mongolia has been incredible. the rally organisation announced on the day we left the country that this leg had been the most challenging yet. this made me feel a little better as i wasn't sure either us or the car to take the pounding for much longer. the desert roads are particularly bad as they have been building a new road down our route. the construction traffic have virtually destroyed the bush tracks and the attrition to the car has been pretty horrendous. we have completely laost the bash plate that protects the bottom of the car. we think this happened in the sandy section. we managed to avoid one sand dune where a car was bogged and promptly got stuck in the next one. the sand is like glue and if you allow the momentum to fall off, you are lost. luckily there were plenty of cars on hand and we managed to push the car back and find another route. the best part of the desert was driving quite fast (55mph) across the desert where no one else had ever been. the car ran smoothly over the scrubby surface and a 360 degree view showed that we were the only ones insight with the swetting sun in the west and the campsite just over the horizon. this euphoric feeling was in contrast to the usual bumping and grinding and scraping along. at some point we obviously caught a rock om the exhaust which sheared off just under the engine. this meant that we sounded like a tractor and were constanly overcome by fumes. we had to run like this for two days until we reached Kovd where we got the exhaust welded for the princely sum of $50 - we subsequently found that we had been totally ripped off but it still seemed like good value.
camping has been the name of the game in mongolia and the Nomad tour team have looked after us very well. there are delicious hot showers and the food is a stange micture of western and local food all served on a plastic prison style tray. evenings are spent trying to get the car ready for the next day, having a few beers and swapping stories. We have already made some very good friends and the atmosphere and camaraderie are excellent. we typically start early the next day which means we incure more penalties but we can see no point in arriving after dark which is no fun and even more tiring. so 6am rise and leave camp by 7am if possible. the last few daysa were complicated by the fact that car was running very roughly and would not start on the battery in the morning so a push or a tow was required. the rough running is because the car is running too rich becaue of the altitude - our highest pass was 8500 feet. the poor starting was because it was jolly cold. on the l;ast morning it was -12C in camp in the morning!!
Monday, 27 September 2010
almatty, kazhakstan
i tspent some time yesterday updating the blog only to find it would not upload. rather annoying so will try again now.
Day 5 seems like a lifetime away now. We think we are effectively 1/2 way now which is a massive achievement. some have not been so fortunate. a number of cars have had to retire and the cars are being shipped home. tragically one car caught fir 3 days ago just short of the final campsite. the car was completely destroyed.
We have not got this far unscathed! those who know the car would be rather horrified by her appearance. We have decided to call her Maggie. We have a sticker on the bonnet supportin maggies centres but it seems a good name. a couple of people in china raised an eyebrow seeing the name; apparently it is also the name of a rather undistinguished club in china which is well known for all the wrong reasons.
Day 5 seems like a lifetime away now. We think we are effectively 1/2 way now which is a massive achievement. some have not been so fortunate. a number of cars have had to retire and the cars are being shipped home. tragically one car caught fir 3 days ago just short of the final campsite. the car was completely destroyed.
We have not got this far unscathed! those who know the car would be rather horrified by her appearance. We have decided to call her Maggie. We have a sticker on the bonnet supportin maggies centres but it seems a good name. a couple of people in china raised an eyebrow seeing the name; apparently it is also the name of a rather undistinguished club in china which is well known for all the wrong reasons.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
day 5 take 2
no one slept the night before we were due to leave, coupled with jet lag and a 0445 start, this meant we were very tired when we got going. the 1st bit was to the official start at the Great Wall of China. this should have taken about 1hour 30 but because the traffic is appalling in beijing, it took more like 2 1/2 hours. the driving style in china is very much freestyle, no one gives way to anyone else but it is all very friendly. i have got very good at operating the horn! eventually we were away at about 1030, having waved goodbye to jane and caroline collins. we settled down quite quickly and made good progress eventually getting about 250 km under our belts.
