The GobiA trip has been planned in the last week. Four of us are to do a loop of the Gobi down to the dinosaur bones, the big dunes and back. This is what I rode all this way for. Team members are:
Bill. My riding buddy from Wisconsin (KTM640 Adventure)
Mario. A german rider who has been holed up in UB nursing a dislocated AC joint in his shoulder (Honda Africa Twin 750)
Renee. the owner of the Oasis (Kawasaki KLX250)
Myself (KTM400 EXC)
Renee is a mad keen rider with three bikes despite the difficulty of owning and servicing bikes here, He speaks Mongolian and although his bike is not set up for travel, it should be the best to ride. Renee's gear is to strapped to his bike somehow and Bill is carrying any extra in his capacious panniers.

We all cull our gear as much as possible, no spare clothes or wets. I make up some Heath Robinson attachments for my water bags out of cord and small carabiners. I also buy a cheap walking stick to use as a side-stand, there will be no handy trees in the Gobi.

Up and loaded ready for the off at 8:30am. Renee has a gear problem and Bill and I set to and biff a heap of surplus gear and at least half the boxes of sweets that Sybille has packed. We are able to strap a substantial pack to the back of the bike and Renee will carry a daypack in addition to a tank bag. Not too much spills into Bill's bike other than water.
The 3 German riders have been disagreeing over their route (north route or south route) and have compromised by starting out on the north route with the option of crossing to the south route later.
We set off at about 10:30, Renee leading, riding like a maniac through the city traffic out past the airport and south. We pick up the trail and head off slowly through the hills. Easy riding and everybody getting the measure of themselves and each other. We have 3 GPS between us, mine being a simple way-point unit, the others with maps and routes.
At our first rest stop, the bike falls off the walking-stick side-stand, breaking the tip. More care is obviously required in parking.
The track leads out onto open plain, The wind is hot and gusty with mini whirl-winds meandering down the way. I ride through one just to see what it is like. Not too bad, just hotter and grittier than the surrounding air. As the trail worsens, the bigger bikes find it harder going. Bill's bike is immensely heavy and he is freaked by sand. He tends to sit a lot and hasn't had much sand experience so doesn't instinctively gas it in sand. He is also constrained in his riding position so can't weight the rear wheel.
We stop by a lake where horses are cooling off and do the same ourselves. The water is none too clear but in this heat, we don't care.

Horses cooling off, sensible critters.

We eventually reach our 300km target for the day and branch off in search of a GPS lake. One must make the distinction between GPS lakes and real lakes as we find. There is a greener area but no water, We backtrack a little to the softest grass we can find and make camp. We are all elated at finishing our first day without problem and as the day cools to night the world seems perfect.
We are joined by two herdsmen on a bike and we share our dinner with them. Renee talks and translates. He says that they are simple people with simple direct speech talking of the joy that they feel in meeting us, Not at all like the inhabitants of UB. We enjoy their company and they invite us to a meal tomorrow. We know that this would take some hours to prepare so compromise on having Chai with them after breakfast. We all sleep well on the soft cool grass disturbed only by communal snoring and one lonesome camel who called all night, passing close by our camp at 4am.

24th July 8290 km
We breakfast and pack up to meet the family in their ger 2 km away. They are a prosperous family having 1200 stock. They greet us warmly and we are ushered to the prime position away from the door of the ger. The ger is spotless. The satellite TV is turned off and we are given tea, dried yoghurt and putz (seasoned minced meat steamed in a pastry shell a bit like steamed wonton but bigger and sealed along the edges like a cornish pastie). The dried yoghurt is nobodies favourite being hard, bitter and mouth-dessicatingly good. There are many children of the three brothers that live here. They are in the countryside for the summer holidays but will move nearer Ulaan Baatar for the school year.
Photograph time as we prepare to leave. It is especially important to photograph the baby with mother, siblings, father, uncles etc.
I hand out some of the sheep-herders whistles that Richard had given me in NZ. These were an inspired gift to me being of NZ origin, practical and fun. They are really great because they are not easy to use. I show them how to place them in the mouth and blow a sound. They follow my actions and...nothing. Great hilarity all around until somebody makes a sound by accident and tries to repeat it. Everybody then gets pretty competitive about then, blowing with increasing vigour and decreasing effect. We exit before the situation turns ugly!
Some great riding over open plains and then a section following the phone-lines to Bulgan. Renee and I arrive first, gas-up with 80-octane fuel and wait for Mario and Bill. We wait for 45 minutes and are about to head back when we see them approaching in the distance. Bad news, Bill has fallen heavily in sand and has a broken rib. Anybody who has had one knows how painful they are because there is no rest, you do after all have to breathe. Any movement or effort increase the respiration rate (and pain) and likewise the ribs are involved in most voluntary movements as well. They gas-up and we ride slowly to a campsite by the flaming cliffs, This is a red escarpment that forms wind-eroded cliffs. They are not very high, maybe 25m but are a startling discontinuity in the otherwise flat landscape. Bill is convinced to ride down the trail to the base and camp. There are tourist ger camps nearby that I'm sure would have suited him better. He is keen to carry on with the ride and I think the comfort of the ger camp would have lured him away.
Renee rides back to the camp for beer, excellent to watch the spectacular sunset with a cold one.

