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Mongolia 2010 Websites

Adventures Off The Map In Outer Mongolia

It was on the sixth day after leaving Hatgal that the trail petered out. In its place, a tangle of tiny channels began to eat its way westwards down a long valley floor, paved by fist-sized, weather-rounded stones. On either side of the river basin rose steep, jagged walls of rock enthusiastically smothered in green by the spring’s new growth of larch and pine. A whopping green trout flashed past beneath the clear waters that trickled and filtered down from the lofty whitewashed crags.

Down the valley

But for all its unspoiled splendour, the landscape was accompanied by no soaring Hollywood overture, no epic camera-swoop across the path of a silhouetted hero. All lay still and silent. This was the kind of wilderness that turned a man into a tiny speck, his unseen travails rendered vain and pointless. There was no romance in the thought of spending days passing amongst these pristine peaks. Like much of so-called adventure travel, it was simply a job that had to be done. Smiles and satisfaction would come later. 

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Films Mongolia 2010

VIDEO: Bikepacking Outer Mongolia (Part Four)

This is the last part of my series of videos from mountain-biking in Mongolia last year (start with Part One if you just found this). In this episode we find ourselves spending several days pushing our bikes down a deserted valley in search of a town whose name we are unable to pronounce, lured on by the faint hope of a big plate of deep-fried dumplings with which to celebrate the end of our trip.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed these videos. Now’s the time for you to help me improve the next project. What was your favourite scene or story? What bored you? What would you have liked to have seen more and less of? Was the series a success or a failure for you?

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Films Mongolia 2010

VIDEO: Bikepacking Outer Mongolia (Part Three)

This is Part Three of my series of videos from cycling in Mongolia last year (here’s Part One if you missed it). In this episode we travel along the banks of Lake Khovsgol, which on a heavily loaded bicycle is a bit more difficult than it might sound. We meet some local holidaymakers and embark on what begins to look like an unrideable ‘shortcut’ to a town on the far side of a mountain range.

Please leave your comments below!

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Films Mongolia 2010

VIDEO: Bikepacking Outer Mongolia (Part Two)

This is Part Two of my mountain-bike adventure video series from Mongolia (here’s Part One by the way). In this episode, we’re searching desperately for something more interesting than riding across the endless steppe. I unfortunately get ill and we have to lay up for a couple of days in the town of Moron, and then we decide to head north to Lake Khovsgol.

Please leave your comments below.

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Films Mongolia 2010

VIDEO: Bikepacking Outer Mongolia (Part One)

I recently spent several weeks bikepacking across Mongolia with my good friend Andy. We decided to pool our filmmaking experience to try to create a really entertaining bicycle adventure video which also captured the scale and diversity of the country. This is the fruit of our labours — please take 10 minutes out of your day to give the first episode a try.

The remaining three episodes will appear on this blog over the next few weeks. My main reason for producing these videos has been to practice the craft of editing, so your feedback on the series would really help me to improve my future projects. Please leave your comments below.