Ulan Baator

After 42 days, 8440 miles, broken suspension, blown tires, broken transfer box mountings, scorching deserts, sub-zero nights, 4 ft river crossings, crooked cops and endless roads we've made it! Welcomed into Dave's bar with a pint and a full English breakfast. We can't believe it's over. And it's not. We've still got to get ourselves to Beijing for the flight home.

Sweet sweet tarmac

Finally on a piece of good road after 6 days of Mud and Gr(sh)it our spirits have lifted enormously as we make the final 500km dash for UB. Location: Arvayheer

Tough

Toughest day's driving yet. Flooded roads, broken suspension and river crossing following torrential rain are making progress very difficult. 3 days to UB City? Location: N 46deg11.637min E 100deg43.115min.

Rain on the Plain

It's raining heavily on the plain, heading towards Bayanhongor. Finally got gearbox oil (via the gear stick). Broken front suspension. 4 hours to fix. Tough.

Altai City, Mongolia

The cars in our convoy have taken a real beating. The Mitchell Brothers are onto their 6th set of leaf springs and progress is slow. The stutter bumps are like a pneumatic drill to the cars, punctuated with axle eating pot holes. Our spirits are still good except in banks where they won't change our money (possibly because we haven't washed for 4 days).

Fortunately the nights are warming up and the transfer case mounts have been bodged with an inner tube and Araldite.

We've see illegally sold rally cars which is a little down heartening but onwards we trudge towards UB and a cold beer.

650 miles to go!

Slow progress

Covered 300 miles in 3 days. Forded rivers. Pulled friends out. Washed in rivers. Should be in UB in 5days. Location Khovd City.

Mongolia!

We're in Khovd, Western Mongolia. We've been traveling for 3 days and have barely covered 300 miles. Not because the roads are terrible - they're not, nothing like as bad as Kazakhstan. More because we're with a convoy on vehicles that are going slowly because bits are hanging off. The Mitchell bros' SJ has had no rear suspension for 2 days. Our transfer box is still untied and bouncing around underneath the car. Four wheel drive now only works in low ratio mode.

We've done a couple of river crossings, which didn't cause us any problems. We towed our 2 wheel drive friends, Team Ski (http://teamski.awardspace.com) out of a spot of trouble.

We're heading into the Gobi desert next...

Blog again in a few days.