Monthly Archives: July 2018

Rituals and old ways

As we were navigating our way across the Mongolian landscapes across light tracks which often just disappeared..I was reminded of one of my favourite books by Robert Macfarlane called The Old Ways which follows the tracks, drove roads and paths that form an ancient network of routes in the UK. When we …

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Camp domestics on the road

It is important when on the road to keep up with sorting out the camp domestics such as shopping, fridge arrangements, cupboard stocking, clothes washing (and drying!) and being microbiology monitor….(I took this role much more seriously than G…possibly because I spend most of my working life researching parasites and …

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A surprise Naadam

While driving across a mountain road trying to navigate our way to Ulaangom in the Uvs province of Mongolia, we turned a corner and suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a village Naadam festival…all the more surprising as we had hardly seen any other vehicles or people on our …

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A DIFFERENT TYPE OF OASIS

After many days in the wilds of Mongolia where the choice of food at the stops was various forms of mutton, we came across the Fairfield Cafe on the way to UB.  Set up by Australians it is an Oasis of decent coffee, great food selection and even carrot cake, …

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THE NICEST ROAD YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF M52

I had not heard of the Altai region before this trip but it is astoundingly beautiful and the Russian road through it is probably one of the best driving roads I have ever seen. National Geographic list it in their top ten according to the border guard on the Russian …

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Race Against Time

Having fixed our oil problem by noon we set off into the desert again in search of the famous sand dunes of Khongoryn Els which were about 100miles away from the town of Dalandzadgad where we had limped to the previous night. Our journey started well with one of those …

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OIL CRISIS

We set off from Ulaanbaatar in good spirits, a bit sad to see Lee go back to the UK after such a big adventure together, but Toni and I were eager to explore the Gobi desert which we both had heard so much about. We made good time out of …

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A TALE OF TWO CITIES

(Photos to be added when internet available) For a time in the past, around 12th century, the city of Marv-i-shah Jahan was at least arguably the capital of the civilised world and was a very important city until 1221, at which point the son of Chinggis Khan destroyed it and …

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