A much easier week biking after leaving the comforts of the excellent Fairfield Guesthouse, cafe and bakery in Tsetserleg. Heading for and spending the week in the Orkhon Valley (a world heritage area), we only had five days on the road before next rest day in a large town – only one of those was a big day of riding, the rest substantially easier.

After completing various errands in Tsetserleg (a kind family paid for our stove petrol and gave us lollies/sweets/candy) we didn’t leave town until late morning. But we only had a half-day to the lesser known Gillane hot springs. After a small pass we turned up a long, gentle valley that was almost unpopulated by people and animals (there were horses to watch at lunchtime, as there so often are).

Being so devoid of large mammals, the wildflowers proliferated – so tall and so many different colours, beautiful! Our long gentle climb continued to a low pass that started to feel suspiciously like the Alps. The path narrowed to a sublime singletrack on the descent and we had one of the most enjoyable downhill sections of the trip. A bit of valley floor riding after crossing a small boggy section, we checked out a stupa with good views of the intersecting valleys and surrounding hills before diverting off our main path to find the hot springs.

They were where Murray at Fairfield had been told they were, so that was a relief – the seven kilometre detour was not for nothing. We made camp amongst some rocks above the stream, a short walk through the bog unfortunately to the hot water, with prodigious wildflowers around. The hot water was piped into an old bathtub, but only tepid unfortunately. With thunderstorms around, we did have to hide from rain a bit – but not nearly as bad as our previous night camping. Unfortunately long grass and wildflowers became rather wetting when walking around. A friendly family camped across the valley came over and chatted for a bit, we never quite got around to trekking over to visit their camp.

Our one big day of the week was from the hot springs. Not long to get back on route to the Orkhon, but it’s wasn’t always the easiest to find – there may have been a loose following of the GPS track in places. But in such big wide open spaces with no fences, you can just go wherever you want to get to where you’re going – so no problems. There were a series of two to three hundred metre climbs over three passes during the day. As we’d been used to earlier in the trip, they got quite steep near the top – so there was some walking and pushing going on. Even though we’d seen little traffic on the nice dirt tracks all day, still a Prius or two would just appear in unlikely places.

Getting to the top of the last climb, for some reason I was reminded of gravel and dirt riding on Hawke’s Bay hills – which was odd as we were so far removed. This one gave us the longest downhill of the day, eventually flattening out to require pedalling to the bridge over the swollen Orkhon River we’d been aiming for. As the only crossing of the river for miles, it was a busy little place – but nowhere to buy food or obvious good campsites. While we mulled over our options, someone pulled up and offered both advice and cans of beer. We gratefully accepted both, even if they lager meant more to carry.

Biking ten kilometres to town, Bat-Olzii, won out and we negotiated dirt tracks through ancient lava fields instead of riding on a new, but unfinished and unsealed road – it was very bumpy. While enjoying one of the best meals we’ve had in a Mongolian restaurant, a huge dust storm blew ferociously through town – as thunder boomed in the distance. Camping was not looking good, but the storm blew itself out shortly after we pitched our tents by a stream just south of town.

We only had a half-day of easy valley floor riding the following day – the main objective trying to find and see a local yak festival. The riding most engaging again when having to pick routes through the lava fields. There were a fair few people heading up the valley on motorbike wearing traditional dress, so we thought we were on the right track. Asking some such people when we stopped for ice creams further helped – seven or eight kilometres to go. After crossing a bridge, the festival soon came into view – seemingly plonked randomly on the steppe.

There was some yak herding occurring when we arrived, but apart from that we saw little yak action or, more disappointingly, yak cheese products to buy. Generally there were traditional fun fair stalls and some games, various Mongolian food options and people riding around on horses. Certainly the most tourists we’ve seen since we’ve been in Mongolia. Eventually there was some Mongolian wrestling in the ring – big men in big boots and undies competing in some way which we struggled to understand.

