13-Jul-2005 -- The second confluence of the thirteen day trip, visited on day five. We had left the sand dunes of Khongoryn Els in the afternoon and driven across 15km of flat open country on a good dirt track before finding tyre tracks heading off towards the confluence – we were sure that we’d been beaten to it but the tracks only went to about 900 m from the location, bumping through saxaul forests and ‘gobi-bumps’ (small piles of vegetated sand that give the Gobi it’s name) before arriving at a stick-made shelter close to a water-hole.

From there we headed in on foot, walking towards the rapidly setting sun. The confluence was about 50 m away from a large dry river bed that would only flow after a heavy storm. The exact site was in a sandy patch of saxaul bushes. No gers were seen within several kilometres of the site though some motorbike tracks ran along the dry river bed.

Previously on this trip we visited 45N 105E. Later in the trip we visited 45N 100E.