day 2
today dawned with a more normal 450km scheduled. as usual, we decided to set off at 1st light. dominic and I have decided not to try and compete with the rally proper. the Rolls is too big and although we are able to make good speeds the days are still very long , we feel it is better to get to the destination each day as early as possible. once again all the driving was on tarmac with occasional diversions off the road onto rough tracks when roadworks dictated. now things are getting very rural and basic. lots of similar red brick houses, many of which are abandoned. suddenley we come over a ridge and discover a huge town on the plain with 1 million people in it. according to those that did this rally 3 years ago, there was practically nothing there then. this is a country in a hurry and there is building works everywhere.
we had great fun driving through heavy traffic on 6 lanes having a bit of a ding dong race with the 1907 Itala which was going really well. in the end i ended up taking to the pavement followed by the japanese film crew so that we could get past him. no one seemed to mind but it may take a while to revert to normal driving once we get home. we pulled into Errenhot which is the border town where we cross into mongolia. this town was not very nice and we were advised not to go out of the hotel in the evening. some of us discovered to our astonishment that there was a lap dancing club in the hotel! however before anyone gets too excited, when we got there we had to wake up the bar lady and we were the only 3 people there. a shame really as i have never seen lap dancing live!
day 3. today starts with us driving 3km to the border starting off arounf 0730. we then sat around for about 3 hours whilst varrious officials worked out how to get 120 cars, some of which had to be towed, over the border. Eventually, at about 1145 we were off. Mongolia has a completely different feel to it. the people are much more reserved and it is clearly much poorer than china. after a short time we were off the tarmac and into the desert. nothing to be seen as far as the horizon in all directions. an absolutely stunning experience. Mongolia has the lowest population density of any country in the world. the desert roads are just wherever someone befor you has gone before so there are many track heading off into the distance which will hopefully get you to the next checkpoint. the gps which we all have is invaluable. the driving conditions are truly awful with the poor old Rolls bottoming out reguarly and getting more are more bumpy. we eventually. It took us to about nine hours to make 225km. our average speed was 27kph. we stopped twice to help other cars with punctures but happily di not have to wrry about this ourselves. we got to within 4 km of the campsite and then took out 1st wrong turn which was, to put it mildy, rather irritating. the only good thing was that about 10 other cars did the same thing! We ended up leading a strange little convoy across the desert in the dark via track and, strangely, quite alot of deep muddy water. luckily no one got stuck and we pulled in at about 2030 in the dark. pitch ing our tents in the dark was quite funny but after some food and a couple of beers morale was restored.
day 4. after a surprisingly good sleep, we struck camp at about 0630. pop-up tents do exactly that but trying to fold them up again is another matter. the organisers have a brilliant tent city with mess hall, toilets and even showers. so we had a good breakfast and then set off into the desert again. today was a much better day. the desert roads were much better and we were making upto 80kph on some stretches. at one point, whilst being filmed from a helicopter, the downwash reduced visibility and we failed to see a deep culvert. I can confirm that we can fly but the landings are rather heavy! in fact the headlights both drooped down in there disapproval. amazingly that was the only damage that we could discern. we covered 250km over sand, and another 250 took us into Ulam butaar the capital of mongolia. a hotel room and proper shower were very welcome.
day 5. as i have already said we have been busy getting the car ready for tomorrow. i had to make a new bracket for the exhaust and i am a little worried about one of the rear springs which does not appear to be getting lubrication. we will have to manually oil this every day to try and prevent any disasters. that is all for now. we will be out of contact of phones and emails for the next 4 days we think.
day 2
today dawned with a more normal 450km scheduled. as usual, we decided to set off at 1st light. dominic and I have decided not to try and compete with the rally proper. the Rolls is too big and although we are able to make good speeds the days are still very long , we feel it is better to get to the destination each day as early as possible. once again all the driving was on tarmac with occasional diversions off the road onto rough tracks when roadworks dictated. now things are getting very rural and basic. lots of similar red brick houses, many of which are abandoned. suddenley we come over a ridge and discover a huge town on the plain with 1 million people in it. according to those that did this rally 3 years ago, there was practically nothing there then. this is a country in a hurry and there is building works everywhere.
