2019-09-09 Day 347 Mon

At one stage during the morning we were surrounded by a herd of goats. The engine only just started and needed to be cranked a few extra times…

No roll starting here.

On the way into Altai on the yellow road (or off to the side on one of the many tracks) a little blue truck waved us down. He had been towing a car with 3 kids and two adults in it. He explained that on the corrugations and his small dual back wheels he cannot get traction.

 

So we towed the little white car as far as the seal about 20km and 30minutes. The truck also stopped at the corner and took back his job of towing his friends/family into town.

Several little blue trucks were carting horses.

 

Another load of yak wool.

While filling with fuel, goats came past eating what was available on the median strip.

They brand their goats by painting one or the other or both horns a color.

 

I tried unsuccessfully to ask the attendant where we buy new start batteries. He obviously was not a charades player.

We continued into town and pulled up at a mechanics workshop. I called the guy over and he understood. Made a couple of calls then we waited. 
 

Shortly later the batteries arrived. Shorter than ours but supposedly 100AH. The brand was Daewoo so should be OK. AU$160 each 300000mnt

The owner had some English as he had been an exchange student in England 15 years prior, for 3 months.

He drove me to the bank but ATM was out of cash, we tried a few more but no luck suggested we go back for my passport and I can go into the bank and withdraw.
 

We exchanged one battery at the Bazaar, as the poles were on the wrong side. Here you can buy goats or sheep from the back of a ute A$50. I declined.

I learnt that the school does run with two sessions morning 08:30 to 12:30 for the elder students and 14:30-18:30 for the younger ones.

The guys and his father wanted the batteries which was fine by us. They may still be good. Only 2 years old.

Bought up at the supermarket and then out of town. Hope the new batteries solve our problems..

A bridge on the main road had seen better days.

A guy came on his horse chasing a camel.  We stopped to allow the camel to cross in front of us. The horseman gave us a  huge smile. 

He was enjoying the chase.

We turned up a road that should prove to be interesting up a narrow gorge. In fact most of the time we were driving up the creek bed.

Pulled up out of the creek bed onto a small hill for a view of the huge “pound” and internet.

Only 2 cars drove by early evening.

253km Camp site  1944m alt.

2019-09-08 Day 346 Sun

John took the batteries out to check for external damage and cleaned the terminals. They appeared OK, their status indicator was still green and they were both 12.82 volts. The batteries should be fine but we have experienced “fine“ batteries to not function properly…. The engine started with the “new” extra turn or too but started.

The hills are becoming more jagged and less of the rolling golden steepe.

 

More camels and some with the bolt through their noses, and some with very floppy humps!

Once again John found us a short cut down a valley. We just had to hope the road went all the way to the lake. 
 

A small blue truck came out followed by a coach which appeared to be full of table sand piles of chairs….

We also saw our first Mongolian irrigated farm. Seems to be in the middle of nowhere.

The track did indeed end up at the lake. 

We arrived with daylight to spare and I did some washing and soaked and scrubbed our seat belts which have become ingrained with dust and leave marks on light colored clothes.

A little white Toyota hybrid came by with a leaky tire and wanted to fix it. The tires read tubeless and the wife confirmed no tube. Couldn’t find leak so got them to remove it and put in lake. John found hole then repaired it, when he put the round file inside the whole to roughen it the lady was not happy, however once the needle went in with the rubber plug all was good. They gave us a tiny watermelon for our help. Off they drove.

Finished scrubbing the seat belts then diner time. An earlyish night.

138km Camp site  1700m alt.

2019-09-07 Day 345 Sat

A horseman came by I went outside to see him. He carried a long pole with rope at the end, maybe to catch stock?

 

He dismounted and hobbled his horse. He had a ready made hobble string. It was kinda in the shape of a “T” with two loops at one end then one at the other. The loops were fastened with a wooden toggle through a small loop like the Chinese buttons. So both front feet hobbled to a back foot.

 

 He was also very interested in the truck, coming inside for a good look. John was at his computer so showed him some photos of camps. A shame we did not share any language.

After he left we got to, to rotate out tyres. 1hr 30 all finished and packed away. It is becoming quiet easy.

