2004-08-10 - The cyclon has arived!
6/8 2004- Kolyma River, the cyclone E 25564460 N 6884620 8 degrees Celsius 6-14 m/s winds, cloudy and rainy, 25 km;s paddled.When treetops started to crack, we decided to leave the river and put up camp. Which we´ve done next to an abandoned earthole of a goldminers den. The place is surrounded by old and thick trees, but littered by old rubbish left by a goldpanner. We were warned long ago regarding this area, that it was very dangerous due to the goldfever amongst both good and bad people. So far we´ve basically just come across abandoned camps and settlements, but we´ve seen some signs of activity. A motorboat, a logcabin with a smoking chimney located just a few hundred meters from yesterdays camp, but nobody was there and we came across a bloke filleting fish in the woods along the Kulu River. That´s it. We know the area has been abandoned since the Sovjetunion became Russia. For example, the big city of Magadan have lost half of its population since then. From 250 000 to 125 000
! Our maps shows us that we will soon come across some settlements, but they are said to be all abandoned. We will find out. A lot of the information we´ve picked up beforehand has turned out to be full of errors. The information about the cyclone is right though. It is storming a lot right now and it is no way we can continue until it is over.The level of river is, thank God, on its way down again. We´ve had to put in a fight immediately to survive, so we feel run down at the present. But we feel safe and sound in our cot.The river is still brown in color and full of sediment. So we understand why our trip so far as been free of fish, wildlife and local people. They have all known what was coming up, flooding followed by a cyclone.A tree just crashed to the ground outside the cot, gee, no rest tonight either! |
