Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the entire winter, leaving a two-metre-high pile of muddy ice and snow on either
side of the road. We spent an hour hauling our bikes to the top of this formidable
barricade, then an hour more bulldozing them across fifty metres of handlebar-deep
snow between the road and the treeline.
I slumped exhausted, wet and sweating over the back of my bike. We rested for
a few minutes before Tim spent an hour digging a pit for the fire and setting up the
shelter. I went off to hunt for firewood. I climbed dead trees and hacked away at the
upper branches, then waded through freezing, waist-deep snow, dragging the fruits
of my labour back to camp. It was gutwrenchingly hard work that left us exhausted
and it wasn't for weeks - until the snow started to melt and we were getting fitter -
that our camp site duties began getting easier.
Later, as the burning wood crackled and the pot of snow slowly melted, we fer-
vently argued our way back to the last meal of our very last day of cycling the pre-
vious year.
'What the hell do you mean it's my turn to cook the bloody dinner, you lazy
bastard, Chris? I definitely cooked last!' Tim exclaimed.
'What are you talking about, you bludger?' I retorted. 'The last night of riding
last year was the night we lost each other just before Babushkina. You're not gonna
try and get me to believe that eating a whole bag of biscuits counts as cooking din-
ner!'
'No.' He paused for a second to regroup. 'But the night before that! Hah! That
night it was my turn to cook. So there, it
is
your turn.'
'Sure, mate, you cooked that night, but that means I cooked breakfast two morn-
ings in a row! And in my topics, that makes it
your
turn!'
We carried on for a while, until reluctantly I agreed that it was indeed my turn
to cook the dinner. A little later, just after realising that I'd left my toothbrush at
Baba Galya's, I crawled into my sleeping bag and within seconds fell fast asleep.
The next few days panned out in a familiar pattern. We'd wake before dawn,
haul our bikes through the snow to the road, ride all morning, stopping at midday
for a hot meal, then pedal on until early afternoon to make camp.
The temperature hovered up and down on either side of zero. During the day, the
snow would melt to a wet slush and then freeze at night to form a perilously slip-
pery surface. We were having trouble staying dry and warm. On really cold days,
the old spectre of frostbite loomed again. Tim's toes, in particular, were suffering.
He took to removing his socks by the snowy roadside and, after making sure there
