The Final Entry - Days 27-31 catchup
Days 27-31, 200km from Altai - the Finish Line, Final Total 9339 miles
So the evening on the steppe turned into an unexpected evening of entertainment. Just as we’d finished preparing our gourmet noodles a large SUV turned up carrying 2 families, Mongolian Mormons no less, who wanted to stop and talk. Well, the 18 yr old daughter with a bit of English wanted to talk and quickly adopted Vicky as her new best friend. We made English Tea (accompanied by Wafers) and all sat around for a jolly old time - we exchanged gifts (Percy Pigs for Watermelon) and discovered that they were driving home to U-B. It seems the thing to do in Mongolia is to drive straight through the night in big 4x4s all the way across the country - 2 days seems to be the average, which considering the roads we’ve seen so far is utter madness. We gave the young boy a football shirt and as they were about to leave, when the Dad of the family (a Policeman) presented me with his well used but very sharp knife. Whilst all of this was going on Christian the French biker rolled up, with no water and a very weary look. We became water-givers again and when all had calmed down made more noodles and drank red wine as the stars came out.
Up with the sun again for scrambled eggs and tea. The Irish Micras passed us as we were packing up, so could only have been camped a few km down the road, and by 730 we were rolling again on the most brutal roads so far. For the first while we were in the sand, low gear, high revs, fingers crossed, which was interspersed with lots of rocks. We caught up with the irish who, in an attempt to go a bit too fast had broken the rear axle on one of the cars. As we pulled up the stricken car was being left behind with 4 of the guys as the other 2 set off to Altai to find a welder. We gave up some water (again) and offered to follow them in in case they had any other problems. They were driving far more gingerly than before but soon we were caught by the Kiwis who stopped for a chat and arranged to meet for lunch in Altai. Off we went in hunt of the Irish, bouncing and sliding all the way, and as we reached them one leaned out of the window frantically gesturing at the back of the car. We stopped to find our bumper hanging on by a single screw, merrily being dragged along the sand. Once that was detached and strapped to the roof we continued. We’d asked the Irish guys if they needed backup but they declined, which was a good thing because we didn’t catch sight of them until just before Altai anyway. Progress was painfully slow as we hit the most hideous corrugated road yet, flanked by multiple alternate paths of sand and rock. The road was just too painful to drive on - bone rattling, and bolt loosening but the side paths were treacherous to say the least. as we approached Altai we saw that the road had claimed one of the Romanian 4x4s and to say we were relieved to hit tarmac at Altai is a massive understatement. We found lunch and internet and were joined by the Kiwis and decided to team up for the rest of the day. The route out of town was about 120km of good tarmac which ended so suddenly, on the ridge of a hill that the anchors had to be forcibly slammed on to avoid a heavy landing. One car had not been so lucky. Sat in the field all smashed up it seemed to have launched off the end of the tarmac and rolled, probably on a nighttime country-crossing. In Mongolia there aren’t many road signs but they do like to fore-warn of slight bends in the road. They really need to consider a sign highlighting the end of the road. Another 40km or so was all we managed before camping up, punctuated by a proper tyre blow-out, but a very pleasant evening under the stars was had by all. In other news, 2 of the roof-rack fixing points have sheared (now held on by a ratchet strap with bits of the yellow stool for padding, and 2 of our wheels are seriously buckled from the corrugated.
Shortly after setting off in the morning we came across a group of 5 cars breakfasting and getting ready to get on the road. After the previous day’s brutal roads we were keen to gain the safety of numbers and asked to join the convoy. The Kiwis wanted to ride faster, and while happy to convoy just with us were less happy to ride along in a slow convoy. So, after an awkward separation reminiscent of breaking up with a first girl/boyfriend they headed off and we joined the others and convoyed with Brainbox, Mr Caves Geography Field Trip, Champagne Campaign, Team Opti, and the Red Dragon Micra. After so many days of ragging it, mostly solo, this took some getting used to. There were frequent stops for numerous reasons and our progress slowed massively. But a long lunch by a big river for hot food and a swim wash was most welcome. What followed was some really crazy driving. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because the main road was sweeping away from us to the south but we were on a direct course for Bayhonnor so decided to press ahead. This involved driving straight across a dried riverbed (more sand) and occasionally trying a bit of the partly washed away road to the side. We beached the skoda on a particularly tricky bit and ended up having to go rogue and create new tracks up the river bed which was fine until we stopped and started to sink. Quick movement, location of a gravel bed, some fish-tailing and a bit of a hard bump up onto the road and we were back on track. A river crossing followed, and more crazy sandy rocky roads on which our brakes started to play up - (sudden loss of pressure in the pedal,) which could be restored by frantic pumping of the braked created a bit of ‘squeaky bum time’ before we found camp in a bug filled area just outside Bayhonnor for the night.
