Reflections

Everyone is heading home … the adventure is over. Compass advertise adventure expeditions and Mongolia certainly delivered.

We had it all – torrential rain, stunning views, a great crew and team, a few too many accidents, great roads and way too many bike problems. Overall fantastic riding.

It is a team effort and unfortunately not all our team made it, so it is a little hard to be too excited about our success. It is all great fun – but it only takes a moment to turn bad.

I didn’t expect to see afternoon tropical storms and downpours like we did and I didn’t expect to see so much smoke from the massive fires in Siberia.

The biggest frustration was the quality and condition of the bikes. I know compass is hamstrung by the local supplier, and I know the crew worked hard to try and get the bikes prepared, but we had way too many problems and significant safety issues.

When we met the bikes Rodger checked the tires. One of the BMW that was to be carrying a pillion had 4psi in the rear tyre – straight from the workshop. It is clear basically nothing was done to prepare the bikes for our 2 week tour. I lost count of how many hours we lost due to bike problems and often delaying us creating more challenges.

While all the days intended to be in camp well before sunset – there is always a risk things don’t go to plan. On our Day 3 we had a number of bikes riding in the dark and in the rain with no headlights.

As I said previously – the only saviour was the ability of the support crew to keep them moving.

Mongolia is stunning; you can’t describe the grandeur of the scenery. The locals are also fantastic, always with smiles and waves. A few times the police wandered over – just to have their photo taken with us. I think riding a motorbike is probably the best way to see the place – you can cover the distances, manage the often-bad roads and take in the vista. We saw tourists both on the Chinese 150cc bikes and on Royal Enfield with side cars – both seem like really hard work to me. While Karen and Lucille had a great time in the UN Nissan with Ellis it must have been pretty bumpy at times. We saw some push-bike riders – I can’t imagine anything worse. It is just too far between anything – and riding on those roads with trucks and animals would not be fun.

But mainly it was about the riding; open free riding, dirt tracks winding forever along valleys, multilane roads – that are just parallel tracks through the grass. I would prefer more dirt and less bitumen, but it is a big country and you must cover the miles sometimes.

Justin was a great leader, calmly managing us through the challenges and guiding us through the landscape. Ellis was always there behind us with the UN Nissan when needed, with lots of snacks and keeping us moving.

The drone (DJI Mavic Air by the way) has been good fun and a great way to try and capture some of the scale of the landscape. Managing and preparing video is hard work but I think the results are worth it. I will do more editing and get more decent quality video up to YouTube soon I hope.

The biggest question now is: what next?

Some videos.

The wifi has been pretty sketchy on the second half of the trip - and we were very rushed on the last nigh night in UB, so I have fallen behind on the videos a bit. We are now sitting in Hong Kong with very good internet so I have uploaded all the videos to YouTube.

This was our first big-valley dirt ride into the first Monestery.

The climb up to the volcano - but I didn’t do a very good job with the drone unfortunately

Day 13 ... my sick day. Lucille has a picture of me out in a field on all fours .. but I would rather remember it for this:

I Think I have posted this before, but the shot of Ric riding off into the distance might be the best drone shot of the tour: so here it is again in HD this time:

The last run home

It was with a bit of sadness we awoke to our last day. Today was scheduled as our longest km day, but all bitumen back to UB. The sky was very grey and threatening, and the smoke was back quite thick. I was feeling better ... dinner from last night stayed down. Phew.

We started the day with a visit to the ancient capital established in the 12th century by Chinggis himself. It was all going fine until the communists came along and in 1930 pretty much levelled the site. All that remains now is the outer wall, a few monasteries and some damaged stone work. Another great outcome from Mr Stalin - thanks.

We headed off on pretty good roads, straight as a die in places as far as the eye could see - which was not very far unfortunately through the smoke and clouds. Even from the highway the scenery remained spectacular. We had one small shower before lunch, and it was a bit cold and quite windy - not so attractive. At least I got to use the grip warmers!

Lunch was supposed to be at a very unattractive road house but the queue was out the door so we had one last picnic outside - we were all hanging out for another tuna salad!!

