Starting from where we were up to last time,
The 5th of August to the 8th we spent in Krasnoyarsk trying to get some things on the my bike fixed and looking for a camera replacement for me. The Nikon FM2 did not handle the ride somewhere and the light meter was no longer working.
The 8th of August, we took the overnight train (20 hours) to Ulan Ude. Quite some fun packing the two bikes and Bob into a train cabin for 4 with 2 other people…
On the 10th we went to the Mongolian Embassy to get a new Visa to re-enter Mongolia, got into the queue and waited for about 3 hours only to find when we got inside, they went to lunch. What to do… They are only open 2 days- later on Wednesday.. We decided to stick around and want till Wednesday.
12 August, off to the Embassy again, got there 1 hr before they open (8 am) and are the first (only) people in the queue. We're invited in at about 8.30pm when they realized that we're back and wanted a visa. After some forms and discussion they offer to get us our visas back in the afternoon and we take this option as we can then do what we want and don't have to be back in Ulan Ude on a specific date. We ask about the eastern-most Mongolian-Russian border crossing and they confirm it is open- the Consul even taking us for a tour on Google Earth showing us the route so there can be no misunderstanding.
14 August 82 km, back on the road again to Lake Baikal, camp in a quarry near the town of Angir..
15 August 74 km, The seat post on my bike broke clean off, fatigue, hmm… that changes the plan a bit.. Some road workers come and help out and take us back to their camp and find a steel pipe to put inside it which gets us going again… Quite a good fix really. We camp in the forest at what we called mosquito camp…agghhhhhhhhh. The head nets were essential for survival 🙂
Photo of Bike Repair workshop
The ‘repaired’ seat post, pulled slightly apart, it was a Kalloy post. You can also see the stress cracks in the back of the post above the break. The bolt in the back was added later, to stop the top section rotating, slightly difficult to ride with. This repair did a good job and lasted the 1000 km before I could replace the seat post in Australia, Ill keep it as a spare.
16 August, 21km, Seat post repair giving some problems but ok, my rear wheel bearing is also giving some problems. We reach Lake Baikal and camp on the beach – just lovely.
17 August, decided to stay camped on the beach and spend the day relaxing in a nice environment. Many Russians also camp on the lake shore. We made a spiral out of pebbles, swam, daydreamed, ate…pretty nice really.
18 August, 75 km, Heading back to Ulan Ude, some mosquitoes. (Pete is the master of the understated…)
19 August, 67 km, back over a pass of 600m up and camp about 20km short of Ulan Ude in the forest.
20 August, 20km into Ulan Ude, a good day, found a bike shop to repair my back wheel and improve the repair made to the seat post (they did not have the correct size new seat post for my bike). We buy a train ticket to Chita (500 km to the east).
21 August, arrive in Chita at 4 am, quite shattered and catch a few hours sleep on the floor of the railway station (glamorous stuff). We have breakfast in the city park under the Lenin statue. Eventually we find a hotel to spend the night and get some much needed sleep. Found a map of the area to the border – yippee.
22 August, 38km, pass 3 km long radio antenna (obviously Pete was very impressed by this) We camped in a pretty field along the road side that we called 'caterpillar camp'.
23 August, 52km, long day into headwind and onto dirt road and in the rain.
24 August, 43km, day of rain and puddles on dirt road, stopped early to get warm and do some repairs to Bob. Fun riding – you only get wet the first time once……..
25 August, 46km, Passed through a town that was centred around a Russian health resort before some lovely and fun cycling through forest. Good weather again, some sun, but not too hot.
26 August, 44km, Started in heavy rain and into a village, some locals take pity on us and take us inside there home to dry off and feed us lunch for which we are very grateful!!. We are now in the Buriat Autonomous Region and they are friendly, warm and hospitable people.
27 August, 34 km, into Aginskoye for supplies and discover a new road in to the town where we want to go for the next 100 km. Awesome.
28 August, 71km, easy riding along a new smooth road.
29 August, 61km, Tail wind and the end of trees back to open plain.
30 August, 31 km, Started late due to heavy rain, good road around the edge of a lake. Pete's first flat for the trip (after nearly 4000 km)
31 August 37km, pretty morning, stopped short of town and made camp with strong head wind.
1 September 31km, into Solovevsk to stock up. Check border and seems to be open. End up staying in the School building due to some very nice Russian teachers in the town. They also gave us some delicious lunch of salad and bread – yum
2 September, 5 km to Border to cross, and things are looking good, nice day, good supply of food… Only to find out that the border is closed to foreigners… There is one 400 km to the west that may be open. We know the one south of Ulan Ude is open – hmm massive change of plan. Looks like our plan for 3 weeks of nice cycling in the east of Mongolia have just changed. A shared taxi driver offers to take us of the border crossing 400 km away, and to Bozya (100 km in the wrong direction) first. We spend some time waiting (which seems something that happens with shared taxis). We get to Borzya at about 6 pm and find a hotel, the taxi has some problem with its front wheel, but he says we will come back in the morning.
3 September, Decide that the border crossing 400 km west is too much of a risk and decide to take the train back to Ulan Ude and cross south of there, so buy a ticket for Chita that night and spend the next 12 hours in the train station….Dinner on the platform with our cooker and vegies was nice….
4 September, arrive in Chita in the morning and jump on the next train to Ulan Ude with about 1 hour wait, which is good, we arrive back in Ulan Ude at about 4 pm and decide to try a hostel that we were given a flyer for a few weeks before. The hostel is about 10 km out of the city but is excellent and we get a sauna which is excellent after 10 days camping and 24 hours on trains.
5 September, 76km, good day tail wind in the morning, rolling hills. We make an unexpected discovery and find a body in a river and tell a local Russian who reports it to the police.
6 September, 80 km, rolling to border now. River valleys, and pine forests again.
7 September 70 km, Camp 20 km from border- a long last climb. We meet three German cyclist heading north after 15 months on the road from Germany.
8 September 47km into Mongolia, no problem, across the border in less than 1 hour.
9 September, 47km, onto dirt road started in light rain.
10 September, 45km, onto Mongolia back roads with slight head wind. Pete gets his second flat for the trip…
11 September, 47km, found water for camp which was not looking good on the map. Had a delicious wash in the stream…the water is cold. Michaela stacks her bike- lands in the bushes…oops, lost concentration…hit a rock…down a small slope……what's more dirt to add to the existing lot….?
12 September, 34km, over a very pretty birch forest pass down to monastery, cycled 13 km down river valley.
13 September,55 km, Rolling down a river valley, and back onto sealed road. I had an accident with Bob (trying to do stunts on sand!!) and managed to bend the derailer drop out. After a few tense moments and some force I manage to bend it back to where it should be and looks good. How fortunes can change.
We should arrive in Ulaan Bataar in about 3 days now and are looking into moving our return flight a week forward as we're back earlier than expected (Partly due to the change of plans inspired by the Russian authorities).
Love Pete and Michaela