Exiting China

We are now on our last 6 days in China. The night before last night we camped in the Weichang Grasslands – a beautiful green undulating area in northern China. All around us were these massive wind turbines “wooing” all through the night. It was a little cool, but nice. Donna cooked up a great meal consisting of chicken breasts and vegetables in a gravy sauce – a full home cooked meal.

Yesterday we drove about 200km. At about the 60km mark, driving on a pretty good road, I hit a large gravel heap dumped on the side of the road. It was a bit like hitting a large rock… have done some damage to the front right suspension. This morning I will have to find a garage with a wheel alignment machine. I am hoping we won’t need parts, may have bent or broken a shock absorber.

Intermission…

5 hours have passed since commencing this blog write up. The car is fixed and drives straight and accurate again. Cost was 200 Yuan = $40.00 AUS. Bloody cheap considering another guy had a crack at fixing the issue yesterday, charged 200 Yuan and made it worse. Waiting for Taylors and Green to arrive so we can move on to the next location/accommodation.

Alan, Lynn and Green went off to visit a lake while Donna and I stayed with the car while it was being fixed. Apparently Alan fell into the Lake (swimming prohibited by the way) MY guess he made a calculated mistake and fell in due to the heat of the day. I wouldn’t mind betting Lynn dived in after him as a rescue attempt to cool off herself. We shall see when they return.

Today is another 200 odd km drive further north towards the Mongolian/Chinese border. I personally am looking forward to getting to Mongolia.

Yesterday Donna and I stocked the car up on as much western food as possible, could not find any Vegemite though. I am tipping the food in Mongolia will be a bit off putting. The Taylors will eat anything so they probably did not stock up as much as us.