We tried to start the engine and it failed to start - cranking over quickly but did not fire. Battery or injectors?

 Although the start batteries were still at 12.7v we joined the sets  inparallel and had the solar charging both sets. Everything inside turned off to give maximum charge.
 

After the tires we showered and washed hair. I then fried us up some tomato, capsicum, palenta and egg just as I was serving our friend came back in his little blue truck.

As I had water already on the boil I made him a cup of tea, and handed out a bowl of sweet biscuits and lollies, he squatted outside and drank with John, only having the one lollie.

He had come to ask us over for lunch we showed him ours. As john showed him his shovel and crowbar which he was really impressed with and other bits and pieces outside I finished my lunch.

We explained we would be over in one hour to visit.

The start batteries stopped charging at 14v and the engine started quite easily. Batteries then.

Arriving at their Yurts we noticed that two had been packed up, There was the main one and then still 3 others still standing. Everything was tidy. I noticed a pile of sheep and goat skins under cover. They had been cured to a degree but were still quite stiff.

One question that I have been unable to answer is where do all the bones go? We have seen the occasional dead animal and its bones but with all the meat these Mongolians eat what happens to the bones?

Both inside and outside the main yurt was more elaborate than the old ladies we went into. Two single beds lots of chest of drawers and a fair few cooking utensils.

We were given warm milk which again was nice. John had one of the fried bread type bun which was just that, but did not have any fat taste so maybe cooked in oil? Also they are burning wood here for fuel rather than dried dung.

Putting pairs of socks together is a daily job for mothers all over the world

Their late 20yr old plump son was also their in traditional cloths. All told they had 5 children but we could not learn where they were. Again some very elaborate photos on the wall.

Parking within the crescent of the wind blown sand we took some photos of EC. We like sand.

 Running fresh water between sand dunes

 Leaving the lake and sand behind us we headed south east back towards Uliastai and then Altai where we hoped to buy two new start batteries.

Some more great roads and some of the larger “land squirrel” type burrowing animal, the smaller one and this eagle. He is not the big one though.

Many herds of horses and Yaks, Yurts with all the mod cons.

 

Just outside Uliastai we drove to the top of a hill to getaway from the road but also to enable us a roll start if required.

We are still not 100% sure it is batteries but by swapping them out we will know one way or the other.

127km Camp site  1951m alt.

2019-09-06 Day 344 Fri

It had rained gently in the night. I still walked out, even though it was spitting a little.

We drove through a small village (Tosontsengel) that had a big old unloved building. The road then became very bad and we had impressions of our good orange road of 80km/h down to 20. But soon after cresting the hill realized that the new road by passed the town and we had missed the turn off.

Again filled with water but with a hose and were charged 1000mnt for it about A$0.50

We were heading into the lake Khar Nuur as on the map it is surrounded by sand dunes.

We had a few choices of how to get there but one was taken from us as we realized that the sealed road headed off south instead of continuing west as our map indicated. The road to join the westerly road was blocked off.

Heading south, John decided that if there was a track up a certain valley it would be a good short cut. There was, so we took it. It followed his pins he had put on the map and we popped out on the road on our map. Sadly the unmapped road was of a faster variety than the mapped one. 

 We took many unmapped roads on this day. Most of them were good choices and saved us mileage. One however put us one the wrong side of a river and it wasn’t till close to the lake we found a road to take us to the river. A wide very shallow river to cross. We only needed to back track 2 km to get back on track and drive down the other side of a ridge.

 

We had seen the occasional corral but no livestock. May be this is where the first few months of spring/summer were farmed.

 It felt a little remote here, we must of traveled for a few hours without seeing a yurt, people or livestock

As we closed the lake we saw more animals and yurts.

Finally found sand with fresh water at its base. A really neat view so different to Australian desserts we had been in.

 

Finally drove through the dunes to the lake and yes more yurts, and associated herds. We had had a great days drive. Most of the off map roads we travelled enabled us to average 50km/h. Others were slow but nice just choosing roads that headed in the correct direction, reminded us of our trip through the Atacama desert in Northern Chile. 

251km  Camp site  1979m alt.