10 23.34 : 36 52.25 test

So what happened after the rally? Stephen went via S Korea and India to finally make it back to Britain in Feb 2006. Apart from Christmas in the UK, Will stayed in Mongolia until August 2006 teaching English and then working for a Singaporean telecoms company to bring affordable communications to remote parts of Mongolian. In his spare time he put in place the arrangements for the 2006 Rally, continued when Stephen returned to Mongolia in June 2006 and spent 2 months organising the rest. Will returned to Olgii and visited Mana the eagle hunter and his family. we'll try and get a full update up soon. We both started work for our respective law firms in September so crazy trips abroad will have to be squeezed into annual leave, although Stephen is due to head off to Singapore in Jan for 4 months to work on secondment.

Since the drive, we have been very busy:
Will has an English teaching job in Ulaanbaatar and will be staying in Mongolia until the spring.
Stephen spent November sorting out the rally cars that had reached Ulaanbaatar. Unfortunately, the various Mongolian organisations are causing numerous problems and the auction has not happened to date. Will is continuing this work, as Stephen left Mongolia at the beginning of December for a couple of weeks in Korea on the way to India. To see continuing updates on Stephen's journey please visit: http://www.stephenedwards.co.uk/.

The photo gallery is now complete with all of the photos from the trip. If you enjoy the photos, please consider donating to one of our charities. Thanks.

We have reached our final destination, Ulaan Bataar, the coldest capital in the world!

The drive from Olgii, in the far west of Mongolia, to UB was around 1200km. The route took us across the northern edge of the Gobi desert. There was no road, just a series of rough jeep tracks.

The Gobi Desert is not a single expanse of sand dunes, but an enormous area of various arid ground with occasional water that supports life. A few isolated nomadic communities live in gers and survive on their herds sheep, horses, goats and camels.

We saw: the carcasses of fallen livestock; packs of vultures watching over herds of cattle looking for a weak animal; watched eagles swooping on prey; saw marmots scurrying across the ground; marvelled at little rodents as they darted across the track in front of our car; chased camels off the track (they run in a most amusing way when confronted with a Vauxhall Nova); camped in minus "a lot" temperatures; and got stuck in the sand. (Whilst digging ourselves out we watched as three vultures circled above to see if we were weak enough for dinner!)

More information when we have some photos uploaded.

After 76 days, 18 countries, 9600miles, and the equivalent of up and down Everest over 20 times, we are in Ulaan Bataar!

A short video attached from our first day in Mongolia.

After leaving Krygyzstan we spent one night in a hotel in Al Maty, Kazakhstan. From Al Maty we drove across the featureless landscape of the Kazakh Steppe and north into Russia, camping each night, and stopping in the occasional town for food and fuel. From Barnaul, Russia, we headed South East through the Russian Altai Mountains and reached the Mongolian border on Friday 23rd September. We camped for our 6th night just across the border in Mongolia and reached the town of Olgii on Sat. Mongolia is cold! Night temperatures are well below freezing and the daytime temperature is around 10degrees celsius!

We have updated the route page with the GPS track, and the car page with some details on repairs. We are working on uploading some newer photos in the next day or so.

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We are in Mongolia! After 6 nights camping we are staying in Olgii - a town where everyone wants to buy our car and fly us to UB!

Lunch in Pavlodar, N Kazakhstan after 1500km driving through empty Kaz Steppe.Been given a road atlas by a helpful guy! On to Russia.

The car brakes are fixed and we hope to leave Bishkek early tomorrow morning.  2000km of Kazakhstan Steppe awaits us!

We have returned to Bishkek. We spent 4 days near Lake Issy Kul: 1 day fishing on the lake and 2 days on a horse trek through the mountains. We also saw traditional Kyrgyz Eagle Hunting. Tomorrow we will be trying (for the third time!) to get the brakes bled and then we will be leaving for the drive through Kazakhstan to Russia.