We made it to the far frozen north in a little under three days of driving, by dint of switching off often and not stopping for more than a couple of hours, sleeping in the car in turns.
Calder drove as we crossed the border, taking us along a shitty narrow side road that he said used to be a smuggling route.
And then I took over, driving for endless, uncountable hours and miles across the flattest plains to ever flat until my eyes burned.
I loved my mate, but hearing him snoring in the passenger seat after the first couple of hundred miles of it made me want to kick him in the balls.
We woke up to take over again for our journey through northern Thorn Gate, and I fell asleep as the terrain went from grassy to rocky and wooded.
We found the mine on the third day.
It had been burrowed and blown into the side of a large hill overlooking a lake, one of hundreds of identical lakes that spread out for hundreds of miles.
