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!

The skies cleared overnight, I woke to the sounds of munching outside my tent – surely the others weren’t up already and eating so close. Poking my head out, we were surrounded by breakfasting yaks! By the time I got out the door, they’d dispersed somewhat.

Heading back to the track, with some indications it might be a bit rocky.

It was more than twenty kilometres of rocky descent – good fun, but not quick.

Some big ger camps broke up the green.

Holding pen which was mostly fenced by rocks.

I was surprised to suddenly see a scrawny wee fox running across the track – the only one we saw.

Valley starting to widen a bit now.

Unusually, we met a group of four bikepackers – we’d only seen a lone bikepacker, days ago, so far. Even more unusually, they were from Bengaluru – we enjoyed sharing stories of past and current trips. We were pleased to hear the route was about to get smoother for us. We may have couched our stories of just how rough things were about to get for them – especially as half the group was on skinnier-tyre gravel bikes.

A good spot to pause and watch bikers, Priuses and cattle go past.

Too easy.

More large ger camps around here too.

Here began one of the most fun sections of mountain-biking of the trip.

The track suddenly became cross-country-esque, twisting, climbing and dipping through a series of small hills. I had a ball trying to chase down a LandCruiser that had earlier passed us – almost caught it too.

We turned east, missing the town of Chuluut, and found the faint track through a small basin before struggling up the steep exit onto a plateau between rivers. With storm clouds gathering to the north, it seemed a good time to lunch before we got soaked.

Making a concerted effort to outrun the storm, unsure where we thought we would hide, good progress was being made down into and out of the next valley. That is, until a passing Prius (what else?) passenger waved us down and promptly rushed around offering us hot milk tea and cheesy yak treats. Yum!

Unfortunately the couple were camera shy, but here’s the milk tea.

Not so camera shy.

The rain did catch us eventually, but having donned rain gear it amounted to nothing.

More cyclists! We had a bemusing conversation with a German cycle tourist on a very heavily loaded and skinny-tyred touring bike, travelling with his teenaged daughter (didn’t hear a peep from her, she didn’t look in the least bit amused). I struggled to comprehend how they were doing this route at about twenty kilometres per day and how they could carry enough food to make that possible. We were surprised to learn there was a store, recently opened in an old school, just ahead.

We found a few gers around the old school building, and were promptly invited into one of them. The son and daughter of the women whose home this was, and their children, were visiting from Australia and Austria for the summer so there were some interesting chats and accents for being in northern Mongolia. Alongside the normal tasty food and tea offered, Swiss chocolate was a new one!

Not really needing anything, we got a few things from the store – as such things are welcome sights in the middle of nowhere when travelling such distances and are to be supported. Out of one valley and into the next, it was the biggest climb of the day – but a piddling one really.

Still, worth stopping at the the ovoo.

A steeper, faster descent than earlier in the day.

Back to the flat lands heading for a larger river than we’d seen for a while.

Soon after getting near it, we turned off the road to find somewhere to camp by the river. Unexpectedly, it was somewhat in flood – but we found a campsite where we got dealt to by silent mosquitoes. Dinner became rushed as another storm approached. Heavy rain drops and the crack of thunder sent us scurrying to eat in our tents. Soon we were surrounded by cracking thunder and lightning – easily the closest I’ve been to such an explosive display for a long time, if ever. It eventually passed and we were all unscathed – an exciting end to another grand day.