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.)

After five days of traveling from the south of New Zealand to the north of Mongolia, we were itching to get riding – even if it was a rather damp morning. Somehow my wish to travel a bit further north to Lake Khovsgol (Mongolia’s largest lake, holding almost seventy percent of the country’s freshwater) for a look made it into our plans – I generally stayed out of route planning in Mongolia. Doing a three-day trip north, where we didn’t have to carry all our gear, worked well as a shakedown and reintroduction to bikepacking.

Even the locals were looking bedraggled as we set off into the rain.

Not many photos initially as the light rain got heavier and heavier over the main pass of the day.

Being on a rare sealed road helped with all the water around and the traffic was light and considerate – at times very friendly with a lot of toots, waves and occasional offers of food and lifts. Bit of a shock for the legs riding a loaded bike again, especially as the road would be a gentle gradient for long periods before suddenly climbing steeply to get over a hill – no switchbacks here.

Pleased to find a tearooms for lunch after one such steep climb, especially as the rain had cleared and it was getting hot.

Typical broad valley with a short, sharp, steep climb out.

Ger camps, of varying sizes, would become a common sight for us – families out for the summer with their animals grazing. We saw signs of some of the forests dying too, never found out why.

A little clamber above the stalls at the top of another rise.

Throughout the afternoon the northerly strengthened to make riding rather hard work, before the heavens opened again as we got to Hatgal – the town at the foot of the lake.

We found a small restaurant to shelter from the rain in and started the fun of trying to decipher the menu – this time with some help from a child at the next table. Fed, there was not much appetite left for riding further and camping in the rain – so we found a guesthouse and settled into a ger for the night.

Of course the sun came out; but after we’d showered and warmed up, it did help to dry some things out.

Bigger than my tent. Nice to have after an alarmingly tiring day first up!

A clearer day next dawned, as we sought supplies for a short ride around the lake and camping overnight.

Decaying buildings continued to intrigue me.

As do contrastingly colourful ones.

Leaving town, we soon turned off the previous day’s route to cross Egiin Gol – which drains the lake, the water taking over a thousand kilometres to get to Lake Baikal which is only two hundred kilometres away.

One little rise,

before dropping to the lakeside.

Turning off the gravel road to get closer to the lake, the tracks we were following soon turned to wetland and bogs. Progress slowed as we tried to find the best route through. That meant we had plenty of time to look across the lake to the colourful town and meet our first herd of yaks.

Through some pretty deserted tourist summer camps (Hi De Hi vibes), a fairly flat rise then took us to a deserted area where we could find just enough dry ground to make camp.

Not a bad spot to sleep in a new tent for the first time.

But still many hours left of the day, unloaded we headed north to find a view up the lake (it’s well over a hundred kilometres long) from the Wishing Monument.

Sign didn’t say we couldn’t go through the imposing, closed gates.

Wildflowers!

Can confirm, it’s a big lake. Russia just beyond the end of it.

Up to the Wishing Monument.

It was surprisingly busy, noisy speedboats bringing people from the more developed western side of the lake.

As uncrowded a snap of the monument I could get.

Afternoon storm starting to get a bit closer.

Back to find where we’d stashed the bikes and try to outrun the storm.

Fairly typical surface in these parts.

We returned to camp just as the rain started, hid for a while in our tents before it cleared again for some swimming and cooking. Day after dawned clear and we enjoyed a slight tailwind back towards Murun, first taking the longer and less-boggy route back to the road.

Remembering some passing snaps of the holiday camps.

And friendly yaks.

We didn’t have time to go and see the reindeer people up in the mountains near the Siberian border, but some had brought their animals down – but tied up with nothing to do, it was faintly depressing seeing them so.

We returned to the same teahouse for lunch, and managed more conversation than the previous day. I was pleased to try these pockets filled with minced meat of some description – after being denied at dinner two nights before. The salty milky tea became a favourite too.

A lot of vultures hanging out.

Back through fifty degrees north, hundred degrees east.

Trying to outrun another afternoon storm – successfully this time.

A much easier ride back – net descent helps, along with even quieter roads as most people seem have gotten to the summer Naadam festival – that we managed to keep missing by a day or so everywhere we went.

Back at the guesthouse in Murun, we reclaimed our extra gear and set about spreading out and packing for the touring proper after a successful shakedown.