Despite working on the old Ghost until 3am with two of our trusty mechanics and again this morning, our dear friends, Chris and Mark’s car was stuffed and they have had to abandon the possibility of getting the old girl in a sufficiently good state to continue driving it for the gruelling days to come.

Ancient cars, despite the best preparation, sometimes fail and there is not enough time, or equipment, to sort things out as the rally always has to move on. It’s happened to us on rallies and it is devastating. One of our fab mechanics, Karim, used to work for ‘Mr Silver Ghost’, in England and knows the cars intimately. He did everything he could to get the very complicated, almost 100 years old car working again, but it was his opinion that it wouldn’t make it, sadly. It was much safer to leave it in the secure car park of our hotel for collection than to break down struggling at the over 4500 metres altitude we were at today, and then be stuck on the side of the road. We could tow it a bit but, the several hundred kilometres we cover every day, would be impossible.

The only thing to do when this happens is to crack on. It’s possible for them to travel in one of our local team cars until other arrangements can be made to keep them in the rally. When we’ve ended up in hire cars, we’ve still enjoyed and felt very much part of the team. To lose two cars on day one is very sad indeed though.

Scenically, today has been stunning. We climbed quite rapidly to a pass of over 4300 metres and then stayed at that height for a good while. We saw thousands of yams grazing on seemingly nothing as all is brown. They look fat and glossy coated though. I do love a yak with their shaggy tails and stocky build. Some look as if they’re wearing a blonde wig. I also like yak clothing. It’s has all the properties of cashmere without the pilling. Am I selling it you? #googlesyakknitwear. They taste good too, although I am vegetarian on this jaunt. Yak butter tea though, you can stick that.

The landscape was bleak but really beautiful. We saw frozen lakes, snowy, jagged mountains, isolated villages, a massive monastery, and monks galore. It snowed for a little while too. Wet light snow and hail. It was also freezing cold and windy. We then dropped down to 2550 metre for our night halt. It was a shock to suddenly see some green vegetation again.

I did most of the driving today and so I took fewer photos. We essentially spent the day one one road for 200 kms. (7 hours) so I could drive and navigate at the same time. Navigation is not Mr S’s forte, no matter how much he denies the incontrovertible truth. Me driving, usually means he sleeps. It’s a bit tricky to use a monit trip metre, follow a route book and manage the Garmin etrex whilst unconscious, no matter what he may claim. Driver, navigator and photographer; it’s a good job I can multi task. It’s called woman.

Tomorrow we enter Tibet, or rather the Chinese Autonomous Region of Tibet. We’re all excited!