Unsurprisingly, in hindsight, leaving my favourite of all our Mongolian campsites led to another staggeringly beautiful ride – up another valley gently, a few more trees around, lush pasture for the herds of animals dotted around between corresponding ger camps.

A fair example of being spoilt for choice of smooth dirt tracks.

Animals, pens, gers, an occasional more permanent structure, small vehicles, water flowing through a green-grassed and tree-lined valley – about sums up riding through this area. Lush.

Ninety or so minutes in and starting to wonder which route we’d take out of this valley and into the next, we paused near a collection of buildings and gers. From far up on a hillside the farmer in this spot came down to meet us. Through the language barrier, we thought he was inviting us in to meet his family and see his ger – thankfully, that is what was going on. For over an hour we were plied with tasty food made from, mostly yak, milk – yoghurt, milk tea, clotted cream on bread (the best!) and some sweet curly treats (which I find far too moreish than is acceptable). All the while we tried to communicate, mostly through translation apps, and share details about each others’ lives – with limited success. Very enjoyable, and filling, hospitality – but we had a big day to get to Khangai, but an hour easily spared as the days were long.

Part of our discussions centred on our way out of the valley; as the valley split into multiple heads we turned right and were pleasantly surrounded by trees as things steepened and the day warmed. To our surprise the climb included a switchback! Certainly made the ascent slightly easier than just going straight up the hill.

Always much to look at.

Quite the marker at the top.

Walking around the ovoo keeping an eye on the approaching storm clouds.

The steep part of the descent was unusually rough, which would account for the strange lack of Priuses on this stretch. It wasn’t long before the rain caught up with us, so there are few photos of the next long flat stretch. However, it did stop raining for a nice lunch break with entertainment provided by a large group of horses coming to drink at the water below us.

We briefly rode along a much larger valley and headed for the sealed highway to cross the river at a bridge. Thankfully we soon left the busy road for another quiet dirt road. We’d now joined the bikepacking.com Khangai Mountains Traverse route, near the end but planning to ride it in reverse. Thirty kilometres of flat riding to town was done in passing showers and into a bit of wind.

Getting closer…

Welcome to Khangai?

Still enjoying the colourful buildings.

Our usual methods struggled to find anywhere to sleep inside, one amusing tentative encounter did provide an option – but it was a dive with few facilities, so camping out of town seemed a better idea. Serendipitously, the son of the owner at our dinner restaurant was home helping his mother for a bit. Having lived for some time in Australia, he now normally resided in Ulaan Baatar, he spoke English well and was very helpful. Between them, it was worked out that a friend had a spare ger we could stay in – score!

But first, dinner was most welcome – as was not cooking over a dirty petrol stove! And more of those sweet curly treats.

Chasing the motorbike through town to find our night’s accommodation.

A chance to dry things out in the evening sun. This seemed to be a new build section on the edge of town, an unusually tall fence.

Out the front gate – certainly the edge of town.

The family was building a new house, only slightly bigger than what I’ll finally get around to building this year – so I was interested.

Polystyrene insulation.

A little more insulation in the cladding over timber boards.

It rained, to some degree, all night – so breakfast and decamping in the wet, not the brightest start to the day. Rejoining the dirt road, the rain had reduced to a cooling drizzle for the four hundred metre climb. The dirt was slick, which made for amusing viewing of the reduced number of two wheel drive vehicles slipping and sliding up, and down, the hill.

Plenty to look at despite the grey cap on the morning.

At the pass we enjoyed hearing the tales of a trio (two Brits and an American) touring on hired Chinese motorcycles – many surmountable mechanical issues!

A lovely downhill to speed things up a bit. One of my rear rack bolts worked its way loose – to add to the annoying list of small gear failures; thankfully I had plenty of spares.

Standing stones and burial mounds – although burial is a misnomer, bodies left for the elements to reclaim them apparently.

Terrain levelling out again to cross another big valley floor.

Top of a wee climb, time for a rest.

Rest at top/meet another large family group on their Prius travels.

They were very interested in our trip, and wanted a lot of photos with us and bikes. Much fun again.

We were each given a large handful of this dried yoghurt snack. Teeth-destroyingly hard, I was snacking on this gift for the next two weeks. A little chunk of the slightly salty solid could only be consumed by slowly dissolving it in one’s mouth for ten to fifteen minutes. First time, I bit off far more than I could chew (it was impossible to chew any really) and struggled to with a large jagged hunk in my mouth for miles.

Impressive granite formations on the way down to the next river.

Excellent to have mine manager (when not hauling an impressive amount of dried food around northern Mongolia) Ian along to impart some of his rock knowledge.

Don’t think we’d ridden three hundred whatevers by this stage.

More rocks close to the river.

The town of Jargalant coming into view for a resupply.

