After 45 days since leaving London, we've finally made it to the finish in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia. With a fitting finale of driving through the night and into the sunrise one final time, the London double-decker bus (The Kremlins), carrying 3 eccentric Russians and 2 Aussie Emus, pulled into the finish line.
Our beloved feisty motor, Matilda had done us well, making it to Mongolia before sucuumbing to an unexpected sudden death in the middle of a sandstorm, with her drive shaft and front wheel completely sheered off. Fortunately, the London Bus, driven by a Russian Jon Bon Jovi look-a-like, offered to take us the rest of the way to the finish - giving us some new experiences, including pushing a bus when it gets bogged in the sand!
The past 45 days have been a true adventure. Of the 4 cars in our convoy that departured Kazakhstan for the final frontier only 1 car made it to UB - well done Mr Polo! Here is a snapshot of some tallys that we've kept along the way ...
No. of police encounters: 28 (including 1 phone number and complimentary escort out of town)
Total no. of hours spent at border crossings: 36hrs 56mins
Total no. of hours spent at border crossings: 36hrs 56mins
No. of directional road signs seen in the entire country of Mongolia: 3
No. of kangaroo impersonations carried out to clarify that we're from Australia and not Austria: too many to count!
No. of people we stopped to ask directions: lost count after 50 somewhere in Kazakhstan...
No. of red lights run, that we know of: Karen - 5; Sardi - 3
No. of countries driven through: 14 (including Taxistan)
Bribes offered at border crossings: 1 packet of iced vovo biscuits
Monetary bribes paid to police/authorities: None - Yipee!!
Favourite "I can't believe I just did that" driving moment: Sardi - suicide u-turns in Kazak; Karen - still driving on the wrong side of the road on Day 35.
No. of days between hot showers: 10
No. of times our convoy had something stolen from the cars: 5 (... although each time Matilda was left unscathed - didn't they want the ironing board?!)
Favourite 'Extreme Ironing' moment: getting creases out of a shirt in the middle of a Mongolian sandstorm. NB: the ironing board was last seen by some of our convoy friends in the middle of the Gobi desert - they stopped to admire it but left it behind, thinking it must have belonged to someone else!!
Thank you to everyone who have given us such great support over the last few months and followed our journey over the past 45 days. A sincere thank you to our sponsors, family and friends for your generosity, emails, texts and prayers! We are continuing our travels into Asia but promise to return home to Australia before Christmas, or when our money runs out - whichever comes sooner! In the mean time, if you want to drop us a line or get our mobile no's, you can contact us at teamemudraft@gmail.com
Karen & Sardi
Team Emu Draft