As we progressed after lunch the traffic slowly increased, then we saw our first billboard, then a few factories, more cars and trucks, double lanes, more traffic, some cows crossing the road, and before long we came over one last saddle to UB, sitting right under a huge storm cloud. Great.

We got into a petrol station just before the worst of the storm hit - and waited it out for about 30 minutes, but the roads were still soaked. Then we hit the worst of the UB traffic, in light rain ... wow. Ric gave a little demonstration of Australian Road rage to a few locals, I managed to upset one bus driver, but generally the traffic was happy for us to flow through, mainly in the bus lane, and make some progress. It took 3 hours for the red support van with our bags to make it to the hotel! My main goal was not to drop the BMW in front of a bus. I could run out of the way quickly but it would have been embarrassing to not bring at least 1 bike back.

We dropped the bikes off at the compound of the bike supplier and he gave us a lift in his bus to the hotel.

I can’t say “we made it” because 2 our our team weren’t there. Eric is home (Oman) now but Geoff is still in Beijing hoping to fly home in a few days; but it was pretty satisfying getting off the bike for the last time knowing what we had been through and covered.. I did reset the odometer on the first day, but since I was on my 4th bike (I got to ride them all in the end) I cant tell you the extract distance - but it is reported as about 2,200km.

We finished the tour with a very posh dinner at the top of the highest building in UB. Everyone scrubbed up and we enjoyed one last review of our adventures ... and discussion of what our next adventure will be.

I might save my summary for one last post ....

Oh dear ... Gastro. Day 13.

Oh dear ... there is nothing much worse than gastro when you a riding across a wilderness....

Just before dinner last night I started to feel a bit unwell. Just as my very-nice-looking Aussie Burger was being served - it hit in full force. All I can say is thank God for Gastro-stop. While I was still vomiting a bit today and haven’t eaten anything - it didn’t stop another amazing day.

After about 20km down the road on bitumen we turned off again and headed out across the plains and valleys. It is sounding boring probably - but blasting along at 80+km/hr across the plains was a hoot. Today is our last day on dirt so we had to make the best of it.

I was on a BMW 800 (Bike #4) which is a big beast (I only dropped it once) but fantastic on tracks like these. 

Then another amazing lunch spot: up on a knoll on the side of a hill looking out across the valley. There were storms brewing all afternoon and a rumble of thunder had us packing and on our way quickly - plus we still had a fair way to go. You guessed it: big flat plains, about 10 different tracks to choose from all heading the same way, a few small river crossings(ok... creeks), lots of photo ops .... 

As we have been heading south and now east the landscape has been opening up, the hills are not as big and the valleys even wider. The smoke was not as bad today either.

And now, our final Ger camp tonight, and a very nice one at that. I wonder if I can eat any dinner?

Tomorrow we just have our final run back into Ulaanbaatar and the chaotic traffic. All bitumen but about 250km so a long. We are nearly there ..... 

The livestock

I don’t think we have seen a single fence in Mongolia. All the animals are free to roam as they wish. This morning there were cows drinking from a pothole in the middle of a main road.

The first day we mainly saw horses, but there have been lots of sheep, goats, cows and yaks, and one family of pigs today. I think it is just for the tourists ... but there have also been some camels, including few herds (?) out in the open. 

In case you were wondering why there were so many horses:

Sometime the sheep like to sleep in the curve of a track so you just have to go around, but you always have to be careful - it seems the grass is greener on the other side of the road and none of them have much road sense. Its ok on the dirt tracks because you can easily go around, but on the main roads you often have to slow down just in case that cow jumps out. It was worse on the KTM because that was louder and seemed to spook them a bit more. Then you have to watch the mirrors as sometimes the locals don't care and keep going at full speed.

The land of the Prius

There must be some government subsidy for hybrid cars because Mongolia is the land of the Prius. Seriously - half the cars here are Prius. At the lights in UB on the first day we saw 7 in a row.

Half of them are right hand drive - when they drive open the right (generally) here. Apparently they are imported from Japan when they approach end-of-life. 

