No, what made our being here so special was that we’d come the hard way. We’d arrived on bikes, living a basic lifestyle that the locals could relate to, even if they did think we were crazy. More than that, we’d taken the trouble to learn Russian and could talk freely to everyone we met. Perhaps the most significant thing was that we were young.
Twenty-one, I thought, is an ideal age to be. We were young enough to have fun with the kids and young enough that the majority of babushkas got all fired up to feed and look after us. But we were also old enough to converse meaningfully with adults.
I made the choice about continuing the trip as I was drifting off to sleep. I loved Nat dearly, but this opportunity to live in Russia and to get to know its people and culture was unique. Tomorrow we’d be riding again, and the day after that we had decided to split up and spend the next week riding alone. What chance encounters and fantastic opportunities were waiting along that road? What about Lake Baikal? And Mongolia? And China? One thing was for certain: unless I continued the adventure to the end, I would never know.
Alone
Ishimka – Novosibirsk
Early Summer 2000
———
Tim
‘See you in a week!’ Chris said as he pedalled off.
From inside the shelter, I strained to hear his bike down to the last sound. I could just make out his tyres, crunching the fine gravel and mud. Then came a breeze. Then silence.
As reluctant as I had been to split up, I knew it was important to do so. Our planned route was along the semi-steppe lands close to the Kazakhstan border. It was agreed that one person would ride twenty-four hours ahead, and then wait twenty kilometres from Novosibirsk. From where we were, it was a further 600 kilometres to Novosibirsk; so we approximated that it would take six days. The crux of the decision for me was who would ride ahead and who would follow.
Although I had become more confident at bike repairs, I feared a breakdown. I depended on Chris for back-up and knew that if he rode ahead, depending on him wouldn’t be an option. To add to my worries, my solitary experiences in the past year, perhaps due to bad luck, had all turned into mini-disasters. The worst had been in the Arctic during a solo trip in spring the previous year. I had fallen through river ice, become lost and trudged on for three days almost without sleep, close to delirium and hypothermia. Now, I feared that everything would start going wrong the minute I was left alone.
I asked Chris what he preferred and he confirmed my suspicion. He wasn’t going to let me out the easy way. ‘This could be my last ever trip alone, Tim. Once I get back to Australia it will be the beginning of a completely different life. I think it’s important that we do this alone, and that I ride in front.’ I was amazed by his courage and resilience. He would never be fazed by the child-like fears that haunted me.
For a long time after Chris had gone I lay in the shelter, waiting for something to go wrong. It was as if I had personal ghosts that taunted me during my most vulnerable moments. One way to beat the ghosts was to remain active and positive. After a failed nap, I filmed myself crawling in and out of my fly-net, and reflected on the hellish night that I had spent.
Chris had taken the tent with him, leaving me with this ‘mosquito-tick protector’ that I had made in Omsk. The ground sheet of the contraption was made of a lightweight silk material to which I had sewn a fly-net and attached a zip. It was like a big fly-netting sleeping bag that hung inside the loue shelter.
It was only when I crawled into it that I realised it was too small. The fly-netting collapsed, which meant that mosquitoes could bite me. In the stifling heat, I had no choice but to use my sleeping bag as a barrier. The moment I turned onto my side, the mosquitoes pounced on my bare face. Worst of all, the holes in the netting were wide enough for mosquitoes to crawl through, turning the system into an insect trap.
I dreaded another night in the netting, let alone a further six or seven.
In the afternoon I made a fire and sat staring into the flaring birchwood. Despite my fears, it was a relief to be alone. I needed to work out who I was, as a separate identity from Chris and the whole cycling Siberia thing. How much of what annoyed me about Chris was just a reflection of myself?
It wasn’t long before a cold change rushed across the plains, engulfing my camp site. The leaves fluttered furiously, as if fighting to break free of the branches. The light dimmed and a drizzle began to fall from dark, burly clouds. Contentedly, I slipped into my sleeping bag for a cosy session of diary writing.
