Kirsten Melis goes
Mongol Derby 2013
Day 4
Rain, sunshine and fatigue
7 August 2013
Waking up in a warm bed with a sort of soft mattress was great, my body wasn’t aching as much and I felt bright and ready to tackle another day of riding. Lara and I got up at 6, packed up all our stuff and make everything ready for departure. We opened our door and the whole flock of sheep and goats were right outside our door! We quietly walked around them and took our horses to the lake to give them a drink and 20min nibble of grass and after that we saddled then up. While I held the horses Lara went up to the mother of the family and thanked her to be so kind for let us staying at their place, Lara walked back to get on her horse but then the lady came back out of her ger with one of those white board for kids with $30,- written on it! Lara and I couldn’t believe what we saw! Is she for real? We told her that we don’t have any money, we got on our horses and rode off while she gave us a death stare. We got told later that the lake was a ‘big’ tourist attraction so the locals will try and get money out of you whenever they can. We were at urtuu 9 within 15min and vetted the horses through without any problems and they were thrown back into the herd. Clare and Chloe came in about 5 min after us. There weren’t any horses on offer yet because they hadn’t caught any yet, but that didn’t matter because we were starving and looking forward to some breakfast! On the breakfast table we had on offer: tea, biscuits, rice, bread, butter, pickled cabbage and some amazing fish!! We all stuffed our faces full and Clare even got a bit emotional, she was tired and emotionally down, with some great words from Maggie, ‘the mother’ of all the derby riders, Clare dried her tears and was laughing again. Finally there were 4 horses caught and we could pick a mount and get them ready. I picked a bay got him saddled and was ready to go. Chloe and Lara had their horses ready to go, except Clare’s horse, a buckskin with a big white face wasn’t too happy about getting touched by human let alone getting saddled by one... After 5min Lara and Chloe decided not to wait any longer and left while I waited for Clare and her horse to get ready. Finally after 10min they had the horse saddled and we could get going again and catch up with Chloe and Lara. We rode along Ogii Nuur lake until we had to cross a 70m long concrete bridge about 20m above the fast flowing river, our horses were not sure about this bridge and it took a bit of convincing but finally we moved slowly and mainly sideways over the bridge. To make it more interesting for the horses there was suddenly a massive big truck behind us and he didn’t seem to be slowing down so we had to rush our horses quickly over the bridge! Finally we were on the other side without any injuries and the truckie raced passed us like we were a few rocks on the side of the road. We continued our path on the left side of the road, we found a jeep track and followed it. After about half an hour we found out that it would’ve been better to have stayed on the right side of the road.... we ended up in marshy grounds and wetlands, not ideal! We managed to find some dryer tracks but unfortunately we wouldn’t stay dry for long as there was a lot of thunder lightning and heavy rainclouds coming towards us. Clare and I decided that it would be smart to get off our horses and quickly put our rainjackets on but, Clare’s horse was still very spooky so she could just get off without my help. A couple hundred meters further we saw a ger with a little wooden pen, so we rode into it, shut the gate and I carefully got of my horse, tried to grab Clare’s horse but it wasn’t happy about being touched. Finally after 5 min I was able to hold on to the reins and Clare could get off, we quickly put our jackets on and now that we’re off our horses we better make the most of it and empty our bladders. We were ready to get going again but it first took again about 5 min for Clare to get on her feral horse but we managed. Opened the gate, I got on my steed and we were off!
Up the hill we went and from there on it was only about 8km to urtuu 10, but the closer we got to urtuu 10 the harder it started raining and the worse the thunder and lightning got! It was pretty scary riding through that kind of weather without any protection of trees or being able to hide behind big rocks. We rode past a ger/camp and saw a mare with her foal, the foal was limping on 3 legs and it looked like it had something on it’s left front leg, like a big bandage, we thought we better ask the vet at next camp if she had seen it and if she knew what was wrong with it.
Finally we came over the last hill end there was station 9! We were absolutely soaked from top to bottom (again!!), quickly vetted our horses by the South African vet Hellen, and we got the thumbs up. The family who ran this urtuu offered us some nice hot tea and something to eat, we thought that was a good idea and hopefully the storm would blown over soon. We asked Hellen if she had seen the foal yet, (when the nomadic Mongolians hear that there’s a vet close by they will take advantage of that and make sure they show them their injured stock) she told us she would go and have a look after we would’ve left.