It is amazing what a Prius can do! We have seen them crossing rivers with water up over the bonnet, water skiing through puddles, we have seen them out on tracks in the mud getting through when we were struggling. And all loaded with the whole family, a few kids on Mums knee at the front and the rest with Grandma in the back. Today we finally saw one dead on a track after trying to jump just one too many dips. They look pretty hard to stop.

Safe in UB

Lots of stories and little time. Details to follow but we are safe in UB after one last thunder storm just as we arrived in the chaos of UB.

We are just waiting for our bags to catch up.

Full details to follow soon.

Day 12 - an easy ride.

Our mission today was to get out of the lake area on about 20km of very rocky and pot-holed track and onto the bitumen for an easy ride into Tsetserleg and the Aussie run guesthouse.

I have yet to meet my new BMW so I was on the spare Tenere which was probably perfect for the mix of conditions. Since most of Mongolia is basically gravel, the rain run off very quickly so the track was quiet OK, despite more storms the night before.

We passed a big group of Italian tourists all riding the Chinese-made 150cc that all the locals ride, but that looks like pretty hard work to me. 

I don't know if it has made the news back home much, but there are massive forest fires in Siberia  and all the smoke is heading south to us. I had a look on the satellite images and it looks like the smoke is right across China and around to Alaska (Which is actually not that far away ....) but it means we have lots of smoke and quite reduced visibility. Apparently they are on an unprecedented scale .. 10’s of thousands of square km with almost no chance of controlling them. Pretty scary.

Lunch today was scheduled to be on the side of the road, but Ric found a great spot up the side of a hill, away from the road and with a great view.

On the bitumen we passed an impressive gorge and a big, lone rock out the valley - both good drone opportunities.

We arrived in town early to beat the possible storms and had a look around - a pretty depressing town. All 60’s soviet building that have just been left to ruin. Mongolia is a beautiful country but its towns are very sad.

An Aussie burger for dinner tonight and a cappuccino with breakfast is the only saviour.

My ‘new’ BMW is awaiting downstairs so another bike change tomorrow. Let’s a see if this on e can last the last 2 days riding.

A little bit of Australia

This is where we are staying tonight...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-03/mongolias-adventure-tourists-enjoy-a-flat-white-on-the-steppe/9815906

Our group.

We started with 11 riders and you always get a random mix of types which makes for an interesting and entertaining group dynamic. A number of us are connected around Ric; Rodger, Geoff and I friends flying single and the 2 couples - Peter and Fiona and Daryl and Daylene. Ric, Roger, Peter and I did the South America ride together, and Daryl and Daylene did a South American ride the following year. It is Fiona’s first major ride as pillion and she is doing great - there is always a huge smile when her helmet comes off. Daylene is a veteran pillion.

We did have our token American Eric until our terrible 3rd day when he and Geoff had their accidents.

The rest are Australian. The Tassie contingent is a farming family affair with Martin riding and his two sisters Karen and Lucille who is our chief photographer riding in the UN Nissan as passengers. The 2 ladies prefer holidays away from the crowd and enjoy the Compass tours as passengers. Ellis is having a bit too much fun positioning the UN truck for photo opportunities. I think Martin might have ridden every track in Tassie and has been exploring off to the sides on his KTM 450 and is often off on reconnaissance to find the best way, or mark a corner for us.

Then we have our solo blokes; Brad, John and Don. We think John and I have met as our girls went to the same Kindergarten and we live less than a km apart! John is also our resident yoga teacher. Both John and Don have come here ‘back to back’ after the Kazakhstan ride. He is only a small bloke on a big BMW and is still learning the ropes of dirt riding, but our resident lawyer loves it all and has managed all the mud and river crossings fantastically.

Don lives on the hill at San Remo looking out across Phillip Island and rides with a group of friends from there both on the roads and the Island track.

Brad is a geologist and ‘Mr mum’ with a leave pass to come on this ride. Always smiling and always ready with his helmet on before the stragglers have even got to their bike he has a BMW 1200 at home so is very comfortable on the BMW 800 and always up the front helping find the best way through. He, like Ric, is also the one standing by if a rescue is needed in a river crossing or bog hole.

