Soon we will say goodbye to China but before then, we wanted to climb over Tianshan (天山) once more.

Sorry Kashgar, but hello Khorgas!

Initially we planned to leave China via Kashgar however due to restrictions, the border area is marked as a “no man’s land” so only licensed vehicles can cross it. This led us to choosing the Khorgas border to Kazakhstan where our NZ passports are allowed 30 days visa-free entry.

Duku Road 独库公路

Duku Road namely is an acronym for the two towns where the road start and end (Dushanzi 独山子 ⇄ Kuche 库车). We cycled half of it then turned off at Nalati heading west. Nonetheless we cycled through some beautiful mountains, and by luck the road was closed to vehicles which made the journey the more memorable.

F is for “Friends who do Stuff Together”

Remote areas offer the best spots for camping. We found two friends to camp with who cycles in a similar manner to us. They aren’t in a rush, don’t care for daily distance targets and savvy travellers too!

Sharing is definitely caring when you are on the road, we offer hot food with our amazing cooker, and they share us their assortment of snacks — we don’t like the plastic wraps but free food is free food.

Sit back and relax