Fin...

Hello Europe! We've made it pretty far over the last few days, but we slowed down once we got to Europe. Who'd have thought one of the most difficult borders to cross was getting into Europe as EUROPEANS! Oh well, we had fun partying in Berlin and with a friend of Edd's in Brussels. Sadly, we aren't convoying with anyone right now, we said goodbye to the Dutch Mongols in Latvia as they needed to get home. We'll be heading home today and have a ferry booked for 2pm, getting back in time for one last party in Cardiff (Live Lounge, 9pm, come one, come all)! Britain here we come!

In Memoriam...

It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that after hitting a large rock on the road we dented our sump guard so far that it took out a chunk of our sump, emptying all of our oil within 2 minutes. We have been told that a hole in the sump is a rally ender, and within 1,000 km of Ulanbaatar we are unable to continue under our own steam. We have held a funeral for the car, leaving the destroyed sump guard as a gravestone with a Mongol Rally sticker for future teams to find by the roadside. It looks like we are no longer able to finish the rally.

Or do we thought!!! Yesterday, after being towed 200km by Corsa Gonna Make It (top lads!) we reached a town which had a mechanic who fixed it with some spare metal and epoxy resin (aka, some DIY glue and half a beer can!) We arrived this morning in Ulanbaatar to enjoy our first fast food in weeks! We will now be heading to Ulan Ude tonight for a killer party, hopefully we won't have to spend too long at the border!

Mongolia

Apparently my phone doesn't work in Mongolia so text updates are going to be unlikely. After we made it through the border, (having bought our visas on the border, something that every other team around us told us was impossible!), we paraded onto the first village in a 7 car convoy, lead by Hiley Unlikely, waving a road flair above his head as he drove!

We stopped at the first village we came to, some of us needing fuel, others a mechanic. We were about to press on when the mechanic we found offered us the floor in his yurt for the night. We accepted, and his family gave us horse milk (possibly the sourest thing known to man), chai tea (salted) and a meal of pasta and yak meat (actually quite good, and cooked on an excrement fire stove)!

In the morning, with some of the cars repaired we set out in a 6 car convoy, leaving Hiley to repair his car and go back the way he came into Russia.

Progress was slow over the last three days, as 2C Some Yaks thirty year old Citroen 2CV kept breaking down, but to be fair they weren't the only ones with problems! We managed to drive ourselves into a river! The car is fine but a lot of our stuff got soaked. We also suffered a puncture on our rear left wheel. An easy fix in itself but we left the locking bolts on the wheels and our adapter to remove them has warped beyond use! Eventually, using dust, hammers, and brute force and ignorance, we managed to get the old wheel off, but I'm not sure we'll be able to do it again.

Yesterday, the Citroen stopped turning over altogether, and while being towed its steering column snapped off the axel, so it couldn't even be towed. With the help of some locals, we had a flat bed truck come pick it up and take it all the way to Ulanbaatar for $200, leaving the rest of us to continue on the dodgy roads feeling very jealous. We spent the rest of the day taking it in turns to dig each other out of the sand as the roads out here are either practically non-existent or halfway to being built and are completely inaccessible. When we got within 30km of Altai and saw the long stretch of fresh tarmac as far as the eye could see we almost cried tears of joy! We spent the night in a hotel getting some much needed showers in! With the Citroen gone we're now in convoy with Ulanbaantar, Perod Skwod, and of corse, Corsa Gonna Make It. We're hoping to get halfway to Ulanbaantar today, and arrive at Ulan Ude on the 26th, ready to party and start preparing for the long drive home!