I won’t guess the average age or any age-ranking, but we are certainly a ‘mature age’ group but with lots of energy.

There is a mix of styles and speeds, but riding is a mainly-solo sport so there is no problem going at your own pace. Roger likes to do it his way and is happy towards the rear. Sometimes you just keep blasting ahead but you always have to slow down or stop to take in the amazing vista. Don and Martin on the 450 KTM are happy to wait at an intersection but are also often seen off to the side enjoying the dirt bikes - a great reward after all the bitumen.

There is always lots of discussion about life, the universe and motorbikes at our rest breaks and meals, but mainly reliving the days adventures. I looked around the table at dinner last night to see what all the noise was about and it was just all the different discussion. You certainly build a bond and team spirit on a trip like this.

Day 11 - semi rest day.

Today dawned to a beautiful warm, sunny and still morning with lots of sleeping in and recovery after the big day yesterday. With the warm sun the Ger all looked like Chinese laundry with all the gear drying from yesterdays drenching. 

We enjoyed the sun on the ‘beach’ right in front of our Ger before gearing up for a short ride up to a volcano. It was a rough and rocky ride up then a climb up to the crater, but it was very impressive.

On the way back we stopped at some ‘caves’ - sink holes over lava tubes really. We had our resident Geologist Brad giving a great description of everything - I knew we bought him for a reason.

There were a few storms brewing and when we heard the first clap of thunder everyone jumped on the bikes and rushed back to camp - we certainly didn’t want an other drenching. While we were enjoying lunch at camp the first rain hit and over the next 2 hours we got some dramatic storms, although I think most of us might have slept through them! It is a rest day ...

John has another Yoga session this afternoon and there are a few people swimming in the lake, and general relaxing. They report it is not as cold as Blue lake - I will trust them.

My KTM 690 has been pronounced dead - They can’t seem to repair the radiator - so I have been offered a BMW for the last 3 days. There is a fair bit of bitumen coming up so that should be good - but I am now looking at the wet ground after todays storms, and we have some off-road tomorrow so that will be a bit of test, but good fun I am sure. Apparently tomorrow is one of the most spectacular valleys.  We just need the storms to hold off, but they appear to be mainly in the afternoon so fingers crossed.

Day 8 video

I am having a great time with the drone and getting some really good footage. The only problem is internet access to upload them -  but here is another one.

We are probably going back to the days of the slide show when people came back from holiday - I have lots of video to show off!

Here is the lunch spot on day 8 and some riding and Ric and Rodger going on a free-ride to another summit.

Mountain passes ...

As we ride along the valleys we climb up through passes and usually have a stunning reveal of the next valley. Hopefully this video will help capture the grandeur of the scene. 

Day 10 - a Big one

Today we had a big off-road day. There were reports the road could be pretty challenging but in the end it was just great fun. My bike was leaking coolant and Don is quite sick so I swapped to his KTM  450 which was perfect for today.

It is going to sound boring, but the scenery was just stunning again. Winding valleys, huge vistas, broad flats to just cruise along.

We had a beautiful place for a picnic lunch.

Then more great riding from valley to valley.

They’re were more storm clouds looming all afternoon but we seemed to just avoid them... until.

Roger had some bike problems (overheating) so we did a bit of waiting - with the storms looming. As we came around the last section along beside a lake - the storm hit and with 10 minutes to camp - we got hit with a huge downpour... bugger. At least we have a rest day again tomorrow to help dry out.

We are in this camp for 2 nights - but this is our last Gur camp.

Some pictures ..

I have internet for an hour so I will try and upload a few pictures from the last few days.

Some crazy people went for a swim.

The blue lake was blue from above.

 My bike ....

My Gur .. with heater burning. The fire-ladies come around and keep them going.

The Deer Stones.

Our camp in front of the so-called blue lake.

The guys on top of the hill. 

One of the river crossings. 

A great Day 9.

Today the plan was for a short but spectacular ride to our next camp. We have climbed up to about 6,000ft to a very nice camp up the end of a valley.

The boys worked late into the evening and fixed my bike - sealing up the radiator with some epoxy in the end. They did drive into town to try to get it welded but could find anyone. The bash plate is back on too! Thanks guys.

