Last night was our coldest so far. We have not looked at the spot locator page and so not sure of the altitude, but we still are much lower than we will be as we get closer to the border. The camper has no insulation in the roof and the sides are basically tent material and so the inside and outside temperature is similar. Last night it was 2.7 deg C outside and 3.6 inside when I checked in the early hours. Forget saucy nighties, this is thermals and bobble hat territory!
However we have two duvets, two thin blankets …. toasty! When it gets colder we have a couple of fleece sleeping bags and finally silk liners. Only real problem is the condensation on the roof and sides when very cold. The clear blue sunny days make it easy to dry things and temperatures climb really fast as soon as the sun is out. It’s fantastic weather and because we are late in the season there are no mosquitoes to worry about.
Our day today was very relaxed as we do not want to travel too high too soon before we are due to enter Mongolia. We actually only travelled about 70km before we stopped for the day! We needed 3G to finish more paperwork (which we still only half finished!) and the scenery was nice …. so we stopped. It’s so much nicer when you don’t have to rush. During our morning coffee stop we spoke to two Russian bikers who were just on their way back from the Russian/Mogolian border. They loved the camper as they are really rare in Russia (any sort of camper). We have also only seen three caravans here and one of those was German.
The other odd thing is that we have not seen another UK number plate on the whole trip through Russia, and only about 3 or 4 European plates!
As our camp spot worked out well last night we picked another one on common ground just above the town. The views are great!
For us this is what this sort of trip is all about, stopping where you like and enjoying a new view every night!
Of course there are chores to be done, someone has to fry the veggies for the pasta sauce and drink up the excess Russian beer so that we have more room in the fridge for edible food in Mongolia ….. it’s not all fun!
And then there is laying the table in the dining area ….
We wondered why the table was less wobbly than usual …. only noticed that we had ‘plugged’ it into the middle of a cow pat when we came to put it away!
The evening was rounded off by a walk in the hills above our camp spot.
The landscape is much drier now as we have come over a high pass (Seminskiy) and this is a rain shadow area. As we travel east it is going to get really dry …. Gobi Desert! In the evening light it still looks green in the valley above the town. Hard to believe it is only half a kilometer away from the previous picture.
troopytracks 