Saturday 18th August: The sun is shining this morning, but fog is slowly drifting across the plain below us and up to Black Rock Ridge. The sweeping views of the horizon and Red Bluff disappear.

With breakfast over we head out across the flat plains. Today, there are camels everywhere, sometimes in herds of 50 plus at a time.

As we head north the country is again changing, now hillier granite country with outcrops of pure white quartz. 

We come across a broken down vehicle, the three occupants had obviously been there all the previous night. They had not eaten, so we offered biscuits and drinks all round. The fan belt had broken on the vehicle, although they had tried makeshift repairs using their trouser belts it had not worked. Our option was to give the elder of the three, dressed in traditional costume a lift to Bayankhongor, our next stop about 40Kms away. Bill & Gay have the only spare seat, and I believe it was not a very interesting trip as neither party could communicate.

Bayankhongor was a town without a soul.

Built during the soviet occupation, it is straight out of the soviet town planner’s book. Half a dozen grey and brown four story apartment blocks were set either side of the single wide main street. The rest of the buildings, obviously added later, are a mixture of recycled timber and scrap sheet metal, or white rough rendered brick houses or gers. Each ger is surrounded by ramshackled timber fence, I imagine depicting ownership. Apart from the straight main street, the rest of the streets seem to happen in any order as the dwellings appeared.

Whilst I was at the internet, Lyn & Gay did the shopping in the markets with the help of a drunken local man and a mute woman. I believe it was quite an experience.

Our afternoons destination was Naiman Nuur (Eight Lakes) for which we had the GPS coordinates from ‘Lonely Planet’. It was typical of my destinations, very off the main tourist route. A single lane track up the most beautiful river valley we have ever seen.

The velvet grass left both sides of the meandering stony river and covered the ground all the way to the tops of the mountain peaks on each side. Dotted along the valley are the white gers and granite tors. We were now at 2000metres and still climbing.

Left behind long ago were the camels, they are now replaced by goats, cattle, and as we get higher, Yaks.  As the evening draws near, the families are herding the live stock close to the ger to bed down.

We set camp atop of a spur overlooking the river bend. After our camel steak dinner, we had a visit by four horse riders hoping for a drink to have with their ‘roll your own’ smokes.

P.S. The camel steaks were very nice!

Sunday 19th August: Surprise, after the rain again last night the sky is blue. This only makes the valley all the more beautiful. 

All in all, it looks like an ideal lifestyle - as least in the 25degree summer.  Still there are no trees only short grasses. For cooking fuel we see piles of animal manure being dried in the sun. I am thinking that must add a special flavour to the cooking!

We turn off the main valley to follow the GPS arrow up another much smaller valley. The track is almost nonexistent.

On reaching the top, we expect to be mesmerised by eight beautiful lakes, however the ridge just rolls over into the next valley. On either side of the saddle we search between and over the granite outcrops looking for the impossible. We finally convince ourselves that the coordinates in ‘Lonely Planet’ must be incorrect.

Disappointed we did not find the eight lakes; we were none the less, impressed with the surroundings.

Returning to the main valley we continued, past idyllic ger settings, down picturesque valleys that photographs did not do justice to the small settlements of Uyanga, and Zuunbayan-Ulaan.

Finally we reached the ‘main road’ just south of Khujirt.

Ahead of us we could see a turbulent thunderhead, and on the ground evidence that the very recent rain must have been violent. The ground was covered with fresh silt and in places thick ice from the recent hail. The major river crossing before Khujirt was 500 metres wide, running with water but fortunately shallow. What made the experience was the sun was now out and the valley crested by a new rainbow.

As we left Khujirt, we had read of some ancient burial sites marked by vertical stones. We found the site however all the graves had holes dug in and around them and I can only conclude that they were robbed of some saleable contents.

The new road was under construction, and the recent rains had filled a hole containing a road roller.

Now also stuck in the same hole was a bulldozer and trying to pull that out was a grader. This was all very unsuccessful and badly disorganised. Some of the workers approached us for a drink (alcoholic of course) and my reply was only after the successfully retrieving the equipment. That obviously was not going to happen for a long time so we moved on.

We turned off the road and drove 750 metres up to the top of one of the rolling grassy hills for camp. This afforded us a grand view across the vast flood plain and the flood waters slowly moving from right to left down the valley.

Monday 20th August:

What remained was later destroyed by vengeful Manchurian solders after the collapse of the Mogul Empire in 1388. Later in the 16th century what ever was left was picked up and used to build the nearby First Mongolian Buddhist Monastery of Erdene Zuu.

We had a guide for our tour of that Monastery, which in itself was impressive, but I could only marvel at the hand chipped granite blocks, pavers, steps etc that came from the previous Chinggis Khaan city.  We walked outside the Monastery grounds over to the only remaining corner stone of that ancient city that was the trading crossroads of Asia.

Squatting down for a quite moment, I do believe I heard the noises of busy market and can only imagine the activity with traders from as far a field as China, Iran, and Europe. In the gravel below I can see pieces of broken pottery and wonder what stories it could tell?

