Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
rebuilt our friendship over the summer, and although we still had the occasional
yelling match, we'd been getting along really well. Living with him at close quar-
ters indoors, however, brought out my intolerance for his 'Timisms'. I gazed at the
road and recognised a stretch along which we'd cycled more than two months ago.
The memory tugged at my heart and I wrote morosely in my diary:
Wishing that I could just get out there for an hour to ride, clear the mind and feel the
thoughts start to flow again. The fresh air, the clear blue sky. Just an hour, I know,
would be enough to lift me right back out of this gloom
.
When we finally reached Novosibirsk, we checked into a hotel and spent a day
scouring the markets, buying food and supplies for the walking trip. We were also
waiting for our British mates, Brendan and Ray. Tim had met them during the Wil-
derness Guide course in Finland. Initially, we'd been planning a two-week walk in
the Arctic section of the Ural Mountains but decided instead to trek through the
Altai Mountains. The Altai range is situated on the borders of Russia, China, Mon-
golia and Kazakhstan, about 800 km south of Novosibirsk. Ray had quickly agreed
to the idea over e-mail, and then Brendan thought he might to come along, too. At
any rate, Tim and I were set for a big one.
Brendan and Ray turned up the next day. It was good to see them again and it
was a relief for both of us to have other people to talk to in English. We munched
greasy pies on the station steps and talked for hours. We all had a lot to catch up on,
but when we started talking about our plans for the walking trip, it became clear
that we had radically different expectations about what the journey would entail.
Tim and I spread out our maps to show Ray and Brendan what we thought
would be a promising sixteen-day route. They looked at each other in disbelief,
then Ray exploded. 'Sod that, you crazy Aussie buggers. You'll have us walking
every bleeding day!'
'Well … yeah.' It seemed obvious. 'And?'
'
And
,' Brendan said, cradling his didgeridoo protectively, 'you simply won't get
me taking me 'didge up that high. It's cold up there, see, and me didge don't like
the cold.'
My mind was whirling. 'Are you really thinking of taking a didgeridoo on a
mountaineering trip?'
'Jeez!' He guffawed. 'Ya don't think I brought it with me all the way to the
middle of bleeding Siberia just to leave it behind now, do ya?'
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