Then the wind picked up and rattled us silly overnight. No matter that sleep was hard to come by because we’d been promised tarmac for the rest of the journey. This didn’t quite turn out to be the boon we had hoped for. Inevitably there were about 20km of multi-track detour dirt racing and when we were on the tarmac the pot-holes and bumps were sudden and hard to spot. Not quite the tyre-rutted evil tarmac of Kazakhstan, but with our rear shocks shot to bits we were bouncing around like a boat on stormy seas. We’d started the day with a false sense of security, a feeling like we were nearly there, but the roads made sure there was one last sting in the tail for us. The road was mostly poor and keeping us down to 50kmh or so, but every now and then new tarmac would present itself on wonderful sweeping downhills which would then be brutally cut short by a massive hole in the road, requiring extreme braking and evasive action. One such hole claimed 4 punctures in the convoy (plus a slow puncture which revealed itself later) and the last remaining section of the black Polo’s exhaust. [The black polo first broke it’s exhaust on the starting ramp in battersea and has been slowly disintegrating since then - their’s is a real story of triumph over adversity]. Another pothole left the polo spraying liquid all over the road - frantic horn blowing and light flashing was to no avail (exhaust way too noisy for them to hear) so had to drive hard to catch up and flag down. It looked like the fuel tank had punctured but turned out to be a 50p sized hole in the radiator. A combination of quiksteel, ali-tape, cable ties and radweld got us all back on the road. An obligatory stop for a camel ride and then hilltop camping - basically driving through a densely grown field (one more puncture) to our last night of camping.
The final day (we hoped) started early - I woke up before 6, and with the previous night’s campfire intention to start early I got and was greeted by a chorus of gentle snoring. The sun was about to rise so i quietly unfolded one of the nearly broken camp chairs and set down to watch the sunrise over the hills. Beautiful, and a lovely pre-cursor to our imminent arrival in U-B. We all set off a couple of hours later, only to have to stop before we even left the field for us to repair another puncture. Put on a repaired tyre and hoped it would hold as we convoyed out on the highway. The drive into U-B was pretty straight forward - the roads were good and the city kind of crept up on us so before we knew it we were turning into the Rally Graveyard. Cue photos, cheering, popping of the “Full Metal Yak” donated bottle of sparkling wine (supplemented by the bladder of white wine which has been struggling to keep cool in the cool box since Romania), drinking of ceremonial fermented yak’s milk, and the realisation that we’d actually completed the journey. We emptied the car of all the things we wanted to keep, donated the rest, thanked the Skodelorean and signed over the export and scrapping papers to the shipping company. It’s sad to see it go but the economics of bringing it back to the UK and fixing it up, even to sell it, don’t make sense. Onwards we went, squeezed into a local’s car to the Office Hotel for a couple of days of recovering, drinking, and crashing down to earth with a bump. We now head off to Beijing and Moscow on our way back to the UK.
It’s been an incredible trip. It is going to take a while to sink in what we have achieved. We’ve driven 9339 miles, (some 14,000km), without any major breakdowns, seen incredible landscapes, met fantastic people, eaten a lot of camping noodles and pasta, conquered roads and river in a car really not suited to it. Best decision: Fitting a bash plate to the car - we would have been grounded in Kazakhstan without it. Worst decision: Packing too much stuff, making the ride on the car way too low. Only Regret: Not going via Iran - it took us nearly 5 weeks anyway and the prison ship to Kazakhstan was an experience I really don’t need to repeat!
