Syd Stelvio Peking to Paris 25 - Day 12 – Urumqi to Forest Park Camp – 458km

 Day 12 began far too early for many, with the carnage of day 11 continuing into the early hours for some. Still, with Urumqi being only a small city by Chinese standards at just 4 million people, it was sure to be an easy drive out into open country again. Well, no. The population might be the same as the capacity of an average secondary school in some parts of China, but it seemed that every single one of them owns a vehicle, and every single one of them was driving on Urumqi’s confusing inner city road network this morning.

Whoever designed Tulips had never reckoned on them being used in a place like this, and whoever designed the roads here had clearly taken inspiration from a ball of spaghetti. Add into that the erratic nature of the drivers and you’ve a situation that requires levels of concentration that just don’t exist when you’re this tired. But, somewhere under the stress, it’s kind of a lot of fun.

Once clear of unruly Urumqi, and an hour or so down the highway the mountains beckoned, and they were green. It was a real treat after all the desert driving, and whilst they weren’t exactly alpine slopes of evergreen tree’s there was enough alternative colour to place a new kind of calm on the day, just in time for the days only regularity. The surroundings had clearly gone to the heads of two of the trip Doctors, Izzy and Vicky, who were stood at their timing point serenading anyone who would listen with excerpts from ‘The Sound of Music’, although music is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

The roads of the regularity ran through agricultural lands, and last year the tarmac of the roads here was racetrack smooth. A year is a long time in China though, and 12 months of freight and tourist traffic had rendered the surface the usual mixture of potholes and broken blacktop, but at least the navigation was easy, and this would be reflected in the penalties for the day, with no significant gains, and even a clean day for Brian Palmer and David Bell in the Peugeot 504 that seems to be yo-yoing up and down the results sheet.

Once the regularity was over there was an opportunity to decompress from the morning at some roadside eateries, including a BBQ outlet selling grilled meat from an undisclosed source, and an undisclosed animal, as well as pasties packed with the same non-descript meat. Whatever it was, it tasted good and I daresay they did a month’s takings as the competitors got stuck into the mystery meat. Let’s just hope it is as clandestine on the way out…

Once the feasting had finished there was a lengthy cruise into our final Chinese camp, but as snow-capped mountains appeared in the distance, anyone dreading another night in the sand might have relaxed a little bit as the Peoples Republic had saved the best until last. Once off the highway, the road took the cars up into the foothills of the Tianshan Mountains, one of several ranges in the Xinjiang region. Their snow-capped peaks towered over our camping spot – confusingly named the Forest Camp, it seemed to contain a total lack of trees. Still, they would only have spoiled the view of the majestic massif, bathing in the light of a sun-kissed evening.

A few crews would arrive at camp later than others, after a detour at the request of the regional mayor, to a town reception, where the crews were met by crowds a few hundred strong, cheering the rally cars and celebrating their arrival with food and refreshments laid on. The day had not been without incident, with further mechanical issues for some, including a broken clutch for car 62 and broken transmission for car 27, but nothing on the scale of the previous day. Tomorrow is largely a transit day, on highway, with one reg to contest and an early finish, and then one further day to Almaty and a non-transit day. No doubt all the crews will be itching to reach the sanctuary of Kazakhstan’s capital and get to work on sorting their cars for the run through Kazakh. We aren’t quite there yet, though…

Syd