We left after a couple of hours to find a campsite up a tributary. This involved more lava field riding. I was happy to see if we could get to the first or second of the Eight Lakes, but they looked like walking tracks only on the map – so that idea was flagged. A pleasant spot was found near a confluence on the tributary, although it was a bit windy. A young engineering student holidaying with family nearby befriended us for the evening, bringing us delicious clotted yak cream on bread, and canned beef that was more tasty than the salami/sausage we usually had – although it looked suspiciously like jelly meat. He also recommended we ride a bit further up the valley (unloaded bikes!) to have a look – beautiful meadows, less wind, a small graveyard (a rare sight) and a small gorge with a couple of churning waterfalls; very nice evening saunter on the bikes.

A chilly morning eventually warmed as we picked our way downstream back through the lava fields – which went for tens of kilometres. A brief stop off at the Orkhon falls, a decent flow with recent storms, not too touristy – and the fun of being approached for a photo by some guy. Quiet tracks beside the impressive gorge below the falls before joining a busier road back to the bridge we’d crossed two days earlier. Crossing to the true left of the river the terrain became a lot lumpier, nice to have some hills again.

Pleasant spot for lunch on the hillside looking back up the valley before we continued on the small hills before turning up a side valley towards Tuvkhun Monastery. Pretty warm in the afternoon sun, I enjoyed the extended climb while not cooking myself. Three kilometres short of the monastery car park (it’s a walk up the hill to get to the monastery) I was surprised to find a large tea rooms after seeing no buildings for a couple of hours. We popped in for cold drinks, learning that we should camp in a designated spot a few hundred metres away before the monastery park gates.

We duly made camp there and rode the short distance up the valley to start the three kilometre walk up through mature pine forest. The shade was pleasant, but it was still a warm, not quite steep (almost though) walk up to the various buildings perched on the granite mountain top. It was surprisingly busy up there, and the old pathways between various buildings and sacred spots were precarious in parts. At one part I couldn’t watch as people not overly used to doing such things clambered across cliff faces.

Back at camp, after Ian had fixed a puncture (our only mechanical incident of the entire trip) a family from Ulaan Bataar provided us with tasty snacks at the wind started to rip down the valley. The son, about twenty years old, races mountain bikes in Mongolia and was quite taken with Ian’s flash bike – my steel workhorse didn’t get a look in. Even though we had a table and seats for the first time, cooking and eating in the howling wind was a chore – I was getting a bit tired of trying campsites, so went to bed even earlier than normal.

The local dogs barked all night, but the huge breakfast at the teahouse made up for that. Luckily we didn’t have a strenuous day of riding to Kharkhorin – first rolling back down the valley to the Orkhon. The supposed 65 km to town was to have little climbing in it, and it started that way as we followed little used tracks across fields with little hint of an incline. Halfway through the day was the only climb of a hundred metres. Lunch at the top out of the nagging headwind before a steep descent back to the river.

It became obvious why there was no traffic on this side of the river – big washouts at every creek bed, the result of flash flooding. These provided some challenge to ride, which made the riding more interesting but did necessitate some pushing and carrying. As we approached town, Open Street Map kept trying to tell us to cross the swollen river on roads that didn’t exist. But our track on the true left kept going, with interruptions for storm damage.

Looking like we’d get into Kharkhorin at a reasonable time (mid-afternoon), and get an ice cream, we were beckoned by a large family. I couldn’t count how many there were, but they had five vehicles – so over twenty, three generations. They’d stopped on a big trip west from Ulaan Bataar to Olgii (way out west) for some sort of family festival (we couldn’t quite understand what) and were just finishing a big lunch made and eaten beside the Orkhon. Before we knew it we were eating tasty mutton soup, drinking milk tea and generally being plied with tasty food that they’d just prepared. A couple of them spoke English well, so we were able to communicate sufficiently to have a very enjoyable break from the riding. Eventually we all had to go out respective ways, but not before a couple of the teenagers had tried Rachel’s bike and found the hydraulic brakes much more powerful than expected. Much fun.

