trip ended in disaster, at least we were in it together, and could find comfort in knowing we shared the same fears, trials and tribulations. Now it was clear that we were living two very different realities. And, although we were on this journey together, it was going to be a solitary challenge, like living parallel lives.

  I was sure of only one thing: this trip was what I wanted to do.

  The next morning I awoke to the patter of rain on my face. I forced open my eyes to see the dark skeletal trees spiralling out of sight into a heavy mist. I had rolled clear of the shelter during the night. Rather than lie awake, I decided to get up and prepare the fire. In any case, I was on breakfast duty.

  After porridge, I carried the dirty dishes to the frozen puddles by the roadside ditch. There I broke the ice and with numb fingers scraped at the burnt porridge on the bottom of the pot. Afterwards, I packed slowly and stretched before putting feet to pedals.

 
At the first turn of the crank a hot rush of pain shot through my right knee. I rode for five metres before the wheels slipped and I was sent skidding on my backside; the muddy surface of the road was covered in ice.

  As the day progressed, the pain in my knee, which had begun as a niggling problem a day earlier, continued to worsen. With every turn of the crank, it felt like a nail was being hammered into the side of my kneecap. By afternoon I was using only my left leg to pedal. Chris, although concerned, seemed agitated by the slow pace. The low clouds continued to precipitate a cold rain, adding to our woes. Snow or sleet would have been more pleasant.

  Upon arrival in the village of Skokovo, we decided to call it a day. I hoped that a Russian banya might treat my knee. It would also be a chance to wash for the first time since leaving Petrozavodsk.

  A couple of derelict wooden houses came into sight. The lifeless grey structures leaned into the long wet grass, the front doors hidden from view. Even though it was cold, no smoke appeared from the chimneys. It reminded me of a peasant village out of an old film that I had seen about the Black Death in Europe. I expected to see a half-naked, bearded group of God-fearing men walk over the rise, whipping themselves on the back to free their lives from sin and avoid the plague.

  One hundred metres on, we passed out of the village. We doubled back and I approached one of the log houses. It stood in a muddy yard and had but two unbroken windows. Half the logs were rotten, the ends frayed into splintered pieces. Through a window I eyed some movement. ‘Excuse me!’ I cried.

  A balding old man with a bushy beard appeared at the door. He looked bemused, but not unfriendly.

  ‘I was just wondering if we could have a banya at your place. We have been riding for days and I’ve hurt my knee,’ I fumbled in Russian.