2017-09-23 Day 160 Sat.

Melted two chocolates together, one just cocoa and the other a 50% chocolate with almonds and then just the cocoa with honey. Also fried up some peppers to preserve

Spent some time catching up on blog.

Left about 11am. We stayed on this yellow road just hoping that the bridge would be strong enough.

A very rough road (dropped tyre pressure to 40psi) then tar-seal and a tunnel to a mine site then back to rough dirt. Very rough...About half way we asked a ute if we could cross the river and they said yes. After a slow 45km’s we crossed the bridge with a sigh of relief. We travelled 45km instead of 85km. Nice to be out of the traffic and rubbish.

The road (red) sealed but narrow followed the river as the mountains grew on either side.

The road sometimes went through small tunnels and sometimes became very narrow where the river had collapsed an edge.

At 2:30pm after 90km’s and 3hrs we stopped for lunch. From now on the road goes up.

First batch of 19 switchbacks took us from 1000m to 1550m altitude.

The next 22 took us from 1800m to 2120m.

7 hours on the road and 130kms but a very enjoyable drive. Clean not much traffic and wonderful barren mountains to look at. Best drive in days..

The road in places is very narrow and very steep 500m drop with tight corners. I don’t know how the buses and semi’s negotiate it but I do know they use the WHOLE road, One gives way to them. I had to back so a truck could pass. John got out to help and walked to the other side of road. The passenger in truck started yelling at him and got out of truck to confront John. Anger was laughed away when john showed him the driver was still at the wheel….

We stopped on the inside of the road for the night at 3058m alt.