Syd Stelvio Peking to Paris 25 - Day 9 – Dunhuang to Gobi Camp – 402km

Day 8 of the Peking to Paris was a rest day, well, I say rest day, but the more accurate way of describing it is a non-transit day. A chance to work on the cars, do your washing in the hotel sink and catch up on whatever it is you need to catch up on. Sorting brakes, cleaning out air filters, or, in the case of Jonathan Turner and Nick English having the chassis of your 1929 Bentley welded up – all in a day’s work on the P2P.

Somewhere in amongst the time spent rolling around underneath cars, it would also have been advisable to grab some rest, as day nine was set to be one of the toughest of the event so far. With 85% of the 402km off-road, forging a path into the Gobi Desert, on gravel tracks that needed more than a little bit of attention.

Spare a thought then for our solo participants, who are driving and navigating. There were three of them today, Tomas de Vargas Machuca has been doing it from the start, and in fact chose the solitary life, though with all of the navigational gadgets bolted into the passenger side of the Bentley, there wouldn’t be room for a passenger anyway! It’s true, the dash has more of a resemblance to a 747-flight deck, but this has meant that he has been able to chaperone those that have been placed in solitary confinement against their will. People like Nigel Parsons, who today chose to take the tarmac route to the camp but has got this far into the event minus a crew member. A new member was being initiated into the solo’s today, as Sabine Notz Catsiapis is without navigator Luciano Ceccarelli for the next three days and had chosen to use TVM and his navigational array as a pathfinder through the desert.

The rest day had been spent within touching distance of Dunhuang’s famous singing sand dunes, towering at up to 1700metres above the desert below, and may have perhaps instilled a romantic view of what the upcoming desert was to offer. Beware false prophets, the Mingsha dunes aside, this particular pocket of the Gobi is anything but picture postcard. For the most part it was featureless, with the wide expanse of nothing punctuated by the occasional rock formation or dune. What wasn’t in evidence for almost the entire day was other people, except for perhaps a handful of trucks across the entire distance. After all, why would you choose to drive out into this vacuum of existence?

Well, unless you’re on a rally of course, and then the area becomes a veritable playground, and the days two STC’s would take full advantage of that. Unfortunately, the first was to be foreshortened somewhat, thanks to a river crossing that would have needed a ferry to complete, a total contrast to the previous year when the riverbed had barely managed to offer up a puddle. The rest of it was still great fun, though it does always pay to drive with a modicum of caution, as even the smoothest track can fast become a bone shattering wadi. Restraint seemed to be being shown by most across the sand, as the majority of the field were picking up penalties on the section.

If anyone was regretting not pushing a little more, there would be 147km to contemplate their performance, before a chance to make amends on the days second STC. But first, they had to get there, on the long desert tracks, driving in each other’s dust and just occasionally, in the dust of HGVs, that seemed to be the only other people dumb enough to drive out here. These were of course driving at a snail’s pace comparatively but overtaking them was a bit of a leap of faith, unless you were driving a Fangio, that seemed to be able to overtake them at will, and in convoy, the Chevy’s apparently not susceptible to the dangers of unseen oncoming traffic.

It was risky business; you wouldn’t want a shunt out here. You wouldn’t want a mechanical either, so no doubt car 58, the AMC crewed by Jim Valentine and Jonathan Lodge were delighted to break a steering arm and spend their day catching a tan whilst awaiting recovery. Luckily for them, before the flatbed could crawl its way across the sand, the mechanics showed up and cobbled together a temporary fix to get them on their way – albeit slowly.

The sandy tracks seemed to stretch out infinitely, with nothing ever really seeming to change, luring the unwary into a state of hypnosis as the miles ticked by. Navigators are worth their weight in gold in this sort of scenario, keeping drivers sharp and communicating the perils listed in the roadbook, keeping car and crew safe. No matter how careful you are though, things can still go wrong, and by the end of the day Stéphane and Dimitri Gutzwiller would find themselves needing a new shock absorber, after bending a strut at some point during the run.

There was a break in the driving at the mid-point of the day, but as you may have guessed facilities in this part of the desert are non-existent at best. Thankfully, Sue’s Café was open for business and doing a roaring trade out of the back of marshals Sue and Graham Parkinson’s Hi-Lux. They’ve no food hygiene certificate to speak of, and you won’t be able to get a mocha-chai-frappalatte, with milk made from Mung Beans, but the café is rated five stars on trip advisor.