The Great Canadian Beavers

We will attempt to refrain from using brackets in this post since it seems to annoy a particular reader - but might I suggest if you find it that annoying you discontinue following the blog? Just a suggestion.

Mongolia has kind of eaten up the Beavers and spit us out, in particular Max. In this convoy, it seems when one thing goes wrong, everything follows suit. It began with our starter completely crapping out. After spending an entire day in the auto shop, they still hadn’t found a way to fashion a useable starter out of the parts they had, but we couldn’t afford to wait any longer so we told them to just load it all back in the car and we would deal with push starts from then on in. Wouldn’t you know, this time it worked!

For about a day.

This morning however, we noticed a leak in our fuel tank. We did a temporary patch job with some soap and that has lasted us the 100km or so to Altai. However, about 5 minutes outside of Altai, Andrea wasn’t paying as much attention as she should be and ran half the car into a ditch. In an attempt to overcorrect, she sent the car fishtailing and ultimately head first into a ditch, causing the car to roll over on it’s side. Andrea and Dancy were okay, but Nick may have bruised his ribs and hurt his foot, so he’s in getting x-rays at the moment; we hold out hope that he will be alright however.

We gathered all of the stuff that had come flying out of the car and with the help of the rest of the convoy turned Max back over and got him re-packed and started again. Our rear suspension has been almost dead for the past little while and, sadly, did not survive the crash. Neither did our windscreen, which has subequently been duck taped up and we’re praying it lasts. Max has been checked into a garage in Altai where we will fix his rear right suspension and the fuel tank leak, but we aren’t going to do anything about the windshield, or the giant dent in the right hand side until we have to - hopefully never.

Catch us if you Khan’s van is also in a bad way. Initially, the tire had driven itself right through the car body, now the suspension is off-kilter and the wheel is completely bent basically. We’re hoping it can be fixed today or tomorrow while ours is being corrected as well.

The good news is the rest of the convoy is here, and we’ve met up with a ton of other teams here being fixed as well; Jizzy Disco, Fear and Roaming in Mongolia, Nomad Feat, Part of the Magnificent Bastards, Asphalt Arsonists? and a few others I don’t know the name of. We have hear rumours that Chapeau Nouveau is also only a day or so behind so hopefully they catch up as well.

Wish us luck! On the plus side, the roads are supposed to get better this next little while.

xx

The Beavers