World Image issue 11 October 2014

It did not take long before we got settled in to
our passenger-damaging vehicles. The girls on
the trip, always ensuring the highest standards
in cleanliness, quickly turned their wagon in to
a mobile washhouse.
This was a constant source of amusement, since
the vehicles moved across the terrain they
created their own vapour trail of sand particles
that constantly covered the freshly cleaned
washing.
God help anyone that has a head-on crash in
one, as there are no seat belts and no impact
protection; safety it seems, being an optional
extra.
The engine used is the same that powered the
GAZ-21, which was the ‘Top Marque’ of its
day in the USSR during those heady days of the
Cold War. One of our vehicles had a fourcylinder
in-line water-cooled petrol unit,
developing a claimed 112bhp and a four
forward/one reverse gearbox and two-speed
transfer box.
The other UAZ was much older and could only
generate 72bhp. To be honest, the UAZ-452 is a
metal shed, held together by a trolley load of
good luck, but they are a masterpiece in offroad
capability – provided, that is, that you
match it to the skill and tenacity of the driver.
We loaded 14 expedition holdalls, day sacks
plus tents and food for the first week, little did
we realise that to get to the first mountain range
was going to involve 120km of serious off-road
driving before we could actually manage any
proper trekking.
As we travelled across the steppes, the terrain
reminded me of the incredibly annoying
children’s television programme Tellytubbies
and Tellytubby Land, it just had endless square
miles of grass.
If the same landscape was in somewhere like
Australia, they would have been having some
kind of international turbocharged lawn mower
competition.
The area is vast, and for large parts it is just
grass, neat small blades reminiscent of a putting
green. Then, as you travel further west, the land
becomes less fertile as you reach the Gobi
Desert.
As we travelled toward the Gobi desert, which
covers much of the southern part of Mongolia,
you begin to notice that unlike the Sahara there
are few sand dunes in the Gobi.
There are, however, large barren expanses of
gravel plains and rocky outcrops.
Website = photosociety.net Page 18 email = magazine@photosociety.net