Buky Canyon and Back Roads

This weekend I decided to head to Buky Canyon.

Its just South of Kiev about 200km. Here was what ended up being my complete route for the weekend

It started out as a beautiful day! Sun shining and just warm enough for a good ride.

As is ever present in this part of the world a grave site and monument to Soviet soldiers from WWII

This village set in a beautiful valley. If only there was work to be had there it would be an ideal place to live

Here is a different memorial. Its dedicated to Holodimyr which was in the 1930's when Stalin starved millions of Ukrainian citizens

I am not 100% sure what this was about. It was in the middle of a huge field. I think it was the site of a battle in WWII but honestly it wasnt really clear,

This was in a small village it was interesting more of a memorial complex. 

First the graves of the soldiers and people from the village who dies in WWII

Beside it a memorial to the war and also the the mothers who suffered the lose of their children in the war

Looking back into the village where chickens were pecking around the streets

Getting closer to Buky Canyon yet another monument.

Then I came across this. Its probably the most unique monument I have seen yet

Now things got interesting! My GPS lead me through some fields! It was pretty nice :) I had been on old paved roads with pot holes and debris in them. Now I was running on hard packed dirt with no traffic! 

After about 10km the dirt road came to an end at this monument where I joined up with another horrible paved road,

Finally I made it to Buky Canyon. It had taken me about 4.5 hours to get there using back roads, about 175 km.

There was a lot of people there. 

These folks were rock climbing and camping just behind where I am taking the photo

You can see a building on the left there. From what I can understand this is the location of one of the first Hydro-Electric damns constructed in Ukraine.

I could see people on the other side of the canyon camping. Less tourist there so I thought to check it out. I decided to walk first to see the trail.

It didnt look pretty

I gave up on driving but kept walking until I found the old damn itself

Build in 1887 is what it said

I decided to find another spot to camp. My new expanded gas tank allowed me to keep going. I made it up to 160 miles before I decided to get gas, before 110 was about max.

I asked the gas station attendant if he knew of a good place to camp and he pointed me in a direction.

Get off the road pass under the bridge and keep going to a bend in the river.

It was quiet and nice just how I like it!

Getting there was a bit of a trick but could be worse.

Ate dinner and called it a night