Tag Archives: roads

I’ve been asked rather often already about the vehicles we undertook our road trip to Tiksi in. And that’s understandable – especially since they aren’t quite the instantly recognizable household-name vehicles like, say, Land Rovers or Toyota Land Cruisers…

First off, I have to say that we didn’t choose the vehicles ourselves; we left that to the experts – Arctic automotive-expedition specialists Alexander Yelikov and Yevgeny Shatalov. Alexander – Sasha – was in a specially tuned Great Wall Wingle 7, while we – the tourists – were in the three Tank 300s, as supplied by Yevgeny – Zhenya. Here are all four vehicles – somewhere between the settlements of Nayba and Tiksi upon a frozen Laptev Sea:

And here we are in the Indigirka Tube:

So – why were we in “Tanks”?

Read on…

Hi folks!

Herewith, another episode in my  Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition series…

You’ve had my warm-up posts (about winter/ice roads, naleds, and the Kolyma Highway). Now’s come the time to climb behind the wheel and get going!…

It all started in Yakutsk. From there we headed east/northeast along the Kolyma Highway for nearly a thousand kilometers. Next, the plan was for us to take a left turn and head north all the way up to the village of Tiksi on the northern Russian coast up inside the Arctic Circle: no cakewalk – even with all the necessary vehicle customization, special other kit, experienced crew, and professional supervision. The plan was to then drive back down from Tiksi, albeit it by a different route, and take a right onto Kolyma again and back to Yakutsk.

Like I say, that was the plan we had – as we were all set at the “starting line” in Yakutsk for our ceremonial pic. More on how things didn’t go to plan and why, of course, coming later (still – we did make it to Tiksi, as the title of this series on our expedition hints at)…

Also coming up: why particularly this pickup and these jeeps were chosen for the expedition, how they were specially adapted for the cold and ice, how they actually dealt with that cold and ice, and in what state they were in when we arrived at the “finish line”. Patience, dear Watson…

Read on…

There are many different kinds of roads and highways. There are straight and there are winding; there are smooth and there are bumpy; there are fast-moving and there are snail’s pace; there are ordinary and there are beautiful (rather: ordinary, pretty, beautiful, and mind-blowing). There are plenty of beautiful roads around the world – most often among mountains and along coasts. Especially beautiful (mind-blowing) are those that follow the coast on mountainsides (= x2 the effect); for example – the GI-682 along the Costa Brava near Barcelona, which we drove on last month.

Other great along-the-coast roads I’ve had the pleasure of driving on down the years include, among many others, Chapman’s Peak Drive between Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa (which, alas, is waaay too short), the Great Ocean Road in Australia, and the Overseas Highway from Miami to Key West. Then there are the many meditative roads I’ve driven on, like the TF-436 on Tenerife, State Highway 2 in New Zealand, Highway 565 in Tibet, and the R256 in Altai, Russia (which I’ve only done in summer).

Now, the above-mentioned are great, beautiful roads. But then there’s the Premier League of roads – the crème de la crème of roads that both boggle and truly blow the mind. These include: State Highway 94 ending at Milford Sound in southern New Zealand; the roads of Namibia that cross the desert; and also – less of a road and more just a frozen surface – Lake Baikal. Then, of course, there’s R504 – the Kolyma Highway – through the Russian Far East…

Read on…

You’ve had your intro posts already; now, if there are no questions from the audience, I’ll proceed to my next tale from the Far Northern side, which could have been titled “Yakutian ice roads heading north from Kolyma Highway“. But first, I think – an explainer…

What is an ice road? And what’s a winter road?…

But before I get to that, a few pics (what else?) ->

That pic is of a stretch of winter road between the villages of Sasyr and Khonuu (here). As you’ll see by that there Google Map, there’s no regular (asphalted) road between the two, but in winter (and into spring) there’s the winter road you see in the pic. From around April to October each year the only thing here is impassable tundra, marshland, lakes and rivers. But by November, everything here is covered in deep snow and thoroughly deep-frozen, and along come large snow-clearing trucks and… voila – the winter road is ready for use; until, that is, the next heavy snowfall – when the snow-clearers come back for another pass.

