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The day had arrived; we were about to ride the infamous Road of Bones from Yakutsk to Magadan. The Road of Bones actually starts after we cross the Aldan River by ferry at a place called Khandyga.

Riding out of Yakutsk we were yet again greeted by superb sunny weather. The Lena River ferry took one and a half hours before we reached the eastern bank of the river 14ks down stream from where we started, and so began the final push for Magadan.

Our first day on the Road of Bones was of course eventful, we broke the 5th set of trailer springs and with no more spares it was decided to hire a Russian version of the Kombi Van, commonly called a “Buhonka”, which literally means “square loaf of bread” as this is what this vehicle looks like. We had to reduce the weight on the trailer or it was not going to make Magadan.

We camped at an outdoor museum surrounded by lakes and forests and again we were treated to a spectacular sunset; we were also joined by Alex and Mila who had ridden from the Ukraine and were to camp with us nearly all the way to Magadan. Their fluency in Russian proved invaluable over and over again.

Dmitry, our Bohonka driver arrived early next morning and we loaded him up leaving our trailer virtually empty and me vowing to push the heap of %^&!! over a cliff if it gave us anymore trouble. We made the Aldan River Ferry by lunchtime but had to “Hurry up and wait” for a number of hours until the ferry filled with vehicles.

The Road of Bones had been reasonable condition thus far however some sections had a lot of gravel on it which some riders hated. We sailed downstream for 2 hours as the endless Taiga silently slipped by under an endless blue sky, it was magical and we all agreed the riding could wait this was great!

Back on Terra Firma we rode through more deep gravel to the God forsaken village of Khandyga, winding our way through potholed muddy back streets we found the one and only fuel station and quickly left town. We found a wonderful camp beside the mighty Aldan River; a great camp meal was cooked up, a campfire enjoyed as were a display of the Northern Lights early the following morning.

We had heard of a great little museum on the Road of Bones at the tiny village of Teply Klyuch. After some searching we found it located inside the local kindergarten, whose teachers happily gave up their duties to give us a private tour of this amazing museum.

It gave us an accurate picture of the tragic history of the Road of Bones. We must have looked an amazing sight to the kids as a group of filthy bikers paraded through their rooms, I am not sure who was more excited the kids or the teachers!