I am sitting in my kitchen with the washing machine on and the dogs asleep in their bed listening to radio 4 and thinking about wild camping on the beautiful Kazakh Steppe, smelling the wild thyme, watching herds of wild horses and no-one in sight….
Adventuring is life affirming, sometimes scary, catapults you out of your comfort zone, allows you to escape and is most definitely to be recommended. Thanks to G and Nelson I had the most magical and challenging adventure travelling cross country from Almaty in Kazakhstan to Russia and then into the North west of Mongolia and on to Ulaanbaatar.
The driving was tough and at times downright scary…..G is more used to what Nelson can do but I was not so when I was driving there was a lot of screeching and swearing and remembering to breath while Nelson navigated crater sized potholes, crossed rivers, traversed down steep slopes on an angle (the worst….) and avoided yaks on the road.
The landscape was incredible and the views we experienced would have been the same as many travellers and nomads over 100’s of years. Often there was nothing but the land, and the occasional herd of horses and a tiny white Ger or Yurt in the distance with flocks of sheep and goats being looked after by riders on horseback. There were no fences or walls just vast pasture lands stretching from Asia to Europe.
Travelling independently allows you such freedom to explore wild places at your own pace and camp in the most beautiful and remote spaces. Adventuring also reminds you how important it is to live your life, regain your perspective and re-engage with the world. Today I went out and bought a Teepee tent