After a great night’s sleep in the Earthroamer we awoke to a beautiful day with slight haze in the distance. It was 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius).
Unfortunately, we are into the battery saga again. The batteries we bought in Kazakhstan were obviously designed to be kept fully charged – as most batteries are. After a winter in Mongolia, we are pretty sure they were frozen solid and completely pickled. When we woke up in the morning the battery only had 10 volts. This means we have to buy a couple of batteries when we get to Ulaan Baatar, or maybe somewhere inbetween.
We headed off at 7.40 am and drove on some of the worst roads we have ever experienced. This is hard to believe as we have already been on some pretty bad roads. Even where the roads authority has started to build the Millennium Road it is almost impossible to do more than 30 kilometres per hour, as the corrugations are so bad. It is a wonder any vehicle can ever stay together with the tremendous bashing they receive. Most of the time we drive off to the right or the left of the main track to try to get a better surface.
Travelling along dusty dirt tracks
Once again we are climbing gradually through the Gobi Desert. There is magnificent scenery – camels, Gers with families tending to their animals (mainly goats and sheep). Occasionally we would see a mounted horseman.
Magnificent scenery along the wayWe noticed many horses had very long manes
On the road, it was fascinating to see everyone travelling past. The most extraordinary was a Mongolian on a small motorbike with his wife on the back. At one stage we found a bike abandoned and there seemed to be a little tent nearby – in fact it was a Mongolian, huddling from the wind.
Many Mongolians travel on motorbikes often loaded with two people and bags of luggageLater in the afternoon the winds came up to around 80kph and the Gobi Desert was covered in a dust storm. We noticed this abandoned motor bike beside the road but as we slowed down to take this photo we realised that the rider was sheltering beside his bike under his coat waiting for the storm to die down – this could take a few days we were told.
At 11.20 am, we were driving along and saw a herd of goats with a man on a camel leading another camel. Pip waved to the man from the car and we stopped the vehicle. We walked over to him and Pip took some extraordinary photographs. He wanted a Polaroid picture so Pip went back and got one of our old Christmas card photos and a toy koala, which he proudly took. He was heading off to take his herd of goats to the well, which was many kilometres away. It is quite extraordinary how these people can live in the Gobi Desert in conditions that range from -40° to +40°.
We often passed small groups of camels grazing beside the roadWe noticed a shepherd riding his camel amongst his flock of sheep and goats so we gave him a friendly waveThe shepherd came over to say helloUp close and personal with a camelOur friendly shepherd rode back to join his flock of sheep and goats grazing in such a beautiful place
Half way through today’s trip we drove into a dust storm. We encountered winds of up to 80 kilometres per hour and visibility at one stage was down to about 10 metres. It was so bad that we had to stop and wait for the dust to blow away before we could move ahead.
A tiny lizard that ran across the stony groundAlong the very rough dusty road we passed this Mongolian loading his camel with water containers from the waterhole you can see behind himDogs sleeping beside their owners gerWe stopped at a roadside ger for lunch
We stopped in Sonduult at 2pm for lunch. We joined a family inside their ger and while the wife and mother, Tcetcegmaa cooked our lunch of fresh lamb meat, potatoes and turnips fried and then added to pasta and steamed – Dick and I enjoyed meeting their 2 year old daughter Batsetseg who was sleeping on her parents bed. This was a lovely encounter with the local people
Tcetcegmaa cooking our lunch in a wok over a wood burning stovePip getting some cooking tips while the baby girl slept behind us on the bed.Another man joined us in the ger for a bowl of Mongolian tea wearing his motorbike goggles.
We gradually climbed and eventually entered the town of Altai at 7,000 feet – nearly the height of Mt Kosciusko. After refuelling the vehicle we found we had been doing 4.75 kilometres per litre (21 litres per 100 kilometres). Previously on the freeways in the USA, we were able to achieve 6 kilometres per litre (16.6 litres per 100 kilometres) but we are now driving at very low revs and very low speeds – sometimes through quite deep sand.
One of the buildings in Altai
We travelled 308 kilometres today. We are going to call it a day after driving through a sand storm to a high plateau in the Gobi.
We are now parked outside the Altai Hotel with a power lead running inside to keep our electric heater going. No, our diesel heater still isn’t working – even though Dick worked on replacing the glow plug. Oh well, hopefully we might be able to get it fixed in the next few days, with a bit of fiddling and a bit of advice from Earthroamer.
The Government Hotel in AltaiThe Earthroamer parked outside the Altai Hotel for the night
