Mongolia - Part Three
So….that final video. The idea had been to have my team mate Matt run in slow motion towards the car as it crept forward, they would embrace, and the whole thing would be cut to sappy music in our video. I drove and the first take went well, though our camera man missed it. So we rolled again with me filming. This was a mistake.
My other team mate misjudged his speed slightly and, essentially, ran his friend down with the car. In his defense, Matt, was equally stupid, as despite shouting quite clearly ‘uh, this is going to hurt’ he decided that instead of jumping out of the way, he would continue and try to clear it. He jumped too late, caught his knee on a spotlight and rolled gazelle like into the windscreen. Shaun stopped.
To this day it amazes me how something so simple could go so seriously wrong, so quickly. Thankfully the only damage was a nasty cut to Matt’s knee (patched up), a smashed windscreen (duct taped to help the laminate hold) and a feeling of immense stupidity for everyone involved. It could have been a lot worse. The Tigers laughed their heads off. And yes, it’s all on video (feature film coming soon). ☺
With the windscreen (and Matt) repaired, we arrived at a very wide river with the Volvo Ambulance of the Kiwi Vikings on the opposite bank; the kind of river you drive over a bridge for, really. A local guy was guiding people across. I kept it it in second at a steady 20MPH or so, making sure the bow wave stayed below the grille and didn’t stop. Once safely on the other side, I had a chat with the Kiwis.
‘How’s it going guys?’
‘Ahhh, game over mate, we’re totally f***ed!’
He’s a Kiwi though so even delivering this news he seemed incredibly pleased. They showed me a video of his co driver (now out looking for a truck) who had taken the river a bit quick, created a massive bow wave that went to windscreen height and flooded the engine. Then he tried to restart it. The Ambulance was 2 tonnes of dead weight, such a shame. It made it to UB on a truck though!
We said goodbye and headed east, as we had done for some weeks now. With us were two Suzuki Swifts and a Suzuki Vitara from the river crossing, and ahead of us six or seven serpent like sandy trails heading over the hill into the horizon. It’s pretty mad to see – imagine a seven-lane highway of sand, where the lanes aren’t straight and cross over, regularly. Unfortunately pictures were impossible due to the speed and the bumps, but all five cars, taking individual lanes, pretty much ‘raced’ each other that day.
With nobody around, we hit 50-60 quite comfortable, bouncing along those tracks playing an infinite game of catch up – the ‘lead’ was determined by which path you took, and sometimes cars could be 200-300ft apart, side by side. SO much fun. Since it’s service our car was running like a rocket ship, and after so long with a rubbish car, that day, on that track, it felt like a WRX. Honestly.
We drove quite late that night and stopped to camp about 400KM short of Ulaan Baatar. The Tigers decided to push on, as the ‘tarmac’ supposedly started soon. Another cold night, which was in fact to be our last on the road, and we woke up to find our battery entirely flat with no chance of starting it. Shaun and I ran about a kilometer to a Ger on the hill, where we could see a pickup truck, with our jump leads. A wife and children were there, but unfortunately not her husband, and she could not drive. As we sauntered back to our car, a beautiful site – a very loud Felicia in CAT colours coming over the hill with a massive Australian flag flying on it’s roof. Rallyiers! Shaun and I started sprinting.
When we got to our car the Ozzies helped jump her and we exchanged stories. These guys were awesome. Starting out as a five car convoy, they were down to two. One of them was in Khovd, the Felicia we had tried to rebuild – what a coincidence! Since losing three cars, they had piled 5 into this one and 6 into a Hijet van which was somewhere behind them. They had also been a 2 car / 3 motorbike team (the latter purchased on the road) but these had also died and been thrown away! Best of all…they had been in Mongolia 11 days due to some poor navigation…450 miles the wrong way. They had been 70 miles from the Chinese border before it occurred to them they needed to turn around. That Felicica did 900 miles more than any other car on the rally. Legends.
We convoyed together from here with just 400KM to go. Tarmac appeared, but as is the way on this side of the planet, they were building the whole thing at once. So every now and then there would be a huge dirt pile across the whole road, forcing you back onto the old sandy tracks either side. We were just 50KM out when our roof rack decided enough was enough. We had been tightening it up hourly all morning, but after one particularly heavy brake to avoid a ditch, the whole lot slid off the roof, bounced off our bonnet and landed in front of the car.
We stopped and all looked at each other. She’s gotta go. We took what we needed from it and left that roof rack by the roadside, but I am certain someone will have had it within ten minutes! Our car felt so naked without it, but needs must….
It was on the afternoon of August 15th 2009 that The Unprofessionals rolled into Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia…and got promptly lost. Ulaan Baatar is…interesting. Apart from Sukhbaatar Square, which is fairly imposing, UB (as foreigners tend to know it) features plenty of soviet era buildings, open ditches and insane driving. Sadly the Russians demolished most of the history, including anything resembling a temple, so not much remains that isn’t grey or square. Lot’s being built though, as is the case with many of the places we have been. However it was home to the finish line, a beautiful sight!
W332RPC did us proud; nearly 9000 miles across Europe and Asia, never failing us no matter what we threw out it. As mad as it sounds, I will really, really miss that Accent. We signed the car over to the local organizers, where it would benefit the Christina Noble Childrens Foundation along with the money we raised along the way. Mongol Rally cars are fixed up and either donated to the charity for aid purposes or auctioned off, in which case they receive the proceeds. With the volume of Accents in Ulaan Baatar I like to think ours was definitely fixed and is now living a new life. So how to celebrate this epic journey? By shooting at stuff of course ☺
I still can’t quite believe it’s all over; a year of organizing, five weeks of unbelievable experiences and a lifetime of fond memories. To anyone considering it, I’d do it again tomorrow – well, maybe in a few weeks as I could do with a nap…
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- Adventure’s Sum
- Driving Dotty
- Driving to Mongolia
- Herohead (With Our Old Car)
- Mongolian Rovers
- Official Rally Site
- Rolling Cones
- Sandpit Ninjas
- Team Extreme
- Team Hairy Legs
- Team Mid Life Crisis
- Team Mighty Wight
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- You Khan Not Be Serious
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