The ride today was spectacular again. Huge wide valleys, smooth sweeping tracks, amazing views, sunshine ... perfect. Most of the time you can cruise along at 60, 70, 80 km/h. We had plenty of time so there was lots of photo stops and quiet cruising - plus a bit of hooning. Plus a few river crossings to keep us awake and moisten the socks.

We got into camp at about 1PM for a lunch and a try at archery. Some of the gang walked up the mountain next to us for some spectacular views. Some of us relaxed and just flew the drone up to the summit to enjoy the view! When we get a good internet connection I will upload as many as I can.

(That’s our camp down in the valley)

After simple but perfect dinner we found the fires had been lit in our Ger (it was cooling down quickly at this altitude) so we were toasty-warm in our beds. 

Tomorrow is our most challenging day. Long, rocky and steep. It will be an early start for a big day, but we then have two nights at “white lake” - somewhere in Mongolia!

Stunning Day 8

We are happy again! Day 8. Amazing.

I am not sure when we will get Wifi so there might be a flood of late posts coming here.

The rain finally cleared at the end of our rest day and the sun was almost out for our departure, but we had reports of a lot of water in the rivers we had to cross. We headed cross country and down stream for our first crossing on the advice of a local and found a place to cross. It was probably just-over-the-pegs deep but a rocky bottom but we all made it through ok. 

Crossing #2 was a bit deeper but better worn so not so many rocks and pretty OK.

Number 3 was wider and deeper and we looked OK. I actually had dry boots despite only wearing short boots. I hope Trevor Day is reading this: You probably don’t remember but when I first got my SL70 (at about 11 years old) you took me out along the banks in Taylors Bay, in first gear and standing on the pegs the whole way along the narrow tracks. I was thinking of you today crossing those rivers and keeping my boots dry. Thanks.

After a refuel in ‘town’ we headed about 50km down the road (through a quite deep causeway - still dry boots!) to a point only nerds like me could get excited about (Well - interested, perhaps not excited.) We were at exactly 50 Deg North, 100 West. Type ‘50,100’ into google earth. This has been the furthest north we go. At the lake we were basically in Siberia - at least with Siberia on 3 sides of us ...

From there we headed off road and started a fantastic day. Words and pictures can’t describe it. We passed between the 2 lakes (if you looked at Google earth), over a few passes and along huge open valleys. 

I went up the side of one hill to look out back across the lakes when suddenly there was a swarm of the local 150cc bikes coming my way from a Ger camp below. The whole family rode up to see me with huge smiles and great interest in my bike. We all took lots of photos and admired the view.

The riding from there was incredible. Either along the tracks or just off-piste across the fields. Hopefully the spot tracks shows our path.

Out in the middle of nowhere we stopped at some ~3,000 year old stone posts with carvings in them - Deer Posts they call them. After a lunch stop on a random concrete volleyball court in the middle of the valley, we continued on to a larger site with lots of deer posts and also lots of 6,000 year old round rock ....things, Khereksur. Not burial sites but more worship and preaching sites. You will have to look them up, sorry. There were 10’s, perhaps 100 of them around the valley.

A bit more riding and we were approaching town (Moron) past the airport where we stopped for more fuel. Unfortunately my bike was overheated - it had a hole in the radiator and was not in good shape. I had to ride in the UN Nissan to camp. 

I forgot to mention - my bike also lost its bash-plate under the motor earlier on the bitumen. I didn’t realise but the support crew picked it up. The guys were working late into the night trying to fix my bike ... fingers crossed. Otherwise I will be on the spare Tenere, which is not a big problem, but I am enjoying the KTM in these conditions and we are off road for a few days now.

The disco fired up at tonight’s Ger camp and the traditional cloths came our for ‘dress up’

The weather is expected to remain good, although there is a very thick smoke haze limiting our view, which is a shame. I have to look it up but I suspect the smoke is from peat fires in Siberia which is a big worry. 

The team.

There are now only 9 riders, plus the 2 pillions and 2 passengers, but our support team are still busy looking after us. It can be a bit like hearding cats sometimes.

