It had been raining again during the last night, so we decided to leave the island today. We wanted to go for a swim first on the beach at the shaman rock, but the water was really cold. It stayed to a little footbath.

 

We packed our gear together and left the hostel. The roads had already turned into mudpools. The main road, which was gravel, had some small streams in it now.

It was a bit more difficult to reach the ferry this time. So we arrived a bit soaked and cold. On the ferry we talked to some guys about the road further north towards Kachug, Zhigalova and further. They all said we should go back to Irkutsk and follow the main road. Hmm 🙂

After the ferry there was a stretch of gravel as well of about 5 or 10km which big splashes of water. When a jeep rode through it next to us, we were now soaked in a nice brown colour 🙂

I didn’t have enough of the offroad yet, and decided to follow a small road through the forrest instead of the asphalt road. After some miles it became really rudded. Ruts are difficult to get out, I finallly had to drop the bike to get out. Larisa was not too happy so we decided to go back to the main road.

It hadn’t stopped raining though. We were thinking the rain for the catastrophic area in the far east was coming here also. We reached Bayandai again and stopped for some food. Here it was decision time again. I wanted to ride a piece of the BAM but we needed to head home already, so what should we do? We decided to ride to Zhigalovo and see again from there.

The ride to Kachug was straightforward as it was all asphalt. I just had to be careful as there were many bumps in the road.

We arrived in the evening in Kachug and filled the tank. We saw the Lena river here for the first time. I was thinking before about finding the source of the river, but it seemed to deep in the forest. We stopped at the river to make some photos and moved on. At the end of the town we found a nice gostinitso called 3 sosni. There was a good cafe next door where we met russian guys.

They told us about the road from here more north to Zhigalovo. Appartently it had been raining here good as well and it was all gravel from here. On top of that a tractor had passed by today to scrape away the top layer, turning everything into a soap like surface. Were they scaring us or telling the truth? I had no idea to be honest.

I enjoyed the Zhigalovskoe beer and the food and we went to bed. We put everything on the floor to let it dry, because our clothes were soaked. Hopefully they will be dry tomorrow.