Lake Baikal - Russia

Lake Baikal, the deepest freshwater lake in the world (1642m) and holds 20% of the worlds unfrozen surface water. It is fed by 300 rivers and drained by one. It has 1700 species living in it of which 66% are only found in Baikal. Basically this lake is massive! The crystal clear water is clean enough to drink, you can see the bottom up to 40m below. But being only 6 degrees made for a few very cold swims. You wouldn't last long in there.

We were heading for the great Baikal trail. A footpath leading around the lake for few days trekking.  We arrived at a hostel and met some Dutch and Swiss girls who were also here for the trail.  We decided to walk the first day together. It was cracking, a narrow path leading up into the mountains. Mountains covered in forest on our left and Baikal on our right. We walked for the whole day then got a boat back to the hostel. It was an awesome day and we wanted to do more and go further along the trail.

That night we met some Russians at the hostel and played ring of fire. They told us about an outdoor rave nearby. We went to investigate but it looked like most people had gone home. Instead we bought another bottle of vodka and made our own rave on the edge of Baikal. We did another 'Where's Willy' which was fun, well played Dunny, top form. We had a good night and ended up going to asleap at 8am.

The next day we set about exploring some more of the trail. We set of with backpacks, sleeping bags, axe, machete and the all important Ray Mears book. After walking for a solid day we found a nice spot on  pebble beach. We discussed making a shelter but soon got bored of the idea, we would just sleep around the campfire in our sleeping bags.

There was another group camping nearby, they kindly invited us to their camp for tea and biscuits, it went down a treat. Sleeping under the stars was amazing. We kept the axe and machete to hand incase  bear or wolf's came for a sniff about.

The next day we continued along the trail, it began to get more and more remote and better views. We headed back to the Bolshi Koti to once again get the boat back to the van.

All in all a great few days!

Rob