we had great fun driving through heavy traffic on 6 lanes having a bit of a ding dong race with the 1907 Itala which was going really well. in the end i ended up taking to the pavement followed by the japanese film crew so that we could get past him. no one seemed to mind but it may take a while to revert to normal driving once we get home. we pulled into Errenhot which is the border town where we cross into mongolia. this town was not very nice and we were advised not to go out of the hotel in the evening. some of us discovered to our astonishment that there was a lap dancing club in the hotel! however before anyone gets too excited, when we got there we had to wake up the bar lady and we were the only 3 people there. a shame really as i have never seen lap dancing live!
day 3. today starts with us driving 3km to the border starting off arounf 0730. we then sat around for about 3 hours whilst varrious officials worked out how to get 120 cars, some of which had to be towed, over the border. Eventually, at about 1145 we were off. Mongolia has a completely different feel to it. the people are much more reserved and it is clearly much poorer than china. after a short time we were off the tarmac and into the desert. nothing to be seen as far as the horizon in all directions. an absolutely stunning experience. Mongolia has the lowest population density of any country in the world. the desert roads are just wherever someone befor you has gone before so there are many track heading off into the distance which will hopefully get you to the next checkpoint. the gps which we all have is invaluable. the driving conditions are truly awful with the poor old Rolls bottoming out reguarly and getting more are more bumpy. we eventually. It took us to about nine hours to make 225km. our average speed was 27kph. we stopped twice to help other cars with punctures but happily di not have to wrry about this ourselves. we got to within 4 km of the campsite and then took out 1st wrong turn which was, to put it mildy, rather irritating. the only good thing was that about 10 other cars did the same thing! We ended up leading a strange little convoy across the desert in the dark via track and, strangely, quite alot of deep muddy water. luckily no one got stuck and we pulled in at about 2030 in the dark. pitch ing our tents in the dark was quite funny but after some food and a couple of beers morale was restored.
day 4. after a surprisingly good sleep, we struck camp at about 0630. pop-up tents do exactly that but trying to fold them up again is another matter. the organisers have a brilliant tent city with mess hall, toilets and even showers. so we had a good breakfast and then set off into the desert again. today was a much better day. the desert roads were much better and we were making upto 80kph on some stretches. at one point, whilst being filmed from a helicopter, the downwash reduced visibility and we failed to see a deep culvert. I can confirm that we can fly but the landings are rather heavy! in fact the headlights both drooped down in there disapproval. amazingly that was the only damage that we could discern. we covered 250km over sand, and another 250 took us into Ulam butaar the capital of mongolia. a hotel room and proper shower were very welcome.
day 5. as i have already said we have been busy getting the car ready for tomorrow. i had to make a new bracket for the exhaust and i am a little worried about one of the rear springs which does not appear to be getting lubrication. we will have to manually oil this every day to try and prevent any disasters. that is all for now. we will be out of contact of phones and emails for the next 4 days we think.
day 5
today was a rest day. this rather contravenes the trdes description act actually. we have been working on the car for about 8 hours now and are resonably happy.
lets back track a bit. i didnt think about the fact that the chinese block anyone sending out blogs so i couldnt do it dirtectly whilst in beijing but had to get my sister katie to post the blog by sending her an email from my phone. that worked fine until i lost my phone in beijing! as jane had come to china to see me off, i was able to hijack hers. that would have been fine except I have now lost hers too! how incompetent can i get. my excuse is that i am totally preoccupied with trying to get the car from a to b.
back to the journey, our 1st day
lets back track a bit. i didnt think about the fact that the chinese block anyone sending out blogs so i couldnt do it dirtectly whilst in beijing but had to get my sister katie to post the blog by sending her an email from my phone. that worked fine until i lost my phone in beijing! as jane had come to china to see me off, i was able to hijack hers. that would have been fine except I have now lost hers too! how incompetent can i get. my excuse is that i am totally preoccupied with trying to get the car from a to b.
back to the journey, our 1st day
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Day One
So far so good. We have arrived in Beijing where it is pleasantly warm. We will be collecting the car from the docks later today. Let's hope all is well. We have met some of our fellow rallyites and there is a general mood of eagerness and anticipation. There was a nasty moment when dominic thought he had forgotten the gps but happily it was in his toothbag! Next report when we have the car back....
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