Photos from Day 1 of our ride....

We made it to the top of the pass!!!!! Check out my new trousers...they are not even an hour old :) They are the best in Chinese "Mountain Hardwear" copies and I got them for a tenner :)


Once we bombed down the pass we were cruising along the riverside when we saw this destroyed village...it was time for a snack anyway and A went exploring and to take some photos....





The day was beautiful and sunny, the riding was good....ah, we are so blessed :)




until we got a puncture...or three :)


and the clouds were hanging in some of the valleys....


We see LOTS of pool tables outside...in front of houses or shops, we even saw one that was straddling a drainage ditch next to the road! Some of them have plastic sheeting to protect them and some of them have small tin roofs to protect them from the weather :)


We decided to get off the paved road and get onto a dirt road closer to the valley wall....and we spotted an ideal campsite protected by a wall and a stream...and a mound of dirt :)


Then I set about starting the stove (for the first time!!! :) to make some noodle soup for our first dinner in the wilderness :)



Our luck is amazingly good - just about the time we had finished eating and washing up and we decided it was getting chilly and it was time to crawl into the tent...it started raining...and then blowing. Well...we had specifically brought the Edgar Allen Poe along for just this situation!!!!! So I started to read :)


Then it really started to blow and rain was really coming down - check out this movie of the storm from inside the tent:
click here to see it

I had to go out for some reason, I forget why, but I came back in with hail in my hair....it stormed the whole night so it was a wild first night in our tent!!!!!