Having managed to time things right so we get to a local festival, having just missed many Nadaam celebrations earlier in the month, the objective of the day was to find the Orkhon Valley Yak Festival. Its exact location on a map was elusive, but riding up the valley until we found a big crowd was sure to be enough. But first, resupply was delayed by shops in town not opening until nine o’clock – which gave a chance to mosey around continuing my fascination with haunting overgrown playgrounds, elaborate fences, and colourful buildings.

I’ve concluded that grass in spaces, without grazing animals, is kept long due to the novelty of grass growing for short stretches of the year when it’s not covered in snow.

But I still find overgrown playgrounds disturbing.

Colourful block wall hiding the town heat plant – this one obviously coal-fired, I assume providing central hot water supply as in other towns and cities we’d visited.

Eventually we’d restocked for two days and began up the valley.

Easy going intially.

Following whatever track we could find became more fun as they wound their way through lava strewn areas.

Plenty of yaks, fittingly.

We could tell we were on the right track due to an uncommonly high number of people dressed in traditional finery riding past on motorcycles.

Still going, but with an ice cream stop in the warmth, surely the festival is to be found before those hills.

Found it!

Yet, in the other direction…

About as much yak action as we saw.

It was difficult to work out what the yak festival was about as the animal seemed barely featured, and disappointingly no yak comestibles to be bought. But it was good fun people watching, the locals that is – despite seeing the most westerners for weeks.

Even some Mongolia wrestling (the national sport), although what we saw seemed mostly posturing, saluting the flag, waving to the crowd and little wrestling.

What wrestling we did see was incomprehensible!

Of course, there was a tricked out old Prius around.

Appealing, but difficult to carry and even worse as a riding shoe.

Enough crowds, time to find somewhere quieter to camp.

Off up a side valley towards the Eight Lakes, a trekking attraction only accessible by foot and hoof.

I was keen to see how far up we could get towards the first lake, but that seemed a non-starter so we turned off and found a nice campsite by a river. Just as tents were going up a student staying nearby came and introduced himself, and was mightily concerned the river would flood overnight and we should seek higher ground.

Spoiler – this area did not flood overnight.

But neither did this one, and the mounds of rock did provide a little shelter from the breeze.

The student recommended we ride further up the valley, so off we went and were not disappointed.

Some good waterfall action along this stretch.

A rare grave marker…

…in the middle of a field.

The valley opened up and just kept going.

Eventually we had to turn for camp and dinner.

Our friend returned and it was interesting to hear of his life as a young student and how he’d done some compulsory national service – border guard in wintry conditions well below freezing point at some mountain outpost sounded no picnic.

But coats such as these helped.

Bit heavy to load on a bike though.

Our new friend spoiled us with clotted cream – finally, some yak products for the day!

A cool morning greeted us outside our tents, the long wildflowers still sodden from overnight rain. Pretty wet by the time we’d packed up and negotiated the bog below the hot springs.

Did manage to not get any wetter negotiating these slippery little bridges.

(Rachel’s photo.)

Having backtracked to the stupa we visited, down the left of the river we went trying to find a suitable crossing point.

We did get safely across, but even then the best route up to the next pass was not as apparent as earlier in the trip. Normal transmission resumed and the last part of the climb over this pass got steep enough to have us pushing and warming up a little – but the warmth quickly disappeared on the ride down to the next river.

I even stopped to put some thicker gloves and extra layers on, but that was somewhat negated by falling in a rocky creek as we started to parallel the river!

Over that river, the initial gradual climb and cloud breaking up did help to warm us as lunch approached. The group of Malaysian tourists in a large convoy of new LandCruisers found us quite the spectacle – to my bemusement.

This is completely normal, surely?

Pushing again from here as the surface got slippy and steep.

No pushing down there.

Having crossed that basin, the exit was strangely twisty and not just straight up.

More walking though.

Probably our last time through two thousand metres altitude on the trip, soon dropping to the Orkhon Valley.

A fun descent it was too, strange to see a permanent building out in these parts.

Starting to look for a campsite before the Orkhon, we didn’t really have quite enough supplies so headed for the bridge (no fording this river).

Milling around a small ger collection on a busy road over the bridge, we were kindly gifted some beers by a passing motorist – somehow they survived the bumpy lava strewn ride into town ten kilometres away. Town, Bat-Ulzii, seemed a bit quiet but we found food at a place that doubled as one of the many Kapoake (replace the p) places we’d seen. While we were too early for a spot of singing, somehow this turned out to be one of the, if not the, best meals we had on the road – I’m still unsure what exactly it was though.

While we ate, an intense dust storm blew up from the north. Lingering over our meals longer, it finally eased and a nice campsite south of town was found to end one of our longer days.

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.

(Rachel’s photo.)

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.

(Rachel’s photo.)

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!

And thickshakes! (Rachel’s photo.)