Over the bridge and a few kilometres later we were checking into Gaya’s guesthouse, delighting in hot showers and looking forward to a rest day.

As before, here’s the chance to try and match items in the dump of photos from my phone to the brief summary above.

Time, technological capability and inclination to post here during our first two weeks in Mongolia has been lacking. But here we are after a rest day in Tsetserleg with a little post coming up.

Ulaan Bataar as the biggest city by far in this sparsely populated land was interesting to spend a couple of days in making final gear purchases, assembling bikes and organising transport to the northwest for the three of us, our bikes and gear. It enabled us to have a look around. A former Soviet satellite, any ongoing influence of that era was not obvious to my eye.

Certainly weren’t any cars from that time (guess they’ve all decayed), Toyota is obviously king here – easily three-quarters of the passenger vehicles. I thought NZ was bad for used Japanese imports, here there are Priuses, or derivatives, everywhere you look (used imports, the right hand drive steering wheel is on the wrong side – not that that matters on dirt tracks). If it’s not a Prius, it’s a LandCruiser – the big, fancy SUV ones, not the workhorses. Pleasingly oversized pick-up culture has not made it here. As we learnt, Priuses will go anywhere!

There are a few Russian UAZ vans that are well suited to the rough conditions. It was one of these that we crammed three bikes in the back of, along with ourselves further forward, for two days of driving to Murun. From there we rode north to Lake Khuvsgul, which stretches north over a hundred kilometres close to the Russian border, for a little shakedown ride. This involved far more heavy rain than I expected and a lot of highway riding at a busy national festival time of the year. A hundred heavily loaded kilometres in storms and then a headwind were exhausting and a stark wake-up for me and Ian. The scenery helped distract us! But we got away from the crowds to have a lovely night camping by the lake. First herds of yaks ridden beside were a highlight.

Back in Murun we somehow got all the extra gear and food that we’d left at our accommodation on our bikes and headed south on a route of dirt roads that Rachel and Ian had devised to get us to the bikepacking.com Khangai Mountains Traverse route. Mostly smooth dirt roads with plenty of time along and across valleys with occasional climbs and downhills between the next one, there were still Priuses everywhere! But it was all part of the fun, as were beautiful riverside campgrounds, friendly Mongolians, stunning scenery, green green valleys, masses of animals, interesting food and mostly good weather punctuated with almost-daily afternoon thunderstorms.

Those few days of riding were so good, it would be hard to beat – so it proved with the bikepacking.com route, where it was still beautiful and we met plenty of interesting, curious and generous people – but the scenery and riding were just a little bit more harsh. A horrible section of corrugated roads, which we’d been warned about by the only other bikepacker we’d seen to that point, stretched for scores of kilometres either side of Zag. But that was overcome and people, food, vast greenness and views, animals, seeing such a different place are more than enough compensation for the harder points.

This is the first new, and very foreign to me, country I’ve been to for quite a few years – combined with the most bikepacking I’ve done for a long time. So it’s not all easy, but I’m slowly getting my legs back around the challenges. Such a foreign language and alphabet (Cyrillic) is something none of us have really got our heads around, trying and failing to communicate with so many friendly people is quite frustrating. But we get by and have some entertaining and charming encounters.

The conditions haven’t been overly harsh, yet some gear I’ve had for years inconveniently failed near the start of nine days in remote areas. One of which was my air mattress, despite repeated attempts to repair it I eventually left it in the trash. The hardness of sleeping on the ground is not too bad (Mongolian beds are very hard anyway), but by the wee hours the ground is cold – particularly at 2500 m. So I haven’t been sleeping much at all, but am well rested in my spacious new tent (a two-person tent for one person was a good upgrade for such a long trip with a lot of gear). I found and bought a folding foam mattress today, so I should be ok – if I can fit it on my bike somewhere!

Rest day is almost over, heading for the Orkhon Valley tomorrow so I should make the most of this bed and sleep. I haven’t managed to process photos as I normally would, most are still on my camera, but here is a photo dump from my phone as some sort of consolation if you managed to read this far.