Onwards
I recovered.
….and I set my sights on the capital, Kyiv (Kiev to the rest of you)…but not before a brief detour….
Because what is just up the road from Chernigov?
….Chernobyl of course!
Now to be fair, there is an organised tour that one can sign up for in Kyiv, they take you to the reactor site, the abandoned city of Pripyat, and even supply lunch….and maybe I’ll even go on this tour….
But not right now…
..because what I want to really see inside the 30km Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is this…..
This is a Soviet era Over the Horizon Early Warning Radar nicknamed the “Woodpecker” and its 12 km inside the exclusion zone but a ways from Pripyat and the Reactor Zone.
So off I sneak…..map and GPS in hand….
I turn off before the exclusion zone checkpoint…..
Skirting the zone I head down a lane….heading in roughly the right direction and at the end was a simple green and white striped barrier…
Which I went into 4×4 mode and skirted around…..and onto a muddy track
1km…..I’m in
2km…..Oh this is too easy
3km…..Go go go!
4km…..Woodpecker here I come…
5km……
No…actually there was no 5km
There was a blue flashing on a military Jeep though
Whoops
They were quite good natured about it…took my passport details, details and pictures of the truck and escorted me back to the gate
And sent me on my way
Mission aborted.
