May 2016  Kamchatka - World heritage land of ice and fire

Kamchatka Peninsula

This is a precious place and with its volcanoes is listed as a World Heritage site. It is a fairly isolated and remote Krai (a geographic administrative division) of the Russian Federation and so often the people feel it is forgotten when it comes to resources and the like.  Health care is free but residents have to wait months for an appointment for routine medical matters. There are a couple of private clinics but most people fly to Korea, Singapore or perhaps Moscow 10,000 km away for more major surgery/treatment.  There is an increasing incident of cancer in young people but few resources to mount a serious health campaign. 

Wages are low but cost of fuel, in this fuel-producing country, is comparatively high. For instance a fully qualified doctor earns ~$600 per month yet fuel is about 80 cents a litre. As with country regions in Oz, many of their young people have to leave to find good career opportunities. 

They can grow vegetables such as cabbage, potato, carrot and beet and some berries, but much of the food is imported especially fruit. Meat and milk is imported either from mainland Russia or SE Asia. Fish however is plentiful and we could eat smoked salmon 3 meals a day!  You'd be crazy to complain about that but it makes one aware, yet again ,how luck we are in Oz with plenty of everything. 

Cropping near Yelizova

In the days of farm collectives, wheat and buck wheat were grown here but are no longer. Many people have a summer house - dachas - which may be quite close to their usual place of residence (apartments in town), but there they can grow their own vegetables plus some exotics such as tomatoes under glass; we saw many glass houses as we flew back to base last night as well as fields awaiting planting once the ground thaws a bit.

Central heating and hot water is piped to all building from volcanic thermal sources. It's turned on in September-October and turned off April-May.  So homes are warm as toast. 

This is a place of earthquakes due to its location beside the Kamchatka-Kuril trench which is around 10 km deep. I was told that tremors occur almost daily but most are too small to notice. As a result of decades of earthquake damage, old housing is gradually being replaced with structures which will be able withstand earthquakes of a higher magnitude.
I reckon you can probably google the rest and get more accurate information! Talking of Google reminds me how much I miss our easy access to the Internet - it's available but we don't have affordable access. I have a travel SIM but that is limited. Oh well - but next time (Note to self) I will buy a local SIM on arrival. In the meantime, while we are staying here (and I hope at every hotel we hit), we have free WiFi albeit intermittent, and for that I am very grateful.
Tomorrow we head out to sea and will have no internet so I will talk to you in a couple of weeks when we dock at Yuzhno-Sakhalin. 

May 25th 2016  Bucket list day!

Me and Lindsay flying high and loving it!

Wednesday 25 will remain a very special and memorable day for us - a day of firsts and realised dreams. Volcanoes, helicopter rides and bears. After a slightly anxious start waiting to hear if we could make it over the Peninsula's volcanoes and into the Valley of Geysers - the entrance to the valley is narrow so winds are a problem and fog is the other huge problem, we lifted off at 1pm! But prior to lift off we were treated to a tour of Petropavlovsk (PK) which gets its name from its two patron saints - St Peter and St Paul. The origin of the name Kamchatka is not so clear - some say it was named by the early exploring Cossacks because the mountains looked like folds of rich brightly coloured velvet (in its autumn colours), others say it is based on an aboriginal word the meaning of which I don't recall exactly, but something like 'people from this place'. Regardless it is a quite special part of the world. It's the eastern defense line of Russia nationally and politically, but is geographically astonishing and stunningly beautiful. It attracts the world's top volcanologists, biologists and geologists as well as snow-sport enthusiasts, serious hikers, white water rafters, bird watchers and and and .....  The Provence attracts 40-50,000 tourists each year half of which are Russian. 

Flying in to the valley via snow-encrusted corridors

We munched on statistics and exotic-sounding names most of the day but remember few - our guide Elaini was very knowledgeable about Kamchatka and very passionate about her home. She's a lecturer in tourism at the Kamchatka Uni and has traveled extensively often on specialised trips with people such as wild life photographer Mark Brazil (Birds of East Asia) and the like.  Fortunately for us she is passionate about the natural world and we looked at tiny violets, dwarf Japanese cedar, alder trees sprouting their sweet smelling catkins, dwarf willow, stone birch, wild grasses, ferns and curious herbage that grows only in the hot acidic waters and mud of volcanic regions. A botanist's dream place. 

Our helicopter was a 4 seater and was very 'cozy' but it afforded us an almost panoramic view. Our pilot Alexi was very skilled and so we felt safe the whole time. The winds were a bit blustery so the ride was a little bumpy as our little bubble of 'glass' and metal was tossed about, but that made it feel so much more real and exciting. We communicated through headphone speakers because the noise level is really high - the blades are only feet above your head after all! Lindsay bravely sat in the front with all that nothingness under him. What a star but it was his 70th birthday present albeit 2 odd years late so he got to be in the birthday chair!

Ash-coated snow

We flew through valleys and along side towering, and not so towering, volcanoes - hard to believe that we were right there so close to the rugged crags of live volcanoes.  There's a few hundred on the Peninsula but at the moment only about 30 active ... wow! We saw a couple like sleeping dragons breathing out plumes of gas/smoke/steam and one which, although not active yesterday, is perpetually black and 'smooth' because it constantly spews out black ash.  The snow for miles around is grey - mind boggling really.  We saw foot prints of bear leaving bizarre tracings in the snow on the slopes and we were told that a mother and a couple of cubs were found wandering inside the rim of one crater. 

So they do venture up pretty high, but concentrate around the many rivers during the salmon season gorging themselves on fish until around October when they seem to only eat the roe - they stand on the fish and squirt the eggs into their mouths, clever things. They also eat the brains - all high fat and protein food to last them through winter. The rest of the time they live on cedar nuts, berries and meadow sweet (or some herbaceous plants like that).

