Friday 19 June 2015

Day 229: Ice cold!

Terelj was one of the only places that I had planned to visit before we arranged to do the story with Panoramic Journeys because I had read that you could do some independent hiking in the national park, so after breakfast, I asked the newly returned husband how we could do some walking in the forest. His response was to wave vaguely in the direction of some hills on the other side of the river that ran past the bottom of the camp. When I asked that how we got across the river he said that it was very shallow – but then added that it was 'crazy cold'.

After some cajoling, I managed to convince the others to accompany me and off we went. We took off our shoes and socks and stepped gingerly into the clear river. It was true, the water was shallow – only about ankle depth – but it was also true that it was 'crazy cold', so cold that it made you knees ache, so cold that it made Sarah cry. Once we were on the other side and had our shoes and socks back on, we headed in the general direction of the hills. Once again, it as a lovely sunny day, and before long we had made it to a patch of tall trees. But then our progress was halted by another arm of the river. We walked along the bank for some time, looking for a fallen tree or some other way of getting across, but eventually the girls gave up and all three of them turned around and returned to the camp. 






I wasn't so easily defeated and kept looking for a way across, which I duly found in the form of a series of fallen trees. The hillside was now closer, but I still had another arm of the river to cross, and then another and another... It turned out that the river was braided to an incredibly frustrating degree – each time I found away across one little stream I would quickly come to another and have to walk up and down the bank looking for a way across. I finally came to the conclusion that the only way I would make it to the other side was to take off my shoes and socks and walk through the river, which I duly did. Oh, the cold! My legs almost gave up at one point, but then, success – I was on the other side.

I quickly scrambled up the hillside – lunch wasn't far off and I still had to make it back across and find my way home – which had a large rocky outcrop that looked as though it would offer a good view back over the river. As I crested one section of rocks I spotted something white in the grass – on closer inspection I found what looked like a pile of very large dog poo, and near it was another, and then another. The grass looked as though it had been pushed down and I can only speculate that a pack of wolves had used this quite sheltered spot as a resting place sometime not too long ago.

 A bit more scrambling and I made it to the top of the outcrop and yes, it did offer a magnificent view over what is definitely an extremely braided river. I quickly snapped of a multitude of photos and then headed back towards the camp. The fact that was retracing my steps didn't make things much easier – if anything, I think I spent more time in the water – and I was very pleased when I finally had my shoes and socks back on and walked back to our ger. Which was empty – athough I had made it back by the scheduled lunch time, it had been served early, so I went across and joied the others for a meal of fried noodles and meat. 




After lunch we convened the School of Mum and Dad for a while and we all did some reading. I finished the stash of New Yorkers I brought for this leg of the trip (I still have a few in UB) and started on my Kindle – bought especially for the trip. We had some soup for dinner and then snuggled up in the ger, all of us feeling a little unwell.

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