BUMPY!!!

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We spent 8 days travelling the mongolian countryside in an old russian van, built like a tank and driven by Gana our mongolian driver who was an awesome mechanic. We could have done with him 3 months earlier when we ground to a halt in Germany.

These guys lash across the rough gobi terrain which means many punctures, leaks, new gearboxes....Each nite while we sat down, in the ger generally to mutton stew they tinkered away with the mechanics. Saw some amazing skies. It's so dark out there with nothingness around that the sky is so dazzling. Of course as usual could still only confidently locate the plough! Most of the gobi topography consists of rock and dry scrub. Only about 3% looks like that classic hollywood desert which we saw twice-once when we visited these large sand dune areas in the east and subsequently when we took the trans mongolian to Beijing where the gobi stretches down to China

The other interesting place we visited in the gobi are the Flaming Cliffs (sublime red canyon, similar to the Olgas in Oz but on a smaller scale.) What looks like rock is actually quite brittle and breaks away underfoot so it is rapidly being eroded. But interestingly here was the first place that dinosaur eggs were found back in 1921. Apparently they were scattered liberally in the area and I think I may have found a fraction of a specimen so maybe I will present it to the national history museum when I get back!!!

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