The instructions were clearly defined over dinner, The Moron's were going to get up early and find a mechanic then we would all get breakfast at 9 a.m. When the time came we were standing outside and there was a distinct lack of Mongoliers. Instead of wasting this time I used it productively and drew on their car with sun-cream. At 9:05 the gang arrived and we went back to the main street to find a place for breakfast. The only option for breakfast was the same Korean resteraunt, which was also a hotel so we imagined it might have a breakfast menu - we were wrong. The resteraunt was empty and in darkness when we arrived but they opened up when they saw our hungry faces pressed against the door. The menu had changed from last night, there was now a third item available - I wondered if it was some bizarre loyalty scheme where a new item would be unlocked with each visit. The waitress couldn't explain what the new item was so she tried to call someone who might be able to, but after a few minutes we were no closer to finding out. Clearly they were withholding information, presumably because this blind ordering was a trust exercise in their loyalty scheme. I should have dropped out of their trap and stuck with the tasty soup, the new item was a horrible and bland mutton dish - their loyalty scheme seems to be one which punishes you for eating at their unfinished resteraunt. Over breakfast there was an awkward break-up between The Mongoliers and The Morons. Understandably they didn't want to keep towing a dead car for the next 1000km to the finish line. Matt explained that they had a good laugh yesterday but couldn't possibly keep towing without risking breaking their engine under the strain, it was the towing equivalent of "It's not you, it's me".

 

After finishing what we could of breakfast The Morons continued their search for a mechanic who could fix their fuel pump or a Mongolian willing to take them to Ulaanbaatar. Obviously we weren't going to leave until they were fixed or had a plan to get to the finish, so we went to the supermarket. After yesterday's reigniting of the intercar projectile warfare, we hatched a plan to buy various fruits to throw at The Mongoliers. Unfortunately the secret plan was ruined, while we scooped tomatoes into a bag the giggling must have been too loud. We turned round and found Jamie staring at us. He didn't buy that the tomatoes were for a pasta dish we were cooking for dinner, which is understandable as they had never seen us cook anything but minute noodles. We ignored his disbelief and bought the tomatoes anyway. Back at the hotel James arrived to update us on the Micra situation; they hadn't found a mechanic yet but the back-up plan was a friendly local with a 4x4 who was willing to take them later in the afternoon. We all sat patiently outside the hotel for a while until Miles came back to tell us they had found a mechanic and were in the process of finding a replacement pump, the mechanics was down the road and then a left at the dinosaur park. He kept talking but I wasn't listening, not when this Mongolian city had been hiding Jurassic Park from the world. Haunger and I walked down to the park and were disappointed by the lack of live dinosaurs. The dinosaur park was a few inaccurate sculptures in a patch scrub land. We had come this far so we went to go through the gate where a woman stopped us. She gave us two tickets then stared blankly. The three of us stood awkwardly staring at each other for a few uncomfortable minutes. Luckily she broke the stare first and took the tickets off us then she picked up her bag and walked away, and that is how we became the owners of a s#*t Mongolian theme park. Inside the park there were a few deflated inflatable bouncy castles, a childrens roller-coaster and 5 large sculptures. The first three were legitimate dinosaurs, there was a large sauropod, a tyrannosaurus, a pack of velociraptors, and an oversized tortoise. The sculptor must have had only three types of dinosaur in his "My first dinosaur sculpture" book because the fifth sculpture was like something Godzilla might battle. While we had walked back from the supermarket earlier in the day Chris fixed our plan, he was going to sneak back to the supermarket and continue our shopping while we waited. While Haunger and I went to the dinosaur park Chris had been to the "ATM" and returned with a rucksack full of watermelon.

 

It was nearly lunch time when word came that the Micra was almost ready to begin its life again. We all eagerly went to the mechanic, with the plan to leave town as soon a prognosis was made - if the car was going to be fine we would wait, if the car was dead we would leave them to be towed. Fortunately the car was going to be fine, they had found a new fuel pump and were getting it fixed. Unfortunately that meant we had to waste another half an hour waiting outside the mechanics before we could leave. This was one of those mechanics who operate out of their front garden, so we were hanging around the backstreets like a gang of hoodlums until we heard the roar of 998cc worth of life from The Moron's Micra. Confirming my theory of Mongolian roads, there was smooth tarmac outside of town. Since The Mongoliers didn't have a radio we used our connections to organise an ambush while the roads were good quality. We had a very detailed plan to be executed with an extreme level of accuracy. The Aussies would be leading the convoy, The Mongoliers would be next, then The Lion Cubs, then us. Khan would slow down and Red Lion would speed up to hold The Mongoliers in place while we sped up the outside to complete the blockade. In this position we would have a prolonged steady shot with our tomatoes while they would have no where to flee to. When an open straight appeared ahead of us we gave the kill order and executed our ambush perfectly. The Mongoliers had no idea until we drew level and begun flinging tomatoes at them. Once our supply of tomatoes was exhaust we sped off to the front of the convoy feeling very pleased with ourselves. They knew the tomatoes were coming at somepoint, unless they actually believed we were making pasta, but they didn't know about the watermelon we had specially picked out for them. Obviously they would have realised if we preformed the same manoeuvre again so we left the melon for a few hours, of course we kept playing mind games by overtaking them and slowing down to force them to reovertake. Chris sliced up the watermelon ready for the attack. Unfortunately the excitement got the better of him and he fell asleep with a basin of watermelon on his lap.

