Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'I'm going that way for now,' he continued, pointing in the direction from which
we'd come. 'But apart from that I'm not really heading anywhere in particular.' He
noticed my eyes straying back to his bike and chuckled amicably. 'I'm just sort of
going to continue along until the bike stops going, then I'll probably start walking.'
He agreed to make camp with us for the night and we rolled down the hill to a
little river in the valley. Automatically I pulled the tent out from my pack and slung
my sleeping bag over a nearby branch to air, as I'd done every night for most of
the past year, but then stopped to watch in amazement as Gregory untied one of his
potato sacks and rummaged around inside. He produced a few bits of clothing, but
it appeared that a large part of what he was carrying consisted of topics.
'Ah, them,' he said, when I asked him about the topics. 'This and that mostly.
Russian authors and a few translated texts, too. Orwell. You know him?' I did, but
what I really wanted to know was why he had them all weighing down his bike.
'Well,' he started, reflectively, 'topics are the only things I've ever really
bothered to hang on to, and I don't have a home where I can leave them, so I just
sort of bring them along, I suppose.'
Gregory pulled a shortened axe from his bag and trudged off into the forest to
find wood. He emerged a while later dragging a large tree stump behind him. After
exchanging a surprised look with Tim, I set off to find more manageable pieces of
firewood. Gregory trudged off into the forest once again, and Tim took the oppor-
tunity to quickly get a fire going.
This was an area in which Tim excelled. He'd studied under expert firelighting
tutors during his year in Finland - he could bring a pot of water to the boil using
only one match, his pocket knife, and a soaking tree-stump pulled from a creek!
After building two to three campfires a day for most of the past five months, he'd
become a consummate one-match magician. No paper, only wood.
Gregory returned bearing an armful of mushrooms and a bag of berries. He
looked at Tim's compact cooking fire in dismay. 'Tut, tut, tut, boys.' He shook his
head and clicked his tongue. 'That's no way to make a fire. Come, I'll show you
how to make one properly. I'll show you the Russian way.'
Tim and I rolled our eyes. This was something we'd come across many times
before. The locals always had a better way of doing things. 'Russians,' we mur-
mured under our breaths. Then, as Gregory began to hack into his log and lay out a
bonfire, we burst out laughing.