In the new town of Kharkhorin we refuelled (Diesel 1050Togrog/Litre A$1.05) and had the major task of finding a water supply for the campers. As with most towns, Kharkhorin does not have a reticulated water supply and water is drawn from wells around town. For a foreigner it is difficult to know where these wells are. In the past we have seen people with containers going to and fro, hence from this it is possible to track down the small white pump house. The pump house has only a door, a small 200cm ‘window’ through which you pay your money, and a pipe out of the wall.  This time after many questions and many very varying directions eventually a shop owner jumped in with me and guided us to a pump house.  Both vehicles took collectively 100Litres for 3,000T (A$3.00), although expensive we were grateful, because we normally paid around 800T (A$0.80).

Our camp tonight was 60Kms North at Ogiy Nuur (Lake). A pleasant evening and dinner of beautiful lamb steaks, purchased in the markets earlier that day.

Tuesday 21st August: We awoke at 1.30am this morning with someone trying to get into the front of the truck and then the camper. It was very windy and a cold 11degrees. I shone the torch out the window to see a very drunken Mongolian in his local attire indicating that it was cold and he wanted to come in and go to sleep. We were not impressed with his banging on the wall, but I also think he did not understand the words “piss off”!   After half an hour and falling over the camper steps a couple of times, he must have eventually wandered off. It is at times like this we are so grateful to be in such a self-contained vehicle and not just camping in a tent.

It was a lousy night, and the cold and windy morning made the coffee taste just that little bit better than usual.

We shared that coffee with the local park wildlife officer who came to say hello, even though we could not effectively communicate.

With a later than usual start, we planned to travel the 94 straight line kilometres to Tsetserleg for lunch. That plan soon disintegrated as we tended to zigzag all day up the wide valley. There seemed to be no major track and nothing corresponded to any of the maps we had in either the GPS or paper maps. The straight line 94Kms became 177Kms and that took a slow 7 hours to cover.

Along the way we stopped to ask directions from one ger camp, and that turned into a memorable experience for all. With a point of the a finger in the direction indicating that Tsetserleg was that way, the middle-aged man then offered us airag.

Airag is an alcoholic drink made from fermented mare’s milk, and every ger has their own still to make the home supply. With only 3% alcohol it is still most definitely must be an ‘acquired’ taste. 

Out of respect, Lyn and I both tried some and did manage ½ a cup each. It is a little like sour coconut milk.

We have been carrying a Polaroid camera also with us and took a photograph of ‘grandmother’ milking the horse – that was a great hit.

Some 15 pictures later, we had the whole extended family around the trucks, all posing for photos.  Dad in the driver’s seat, Brother (?) and children on the bull bar, kids lined up, even old grandmother was back in the action. All of the family were delighted with their photos and the colouring pencils and books we also gave out.

Finally arriving at Tsetserleg, we visited the markets for resupply. We really enjoyed our lamb last night so set about to purchase some more.

At some of the markets you can tell the different animals because the head of the animal is on the shelf below its butchered meat. This one was a bit more challenging, we used animal noises to differentiate the meats.

This evening we have found some trees, and hence some wood for an open fire. What better than lamb steaks!

Wednesday 22nd August: Up at 7.30am to an overcast sky and that drizzly rain remained with us all day.  Today the tracks were quicker, or perhaps we just made better judgement calls at the multiple choice track junctions.

Stopping at a road side ‘café’ we had noodles and meat (what type is any guess) for the grand sum of 1050T (A$1.50) per very full plate.

Coffee, for which we actually decided to stop for, we could buy the ‘3 in one’ pre-packed mixture, but they did not have any hot water, so we gave the coffee a miss.

We passed Chuluut Gorge, an impressive river gorge cut through the mountain range.

I found it most intriguing because as we climbed the range the water was flowing in the same direction of our travel. Hence the gorge on out right was increasing in depth as we moved up hill.

Our destination is the extinct volcanic area of the Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur (Lake) National Park.

Driving out of the village of Tariat towards the extinct volcano we crossed recent (a million years or so) lava flow. Very evident is its flow through the saddle in between the hills, and its meandering flow down the valley.

Driving over the volcanic ash slopes, to our left is the remains of the recent volcanic cone. Surrounding us are volcanic bombs, lava flows and ash beds. I have to admit, I am impressed.

The 500 metre climb to the top of the cone and its circumnavigation was a highlight.  The only unfortunate part of this whole experience is the weather. It continues to be overcast and raining.

We are now camped on the side of a lake formed by the lava flow damming the river. It continues to rain and the temperature is dropping. At 5.30pm it was 12degrees, 6.30pm 11degreesC, now at 8.30pm a cold 9degreesC and still dropping!

I can only add that it is good snuggling weather!

Camp 56: Rainy and Cold Volcanic Lake Camp

Current Position: Camped at Terkhiin Tsagaan Lake – Raining & 11degrees C

Total Distance to Date:   13,147Kilometres