We crossed into Irkutsk oblast today. This brought another hour of time change (Moscow + 5) and also some rougher roads. The road has similarity with the Alaska Highway where pavement gets interrupted with “gravel patches” and that patch might be 100 meters or might be few kilometers. However, the gravel patches here are longer and more numerous.

Once again, up early and on the road. A quick descent through the village with a slow climb up the other side. I walked up one hill with a gravel road. The road descended back to the railroad and went through Ниж Пойма as several trains came past. I crossed the tracks and went through a long construction zone until 32km. It was another slow ride on the gravel.

At 42km was the oblast boundary and a cafe was another kilometer later. From here I had good road and increasingly flat as I passed agricultural areas. We made a brief lunch stop at 68km. From here we looked at our maps for roads past Тайшет. There was a road marked to Irkutsk but it was closed by barricades. We went around the barricades and found ourselves on a ring road around town. After 6km, this ring road stopped and we were directed back onto gravel roads back into Тайшет. We found a nice store here and a well to refill on water. As we left town, we came through several small villages and climbed a large hill. At top of the hill, the road turned back to gravel. With some difficulty, we found a place to camp at edge of a construction zone. I expect we will have more of this gravel to come.

104km today, 8082km across Eurasia