By late evening, the rain became heavier and distant rumbles whispered rumours of a storm. After eating a generous slice of sala with garlic cloves, I put my head down. There was just one thought in my mind as I drifted off: the road was dirt.
———
In the gloom of the overcast morning, I shovelled down some Siberian muesli which consisted of rolled oats, sultanas, powdered milk and bananas doused in water from the nearest puddle. The sour taste that was typical of Russian oats was unbearable; and I threw most of it into the forest. Then I pushed the bike onto the road, lay back and fitted my runners into the toe clips.
The tyres pressed deep into the sticky clay surface, making a sickly sucking noise. Two metres later, the back wheel slid out. Narrowly avoiding a fall, I stamped my foot down and felt the tendons in my right knee draw tight until it felt like they would snap.
Once again I pushed forward. Feeling sure of my balance, I lifted my sight to the panorama ahead and knew instantly that I had made a foolish mistake. The front wheel lodged into thick mud and the bike crashed. Unable to leap free, I was thrown down with my legs pinned beneath the frame and heavy load. A nauseating pain shot up my leg as my shin copped a gash from the front cog teeth. Leaving the bike in the middle of the road, I stormed off, swearing.
Upon inspection, the bike was undamaged but clogged with the viscous red mud. There was no point even trying to ride, so after picking up the bike, I leaned over and began to push. The surface was so saturated that with every step my feet slid backwards. My runners felt like heavy clogs. Every twenty metres or so I had to tip the bike over and scrape out the mud from the guards and wheels.
Ahead, the road cut a relatively wide swath of dark red above the swampy landscape. I peered into the distance in the hope that there was improvement in sight. I thought of Chris, who was probably on a nice bitumen road somewhere, gliding across the landscape. What worried me was that if I didn’t make it to Chris on time, he would continue alone into Novosibirsk. If only I could tell him that I was probably going to be late.
After an hour or so I became curious about the deep grassy drain that ran along the side of the road. Surely it would be easier to push down there. I clambered down into the five-metre-deep drain to discover a sea of stinging nettles, long grass and ankle-breaking holes.
It took what seemed an eternity to push the bike back up the near vertical incline. By the time I dumped the bike back on the road I was trembling with hunger. Ever since Bruce’s death, hunger, along with many other sensations, seemed irrelevant; when I ate, everything tasted indifferent. Even physical pain was dulled and happened somewhere beneath my thoughts. I didn’t feel refreshed by sleep and yet didn’t feel the complete sensation of exhaustion, either. Making fires, collecting wood, riding huge distances: what was the point? I knew that it was an unhealthy situation, and somewhere I missed the sensation of experiencing the highs in balance with the lows.
Munching into a thick pryaniki, I looked back along the road. To my astonishment the camp site was still in view. In two hours, I had covered less than two kilometres. In the midst of all this, thoughts of Bruce kept coming.
I thought of a conversation that I had with Bruce’s father, Sandy, one night. I had just returned from a cycling journey to the Isle of Skye and was planning to get work on the broccoli farms in southern Scotland. Before hitchhiking back to Bruce’s home early one morning, I had been feeling ravenous and decided to swipe a pint of milk from the doorstep o
f a small hotel. When I mentioned the broccoli farm work to Sandy, he replied, ‘Oh, Tim, ye don’t wunt to werk down there. Down there are the kind of people who would steal milk off your front doorstep!’
I burst into laughter and the truth came out. The event only added credibility to my tag as a ‘thieving Australian convict’. From there on Bruce joked that he warned Sandy to hide all the valuables, including the knives, forks, toilet paper and milk, in a safe.
I had no idea how long I had been sitting there, but the bag of pryaniki was just about empty. With some composure restored, I set myself to the task of pushing. Somehow I found a rhythm and took pleasure in the way my muscles stretched. As I peered down I couldn’t help but feel proud of my tattered runners that now openly displayed two rows of toes. The repetition and sense of getting somewhere, however slow, was satisfying.
The sun finally thinned out the low cloud and brought with it a warm ambience. Before me lay a metre-wide band of road that was clearly solid enough for riding.
