Over the Hill and Far Far Away!!!!

We left our overnight stay beside the lake for a 470 k day. We had found out we couldn’t stay at the planned stop due to foreign tourists no longer welcome in the Military town. That was fine; as it would give us an extra day somewhere else.

As we left town, once again we climbed over another mountain range in the cloud and mist. Descending the other side it all changed as we headed west for our overnight stop.

We meandered through a valley with high mountains either side and saw the first trees for about four days as these mountains had some sort of fur or conifer growing on them.  The trees turned out to be the extent of the forest we would see today. As we exited this valley it opened out into the start of a desert, as it was getting dryer very quickly. We passed some farming for a couple of hours but this got thinner and thinner until it was no more.

The road we were travelling on was a great freeway, with us making great time. At a toll gate the police advised us we could not stop for the next town and to keep going. This meant that at 1.00pm we only had to go 80 k to the overnight town. Alim said that it was just a small oil workers town.  As no-one wanted to spend the afternoon there we decided to soldier on the 550k’s to the next town, with some prospect of a nice hotel after four nights fairly close to the bottom of the ladder.

The road was good so we planned on being in town before the sunset at 8.30pm. This plan change made our day 955 instead of 470 kilometres; so it was Far Far Away from our start.

By this time we had entered full desert with no plants growing at all and no one living there at all.  The drive through the desert was nothing short of amazing and breathtaking at times with the formations changing constantly. At one stage we had a few spits of very fine rain from passing storms.

The part of the drive that everyone remembered so well was about 150k from our destination. The thing about this area with its great wind-blown shapes, was that the sun was in the right place and at the best afternoon angle to highlight the amazing features.

The last 20 k’s into town was through a massive oil field with wells all over the place.

The hotel on our arrival was fantastic as it had only been open for a couple of months and the rooms don’t smell of cigarette smoke, as there are no non-smoking rooms in China.