 

The road disappeared for awhile which meant the watermelon would have to wait. The rumour mill suggested there was only a few hundred kilometers of off-roading before the tarmac came back and continued all the way to the finish line. The rumours were partially correct, the road had gone and was replaced with the standard dirt, rock and pothole combination. It didn't last long until the tar-maced road returned, but luckily there was one last off road section left. In the mean time on smooth roads Chris was alive again and ready to watermelon. At a previous stop we had donated a couple of pieces to the other teams to throw, we were now the allied forces in this war. We instructed the first wave of attacks and watched as The Aussies and then the Lion Boys sped past to throw their ammo. Once they were done and The Mongoliers were suitably confused we came in with the mother load. We pulled along side and took a different approach to the Kazakh melon. We had grown experienced at melon throwing and went for a machine gun approach. Chris passed watermelon chunks by the handful to me as I throw each and every peice against their car. Unfortunately Chris' grabbing was faster than my throwing so there was a backlog dripping on my lap, but there are always casualties on both sides of a war. The Mongoliers foolishly tried to run but, as our drag-races had proven, they couldn't escape us. We had multiple passes before they retaliated with balls of soaked tissue paper. I took a hit to the face as we pulled along side to attack but it didn't deter us. When we had finally ran out of watermelon chunks the juice was thrown as a final splattering. They wouldn't give up, now they had tasted blood they wanted more and continued throwing paper towels. We threw all we could until we had nothing left to throw, but we did have something to spray, something we had been saving for a special occasion - one of the fire extinguishers. They were trying to run but I wasn't finished with them and running wasn't working. I pulled along side and sprayed the powder all over the side of their car and declared victory. After we had won the war a message came through the radio from Red Lion.  Their clutch had broken again during the war, the inquest found it was not due to any friendly fire, and they now had a flat tyre. Eventually we managed to wave down The Mongoliers who understandably weren't too trusting, and explained the problem. We were beginning to turn back when the ceasefire was broken by Rob with a bottles worth of water splashed at our car. We ignored this pocket of resistance, as the war had been won, and returned to The Lion Boys aid. Unfortunately the aid mission escalated, it really got out of hand fast, their was more fire extinguishers and Matt hit a guy with a bag of pasta.

 

There was less fighting as we got back on the road after, mainly because there was nothing left to throw. As I said the rumours of tar-mac to Ulaanbaatar were partially correct, there was another patch of off-roading shortly after we set off again. I have always enjoyed the off-road driving we have had to do in Mongolia even when it was tough going, but this time was different. This last section really marked the end of the adventure; there probably wouldn't be another breakdown on the tar-mac, or any river crossings, we were approaching civilisation, it was a sad trip through the last section without tar-mac. Everyone made the most of it as we took our random paths and splashed through the shallower puddles. Everyone apart from The Lion Boys who were stuck in 4th gear and couldn't slow down even if they wanted to - they needed to fix a flat tyre as soon as the tar-mac returned. We all stopped to lend a hand by standing around chatting while they did all the hard work. Adam was relaxing in the car enjoying the final moments of the rally, as he described it he was in a peaceful state with the sun shining on him, relaxed music playing and a group of new friends enjoying themselves. That was until Matt decided it would be funny to spray him with an extinguisher.  I should point out again that Matt is a medical student - I fear for his future patients. Adam's chilled and reclined position meant his feet were up on the seat against the door when he saw Matt approach the window. "Hey buddy" he said in his trademark way probably smiling until he saw the nozzle of the extinguisher point through the crack in the window. Matt claims he only sprayed a small burst of the powder but the video footage claims he tried to kill a man. He gave it one short squeeze followed by one very long squeeze until Adam burst from the car and begun coughing up his powdery internal organs on his hands and knees by the road side. He was entirely covered in powder, as was the inside of the car. Once he had caught his breath he took a long walk into the desert and begun throwing rocks, Sharkey explained to Matt "You know he's doing that so he doesn't hit you, right?" - which is incredible restraint for a man who has just been the victim of attempted murder. We didn't play with fire extinguishers again for the rest of the evening as we pushed on to be as close as possible to Ulaanbaatar. Once it began to go dark we chose a place to camp immediately beside the road and watched as a truck pulled up beside us. While the driver changed a flat tyre about 20 men climbed out the back and began urinating on our new camp ground. Once they had all shook twice they came over to the cars, we attract alot of attention when all 5 of us are parked together so are used to it, and began talking amongst themselves. One Mongolian attempted to go full Korday on our car with a pen but I told him where he could go, to the other cars which had writing on them already. Eventually the driver had replaced his wheel, rounded up his passengers and they left us in peace. Matt deep-fried some apology chips on his camping stove as we ate our non-apology dinners. Midway through dinner a shadowy figure approached us through the dark. It was a another Ger-man but this one didn't want to steal our money he just wanted to see what we were up to. He stood staring at us awkwardly for a few minutes until we offered him a freshly fried chip. He looked pleased as punch and then rode off to wherever he came from. We celebrated our last night of the rally with a few beers and a shisha in the desert, while reminiscing about the trip and discussing our plans for future traveling - if any of them ever come up/over to Scotland I'm sure they know they have a place to stay.