Enter Mongolia

Location : 47 44′ 27″N, 96 50′ 17″E (Uliastay, Mongolia)
Distance from Sydney: 10,597km

A mini update, written just after arriving in Mongolia:

I’m meant to be trying to finish off the Russian blog right now, but I want to talk about Mongolia instead. It’s our second night in the country, and first night camping. I don’t know how to put it in words. And the problem is we can’t get Mongolia into photos. It just doesn’t fit, they don’t do it justice. This afternoon we pulled off the road as it passed a lake, we drove straight up the sides of the valley across the grass to where we’d spotted a flat spot for camping. The view was immense. I kept walking to the top of the hillside. Not far above me, on another ridge, were snowcapped mountains. Beneath me was a vast valley, rising to more snow capped mountains on the other side. A couple of cars, visible from their dust trails, wound their way through the landscape beneath me. A small village was far in the distance. And that’s it. It was amazingly, stunningly, mind blowingly beautiful. I can’t describe it well enough. I wanted to cry it was so untouched and raw. (I didn’t by the way, but I could have).

We’ve been here just over 24 hours, and already it has blown everything else we have seen to second place, and a very distance second place at that. We stop the car constantly as we drive to take photos. Every valley we turn into is more amazing than the last. It’ll take us just over two weeks to cross Mongolia. Magda is stocked with food, water, spare fuel tanks, extra blankets for the tent, and we cannot wait. Some pictures of the first few days in Mongolia below.

Gallery

Wild double decker camels! Mongolia

The good and the bad, snowy peaks and Mongolian roads

Near Hovd, Mongolia

Wild Yaks!

1st puncture since London. Pfffft

Mountain colours, near Hovd, western Mongolia

1st campsite in Mongolia

Look carefully, Magda is right in the centre