101. Day 70 – Broken down again – but now in remote Mongolia

Thursday 25 October 2007

We were away from the hotel car park at 8.06 am but decided to fill up with fuel.

The hotel car park

We left the service station in the town at 8.20 am.  It was 35º Fahrenheit – wow, 3º above zero!

Driving out of Khovd
The road was dirt soon after we left Khovd

We climbed the mountain range to over 5,000 feet high.  There was no snow in sight on the road.  As we came down the other side we could see the large lake of Harusnuur.  This lake is actually the catchment point of the river which runs through the town of Olgii.  We had come over the mountain range to get down into the watershed.

Gers with a flock of sheep and goats
Water troughs used to water the stock

A short time later we passed some magnificent camels.  They were quite tame.  It is amazing to see these camels out in the middle of nowhere.  They are all branded and all owned by somebody.  We were told that there are no feral camels in Mongolia.

These camels are privately owned – you can see the brand on the rump
The rest of the herd beside the road

Shortly after, when we were driving well off the main highway to try to find a better road surface, we came across some very strange cross markings in the ground.  Further on we found long steel power poles, and Eldos told us that this was the connection of various villages to the power system which comes from hydroelectric generators in Russia – believe it or not!  Have a look at a map to see how far away Russia is.

The poles waiting to be stood up to take the new electric wires
A truck stop we passed along the road

We reached the small village of Manhan.  It is really not a village, it is just a strange looking roadside stop and a bridge.

The road started to improve and Dick actually put the Earthroamer on cruise control for the first time in many weeks.  Maybe this was a bad omen.

We were now back on the road that the Mongolians call “The Millennium Highway.”  As we have mentioned previously, the Government has promised to construct a bitumen road all the way from Ulaan Baatar to the Altai.  At different places they have done the roadworks, and this was one such place.  We were delighted to be back on a smooth road.

A horseman with his ger home
We were travelling well and met this lady with her small children leading her camels loaded with all their possessions including a satellite dish
They were very shy at first…
The young mother gave Pip a beautiful smile but the young son remained serious as Pip took these photos
The beautiful young mother holding her youngest child
The mother kept hold of the camels

At 11.30 am Mongolian time (2.30 pm Sydney time) we broke down again.  We cannot believe it.  Dick was driving the Earthroamer beautifully on a very rough dirt road when he noticed that the acceleration didn’t seem to be there.  He then glanced down at the pressure indicator, which shows the turbo charge boost pressure, and noticed it was reading zero.  We also noticed on the rear camera that black billowing smoke was coming out.

We pulled over and worked out that something has gone drastically wrong with the turbo charger.  The vehicle starts perfectly, but if we accelerate the engine we get billowing black smoke.

We lost power so we stopped and the boys had a look at the engine
Sadly we have broken down again, this time in the middle of Mongolia where two men on their motorbike stopped to see what we were doing
The men on the motorbike
Stranded in the Gobi – our worst nightmare has come true
A couple of locals rode past us while we were broken down on the road
The man on his camel

We have been in contact with the Ford experts in Dubai and Marilyn is trying to contact Ford in Melbourne to try to find out what is wrong.

In the meantime, we have decided the best idea is to try to get towed back to Hovd – 122 km away.  At 20 kph it would probably take us 6 hours behind the tow rope, but we have done this before on a shorter distance!

We are hoping that a truck will come along in the opposite direction.  We have been here for an hour already and we haven’t seen anything, but we can see some dust about 20 km away and that could be a truck approaching.

Luckily we are warm here in the Earthroamer.  The heater is working and Pip is making lunch.  We are hoping that we will be back in some type of civilisation late tonight.  We will keep you posted.  Our location is N 47 13.382, E 092 36.741.

This is adventure!

Today  125kms    25,447kms since Anchorage, Alaska 

Of the 40,075kms around the world we have now covered 63.5% of the distance.

Click here for the next entry – being towed.

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