On a days-long quest to find sunscreen lip balm (it’s amusing some of the small things we unexpectedly struggled to find), we found a pharmacy but with no success. But it did provide a memorable encounter when we started chatting to the owner’s son outside the store. Eleven years old, his command of the English language was impressive for having only learnt it watching YouTube on his mother’s phone. Impressive and amusing – with hints of an American accent and some unexpected turns of phrase. Regaling us with tales of the town’s nadaam festival (we’d just missed yet another one!), he was explaining how there was betting on the races. He was remarkably upbeat for someone earnestly proclaiming that he’d “gambled his life away” the day before!

Riding out of town, no bets on this horse versus bike match-up.

There was some signs of a tourist camp on the way out of town, but it wasn’t required – we had food and tents.

Up another valley we went.

Ten kilometres out of town we found a suitable place to camp – I think it was my favourite spot of the trip. Beautiful view, nice grass, a refreshing river to bathe and wash clothes in, plenty of animal and herding activity to watch, and useful trees to cook, sit and hang clothes on.

We woke to horses grazing just across the river. I woke to find my trusty air mattress was no longer so trusty – the first night away from large towns for a week or so not the best for the seam near the valve to split. Attempts to fix it over the next few days were futile; never mind, I was prepared for sleeping on the ground by the few Mongolian beds already experienced! I would come to miss the insulation but.

More big valleys to ride across on whichever dirt track we fancied, before the increasingly steep climb and descent to the next one. Still pretty busy with holiday traffic, but that’s relative – it was hardly a sealed highway, just busy for a dirt road.

Rare plane spotted.

Definitely needed a rest here after another steep climb.

We rerouted to drop down towards this lake, trying to get away from the main vehicle route.

Gave us a good lunch spot too.

Climbing away from the lake, nearing Shine-Ider.

A Prius approaching up what we found was quite a steep, loose climb (good fun down though!) – of course.

Much fun.

Shine-Ider, and hopefully ice cream, coming into view.

Still enjoying the colourful roofs.

A larger store than expected – I could have even got replacement shoes if the previous day’s mishap had not ended well. Hot and dry in the valley, we did find ice cream and, for the only time, had to carry a lot of water as we expected a dry campsite (somewhere).

Leaving town, we crossed the dry river bed and scooted away from the main road up a side valley.

The track was unusually rough and slow going, especially at the end of a pretty warm day, following power lines before turning off again to a campsite far enough off the road to be less noticeable, and quieter.

Again, we enjoyed camping amongst the wildflowers – there was also plenty of wild rhubarb around.

Ian and I took an after dinner stroll partway up the hills behind our tents. Looking back to where we’d come from.

Fascinating insects too to end another enjoyable day.

Bikes loaded with all our gear (having left some behind on the Lake Khovgol out-and-back) and food for days, our northern Mongolia bikepacking proper got underway.

Saddlebag swollen, handy but distractingly bright crocs installed in most convenient place – but the bane of all subsequent bike photos.

Found another Chinggis statue on our way out of town.

Some sort of procession, celebration in front of the statue – seemingly only attended by people that drive LandCruisers.

Leaving Murun.

Back across to the route that returned us to town the previous day.

Nests on the roadside, after many birds flew out I was only fast enough to snap one blur.

Sealed road on the way out of Khovsgol province.

We left the sealed road, to the left, after the bridge.

On to rough, rutted gravel the going was slow along the valley floor – mostly due to flood damage.

Turning to climb out the valley, the surface improved.

Past animals and a Prius – encapsulating much of our riding in Mongolia.

Stopping to refuel before the last, steeper stretch to the pass.

Gathering clouds.

Becoming harder work.

Jackets on as we were pushing, and the surface got a bit slicker for the vehicles.

Strangely the little trucks (typically Korean) made harder work of it than more low-slung cars.

It was hard enough work for us, thankfully the rain had taken the edge off the temperature.

It was pleasing to find a small group of buildings, including a shop, just over the rise at the top of the steepness – cue a picnic lunch beside an ovoo (left below – travellers walk around clockwise three times for travel blessings).

Over two thousand metres, the lowered air pressure was obvious in these angry birds.

From here, I spent most of the rest of the day feeling I was riding across someone’s Windows XP desktop.

The last fifty metres to climb the pass was much gentler.

The ride down was pretty nice too! Too much fun to take many photos but.

A very mellow, long descent across the next valley – spoilt for choice of dirt tracks. Best guesses were made as to which one to take.

On a prow before another little descent we met the first of many family groups travelling home into the countryside that we would see. A few Priuses, a dozen or more people, many questions funnelled through the one person who spoke English, lots of smiles and gifts of food – always enjoyable.

Often a group photo as well.

A splendid afternoon of pleasant riding across the vast landscape…

Over the last little rise we dropped to the Bugsein River and set about finding a campsite away from the relatively busy dirt road. Think we found a pretty good one to cap off an excellent first day on the route Rachel and Ian had put together.

(I was lucky to have shoes at the end of the day – having taken them off to cross the river, my knots were subpar and off they went. I found one pretty quickly, but the other took a long time for us to find – I was pleased Ian did find it! A nice walk down the beautiful river was certainly a silver lining to the rather amusing predicament.)