Our fearless leader Justin is on a bike and leading the ride each day, as well as all the logistics. We met Justin on our South American trip 6 years ago when he was driving the truck on what I think was his first Compass tour. He has since led a few of the Compass long rides like the 105 day ‘Road of Bone’ from London to the furthest east of Russia, and the 3 month Cape Town to Cairo ride.

Ellis is our token Kiwi and is driving the ex-UN Nissan Patrol as backup. He also has our 2 passengers, the sisters of one of the riders coming along for the adventure. Ellis has our food stocks ready for the road-side lunches in the back and also caries our backpack and stuff at times. It is nice to know the UN vehicle is behind if you have any issues, and he can take the pillions when it gets too slippery or wet.

Our second back-up vehicle are the local bike support crew. They have a 4x4 van and carry the spare bike, our bags and all the spares to keep us rolling.

Bazo and Suki (Sorry - I am sure that is not how you spell it!) have been kept very busy with all the breakdowns but have been great at keeping us moving. At each stop they do the rounds and adjust anything needed. They spend the evenings on bigger jobs, and on the rest day I think they re-wired one of the KTMs. The bikes are going to go back better than they started.

Bazo’s wife Undra (It is their 1st anniversary) has also come along for the ride. She has been our cultural advisor and chief translator as well as helping out with all the work.

We are well looked after.

Where are we??

The support vehicle is carrying a SPOT tracker which logs our position regularly via satellite. The log is only kept for a few days so this will only work while we are travelling (i.e. if you are reading this post-trip it won’t work) but gives a live position update so you can see where we are when off-grid.

https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0fYmTctQy9ZOTpM6MaZAnLR03Q3GGqdIS

The wet rest day.

Today was supposed to be a rest day to explore the massive Khovsgol Lake. It is a rift lake so very deep - and it is supposed to be very blue but unfortunately it has been grey and rainy all day so it is just grey for us.

There was a little too much vodka consumed by some last night (I only had a few) so they have been very quiet today.

The Ger we are staying in have a pot fire-place in the middle so get really hot when the fire roars, but the wood is very poor quality and wet, so the fire goes from roaring to out very quickly. There is a fire-lady who runs around the Ger tending the fires. I think she is quite discussed by our fire-tendering skills - she has had a busy day. She started at 6am sneaking in to our Ger to light the fires for us.

I managed to make the best of a brief break in the rain this morning and had a nice walk out to a peninsula in the lake. It could be very pretty - if it wasn’t so wet.

One of the group, John, put on a Yoga class and after they went for a swim. Yes - a swim. I think the water is 4 degrees.

I think everyone is over the rain so a rest day has been good. The weather forecast is for much better conditions tomorrow, but we do have to get out of here and apparently there is water across the road and 2 river crossings that were easy yesterday but are running much higher today. I don’t want to start the day with boots full of water!

I think from here we go even further off grid - out to White Lake - so I suspect we will go quiet for a few days.

The bikes

The bikes on this tour have been a challenge and pretty disappointing.

There are about 5 BMW F800GS which are Compass owned and have been shipped in from Australia for this season of tours. The rest come from a local bike supplier and they are a pretty clapped out set. 

I am on a KTM 690 which was a ‘free upgrade’ because the bike I had booked was totally clapped. Given the condition of the 690 - the Suzuki must have been shocking. Mine rattles and shakes but gets along pretty well and is great in the dirt.

There were 3 KTM 400 which are great in the dirt but must be hard work on the bitumen. None of the KTM have indicators and a few are missing headlights. One was retired when Eric ran into the back of a car.

Roger is on a Yamaha Tenere and there is a spare Tenere in the truck, which has been used a few times.

The failure rate has been very disappointing, with multiple break downs almost every day, including: Coil failure on a KTM 400, electrical and possibly fuel problems on 2 BMW, 3 (!) thrown front sprockets on the KTMs, and now one KTM is dripping oil. 

The only saviour is the ability of the support guys to solve pretty much anything. There has been some cringing about their methods, but so far they have kept the show rolling and are always there at each stop to help. They carry a great kit of spares: