Somewhere in the night the wind really got up so by the time we got up it was really blowing – at least that kept the mossies at bay!
With the really late end to yesterday we had the luxury of an 0630 breakfast this morning – it was so nice to wake up when I woke up, rather than to the sound of my alarm (shame that won’t be repeated, tomorrow we’re back to 0530 breakfast).
The plan for our first day in Russia
I was about to set off when Sandy asked me about SIM card payment, so I was a little later than anticipated which meant I had a pretty hard ride to catch up with Ivan, Grant and Jackie (who I’d intended to ride with).
Once I’d caught up with the others we rode together taking turns at the front for a few km until Ivan headed out on his own. The others of us stopped briefly just before the rain started to add extra layers, then continued with Grant and I alternating at the front for a further 15km until the speed we were travelling at meant that I was getting cold so decided to head out on my own.
Overall the road was generally downhill, which meant that I was sitting at around 35km/h and steadily catching up with Ivan, who I eventually passed just as we got to the bottom of the only real climb of the day.
The sun briefly shone as I began the descent to lunch, and it was actually dry while we ate lunch (Ivan came into lunch shortly after I did), however it started raining again as we left and has pretty much continued to do so ever since (lunch was at 1000, and it’s now 1530).
I’d intended to stop in the town shortly before camp however as I passed the rain was hammering down and I was cold and wet enough that there was nothing that important that I needed to stop and so continued on to camp.
Thankfully camp has been moved a kilometre up the road to an actual campground which means that despite the rain we have somewhere dry to be:
Some soup to warm us up!
I managed to get my tent up in a lull in the rain, so I also have somewhere dry to sleep. The campsite has a number of cabins so quite a few people have got themselves one of those and Will and Charlie have kindly hung my riding clothing from today in their cabin so that it will at least (hopefully) be dry by the morning. Dan and Michael have also got a cabin and have offered me a spot on the floor should I want it – we’ll see how the rain goes, if it eases up by dinner time I’ll probably stick with my tent.
(Australian) Jackie, Ruth and Ron stopped in town and bought a couple of bottles of vodka, some crackers and caviar, so there’s currently something of a party going on at the end of the table in our camp shelter – I’ve had a couple of shots of the vodka and that’s enough for me given that we’ve got 140km and 1500m of climbing in tomorrow’s ride.
There’s been a significant amount of rain fall over the last 24 hours and the river at the edge of the camp is looking pretty swollen – I’m glad my tent is more than a metre above the current level.
Even though we’ve only come just under 90km we’ve seen more vehicles today than we did in the entire of last weeks riding in Mongolia (and even that wasn’t very many). The vehicles are something of a contrast – either the same old Russian-made vehicles which we were seeing in Mongolia or very new imported vehicles (mostly Toyota, Hyundai and Land Rover so far)
It seems that the rain came to last night’s camp before Sandy left this morning and she decided that enough was enough (her main purpose incoming on the trip had been Mongolia) and has hitched a ride to Gorno with the crew who had brought the TDA vans from Slovakia. Hopefully she’ll still be there when we get there later in the week. Conversely, Liz is currently trying to work out the logistics of staying for another stage…!
What’re we going to do for the day in the rain when it’s only 1030, I know have coffee. Three coffees later, what’re we going to do now? I know, have vodka!
(Australian) Jackie
I’ve also become a tea drinker again – coffee doesn’t exist in this part of the world in any form other than instant, and I much prefer a cup of tea to that!
Despite the late start, and short day, I’m looking forward to an early night tonight as the van-time and long day yesterday have taken more out of me than a decent day of riding would!
Riding data
Wenn sie sprechen Deutsch you might be interested in Erwin’s blog, or als je spreekt Nederlands, then Paul’s may be of interest.