Pre Race

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Bole China, a small city, Approx 500,000 people, 80 kilometres from the Kazakhstan border, with more construction going on than probably the whole of New Zealand put together. Somebody ordered a new city built, so there be the building of a new city. Thousand upon thousands of apartments, glittering shopping malls, green parks, visions of the next few years, and then the people will come, are coming, swamping the sometimes unruly hinterlands. It might be interesting to have a look at Tibet ? It really takes your breath away, when they decide to do something, it gets done. We will have fast trains across the country, ka ching done. Express ways from coast to western borders, thank you. A modern colonisation of Africa, job well in hand. As Hamish keeps saying you ain't seen nothing yet. Most of the Chinafiles I have met talk of implosion sometime ?

As I mentioned it was 24 hour travel time to Urumqi where I overnighted. The only thing of note in that long trip was making sure that I had the right terminal, sub terminal and gate to the right gate at the enormous Guangzhou airport. The Chinese have been very courteous and subbed their signs with English and numbers, that should correspond with the boarding pass in hand. Urumqi, Capital of the Xinjiang province, also had the spanking new airport, as I believe did every other Chinese city, all within a few years. The shower, hard bed and beautiful sheets were a joy that night. A 10k run next morning was notable for the chewy air but also for the amount of industry going on, man swallowing holes in the middle of footpaths, noticeable after safety safety Australia, an overladen truck jammed under an overpass, men and women walking and scootering to work, shovels over their shoulders, backbone of the whole beast their millions of cheap labour.

Spent a bit of nervous time wondering how I was going to get through the next airport smoothly with only the minimum of documentation so emailed China travel to send through all the info in Chinese and English which in the end worked a treat. Necessary equipment for the those totally bereft of any mandarin is the iphone translation app, could provide even the barest minimum of communication.

Wednesday arrival to Saturday has been a steady meeting a lovely friendly group of people, long walks or jogs in the mornings, lots of noodles and rice with some quite disastrous aftermaths of hot spicy foods, looks good in the pretty menu pictures, trying to get to grips with a new computer, windows 8, and faulty Ethernet and trying to take it easy with a sound 8 every night.

Have to say a little tingle of excitement beginning to creep in, that was until they introduced a medical team of about 12 all emergency, ER , types, but of course we are a long way from grade A medical and the owner did take a bit of a hit over the Australian, Kimberly 5 day race.

Midday Saturday.

All check ins completed, Tagged, bagged, ready to tossed out into the hills

Final pack weight 12 kgs, OMG how did that happen. Keep it for day one anyway and see how it feels, and what the food requirements will be, as that is all there is to toss out.

Time to strap up and man up, will pop in for short bursts during the race ( event ) and put some photos in afterwards.

See you tomorrow team. Whoop !! Whoop !!

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Photos

Hardly a soul
on these roads yet

common site
the Russian hangover block buildings

Raymond
room mate

himself
with 12 kgs of gear

Samantha
Samantha, one of organisers and Mongolian ultra Angel of Mercy