Ulaan Baatar

Sorry I have been such a poor blogger for the last few days!

The Austrians who looked decidedly scruffy and dirty! The drive an open Bentley - no wonder they look like this! I saw them later and did not reconise them until they reminded me who they were.

Look how the yurts are mixed among the 'modern' houses. The yurts all have 'uithuisies' and I even saw one that looked like it was en-suite.

We arrived in UB by train and settled into the hotel. At least I could do all the washing. Matilda was due to arrive at 12:00 which she did but at the wrong side of the city. It was one of the most important public holidays on Saturday; the holiday for Mothers and Children! I like that. While waiting we went to the local supermarket and found that we could not buy any beer or any other liquor at all because of the holiday. In fact the hotel was not even allowed to sell any and Nomads ( the agents for endurorally) eventually witha lot of trouble managed to obtain a permit from the goverment, to have the cocktail party that evening! But the city centre was totally closed to traffic and the large trucks, carrying our cars were not allowed through at all. They therefore had to unload the cars and put them onto smaller trucks to bring them through to the Nomads premises. This all took time and eventually she was offloaded at about 15:00. After that nothing was done except peer at the broken halfshaft and bent rear axle! On top of all this we discovered that when Matilda had been loaded and secured on the truck in the middle of the Gobi, we had left to catch the train and the loaders, in their wisdom, had tied a steel cable around her and then secured her to the truck in this fashion. Well a steel cable leaves its mark and poor Matilda has lost paint, dented her grill and mudguard, had her back licence plate broken off, rear lights broken and looks a bit of a mess! All this is only cosmetic but what a thing to do to a beautiful girl!!!!

On the photo you can see the lone below her headlights and acros he r boot where the number plate should be!

 

We went back to the hotel and asked for an announcement asking for a wheel bearing that would fit our car ( the reason we did not have a spare was that we could not find one in Jhb. It is a very difficult size and was made only for the Chev cars of those years. Three other contestants very generously came up with offers but none were the correct size, so back to square one. ( We could do something about the axle but when the halfshaft broke and the wheel fell off, it totally ruined the wheel bearing.)

Helge Reitz of Nomads has been helpful and Ariunaa, in the office has been totally wonderful. She worked for Helge for many years and has recently got married and now living in Australia, but she came back for a month to help with this event.

Sunday broke, the rally continued, we stayed behind and tried to see what could be done. After really taking stock the men decided that what we needed was a replacement back axle. Ariunaa worked out a route through Mongolia for us to follow when Matilda is running well again and I spent the rest of the day in Ariunaa's office finding the coordinates of the little villages we need to go through.

While sitting there, a phone call came through that #54, a white Beetle, had rolled and had to be fetched. There are now 5 lots of participants sitting at the hotel with different plans of action. Two other have already shipped their cars home, bought some other car, transfered their numbers onto the new car and are riding with the rest. They are no longer competitors but are enjoying the travelling.

Robert spent most of the day driving with an interpreter to all the scrap heaps and looking for a second-hand rear axle. He really feels he has seen far worse than Kayalitsha. He even had to use one of their toilet pits which was apparently quite something! I won't describe it here! No Go. Until 1991 this country was one of the poorest in the world and under Russian protection so there just were not cars and definitely not American cars!

We have become good friends with Stan Gold and Brant Parsons in #64 ( white Porsche). He has a large collection (15 at the moment) of special Porsches and for years was on the board of the Disney Trust. They have broken mounting which is made of a special metal and cannot be welded or fixed here. They have put her on a truck and are driving her to the closest border with Russia, off loading her,driving her over the border, putting her on another truck which will drive day and night with 2 drivers to Novosibirsk. They will get a lift to the border and then take the Trans- Siberian rail to Novosibrisk where they will fix her.

Monday has dawned and Robert left early for Nomads leaving me with instructions to sort our belongings into: must have, maybe, leave behind. We must seriously reduce the weight! Stan Gold and Brant want to try to leave for the border as soon as possible so we all went off to the Russian Embassy to see if they would allow us into their country a day or two earlier. We were told only Mongolians in the morning and other nationalities must come back at 14:00. We dutifully did this and went with our story. At first they said it would be fine and sent us off to fill in forms but when we got back they would not conaider it unless we had a letter of invitation from the organization who arranged it in Russia. Back at the hotel I am trying to do this but cannot seem to get through to them. I thought it a good idea to get this forward extension just in case we need it.

Pa has just returned from Nomads - very tired but more satisfied. They found a rear axle from a Korean military jeep, name unknown, which appears to be in good condition! A very good welder is busy with it now. Robert will have dinner now with Stan, Brant and me and then go back to Nomads at 21:30. As things stand now we might be on our way very early on Wednesday. They have about 15 hours of daylight which we will try to utilise.

Tomorrow is our 48th wedding anniversary - wonder if Robert will remember!! Doubt it particularly as he has other things on his mind!

Robert has now gone of to Nomads to see how they are getting on. I am finishing the blog and cuddling up with my kindle!