7th Aug - West from Moron

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First day camping on my own in the wilderness.

I was up and showered and packed reasonably early and then I had a call from Hishgee asking how I was. I told him that I was back in Morn and so he invited me for brunch at his Grandparents house which was in the right direction out of town. I popped to say goodbye to Tuck and did some shopping for food and then biked round to meet Hishgee and Tovo. Unfortunately they had been sent on an errand and so I waited around for about 1 hour before they arrived. We had a lovely lunch together and a nice natter. They are really nice people.


It was 1 o'clock by the time I actually got on the road. It was a hard ride as there was a very strong headwind. The route was pretty flat for the first 40km and it was a lovely sunny afternoon. Some of the tracks were very sandy and as there had been very heavy rain yesterday there was also a lot of mud.




Unfortunately I managed to hit some mud and my back wheels slipped underneath me and I did not manage to un-clip in time and so I fell on the ground with my bike on top of me. It hurt and so I just lay there for a minute but eventually picked myself up and got going again but absolutely covered in mud...


The road took me to the town of Burentogah but there was very little there so I just bought some water (instead of a hot meal as I was hoping) and continued into the mountains.



The road from Burentogah was very steep and I even found it hard to stay on my bike. Normally I can get up any road with my lowest gear but I was carrying a lot of water and so my bike was very heavy and the surface was gravel. I stopped and had a break and something to eat about half way to the top. Over the top of the first pass there was a great downer and a beautiful valley with a river running through it. I thought about camping there but decided to push on a bit further.


I was exhausted after 85km and climbing up a pass when a van passed me and stopped to give me a lift. At the time I was pushing my bike up the road at the time as it was too steep to ride with the weight of my bike (I was carrying loads of water at the time). I was grateful to have a lift for about 20km up the very steep passes..... It was getting dark when I asked them to drop me off so that I could bike a bit further and find a place to camp.


Tonight was the first time I have camped on my own in Mongolia. I quite enjoyed it actually. I could not see any civilisation and it was extremely quite. I did not feel unsafe - it was just a bit strange. There was a huge full moon and so it was very light.