Long Way Down & Long Way Round Complete Series

1 7 Yakutsk to Magadan (the Road of Bones) We join up with Ewan and Charley, who are driving on the Road of Bones, which was given its name due to the countless men who died building and maintaining the roads during the Soviet regime. They tackle some smaller streams, which they find challenging. But the biggest challenge of all is just around the corner. They come to a wide river, half iced over, whose bridge has collapsed in the middle. The river is too large to cross, the ice is unstable, and there is no bridge and no truck to take the bikes across. The guys decide to walk across the bridge and ice to the town on the other side. Hopeful to find a truck to get them across, all they find is a bombed out shell of a town…and no truck. It’s cold, it’s wet, and they’re stranded. Luck intervenes as two massive trucks arrive. They are going the same way as the guys, so they offer to ferry their bikes across. Soon after, the support team arrives, and everyone quickly decides they will have to stick together if they’re going to make it through the Road of Bones. The convoy makes it across, and after a few more dicey river crossings, they come to what appears to be an impasse–a raging river that’s even too deep for the trucks. The group waits overnight for the river to go down, and the next morning attempt a crossing. After much effort, the convoy make it across successfully. The group finally reaches the last river crossing, but it’s a big one. There’s some uncertainty if they can make it across at that point. They are met on the other side by a very relieved local fixer who’s there to help them to Magadan, which is the only sizeable town in Siberia, and is the jumping off point for Alaska. The guys get a much-needed rest in Magadan. The bikes are repaired and cleaned, and so are Ewan and Charley, before they are all loaded onto a plane bound for Anchorage.