Finally, I began to make ground. The further I went, the better the road became. Eventually, I found myself gliding along carelessly. I rode as if I was experiencing one protracted moment. The crunch of gritty sand beneath the wheels and the constant pushing of my legs didn’t feel like a timeline of events, but a state of mind and body. The road meandered over such flat ground that for what must have been hours I didn’t need to touch the gears. Was that the land passing me, or me passing over the land? The horizon gradually came into focus through the rippling heat and passed again into the haze. When hunger threatened, my arm reached automatically beneath the seat to find more pryaniki. I was the passenger of this journey, not the driver. I let my mind fall into an abyss of merciful blankness; I wanted for the thoughts to come, not to think them.
In the distance there appeared the shimmer of a lake. The skyline was engulfed in a mirage of gin-coloured flames. A familiar scent in the air, the harsh light, and the rippling horizon told me it was the sea. It occurred to me that this was an estuary, like the one near my home in South Gippsland – a shelter where gulls and seals came for refuge from the wild waters of Bass Strait.
Then the waters changed. Far out on the horizon I saw great clouds dropping bending columns of rain. The squawking of a lone gull cut through the air, thick with menace.
‘There it is, the Moray Firth,’ Bruce said, pointing to the north. It was Scotland, on the coast near Elgin. And yet it wasn’t.
‘Why, Bruce? You stupid bastard,’ I whispered. ‘Now that I have the chance to live life, how do I do it best?’
The sky opened up into a hazy blue, adulterated by a few wafer-thin clouds. All there was, was sky. There was no bike, no road, no lake. I couldn’t even feel my hands on the handlebars or my back against the seat. And I was positive that if I could only launch myself upwards, I would once again be with him.
If he was up there, drifting with the clouds, then there was solace in that. I remembered the pale blue lips and his body lying in the coffin, his boots powdered in Cairngorm Mountain dust. He didn’t look sad, or in pain. He looked like he had found the freedom he had dreamed about.
It was a village, nestled into a slight curvature of the land, that brought me back. Faded log houses were embedded into the landscape like weathered lumps of silver-grey granite. A horse and cart rattled along the single street, rising and falling over the potholes.
The sight of civilisation reminded me of how isolated the road had been. Just the wind, trees and passing birds.
I approached the village as if it were some kind of homecoming, excited by the prospect of talking to someone for the first time in more than a day.
Several men were milling about a particularly dilapidated house. The spine of the roof curved in an S shape in line with the uneven ground. The fence was a collection of twisted birch branches and other bits and pieces of timber. Three of the men wore buttoned vests and beret-type hats. All wore a kind of cut-off gumboot bottoms as a crude style of summer footwear.
As I neared, two of the men turned with a drawnout, fluid movement. One man stumbled backwards and reached out for support. He fell onto a pointy ridge in the road that bent his back into a painful arch. I only caught a glimpse of their darkened faces and vacant stares. The empty bottles lying near their feet confirmed my suspicion. I gave a tentative wave, and put foot to pedal.
‘Hey you, come here!’ someone yelled, as I took off down the other side of the hill. As hospitable as Russians were, I’d had enough of drunkards.
The orange glow shrank to a strip on the horizon, and I knew with a sense of dread that it was time to make camp. It was in the dark that I was most taunted by my fears. It must have been around 11 p.m. Now that we were nearing the start of summer, the daylight hours had increased dramatically.
After finding some muddy water in a roadside puddle, I pedalled to an island of birch trees. I hadn’t stopped for lunch, and in a pathetic gesture to my stomach, I gulped down a bit of pig fat before crawling into my tangled fly-net.
The following morning I greeted the sunrise with a sigh of relief. Throughout the night I had been keen and alert. Now, in the bright morning sunshine, even the darkest corners of the land seemed friendly. After breakfast I was back on the bike. There was pleasure in the certainty that there was a whole day’s riding ahead of me.
Another village came into sight just as my legs were warming up. My pryaniki biscuits and bread supplies desperately needed restocking. Water from a village well would also make a nice change.