That’s the basic description of a winter road. An ice road is pretty much the same – only it’s not on land but on the thick ice of a frozen river; for example – on the Indigirka (see next pic). And these are much-preferred by long-distance truckers to winter roads since they’re normally so much smoother: they even call them “asphalt”, since they permit speeds just as on actual roads.

Read on…

Hi folks!

You’ve had your aperitifs, finger-nibbles, and soup (one, two, and April 1); now for… a salad starter!…

How long have we been road-tripping on Yakutian highways and winter roads? Oh – three weeks already! Time to be heading back home I guess…

As usual for my expeditions, I’ve taken a ton of photos and videos during our road trip, and they’re gonna take plenty of sifting and editing, which will take plenty of time. That’s why today you’re having an extra starter in the meantime – a few more pics and impressions from this extraordinary Siberian automotive adventure to tide you over. I hope they’ll be interesting in and of themselves, and also to act as a stimulus for some of you, dear readers, to one day make the trip yourselves…

And so, my preliminary sifting has given me images from our trip like this ->

That’s not a highway; that’s a Yakutian winter road – no asphalt, just ice!

But it wasn’t all super-smooth cruising on ice; we had to resort to roads and sometimes just tracks too, upon which even in sturdy 4x4s our speeds came down to under 20km/h ->

Read on…

The internet connection here is really unstable – coming and going all day long. Just now it’s available though, so here’s my next mini-tranche of Siberian on-the-road/wilderness pics:

These photos are of a winter road upon a frozen river. As you can see – sunny and cloudless: a beautiful day indeed. The internet’s disappeared again just now, but I’ll show you where this is on the map when it’s back… ->

Read on…

Hi folks!

Been a while, I know. But there’s a good reason, as you’ll see…

I’ve finally – after getting on for three weeks! – gotten the opportunity to share with you at least some details about our latest winter remote Siberian road-trip adventure. I wasn’t able to earlier since the distances involved are dizzying long, the weather’s constantly thoroughly deep-frozen, and the autobahns winter roads are… winter roads (no rest areas, not much of anything but ice and snow and endlessness). Then of course there was the internet nuance we came up against: there is Wi-Fi in even the tiniest of villages along the way, but… it’s inaccessible to travelers passing through – there’s no way or place to pay for it! But more on such wtafs trifles coming up later in the upcoming posts on this, our latest Russian-wintery-wilderness road-trip from the extreme side (this post being the first in the series). For now though, as per tradition – some introductory photos with a few accompanying introductory words…

So, first off – our route. Here it is. Wait a while (like a minute+!) for it to open (it’s Iridium).

As for the pics, they’re simply magical – especially the ones taken on and of aufeis; for example ->

The March weather – as to be expected in northeastern Siberia – frigidly frosted ->

…But since when has that ever stopped us?

Check out some of the ride stats:

Read on…

In my last post, after our walkabout we said our farewells to Barcelona. Today – I rewind back a bit to a day between our getting overloaded with euro-awards in Innsbruck and my being overloaded with interviews and meetings at Mobile World Congress. For, whenever I can fit it in when here in Catalonia, I just have to get a rental car and cruise along one of my favorite roads – one that hugs its coast ->

En route, we occasionally stopped for walkabouts and the odd bite to eat in towns. Curiously, there was practically nobody about and most stores and cafes were closed. I was surprised the eateries we snacked at weren’t closed too. Ghost towns. And all on the typically (in summer) busy Costa Brava! ->

Read on…

Chinese roads are simply the best. What’s more, they’re often anything but simple constructions, and almost always come with the most wonderful views to be had therefrom in all directions – simply looking out the window of your moving vehicle is wonderfully meditatively awesome. Here, for example, is a masterpiece highlighting perfect integration of a highway and its natural surroundings:

I mean – they’re the best on literally all levels:

• Road surfaces – great!
• Signs – great!
• Bridges – great!
• Tunnels – great!
• Views – great!
• Roadworks/repairs – great!

Read on…

Hokkaido – the northernmost of Japan’s main islands – had always been a curious mystery to me. I’d been so close yet so far a few times before on my trips to and around the Kuril Islands next-door – but never had I set foot there. Until the other week…

Hokkaido – meaning ~Northern Sea Circuit, is unsurprisingly just as volcanistic as the Kurils, as you can see in the above pic. It also features nice little houses, like these ->

Read on…