Can't complain about the scenery

As we make dinner, I am impressed by Mario. He is a seasoned traveller but more importantly I see that he is comfortable camping. His equipment is simple, his movements economical. It is a state that I hope to achieve one day. Mario also handles his heavy Honda Africa Twin well on the trail. The previous evening while travelling off-piste, he had unexpectedly come across a rock ledge and had done exactly the right thing. There are many wrong things to do but only one right thing.

26th July 8608km
Set off back to Bulgan and beyond to the ice canyon. This is a canyon in which there is reputedly ice even in summer. It is a protected site in Mongolia like a national park. Bill arrives as high as a kite on Tramadol. Apparently Tramadol doesn't work as a pain-killer but rather as a pain-deprioritizer, he can still feel the pain but couldn't care less. Paid the entrance fee and rode the 11km to the car park.
There are horses and camels to rent for the 3km trip. I am kitted out in tramping boots but the others baulk at 3km in riding boots so we hire a camel. Bill decides to sit this one out and we set off, Mario looking even more like Laurence of Arabia. Great hilarity as the camel farts more than I do.

Laurence himself

The bactrian camel of Mongolia is a much more comfortable affair than the dromedary of the Middle East. The two humps form a natural saddle somewhere near the centre of the beast akin to a horse and it is possible to rise to the trot. The dromedary places you over the back 'wheels' and the rising hump does nothing for future procreational prospects be they male or female.
The purported 3km turns out to be about 1km and we feel foolish riding when there are small children and infirm octogenarians strolling along the grassy path. My wallet has gone into spasm at paying 8000 Tugrik (which is really only about NZ$10).
The entrance to the canyon is spectacular but once we enter the canyon, the scale of it all is lost among the looming walls. The camels stop at the camel park to graze while we continue on foot down the stream bed. We eventually leave everyone else behind and peace descends on us barring the twittering of a few small birds and the scurrying of many small hamster-like creatures. A fox or hawk could live an easy life here.
On the way back we met Bruce, a kiwi from Timaru, a member of a Dragoman tour. 11 weeks in the back of a huge Fiat 6x6 camping across Central Asia. That trip is not for the faint-hearted!
We headed out of the canyon area taking a more southern route towards the big dunes. The track deteriorates and Bill falls again in a dry river bed trapping his foot. I race over to help but cannot lift the bike and only make things worse for his foot. After about a minute Renee arrives and we lift it together. Bill carries on regardless and we eventually stop by a ravine mouth in what seems like a desolate spot. I recconnoitre a camp site about 1.5km up the ravine and eventually Bill is convinced to ride the firm sand to the camp. The ravine is as spectacular as the ice canyon, flat bottomed with running water. It drains a wide valley further up but will not flood at this time of year. The locals we asked said that it is never very deep, just wide. It is part of the way Mongolia is formed. A land shaped by water in deluges at irregular intervals. We camp on a flat grassy bank and have a cool shower.

Canyon camp site

27 July 9060km
The doom-sayers flash flood never eventuated and we arise to the sun tinging the mountain tops. The scenery is spectacular in it's starkness. There is no vegetation, just rocks. We soon came to flat lands as we rode down a wide valley towards the dunes. The dunes were on one side of the valley with smooth hard plain on the other side. The dunes started out small and got bigger as we proceeded. When the dunes were their largest, we struck off cross-country towards them. Bill and Mario came part way, Bill because of his ribs and Mario because of his clutch slipping. Renee and I had a blast, released from the constraints of group travel for a moment. Reality check when I came rarking up a sand slope to find an 8 metre deep sand canyon in my path. These are vertical sided, eaten out by the last rain. We skirt the canyon and ride up the nearest dune. We have no desire to ride around up there, just take a few photos. Besides it is a gas-guzzling land, lots of full throttle in the heat.

