A later start doing chores before leaving town for another week in the hills. A kind family paid for our stove petrol at a gas station, as well as loading us up with candy. Some curious old factories on the way out, before crossing a river and up a short pass – where we met some 4WD overlanders from Fairfield that had hired bikes for the day.

Strangely the climb out of the next valley was both deserted (no gers or grazing animals) and a mellow gradient that didn’t kick at the pass. Free of herds, the wildflowers were plentiful.

Did get some lunch time spectators though, later over the pass two boys on a motorbike were looking for these horses.

Winter stock shelter and yards.

Getting to the pass, briefly back at 2000 m.

Off the pass, the gradient became steeper. With the trees, wildflowers and lovely stretch of singletrack it was feeling a bit like the Canadian Rockies.

It had been a while since we’d had a boggy little push…

We sidled above the valley floor trying to find the best path for the route that had been described to us.

Small diversion, from our overnight diversion, to a highpoint with views of three rivers meeting.

Power lines going in.

We headed up that way to try and find the little visited hot springs Murray from Fairfield had told us about.

Twas only seven kilometres off our route to the Orkhon Valley to find the hot springs. Another boggy section guarded a nice sheltered campsite. Well, we still got wet from the afternoon thunderstorm – but we had our tents up by then and it passed quickly enough.

A family camping for a couple of weeks came to visit for a bit; communication somewhat easier than usual.

Fairly standard Mongolian camping dinner – fried onions, carrots and capsicum with noodles and some sort of unknown meat.

Decamped and started the day with more thunder booming in the distance, but it and any rain missed us. Cruisey ride down the valley with wind behind.

Strangely imposing buildings, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

A collection of stupa around here too.

Mostly easy going down the valley, with the occasional climb.

And goats aplenty.

The route and main road turned away from the river, heading steeply up a hill. We thought we could avoid that by sticking to a lower road. But it got a bit close to the flooded river so we got a little hike-a-bike practice pushing up above and around some bluffs before dropping back to the flood plain level and continuing the easy going for a bit.

Alarmed to find traffic again, we were nonetheless happy to be heading into the first town we’d seen for a few days – Ikh Tamir. Even better, we watched brunch, khushuur (mutton pockets), being made and cooked in front of us.

Leaving town for the provincial centre of Tsetserleg, the road was even busier with end-of-holidays traffic. Our tolerance for this was low, so we dived off to take a pylon access road over the hills. More gradual climbing up a long valley, strangely having to go around fenced land, before the track narrowed and steepened significantly. It didn’t look like anyone had serviced this part of the electricity infrastructure for a long time as the track soon petered out to little more than a goat track. Hot work pushing up there in the afternoon heat, but there were sufficient shady patches for brief respite and plenty of wildflower to brighten things.

Our reward for the steep 300 m gain was a long, mellow descent through the same elevation – much fun and one of the riding highlights of the trip.

Before long we were at the gates of Tsetserleg looking down on a big town nestled in a valley surrounded by striking granite cliffs.

Fairfield Guesthouse, well known among bikepackers traveling in the area, lived up to its reputation with friendly and helpful Australian owners and staff, plenty of facilities for those travelling by bike, and excellent food. A great place to have our first rest day, most welcome after twelve days of riding.

Even got a burger with beetroot in it!