02-Mar-2005 -- This is the story of a point and a journey. The journey is from Ulaanbaatar (UB) in Mongolia to Kirriemuir in Scotland, covering 110 degrees of longitude and visiting 15 CPs on the way. The story starts at 47°N 105°E. This is CP 7. The previous point is 46°N 98°E.

After a false start out of Altai – heading south-west instead of north-west, we made good progress across the barren Khurengeen steppe towards Khovd. At 2.00pm we found ourselves 8 km south of the point, as had Stephen Stewart before us. After some dithering we decided to make the detour across steppe to the point. The point lies on a featureless plain 30 kilometres NE of Darvi soum (Khovd). The journey from the point to Darvi itself took more than an hour due to drifting snow. In Darvi we were unable to find any hot food so set off westward again. Maybe the lack of food affected our brains but we were unable to find the road leading west from the soum centre. The track of our route shows a big dogleg south-west before we hit the mountains. Then we had to go downhill (north-west) till we met the road again. Mongolian roads are normally confusing – in the snow or dark they can become very difficult!

Next point 47°N 93°E.