We were surrounded by volcanoes - what an awesome spectacle. We learnt about the 5 different types of volcanoes on Kamchatka and in fact saw all 5 so we felt very lucky. The destination of the flight, the Valley of Geysers 200 from PK, was discovered by a woman geologist back in 1941. 

Valley of Geysers - you had to be there

The valley is quite beautiful - green and lush with a river barreling through it, valley walls variously coloured with smears of sulphur and other minerals deposited by the many geysers and springs that dot the walls of the entire valley. Then further up the slope there are pools of blue water, gorgeous to look at but quite toxic, mud pots of various sizes plopping away like saucepans of simmering chocolate custard but to be avoided at all costs. Steps! I lost count but Lindsay reckons we walked down into the valley from where we landed an equivalent height of a 20 story building (I survived it with the help of few puffs from my puffer). We descended, walked, then ascend half way, wandered some more - and then we saw him.  A beautiful brown bear about 20-30 metres away grazing quietly. What an amazing experience! We felt sort of safe as we had a ranger with us to protect us and the bears - he carried a gun just to scare them off. Incidentally we saw 7 bears throughout the day.

Bear and us - we shared the paths!

I could write a book on the whole wonderful day, but maybe later.  On the way back, we stop in another valley where there are hot springs.  Unsurprisingly, there are hot springs all over the place but this string of pools has been made accessible and a lodge built for people to visit the area. Still very rugged and basic but totally delightful.  We had a bit of a float in the warm sepia water watching the sky fade and the snow take on the faintest blush of pink. By this time it was about 8pm - and mozzies about the size of our helicopter were starting to dine on us! so we clambered out of the pool and back into the chopper to head home for a very late supper and then to fall into bed completely exhausted but feeling totally replete. And this is just the start of our Russian odyssey! Next .........

National Park - just us and the view!

May 2016  Kamchatka. We have arrived! 

After almost three years, the long awaited helicopter flight over Kamchatka's volcanoes is just one sleep away IF the weather behaves. All we can do is wait and hope. In the meantime we are being semi-immersed in Russian hospitality. We had the real deal Russian borscht (which actually originated in Ukraine) for lunch - with Spanish wine .... oh dear never let it be said we are not global in our tastes. Our hotel is basic early 1950s but is adequate and the staff are very patient with us helpless, monolingual English-speaking visitors. I practice saying the simplest of words of greeting and gratitude and am pretty tongue tied, but I have found a practice buddy. The doorman is trying to learn English so we set about having a bizarre 'conversation' via our respective phrase books (the same one the kids and I used back in the 80s!). I have to practice a few words before going down to dinner tonight. After I get some washing done! Our clothes could walk to the bathroom on their own - our journey to date has been a bit warm and we've done a bit of walking too. That topped off with 'sleeping' in the same things a few nights.

The two delightful Alexs who fed and looked out for us

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (PK) is a frontier town of 250,000 people. A fair bit of building going on but it is struggling economically and it really shows. The township we haven't explored as yet but the surrounding countryside is wonderful - snow capped mountains ring the town overlooked by a few towering volcanoes looming monstrous on the horizon and in the foreground, white-barked Birch trees are just starting to show some green. So it looks a bit like an Ansell Adam's dramatic black and white photo albeit with smudges of pale green here and there.

A room with a view! Koryaksky volcano (L) towers over the PK

It's 2 degrees outside at the moment but we are toasty. What a contrast to the last couple of days of 30 degree humidity in HK. It will be a holiday of contrasts - and that's precisely how we like it. More anon, do svidaniya 

And so our 2016 odyssey begins - May 2016

'Bling Street' - right off Nathan Road

Towering exoskeletons of bamboo lashed together with fat cable ties clutch their host building, endless streams of people, noise - and smells that conjure memories of overripe tropic fruit - and other 'organic' matter. Nathan road! We have arrived in Hong Kong.

After an eternity of hurtling through the skies hermetically sealed into a large tin can with crying children, snoring and snorting adults, and beautiful attendants trying to sooth us all with smiles, drinks and food. Ah, the tyranny of distance. Having battled through two major travel hubs we spilled into the early season humidity of Hong Kong now a mass of development - massive spans of bridges stretch precariously over who knows which stretch of water in which this amazing metropolis nestles, acres of transport containers, shimmering towers of steel and glass which would dwarf Melbourne's cluster if inner city 'high risers'.

The sights had us gaping.

Bamboo + cable ties - hope it's strong plastic!

Once a British colony there is little left. Yet the 'west' is everywhere - well perhaps not everywhere but billboards feature very Anglo orientals and brand names which seem to be global. BUT we did taste a bit of the real HK. Vertical arcades with escalators taking you higher and higher through cupboard-sized shops selling everything from miniature animals and fantasy characters to faux Armani 'this and that'. We plunged into the back streets and cheek by jowl street markets selling every imaginable thing but especially bling for every body part or piece of clothing. Fascinating!  Food? We ended up after many flights of stairs in what looked to us like someones wedding celebration with all the trimmings to boot. What did we eat ... hmmm well we opted for safety, given it was a 'point and nod' kind of thing. Suckling pig and yummy lotus root. Wine? After puzzled looks we settled for beer. We provided the entertainment for the staff and felt like total curiosities. One left with a renewed sympathy and growing empathy for new comers to the Land of Oz. What did we pay for? Who knows, it was all written in Chinese ..... but of course!

Waking to aching feet and hips, we face a day which will end with us sleeping in the Vladivostok airport arrival lounge awaiting for our morning flight to Kamchatka from whence our real adventures begins ..........