INTREPID JOURNEYS. KEVIN MILNE. UKRAINE

''Kevin Milne explores the Ukraine - a destination not exactly at the top of most people's 'to visit' list, but one which won him over. Despite some recent health scares, Milne accepted the challenge of his Intrepid Journey. Rather than staying holed up at home on the couch, he decided to make the most of every chilly moment.
Milne's trip also involved a stop off at Chernobyl, but it wasn't his proximity to radiation that disturbed him. ‘As I expected, the highlight of the journey was my day at Chernobyl. I found myself surprisingly close to the plant's wrecked Reactor No 4, covered by what is clearly an inadequate concrete sarcophagus.’
Travelling off the beaten track in the Ukraine is much like a step back into a Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, he says. In the impoverished, snow-bound rural areas around the Carpathian Mountains, we were surrounded by a medieval, peasant way of life, of a type I've never witnessed elsewhere. Within it was a cultural wealth, a richness of spirit; I've never seen either. We literally waded through the snow and knocked on cottage doors in order to see life inside. The owners' generosity and hospitality didn't seem compromised by either our strangeness, the language barrier, or our constantly rolling camera.'' throng.co.nz; 24/11/2009