230 miles for nothing except off-road practice
Hm, drove 230 miles and I’m back at the place were I started. How did that happen? Well a combination of me being a chicken and crapy maps. So drove the 20 miles back to Mörön and headed out on the right road. I did not get petrol because I had only gone 40 miles and the town that should have petrol was only 65 miles away. Drive was stunning across mountain passes and then dropped into valleys again…
Was taking it fairly easy. When I reached the Tsagaan Uul or the space were it was supposed to be there were only a few gers. Even looking around from a hill I couldn’t see anything resembling a town. Not good, still no biggy. I would just continue going south-west and then swing south. The next town was 70 miles away. I continued on to find the route that was shown on the map as a primary road.
I went up the wrong track for 4 - 5 miles and had to go back then found a road going the right direction. Followed down that road for 10 miles and with the GPS found this track that was supposed the primary road. You could see that this used to be a mayor track but all was overgrown now and left was this single jeep track. I went down this for 5 miles or so. During this it had started to rain and a small thunderstorm past by. I stopped to think about my options.
By now I had enough petrol left for 75 - 85 miles at the most and the next town following this jeep track was about 75 miles away. But there were two issues I thought a) if I need more fuel because I get misplaced I could run out b) this jeep road did not see much traffic so if something happed I would be buggered. I knew for sure I could make it back to Mörön. So in the end I decided the safer thing was to turn back. This was at 4pm so I had about 4 hours of proper daylight left. So the way back I hustled and it was actually fun. So made it back to Mörön by 8pm and was absolutely shattered. Was so tired that parking the bike first thing I did was drop it. Long hard day driving. Longest so far in Mongolia and all off-road.
Two funny encounters today. One this morning when I was packing the bike. A herder came by on his horse. He had just crossed the river so he had a look at the bike. Knocked on the tank, rattled here and checked there. Then signaled if I was crossing the river on the bike and I signaled that I was to scared. He indicated he would take the bike and I could go on his horse over the river. You have to love the confidence and gungho attitude. The other thing was at around lunch time when I had stopped at this pass with a cairn. Two guys on a bike stopped and the usual checking of the bike. One guy gets on my bike, looks for the key and before I really can say anything he fires it up and does a lap around the cairn. Thumbs up “good bike”. Yeah I know.
So back in Bata’s guest house in Mörön. Met some people there and they knew this German guy (Maurice) living in Mörön. So they gave him a call and he came by. We had a few beers together and it was fun to hear how living in Mongolia was for him. He had a BMW F650GS Dakar here. He agreed for off-roading there is no better place then Mongolia. For tomorrow he invited me for breakfast tomorrow.
Day 78
2. July 2009
Start: Delgermörön Gol (river), Mongolia, Mongolia
End: Mörön, Mongolia
Miles today: 229
Miles total: 11684
Odometer: 17948
Bike Dropped: 5
Speeding Tickets: 1
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