Marathon back to Urumqi

Today essentially marked the end of our time in Xinjiang. With our flights leaving Urumqi tomorrow, we had to make the 680km journey from Nalati, through mountains, valleys and deserts, back to Urumqi. Our GPS suggested about 10 and a half hours travel time, but with plenty of obstacles along the way it took closer to 12.

The first obstacles we faced were livestock and construction vehicles. The livestock is pretty much par for the course in Xinjiang (we've never been stuck in so many sheep tornadoes) but the construction vehicles were quite interesting. They are currently building a massive new highway through this area - pretty much the whole way to Urumqi - expected to cut the travel time in half and set to be finished by the end of next year. The amount of tunneling and bridging required was on a completely different level to anything in NZ. There were trucks with massive concrete girders backing across the road, diggers and other construction items we had to wait for or dodge.

The next obstacle was going over the mountain pass. Going up the hill it was very obvious why they need a new highway through here. It was utter chaos with potholes that might swallow a small child, and some parts being more pothole than road. This slowed the many freight trucks down to a crawl, and sometimes a complete stop. The traffic was forced to weave all over the road to try and navigate a path around some of the craters. Adding to this, cars (and trucks) were overtaking and undertaking left, right and centre.

Vela did an amazing job getting us through this safely, and after about an hour of climbing this mountain, going high enough that there was snow on the sides of the road (and only about 12 degrees outside), we made it to the other side and were greeted with amazing views of the arid grasslands below, framed by the mountain ranges on both sides.

Our next obstacle came shortly after descending onto the plains by way of a police checkpoint. Unbeknownst to us, we were about to enter a military area and foreigners are not allowed through... With no other roads we were faced with the possibility of having to backtrack over the mountains and back around the northern side of the Sky Mountains range - the way we had come. Fortunately the head police officer took pity on us and relented. After taking our details and photos of the vehicle etc, they allowed us to continue through. Phew!

It was pretty easy going for the next few hours, apart from Vela earning a speeding ticket (bit ridiculous having 60km/h limits on flat, straight, wide roads), but we weren't the only ones getting fined. We started weaving through some valleys and encountered a short thunderstorm before finally popping out into a completely barren, alien landscape. It felt a bit like what you might imagine Mars might be like. Bare hard rock everywhere. Piled into hills and valleys. Almost no vegetation to speak of. We think that this area had been heavily mined in the past, and what we were seeing was whatever was left in the aftermath.

The atmosphere had turned hazy, and a quick glance at the dashboard showed the temperature had leaped from 12 degrees as we crossed the mountains to 39 degrees! We drove through a heavy industrial area (wish we had taken some photos but we forgot) with massive power plants and what looked like concrete factories and oil refineries. With the haze and the temperature it was actually quite quite a spectacle.

About an hour and a half out from Urumqi we stopped for a quick break (Sunny had done her driving stint and Vela was ready to hop back behind the wheel). The temperature was still baking outside, and the air was so dry to breathe it felt like the moisture was being sucked out of your body. Everything, everywhere, was flat. The sun was barely poking through the haze - but obviously still had plenty of potency.

About 12 hours after leaving Nalati, we finally made it to Urumqi! The atmosphere had cleared up and we were glad to have made it in one piece. No hotel for us tonight, instead we had booked an overnight Chinese "foot" massage (it's more of a full body thing). We had a rather rude lady at the front desk and we thought about turning around - but it was too difficult as we'd handed back the keys to our Orange Tank. So we persevered. Fortunately the massage more than made up for the rudeness. The masseuses were lovely and Vela (whose voice was starting to return) enjoyed chatting with them.

After the massage we managed to negotiate our way onto a Majiang table, and played until 4.30am. Sunny and Clara stayed up and headed to the airport at 5.30, while Nathan, Vela and Mei managed to get a few hours of sleep as they had a midday flight booked.

Xinjiang has been amazing! The epic scenery and landscapes. The friendly people. The completely different cuisine. And although we only saw a fraction of this province, we highly recommend!Read more