DAY ONE: ULAANBAATAR

Today we woke up to with the sun shining through our 1970's beige curtains as we lay still in our creaky beds. It was a humid day and I imagine the rest of the trip will be just as humid.

Here is a picture of our tiny room and bikes!

We adventured off for an early morning walk and ended up perusing the vodka aisle in the local supermarket. Lots of VODKA! We are yet to sample. We headed back to the hostel to share a lovely dry bread breakfast of funny textured butter and jam with a french man. Once the french man figured out  we were Australian he quite elegantly bounced around the room like a kangaroo.

After breakfast we set off to find Immigration to extend our visas, we took the number 11 bus from outside some hotel and headed back towards the airport. The local bus was the usual central Asia experience, crowded and hot. The ticket lady was funky as shit and we were pretty amazed by her mad skills to maintain balance, take money and walk around the bus whilst wearing mega wedges... on the way home we took a different bus and realised the wedges are part of the uniform for these ticket ladies.

We headed out into the outskirts of UB and ended up here.....

Getting our Visas was pretty straight forward and we are now all good to stay a few extra days without any issue. It costs about $2 US each day after 30 days which we thought was a pretty good deal.

Getting back to the city was fun and here is Courtney waiting patiently the Bus Stop.

We finally did a bit of sight seeing this afternoon around UB.

We found some Indie Bikes...

Nearly died crossing the road! a few times 

Checked out where the locals live 

Hung out with Chinngis Khan and associated wedding parties 

and finally....... 

Consumed Mongolian Cheeseslaw!!!!!! 

Heading out to Terij National Park tomorrow and then hopefully the Gobi for a week as Courtney's arm is still broken :( 

And we are off!

After a very hectic last couple of weeks in Brisbane Eliza and I are finally on our way.  I had most of my hair cut off about a week ago.  I am really happy with the change and it will be much easier to manage when on the road.  Dan gave me a hand to sort out my bicycle on Tuesday - we changed the tyres over and bought a new rear rack, changed the pedals, installed a wired bicycle computer (I can now track my distance and speed) and a few other things.

Eliza arrived thursday afternoon.  We spent Friday doing last minute shopping at the bike shop and camping stores before spending a stressful 3 hours trying to get our bikes into boxes.  In out excitement we placed everything into the boxes before we taped up the bottom of the box. We realised this when we lifted full box up to weigh it and everything threatened to fall out the bottom.


 Saturday was a very busy final cleanup at the house and then family dinner.  We left under the cover of darkness this morning and are now hanging out in Seoul airport.  Eliza is currently watching Korean TV shows which seem as ridiculous as Japanese TV shows and contemplating purchasing kiwi juice.  She is also rocking her bright yellow Broken Hill Slagfest T-Shirt.

We have a tentative plan to make our way to the Gobi desert for the first few days in Mongolia whilst my arm finishes healing up.  It is getting better but the chance of breaking it again and causing a lot more damage is quite high if I fall off my bike before 6 weeks is up.

'Twas the night before Mongolia

'Twas the night before Mongolia, and the word had passed around, two young ladies from Australia were planning their ride around....

After a few days of final touches, including spending hours perched over a box of derailleur  hangers trying to work out which one would fit on my rock hoppin mountain magnet, moving and cleaning out a house lived in for decades, sharing a glass of wine and a final meal of lamb shanks with Courtney's family and deciding what plane clothes we should wear,  we are ready to go!

Fun times.

Preparations and Setbacks

Last weekend was productive, I spent Sunday afternoon with Dan changing the brakes on my bike to Aid BB7s, putting new grips on the bike and installing the front rack.

On Tuesday night I rode my bicycle to work, using the front rack and clipped a barrier with the front pannier in the car park. I fell onto my right hand with my arm straight.  my arm was a little bit sore but I thought it would be ok.  At about 8pm (the crash was at 6.30pm) it was getting much worse.  I could hardly move my arm, hold a pen, use the computer, much less try and do pressure area care on my 77kg patient.  I let my team leader know what happened and she gave me some paracetamol and ibuprofen and sent me to ED. 

A few painful x-rays and a couple of hours later it was diagnosed as a fractured radial head.  I was given a sling, some more pain relief and sent on my way.  It was a very anti-climatic last shift.  The ED doctor thinks I will be able to cycle in three weeks time.  I will go to fracture clinic next week and get it checked up on.  In the meantime Heidi is taking great care of me, reliving the weeks she spent looking after me when I broke my collar bone in Canada.  I am fumbling my way around trying to do everything left handed and regretting purchasing bottles of paracetamol and ibuprofen with child proof lids.