Big dunes in the Gobi. Note the sand canyon just ahead.

We rode back to the track and stopped at a tourist camp for lunch. Shear luxury sipping cold drinks on the porch in a cool breeze. Reluctantly headed off after a 2-hour lunch, gassing up and then off-piste north towards Khovd.
The low-point of the day is riding a dried up swamp that has been ruuted by 4x4s. The going is slow and difficult for Bill doing less trhan 12 km/hr at times. His bike knock badly we accelerating away at low revs. We enter a wash canyon and travel up for many kilometres. This is rocky-bottomed and snakes it's way into the mountains. It eventually opens out into a huge open valley like a forgotten world. We even get enough rain for puddles to form and there is evidence of grass. We exit this land by another wash canyon and then it is open riding to Khovd.
Bill is absolutely shagged and so we beg bed and dinner from the local shop-keeper. Bill sleeps for a couple of hours before dinner and is off again soon after. We talk to the shop staff. One is a quite handsome women of 40 or 50 who, it turns out, has no children. This is a bad thing in Mongolian society and so she is bottom of the heap socially. When Renee asked her about children, she said that she didn't want to talk about it, not that she didn't have any. Renee said that childlessness is so bad, people won't talk about it.

28 July
We head off on good tracks and smooth going over gentle hills. Bill smells coolant from his bike an d we diagnose a blown head gasket. It is not too bad so we head on keeping a watchful eye on coolant level and replenishing as needed. We have almost reached Ayerkheer when Bill pulls over to the right of the road for no particular reason and ends up riding through a double drainage ditch at right angles. He is fired off the bike but lands unhurt. Just one broken bolt on the pannier mounts of his bike. The whole thing is caught on video by Mario but unfortunately from a little distance. We gas up at Ayerkheer and lunch at a roadside cafe. Renee is guarding his bike but still has US$200 stolen from his tank bag by local rat-bags in a practised manouver. Three crowd the bike and one distracts him momentarily. The police are called but no-one comes, Renee is not bleeding so there is no necessity as far as the police are concerned.
We repair a flat tyre on Renee's bike just out of town, everybody crowding round to contribute tools or tyre patches.
Riding well on asphalt when Bill's bike overheats badly. It is difficult to start and steam comes from the exhaust. The blown head gasket has worsened and his ride is over. We putter to a ger camp 3km up the road and book in for the night. Renee has a truck organised for the morning. The camp is filled with tourists from Inner Mongolia who are fascinated by the bikes. Many poses and photos made beside them. Mario and I climb the spectacular rocky outcrop behind the camp and take pictures as the sun goes down.

We review our plans for the next few weeks. Bill will be in no condition to ride for a couple of weeks and a two-person ride is not possible when it takes two able-bodied men to lift his bike. I am certainly not willing to embark on the western ride with a disabled team member. Embark I must because my spare time has already been squandered. Mario and I decide to team up. His plan had been to ride north from UB and ride across Russia from there. Now we will travel together west from UB taking the northern route to the western border, Mario having already ridden the southern route. We will separate near Volgograd. This is a good outcome, I respect Mario's abilities and get on well with him.

29 July 9331km
The truck arrives on-time and we load up. Waving Bill goodbye we set off off-piste to some more spectacular rocky outcrops that we had seen last night.

Joined the asphalt again and head north-east. The asphalt ends and we join a road under construction. No vehicles are allowed on the new road but we sneak on until we meet the road builders.
When we stop for lunch, Bill and the truck arrive just as we are about to leave. He has a tale of woe about the rough ride in the truck and the failure of the steering.
The tracks beside the new road become drier and dustier until it is bull dust, that fine talcum powder that flows like water and stays in the air when disturbed.

In one area the whole valley is filled with dust as the wind picks it up. Following each other is a matter of momentary glimpses but we are well separated so no collisions. This continues without respite until we meet the seal again near UB. Luckily the rain holds off, otherwise the bull dust would turn to sticky slop and the going very slow.
The ride into UB with Renee again setting a blistering pace through traffic.After being delayed by a few drunks, I give up the chase, already knowing my way to the Oasis and a arrive a few minutes after the others. Bill arrives a few hours later.
It is a welcome beer after 1731km to the Gobi and back in 6 days.
The two abandoned Kawasaki KLR650's have been delivered to the Oasis and JayJay, one of the three German bikers who set out the same day as us has returned with a damaged knee. He will fly home and have his bike freighted out.
As Bill is wont to say "This country fucks you up".