-5℃ again this morning and no water. Except the 5 liters of drinking
water we pumped out last night.
We also realized why our plant was looking sad. He has been frozen the last two nights ...not sure he'll recover.
Down
John drove. The track is better used and a tracked vehicle had been
both ways so we were confident that the road goes through.
Some
of the ploughed areas were sprouting green.
This surprises me as it
is cold and the first snow fall has happened. How does it survive the
winter and -25℃?
We
spied something different in this village. When the stables/barns are
“mucked out” the dung is wheeled up a purpose built ramp and
tipped off of the end…..
More
old graves.
Finally
we got a look at the contents of these sacks, looks like chaff rather
than grass or hay. Maybe made from all the cornstalks?
The
land has a bit more texture here.
We stopped to fill with water This time to keep our hands a bit warmer we pumped the water from our small funnel. The water ran at the same speed as our pump pumped.
Yes
we drove across here only to find that there was a new “normal”
bridge 500m further on.
We
are generally heading west towards one of our previous camps April
29.
Once
down off this mountain we then had 20 km on the main orange road
which boosted our average.
Again
we turned off the main road onto yellow. This road was good to the
village of Serdarli then it was little more than a track with little
traffic.
A
wonderful array of switchbacks on our way up. It is a shame that there
is so much smoke in the air it is difficult to take a good photo.
A
type of fir had been planted towards the top of the pass, which was
great to see as trees have been very scarce since we entered Turkey.
We
stopped at the pass for lunch around 14:30hrs. Then continued down. I
am glad we did. We had to cross a very icy section and would not have
liked to do that on a cold morning.
There
were short sections of snow but not to bad. Some one had shoveled
dirt onto another icy patch so that was OK as well. We did make it
down and surprisingly it did not worry me too much.
We
also found ourselves in a pine forest which was wonderful.
A
great ruin on the top of a knoll at Arakoy.
They use what they don't make into fire bricks to fertilise the land.
Back into forest and wooden houses
Found
a little track and parked with a lookout at 1870m. Forecast for less
than a mm of snow at 07:00 tomorrow. And a little rain.
