Yuko has prayed for cool weather in the Gobi for today for weeks now and her and my prayers were partially answered.

After a 3hr bus ride from the village we stayed in last night, we arrived at the start of the sand dunes at 8am and set off at 8.10am. It was overcast, and as we slipped and slid through the soft sand......rain spots. I shit you not, this part of the world receives less than 3mm of rain per year and we got some this morning. Not much like, I guess it was just Harmos allowance for the year.

So we hit checkpoint 1 with no major problems, fuelled up and set off for checkpoint 2, 10.7km away through the 'dunettes'....small sand dunes. The sun made an appearance, the temperature shot up and 5km out if CP2 I was in pieces. I managed to wobble into the rest tent, hang out for a half hour and then started to feel a little better. We slung out bags on and headed for CP3 and apart fom the sun and warmth all was right in the world again. We hit camp about 6pm, 10 odd hours for 37km...not easy going.
 
So we are now camping with camel spiders and scorpions, all seen wandering through tonights camp ground. I'll not be stepping out to pee tonight, pity the fool sleeping next to me.
 
Tomorrow is the long march along the silk road. 80km starting at 8am tomorrow morning and if all goes to plan that will leave us just 11km for Saturday followed by a bath and a beer not necessarily in that order.
 
Blisters aplenty......too many to count.

Well strange things happened last night. The strangest thing was we all went to sleep somewhere in Western China and awoke to find ourselves in the English Lake District. When I poked my head out of the tent I was expecting to see Peter Rabbit aand Squirrel Nutkin dashing around but alas no, and when I tripped over my backpack on the way out I remebered where I was and why I was here.
 
We were supposed to start a 41km stage at 8am but due to heavy cloud and mist over the Tian Shan mountains which do rslightly resemble Helvellyn and Scar Fell, we actually got away at noon and the stage was shortened to about 25km, I have no problem with that. When we rocked into camp about 4 hours later it was drizzly and pretty wet, but the clouds have now gone and the sun is out. Tomorrow should go off as planned, a 44km walk/stumble to camp 3.

All else is ok, the soles are falling off my shoes, my sleeping bag is damp, the food is still crap, but I'm having a blast. Still no blisters and thats ok with me.

Well we've made it safely to camp 2 and the scenery here is just unreal, it's just a shame I'm too fu#%ed to enjoy it.

Rumour round the camp fire tonight is it was the hardest first stage on record with the winners time of about 4h 30m about an hour outside the expected time.....bollox. There's actually not many people round the fire though as it's still about 35 degrees centigrade at 1830hrs so the rumour is only between me and Harmo as we're the only one's daft enough sitting out trying to get a tan.
 
I've done some daft things in my time, sleeping drunk under parked cars, jumping out of perfectly good aeroplanes, skiing/sliding down sheer mountains in Hokkaido, actually trying to walk 250km through a desert, but sitting here trying to rehydrate with boiling water wins the prize.  Ice please Manuel.

I'm getting a bit sick of freeze dried meals too, and by some cruel twist of fete I had packed spaghetti bolognese last night for dinner and spaghetti bolognese this morning for breakfast. It was crap last night and no better this morning, I reckon it'll always be crap.

Before I write some words about the good points of being out here a note to Mick is that we can't upload any pictures from here, so you'll just have to invite me and Yuko over to your place again to drink your malt whisky, if I make it back, and I'll show you my photo's on your new I-pad 2. You can e-mail me using the e-mail a competitor link on Race the Planets web site though.

Now to the good points:

No blisters so far.

Until tomorrow cyber fans........

Wheeeew, good job the warm hat and gloves were packed for camp one as it is a toasty 30 odd degrees here at 8pm and not a cloud in the sky.
 
We left the Yin Du Hotel at 2pm this afternoon for the drive up here, Kai this is your sort of driving as there are no rules of the road and you can drive wherever and however you please, it's like fairground dodgems. We stopped off to see how the Kazak people of this area spend Saturday night and I think I prefer Kingoro to their version of the Asiavision song contest. The geezer on the mike performing karaoke was certainly no Robbie Williams but ther locals seemed to dig him
 
Camp 1 is beautiful set in a glade of trees with an awesome view of the snowy mountains, all it's lacking is a bar, oh and I suppose there is the fact of tomorrows stage one starting at 8am to consider.

Just had a spag bol for dinner or at least that's what it said on the packet, and everyone now is just shooting the shit in the great weather.

It's looking like a pretty nice first three days, 37k tomorrow, and we're up in the hills so the temperature is cooler,  Wednesday is sand dune day and already that looms dark on the horizon.
 
That's all for now cyber people, cross your fingers please for the coolest summer in Turpan or my ass is fried.
 
More tomorrow if I can be bothered.