A late start to the day to get a big breakfast at the nearby restaurant – much appreciated.

Fairly standard fare.

Not so standard – the fried bread particularly good.

I was pleased, anyway. (Rachel’s photo.)

Down the valley we went to join the Orkhon again and follow its left side towards Kharkorin and a rest day. All the traffic seemed to be on the other side of the river – we soon found out why, having to negotiate a number of washed out stream beds where the road was no more. This made for some interesting riding, and occasional pushing. Unusual signs of flash flooding down this stretch. Between these bits the riding was good, with occasional climbs up around cliffs; the headwind started to nag a bit, but did provide some cooling.

Happened upon some Bronze Age deer stones.

A ford of the Orkhon was marked on our maps, but keeping an eye out for that was fruitless – the river was too high. Approaching town, various monuments and tourist facilities started to appear across the river – but we had to find our way around a sandy section of river flats.

Stopping on the approach to the bridge waiting for the others, I was beckoned from quite some distance to a collection of vehicles on the river bank. A delightful family group (five vehicles, at least twenty people of all ages) travelling west from Ulaanbaatar were finishing up a large lunch and plied us with masses of food. Just as well we didn’t have far to ride, as a hot meaty soup, milk tea, peaches and candy were offered and gratefully accepted. A few of the family spoke varying degrees of English, so communication was more satisfying than usual – our Mongolian language ability still woeful. Some of the younger of the group had a go at riding our loaded bikes – went well enough, although the power of hydraulic brakes was a little surprising to them!

Waving farewell as we rode across the bridge to Kharkorin.

A few kilometres later we were at our guesthouse, where we stayed in another ger, and looking forward to a big meal. Unfortunately that was to be the end of our bikepacking in Mongolia – as we wanted a rest day to look around Kharkorin and none of us wanted to ride into the traffic of Ulaanbaatar in a few days’ time. That meant we left a few days riding on the table, which was only regrettable in hindsight – there were plenty of other things to do, both activities and all the tasks of packing to leave.

A beautiful fresh morning with no signs of bears, wolves or flooding that our friend from the previous night seemed so concerned about.

Good herd of local yaks though.

Back down the tributary and the Orkhon valley it was, but the valleys were wide enough we barely retraced any of the same track.

At some stages the lava fields forced us off our bikes and to walk for short sections. Most of the time they were good fun to pick a path to ride through.

Just before the Orkhon confluence, a long stream appeared from seemingly nowhere. I waded through while the others went off to find an easier, possibly dryer, crossing. Not that it made much difference, it was wet feet anyway for the crossing of the river we’d been following. I completed the crossings with little difficulty and then waited fifteen minutes for the others to complete their excursion. I think they found that the new stream was spring fed, some hundreds of metres away.

Enough time to watch a UAZ make easy work of an arced crossing.

Even easier for this herd.

Rachel eventually came back to take an unexpected dip in the cool water and make a good attempt to get trapped under her bike, Ian taking a much longer route back to us. That entertainment over, a short detour to the Orkhon Falls – bit touristy, but worth a look.

Another day, another photo request from a passerby.

Mongolia what it is, we didn’t have head back to the main road – instead finding any track that would take us down the right side of the Orkhon. Turned out to be a bit of a windy path back to the bridge we’d crossed two days earlier – soon passed in a cloud of dust and noise by the organised tour of motorbikes that we’d tried to run away from back at the falls.

Strange for an ovoo to be on low ground.

Getting back to the gers at the bridge.

Having crossed the river, our long gradual descent got distinctly lumpy before we turned and climbed towards Tuvkhun.

The climb started to get a bit hot and steep, but there was a surprise when we discovered a restaurant at the park gates – where we were well fed, and learnt that we had to camp in the designated campground nearby. Pleasingly we found that they’d be open for breakfast too. Having pitched tents around the small picnic shelter, it was a short ride further up the valley towards the monastery.

Monastery in those rocks at the top of the hill – a steep three kilometres walk up through the trees.

An important old monastery, it didn’t make it through the Soviet era well – but was restored about thirty years ago. A bit tired from the hike up, there was a pleasing lack of fall protection on some precarious, scrambling paths from the main buildings up to the summit. Admittedly, it was hair-raising watching some of the older pilgrims trying to get across to some gap in the rocks – passing through this would lead to being born again.

(Rachel’s photo.)

The descent on foot was predictably sore on the cycling legs, the short roll down to camp was fun through the rocks – but the others were delayed after Ian’s tyre came off second best against a rock. The wind howled down the valley that evening, which made cooking and most things very difficult – although we did enjoy the company of a family from Ulaan Baatar, the son unexpectedly telling us that he races cross-country mountain bikes. The wind was doing my head in, so it was early to bed.