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05Sep-16

Durham Mongols – Did they make it?

Pushing through mongolia

With Ben and Mikey halfway to Moscow, James is left to long for the road and ponder the extraordinary journey they have just been on.

 

Trying to quantify it is proving extremely difficult and the full experiences and lessons they have learnt from their faintly ridiculous gallivanting will not sink in for a while.

 

In the meantime, before Ben and Mikey make it back with further stories to tell and highlights to relive. James has briefly described what happened to the team for their last few days in Mongolia before he left which we have written below

Durham mongols mountain trail

“We had a very special few last days travelling together, whereas with everything we do, they were beset with their eventualities and bizarre twists.

 

Since our last post we spent the most of our remaining journey travelling in a very merry convoy with a Scottish team, a Dutch team and an Italian team. We stopped for ‘Happy Hour’ at 5pm every day where we pulled over, had a drink and enjoyed a few amuse bouches[sic] made up of the finest local cuisine and imitations of the world renowned British delicacies, the Twix, Mars Bar and Snickers.

 

In this company we were able to put more miles behind us each day than we had expected, so ended up rather closer to Ulaanbaatar sooner than planned. As a result of this, we decided to press on, so I could get back sooner to train and Ben and Mikey had more time for their drive back along with more of a buffer at the other end for job applications.

 

Following the decision that we were going to go for it we went on to brave another night drive, another stint of a full through the night, 26 hours of driving all whilst enduring the partially roadless Mongolia, police checkpoints and countless miles of washboard tracks which probably mean that we will all need to see a chiropractor when all back and well. I am very grateful that Ben and Mikey agreed to this. They are truly the most superb of friends and anyone who has the pleasure of having them in their life is extremely lucky.

 

On the whole the journey through the beautiful vast Mongolian plains went without incident. We were continuously awe struck by the views, the car held up fantastically and Ben only beached us on two wheels once more.

 

The only problems came on the morning of my flight. We got another puncture on one of the ‘indestructible’ rally tyres and were then pulled over by the police for no apparent reason other than they wanted money. The policemen planned on holding us up with Ben’s passport and our Mongolian insurance document as ransom until we gave them $20. By this stage in the trip we had begun to lose our patience with these checkpoints. Mikey rather liked the approach adopted by a French team at the Iranian border of holding the horn down and waiting, with the mentality of they’ll break first and promptly crossed his arms and fell asleep. Ben and I on the other hand were not in a particularly patient mood, I didn’t want to miss my flight and well Ben was hungry. We both let our respective Irish and Scottish sides out in a brief furore that led to the policemen getting angry, giving our documents back before thrusting his baton in our faces and looking at us very aggressively.

 

Having made my flight in good time eventually, we parted ways over a cheese and ham pretzel, leaving Ben and Mikey to depart to Russia and eventually home. They are doing splendidly at the moment and I’m sure will be home full of stories to tell soon.

Durham mongols finish line

We are incredibly grateful to everyone who helped us complete this journey. We would certainly have not been able to make it were it not for your support and look forward to seeing you all upon our unanimous return.”

Huge congratulations go out from everyone at the Bone and Joint Centre to the triumphant trio, and we are delighted to have played our part in helping them achieve their goals. They have also released an amusing summary of their trip in numbers which we have written about here.