Up nice and early again, joined pretty early by a pair of South Africans, Jeandre & Adina (brother & sister) who are also on their way to Mary! We told them they were on the wrong road and they seemed in quite a hurry to get to the border - They need to be out of Turkmenistan a day before us - so they turned around and sped off again.
The Canuckleheads have just left us, Bruce made an executive decision to head back to Ashgabat and past Darvaza (the route they had originally planned) Alex didn't seem too happy, but they've gone now.
After quite a bit of doubling and tripling back on ourselves, we're on the road to Mary again! Now looking for the old city of Merv.
Just eaten a bizarre meal: Soup, lots of bread and a kebab. At a tiny little place at the side of the road, We had stopped to ask if we were on the right road to Merv (we are) then TB4 died about 500m down the road. Instead of wait for 20 mins in the baking heat of the semi-desert, with no shade, we piled all 4 of us into Rudolph and drove back to the eaterie. The mutton soup was a little different, but it was a tasty enough meal, I'm stuffed now. When we got back to TB4 there were another 2 rally cars pulled up, team morris2mongolia - They'd just stopped to see if anyone was around or if there was a problem and were about to set off again when we returned.
We convoyed with morris2mongolia for a little while, laughing at their very proper use of radio-speak but we've stopped for a toilet stop in the desert and they've shot off because they don't want to wait 20 mins for the thunderbird to cool down. Some locals stopped for a look around our cars and a mimed chat while we were waiting, and now we're back on the road.
30mins down the road now and we've pretty much run the walkie talkie batteries flat just by talking utter nonsense in a very proper way. We also just passed a petrol station with a thermometer reading 47 C!! No wonder we've drunk about 2 gallons of water each!
It's getting dark now so we've found somewhere to pull off the road and pitch camp, it's going to be far too hot to get to sleep for a while yet.
We've spent the last couple of hours just sitting on a pile of sand playing with cameras (Hugh's camera has a 10 second shutter time so we wrote our names with torchlight!) and generally fooled around to pass the time.
I've decided to just sleep under the tarp tonight, it's far too hot for the tent or car. Everyone else seems to like the tarp idea, so all 4 of us are going to sleep under it. Good thing we bought a GIANT tarp! (3m x 5m).
Photos from the day.
The Canuckleheads have just left us, Bruce made an executive decision to head back to Ashgabat and past Darvaza (the route they had originally planned) Alex didn't seem too happy, but they've gone now.
After quite a bit of doubling and tripling back on ourselves, we're on the road to Mary again! Now looking for the old city of Merv.
Just eaten a bizarre meal: Soup, lots of bread and a kebab. At a tiny little place at the side of the road, We had stopped to ask if we were on the right road to Merv (we are) then TB4 died about 500m down the road. Instead of wait for 20 mins in the baking heat of the semi-desert, with no shade, we piled all 4 of us into Rudolph and drove back to the eaterie. The mutton soup was a little different, but it was a tasty enough meal, I'm stuffed now. When we got back to TB4 there were another 2 rally cars pulled up, team morris2mongolia - They'd just stopped to see if anyone was around or if there was a problem and were about to set off again when we returned.
We convoyed with morris2mongolia for a little while, laughing at their very proper use of radio-speak but we've stopped for a toilet stop in the desert and they've shot off because they don't want to wait 20 mins for the thunderbird to cool down. Some locals stopped for a look around our cars and a mimed chat while we were waiting, and now we're back on the road.
30mins down the road now and we've pretty much run the walkie talkie batteries flat just by talking utter nonsense in a very proper way. We also just passed a petrol station with a thermometer reading 47 C!! No wonder we've drunk about 2 gallons of water each!
It's getting dark now so we've found somewhere to pull off the road and pitch camp, it's going to be far too hot to get to sleep for a while yet.
We've spent the last couple of hours just sitting on a pile of sand playing with cameras (Hugh's camera has a 10 second shutter time so we wrote our names with torchlight!) and generally fooled around to pass the time.
I've decided to just sleep under the tarp tonight, it's far too hot for the tent or car. Everyone else seems to like the tarp idea, so all 4 of us are going to sleep under it. Good thing we bought a GIANT tarp! (3m x 5m).
Photos from the day.
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