The Arctic and Kazakhstan
Paul goes to the Arctic and Kazakhstan
John Gendall is a professional fishing guide, working seasonally in Russian's arctic circle.
And as we know good fishing isn't in easy to find places. Paul first flies into Murmansk, the Russian city high up in the Arctic circle. From there he boards a Russian helicopter for the two and a half hour flight into Ponoi River to meet South Islander John.
For five years John has guided guests catching and releasing the exclusive Arctic Salmon, and under now he's going to come up against his most difficult client yet, Paul Henry who thinks going fishing is trying for a complement!
The exclusive fishing site is owned and operated by Shackleton International. Every year they establish a tented community to cater for the US$10,000 a week excursions to catch the illusive salmon, internally known as the King of Fish.
John takes Paul on explorations not just for the fish, but of this extreme landscape and a community on the edge of the world where the land meets the Barrents Sea that Paul describes as one of his most fascinating days ever.
In a team of Russians, Americans and the odd kiwi Paul will witness the extraordinary landscape and surrounds of the Kola Peninsula that half the year is frozen over. He leaves John with autumn turning into winter and the river beginning to freeze and heads further south towards the bottom of the former USSR.
As Paul lands in Almaty, Kazakhstan's former capital city, there is instant applause from the plane's other passengers. At subzero temperatures arriving in this former Soviet Union city is a celebration in itself. Paul steps off the plane into temperatures 20 degrees below zero, into a city nicknamed "the whispering city" during the cold war era, infamous for the level of tapping of everywhere and everyone.
Once through customs, Paul meets Mark Jackson, trouble-shooter for the massive oil and gas industry that arrived in Kazakhstan after it declared independence in 1991. Mark lives here with his wife and two children travelling all over this the world's ninth largest country. Bordered by Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China it's a land occupied and fought over though the ages by Genghis Khan and the Mongols, the Tsars of Russia and then the Red Army.
Oil is now the future of this country that's only 14 years old, and New Zealander Mark Jackson is part of that future.
Mark spends his weeks airlifting injured workers off rigs in the Caspian Sea, or arranging the rescue of sick expats from the extraordinarily remote steppe of Northern Kazakhstan. In between, his job is to try and make sure people don't get ill or injured in the first place; the oil and gas platforms are inherently dangerous to begin with - their isolated locations make risks greater.
Paul joins Mark on the job; we catch a small plane to Aktau, on the Caspian Sea (to drive would take three-and-a-half days, with next-to-no settlement to stop at en route). Kazakhstan is the size of Western Europe but is home to only 15 million people; below the team stretches thousands of kilometres of inhospitable ice and snow.
Miles out in the Caspian Sea, the world's need for oil makes no allowance for the fact that it's sub-zero outside. Bracing the elements as nature and science merge, Mark explains to Paul a little of how this massive operation works.
Back on land, we drive - on treacherous roads out into the Steppe - to a camp at a natural gas site, where Mark needs to check health and safety protocols; communicating is often an inter cultural challenge, with Kazakh and Russians as well as British, Thai and other European contractors working at the site. We stay in a camp in this remote spot, where the community exists purely to serve the planet's fuel requirements. This is an area of remote wide-open spaces, lunar landscapes with meals of horse sausage at the end of the day!
The team then travels onwards to the new capital Astana, stopping en route to erect the NZ flag at the second lowest point on the globe, second to the Dead Sea. As Mark says "Sir Ed has flown the flag at the highest so I thought it would be appropriate to fly it at one of the lowest." Paul makes an effort to dodge the wild camel dung!
And for his final day in Kazakhstan Mark and his family take
Paul to the Tien Shan Observatory perched high above Almaty. A
bewitching, dream-like landscape, the observatory sits amongst the
4000m plus peaks of a range that runs down to Kyrgyzstan. It's a
region of glaciers, wild rivers and steep valleys used by nomadic
herders and the location of Paul's farewell to Mark and his family
- and a little tobogganing.
