Short cold sleep last night in the tent.  Howling cold wind in an otherwise very pretty camp site.  We didn’t get to enjoy it much as we worked on  the car until 2am. (see day 3 blog).

We stopped at the village of Endershill to get a splash of fuel. It was 80 octane and we were urged not to take any more than we need so as not to exhaust village supplies.  Anyway, I calculated another 25 litres to bring us up to a bit over 50 would be enough for 193 Km.  Not quite. 

There were three 'tests' (competitive stages) today.  All much the same.  Multiple tracks running everywhere mostly all going the same way. 

Occasionally you find yourself getting too far away from a waypoint and have to cross country or find a track going in the direction you want. 

Once we back tracked a couple of Ks to a track we saw but didn’t take, as the cross country option looked a bit hazardous.

By the time we started the third test, it was clear to me we weren’t going to have enough fuel to get to the refuel point. We did have enough for the test part, but sure enough 15km out of town we rolled to a stop, where two other cars were parked.  All Americans and Kiwis. No one had any fuel but the Americans who were changing a tyre offered “Oh don’t worry – the Chevy will tow you”.  We got the rope ready. The next car that came along had no petrol but the one after offered us 5 litres. We were away again.

But – although driving very steadily, Mark clobbered a large rock and from there, steering took a massive amount of muscle effort. Fortunately, it was a straight fast road to Ulaan Baatar. When we checked into control at the Shangri-La (!), I enquired where we could get work done and was pointed to a Merceedes dealership which I thought may not want to know us.