*We didn’t see Hellen again until finishcamp, here she told us that the foal had an open fracture and she had told the owner to put it down because it wouldn’t heal. But unfortunately the owner told Hellen, he would wait until the winter(because they don’t have any fridges or freezers in their gers) would arrive so than he would be able to put the foal down and cut it up and consumed it for his family and his dogs.*
Within 10min there were blue skies and the storm had passed, it was time to pick our next rides.
The majority of the horses on offer were appaloosas (the white ones with lots of little spots), we asked for 2 horses that are fast and go well together. They showed us a nice tall appy and a pinto, I took the appy and Clare the pinto, we saddles them, made sure they were not feral by asking one of the Mongolian herdsman to hop on them and then it was our turn to take them over and navigate our way to the next urtuu. About 1km out of station 9 Clare’s pinto wasn’t forward at all and she turned around to get a new horse that was more ‘alive’, I continued with my horse that I gave a very appropriate name “Spot”. Within 10min Clare was back with a nice bay that was happy about going forward in a good pace and we cantered in our designated direction towards the hills. The weather was beautiful again with big blue skies and a good temperature that made sure our clothes would dry. We rode though lovely big valleys with lots of little wild flowers, with foxes playing on the side of the hill and we rode past little lakes where horses were having little tea parties. By this time we got pretty tired and so did our horses, the temperature would’ve been around the 26C without a breeze. We’re walking down the hill and before I know my horse and I are on the ground! The silly bugger had stumbled over, scraped his nose open and luckily I’ve only bruised my elbow. Tired and hungry both Clare and I were sitting on our horses with our eyes shut every now and then, finally the next urtuu came in sight when we came around the hill, it was still at least another 4km to go but we pushed ourselves hard. After our horses were vetted through, we quickly picked our next rides and went into the ger, asked the South African vet, Pete Dommet, to set his alarm for 15min later because we desperately needed a powernap!
That powernap was the best 15 min of sleep I’ve during the whole ride! We filled up our camelbags with water and fresh as daisies we got on our next horses. These 2 horses shot off like rockets, what a great feeling after such a long and drab morning! We cantering along a road happy again, chatting along and having bright happy horses beneath us. In the distance we can see trees! Trees?! Yes the first proper trees we’ve seen during the ride! We arrive at a little soum (= a little village with just a few hundred people who live in houses not gers) along the river and surrounded by massive pine trees. Suddenly we see a horse and a rider next to a tree, who is that? It is Chloe charmingly vomiting her guts out and her horse standing patient next to her. We get off our horses and stay with her for a bit, but the station is only 7km away so we convince her to get back on the horse and ride safely with us the urtuu 12. The 3 of us ride on but before we can leave the soum we have to cross the bridge over the river, and yet again this was a slight mission. You can face these Mongolian horses with mountains, rivers or wetlands... no problem. Put them a bridge in front of them and they’ll make you work to get them on the other side of that bridge! When we eventually got on the other side we could see the next station in the beautiful open valley, it was the first day since startcamp that we had such a beautiful clear afternoon. The colours and light made everything look so amazing! The horses were still happy and fresh so we cantered up to the station until 1km out, and gave them a good drink at one of the creeks and walked them in. We passed a basketball hoop absolutely in the middle of nowhere, someone must have been a keen basketballer to set up his hoop here. A bit further close to urtuu 12 there was an old wooden shed that looked slightly like the tower of Pisa, companied by a stripped motorbike. The Mongolians use these kinds of things as landmarks now. We arrived at 8.20pm at station 12 Chloe was still vomiting and not 100%, we vetted her horse through while she laid down. The Scotchman Harry was our vet, he checked my horses gums neck, carefully his legs and tried to take my horses heart and bang! He had kicked Harry right under the knee, Harry hardly moved and tried carefully but again bang, bang my naughty horse had kicked him twice in the same spot! I firmly grabbed a piece of my horse’s neck so he wouldn’t kick Harry again and it was with success. After I put my naughty horse away Harry showed us his bruises on his leg with the message “he wasn’t the first horse who did that!” Poor Harry! His leg was every colour of the rainbow! And offcourse a real tough Scotchman will never say that it hurts. In the meantime the medics, dr Chriss Abbott and nurse Deb Swann had arrived to give Chloe some much needed IV drips, and to give Clare and me some much needed choco pie’s! After some dinner we took some painkillers to make sure we had a good and painfree night sleep and went to bed.
(instead of: The Tower of Pisa)