01-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 started at 47°N 105°E. This is CP 6. The previous point is 46°N 99°E.

If anything on earth resembles a moonscape – maybe this is it. The climate is certainly not suitable for humans and there is little water.

At the point we had to deal with a small petrol leak from one of the storage cans – sunshine heating up the part-filled tank! Washing my hands in snow after was a mistake though.

From here we leave N46 after a rich vein of 4 points. If time had permitted we would have moved north and taken a similar number on N47 but we had deadlines to meet and not enough time to do everything. From this point the GPS became useful as the road was lost completely and we had more than 150 km to cover to reach Altai. We finally left the outlying hills of the Khangai mountains of central Mongolia and moved onto the plains of the west. These plains have low rainfall and the rivers which drain the surrounding mountains all lead eventually to salt lakes. We arrived in Altai at 8pm on 1st March after 3 long days and 6 points. About 1700km completed, nearly 9000 to go. Altai was our first hotel. One suite was sufficient for 4 of us and included television, a shower (almost) and a water heater. Luxury. After a good rest and milk-rice for breakfast we set off toward the west and two more points – one easy one difficult. The story continues at 47°N 94°E.