The village ran along the track, with two single rows of wooden homes. Although it boasted a population of less than 300, it was probably half a kilometre long. The main street was just as rough as the one I had seen the day before. Water had gathered in stagnant pools at the bottom of deep trenches, forming a river between the rows of houses.
I rode until I spied a hand-painted sign with magazin, shop, written across it. It seemed that my arrival had gone unnoticed but for a couple of boys who were riding at a safe distance behind me, whispering excitedly. Perhaps the heat that fell heavy and damp had lulled everyone into a doze. Certainly the few dogs I passed barely bothered to glance up. By the time I rested the bike against a fence, the boys were taking turns to show off with skids, before racing off again.
The shop was stacked with canned fish, vodka, biscuits and confectionery. Other than that, a few enormous sacks of sugar, macaroni and flour were plonked on the floor behind the counter. In one glass cabinet you could choose between a toothbrush, bra and a tin of shoe polish. The shop owner, a short middle-aged woman, came rushing out wearing the standard blue, white-bordered apron. ‘Yes, what would you like, young man?’ I could tell she was trying to suppress a giggle. Her hair sprang up in tight bushy curls, and thick pink lipstick contrasted starkly with the blue of her apron, which barely fitted around her bulging waist. ‘I was wondering if you had any bread?’ I asked.
‘Sorry, no bread here. Everyone in this place makes their own.’ She seemed almost proud of the fact.
‘Okay, well then can I have a kilo of pryaniki biscuits?’ I asked, after a pause.
With lightning fast swipes she whipped a couple of beads across an abacus and shuffled over to the shelf. ‘Do you mind if I ask where you are from?’ she asked.
‘Australia.’
As I left, she was almost shaking with excitement.
Outside, the boys were waiting. ‘Hey, boys, do you know where I can fill up my water bottles?’ I asked.
Their freckled noses began bobbing up and down and they tore off on their old single-geared bikes, expecting me to ride at the same speed. They were probably no older than nine or ten, with the crewcuts that were the standard for Russian boys at the beginning of summer. Their faces were already an earthy brown and darker than their translucent blond hair and eyebrows.
As I filled my water bottles I smiled, and a split second of eye contact gave them all the confidence to start asking questions.
‘So where is
the motor?’ one boy asked.
‘No motor on this bike. This is the motor!’ I said, pointing at my legs.
‘So, how far do you ride a day?’ the other boy asked.
‘Oh, it depends, between seventy and 100 kilometres. It depends on the roads,’ I replied.
‘Really!’ The boy’s eyes lit up. The other boy nodded slowly, accepting my response with the indifference of an older man.
Questions ranged from what I carried on the bike, to what kind of food I ate, and whether I liked vodka. Like most children, they had a simple, uncomplicated view of the journey. To them it was a matter of riding, eating, sleeping, and now and then stopping in villages. In many ways, this was accurate. It contrasted with the reactions of adults, who were more inclined to disbelieve, or to talk up all the obstacles that made such a journey too dangerous, too expensive and too difficult. I wondered at what age the attitudes began to change.
Now for bread. I pushed the bike along the path until I came across a woman pottering in her front garden. Like all yard space in the village, every inch was being dug over for planting the staple vegetables of the Russian diet.
‘Hi, excuse me. I was just wondering if you had any bread that I could buy?’ I asked.
‘Oh well … sure. I haven’t got that much but you can have half a loaf or so. Where are you riding to?’ She looked at me, her initial stiffness melting to a friendly smile.
‘Actually, I am from Australia, but I’m trying to ride to Beijing. I don’t know if you have heard of Petrozavodsk, but we started from there,’ I replied.
‘Really! Gee, you are a good boy, aren’t you? Well done! Gee, you are a good boy!’ she exclaimed, shaking her head. The woman, like the shopkeeper, was in her middle years. Blonde lengths of hair fell from beneath a blue scarf and her eyes glistened as she smiled. Her kindness seemed to flow from the heart and come to rest on her hips. Her full figure, with a pronounced behind and bosom, was typical of Russian women between the gracefulness of youth and the stout strength of babushka age.
Off The Rails Page 14