2nd day in Magadan

A little bit hungover today as we met up with a couple of Americans, an Australian, Russian, and Czech who are working in the mining industrial in Ust Nera. Bumped into them in the Steak House and ended up toasting everything and anything with vodka.

During a walk around the town I noticed a Truimph Tiger fully loaded with gear parked up by the main gates of the park. I remembered a couple of threads on the HUBB from a truimphil who was riding to Magadan. After about 3/4hr the biker returned and I introduced myself, he's name was indeed Phil.

 



So we have agreed to meet up for a pint later, it's going to be another messy night!

First day in Magadan

Woke up at 4am due to the jetlag and the time difference so we decided to go for a strole to see if we could find milk for tea but none of the supermarkets open until 10am. Right outside the apartment block is a 24hr florist, just a shame we didnt want flowers instead of milk :(
After walking down the main street we stumbled across a bar that was open (6am), we walked in to find several people still in drinking beer, not bad going for a Tuesday morning!.
We sat down and ordered tea!, yes tea and peanuts.

We headed back to the apartment for a bit of breakfast around 7 am after getting refused more tea in the bar as it was closing at 7am!

Around 10am we took a stroll down to the shipping agent to find out about our bikes, we knew the ship was in yesterday and they may take 2 days to get unloaded but when we finally found the company we were told the bikes would not be ready until Friday after 4pm! Bugger!!!! Back to the all night bar then!
We will have to find something to do tomorrow but it doesn’t look promising, today we walked all around the town but found nothing! On a plus side the sun has been out all day though the wind is bitterly could it’s still much nicer than yesterday.

6am on the streets



Magadan Beach

Church

War memorial in the centre

Landing craft (someone was living in it!)

Arrived in Magadan.

Arrived in Magadan this morning at 1145 after a 8 hour flight from Moscow, The rain was tipping it down and it was very cold and miserable.
There is a bus that takes you the 40km or so into Magadan for about £2 and just about 3 or 4 km outside the city was the old airport with rotting planes and helicopters on the runway, makes you wonder why they moved the new one so far away.
When we arrived at the bus station we were met by Vita and Alex our landlord/lady for the next couple of nights, they took us to get Russian sims for our mobiles and sorted our registration for Russian immigration (you have to register where you are staying within 7 days of arriving in Russia but as we travel through we will register every week or so en route) then gave us a bit of a tour of Magadan and up to the Mask of Sorrow (Skorbi)
The apartment is right in the centre and only a 2 min walk from a super market. Time to plan the routes on the sat navs.

Mask of Sorrow (Skorbi)

Magadan

Moscow Transfer

We arrived in Moscow Domodedovo airport at 6am and had a 14hrs to wait until our connecting flight to Magadan, knowing this we had planned to do our currency conversion here because the rate was so much better in Moscow and there were 24hour banks open on Sunday to facilitate this.
After searching for a couple of hours for a bank that would change sterling (Kevin had no problem with euros, all banks took them) we walked into red square to see the kremlin and we lay on the grass for a couple of hours watching the world go by, then off for a bit of lunch before heading out to a different airport for our onward jorney.
We arrived at the airport with hours to spare which was just as well because we were in the wrong airport! Oops now we have to get to the other side of Moscow to the right one which took 1 ¾ hours and left us 1 ½ hour before departure. Phew!!! Not quite sure how we got it so wrong in the first place but Kevin told me it was my fault! (actually was).

 

Red Square

Departure Date.

The day has finally come to start the journey of adventure...
I'm about to leave and catch a plane to Dublin (it was cheaper for me to fly to Dublin then on to Moscow and Magadan then direct to Moscow for England!)
This works out well as I will meet my riding partner Kevin (aka Murder) in Dublin where he lives.

The flight from Dublin to Moscow is due to leave 11pm so we will have a few hours to chill and get something to eat before the flights.

Hope I have packed everything I need!

Dublin Airport (I'm on the left)