Day 9 Dunhuang to Camp 3 in the Gobi Desert. Hot, windy and quite hazy.

So up in the morning at 6am, so we can get ourselves packed into the car and have a quiet breakfast. We have a new start order, car Zero is 8.30am so it’s a relatively late start. Because we are doing OK in the rally, moving up slowly one place at a time, we are now starting 16 mins after car zero. We are currently sitting 11th over-all and 7th in our class. This does not included the “classics” category, and really don’t ask me how the scoring works, I have no idea. But on day 1 we were 17th over all and 11th in class. There were 25 cars in our class at the beginning of the rally. I’ll have to investigate further to see how many are now out, certainly the chap who had the accident and his brother, so that’s two cars.

At the beginning of the day Faith came over and asked if I had any tipex. One of the competitors has had to tape his shoes up. She has popped a L and a R on them for him, except she got them around the wrong way! And she’s the navigator in car 37!

Some of the cars have mascots, including ours.

Here is my video at the start of the day.

Today is our first real all day desert day with 369kms ahead of us. Andrew has filled up the bog tank we don’t have to worry about refueling for a while, fortunately as well, they had 98 fuel, mostly we have been running on 95. Managing our fuels levels is an important part of our calculations, we look at what we have ahead as far as distance to fuel stations, which stations we think will have long queues and how much weight we want to be carrying on a certain section. The fuel stations that are considered acceptable and will manage our cars are marked in our navigation. As you can imagine, not all rural stations can cope with 50 to 70 cars turning up during a day. Those cars that a hyper-focused on the competition will calculate this very precisely. We are not so worried as you know, and what is more important to us is not having to worry about running out. Sometimes the fuel station you were planning to use is not open, has closed completely or there is a very long queue by time you arrive. For us, we like to keep our world simple, so we plan for fuel that helps us keep our heads in the game – as they say. So we like to plan for short queues, enough fuel to get to the next station after our preferred and at a time of the day which suits us. Hence the reason why Andrew filled up the night before. It means we can relax today with a big desert drive and a camp ahead of us.

Car 1 decided to leave easy and was away by 7.30am. He is very slow so it is hoping to take the extra time to get through the desert road which is always slow going.

So we head off from the hotel and very soon find ourselves turning off the perfectly good tar sealed road into the desert dirt track. And it was rough, very rough. We had three tests through the morning which we did as well as we could but mindful not to break Eleanor. We will not have arrived early at each finish so will only have picked up late penalties which are less than if you arrive early.

The route was very challenging and for the main part just a very bumpy dirt track, though the first part was very loose small gravel which the truck traffic had formed into deep ruts. We were very pleased to have all the protection we have providing shelter to the underneath of the car. Having said that, we certainly had our share of bottom scrapes.

We had been promised a great river crossing on day 9. in 2019 we did not have more than a puddle, and so I was excited for this chance. Sadly, the river was 40cm in October last year and no more than a puddle in May. Oh well, that’s rallying!

When we stopped for a bite to eat just after the last test, we were able to see how the tests should really be done, with car 18 coming in to the final burst. They are a team who have won the rally before and are very good drivers. Here is the video of their finish.

The landscape was largely pure Gobi desert, flat and desolate with the wind whipping at a rate of knots blowing up gusts of sand. There were pockets were it changed and there was shelter from sand dunes and rocky hillocks. Other areas the sand and hills were burnt orange and we felt we were on Mars. At one point to stone changed to a white color which was curious. For the main part it was both challenging driving and also the landscape is quite boring. We were ready for all the bumping and thumping to stop about 50 kilometres before it did, and then we still had 60 kms of road.

We finally came off the dirt and on to a sealed road with many patches of broken pavement. As a consequence it was just as slow going as the dirt track. Unfortunately for our friends Alun and Paul, got a flat tyre only 15kms out from the camp. Such a challenge at the end of the day.

After a very long day, with the car full of more dust than before we pulled over a ridge to see the camp on the side of the road. This was the second Camp they had to move from its original position, this time not because of the security forces, but because the other Camp was not sheltered enough. But can I tell you, this Camp was by no means sheltered. It was so windy that they were waiting for each car to arrive in and park next to the laid out tent base so they could put the tent up in the shelter of the car!

When we arrived only a few other cars had come in, which was fortunate because the camp entrance got very sandy. And Patrick and Pam got stuck in this as they were coming in. They were one of many cars which were significantly injured by the day. Here is a clip of them under tow in the soft sand. About 5 cars were so badly damaged they ended up on flatbed trucks and some have gone straight to Urumqi for more mechanical or spare part support than can be provided by the excellent sweep teams in the camps.

We popped our gear into the tent and then, on the recommendation of the organisers, we went up the road for 10kms and filled up at the petrol station so we would be ready for the start of the next day. With our 150 liters we should be able to get through day 10 and fuel up late morning on day 11.

We are now in the Xinjiang provenance and fuel stations are controlled. Locals have to provide facial recognition before being given access to the forecourt. We have made previous arrangements for our cars to be an exception to this, but given this is not a precise science, we have our fixers at the station to ensure the security guard understands this instruction. Check out my video about this here.

We filled up and went into the station to pay. The excellent lead of the fixer team, Li Feng, was there set up at a table so she could be on hand to help anyone with this process. This was the first fuel station where they only had 92 fuel and Li Feng was able to help us choose which bottle was the fuel additive and so we bought enough for a couple of top ups, if needed.

Back at camp the wind continued and we all ended up in the mess tents to drink a cold-ish beer. I had a sit down with these two characters from New Zealand crew, Shane and Tony.

Andrew went under the car, as best he could with all the wind and repaired the exhaust bracket. He did a great job of this. Here is a video of his explanation. There is not much we could do though about all the dust that was back in the car after the day, even the keys are coated. And Andrew had it so clean!

Richard and Faith, who owned Eleanor in her time away from us, and are still coming first, had a wee problem with their alternator. He was not happy! But he does have the necessary mechanical skills and with the help from one of the sweeps he had his car (37) back up and running. They had a packet of wine gums to share for the rally, Faith was given some by a friend to sequester away. They were rationing themselves one a day. We, on the other hand, have packets and packets of them so I went over to Richard and gave him a couple of bags so they can have an easier rally. They are currently in the lead, Richard has previously raced trucks and their car, which is another Chevrolet a little older than ours, and in reality his car is really just a very small truck. He is very comfortable with throwing their car around the corners on the tests, and this is what is needed to ensure you get the minimum time penalties. Faith is an excellent navigator and so she is able to be very precise about their timings on the tests and also make sure they don’t get lost along the route.

Richard and Faith are lovely, they are from Yorkshire and so we got on with them immediately.  Richard was able to describe a lot of the work he had done on the Eleanor, which included rebuilding the engine, curiously because we had to do that too.

We then had to try to eat the dinner they had prepared which was not great, we collected the food in one tent, then had to get ourselves to another tent to sit to eat, trying your hardest not to have the food blow off your tray or get covered in sand! Everyone was squeezed in and the food line was an impossible dream.

The Nomads did a stellar job under very trying circumstances. They lost about 25 tents that camp!

After dinner, I was so tired from the effort of the drive and it was very noisy in the tent, with all the excited chatter from the tough run and the howling wind. I decided a shower and bed was for me. At least the showers were very quiet and I was able to have a lovely long wash in peace! The off to a windy bed, and then there was rain!

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