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Gobi desert debrief: First crossing by power-kites and buggies
Jan 13, 2005 15: 10 EST
The image of a quiet man in his sixties flying a kite on a windy Irish beach can be considered perfectly normal. Relaxing even.
But the sight of Brian Cunningham, 61, striped to a three-wheel buggy, speeding behind a paraglide-shaped power kite across the Gobi desert is anything but relaxing. That's because Brian is anything but a quiet man.
600 miles desert crossing
Extreme adventure bound Cunningham, originally from Portrush, Northern Ireland decided to change the Irish coast for a much drier and isolated place: The Gobi desert, in Mongolia (Central Asia). The goal to complete the first crossing, about 1000 kms (620 miles), by power kites and buggies.
Fine company
Brian had some fine company too: Kieron Bradley, ex Formula-1 engineer who also designed some improvements for the buggies to resist the rough desert plains and Peter Ash, mechanic and an experienced power-kiter. Brian’s wife Christine came as a photographer and first-aid. The expedition was supported by 4x4 vans.
The buggies were tested to the extreme
The team arrived Ulanbataar (Ulan Bator), capital city of Mongolia on August 31 last year. After a three-day drive to the border of Altai - a NW region belonging to the Russian federation and known for its alpine-like mountains, they set off on September 5, aided by a strong wind.
“We kited with tiny kites in a big wind for 48km over the most difficult ground we can expect to encounter on the entire journey. The buggies were tested to the extreme by the terrain and our speed, but they performed brilliantly. Top speed recorded was over 40mph.”
A week left
But soon poor or variable winds caused the kites to drop and forced the guys to stop and wait for better conditions. On one completely windless occasion, the guys even pulled heir buggies all day, covering 20 km.
On Sep 18 they decided on their definitive arrival point: ”We will continue due east towards Olziyt, a small town directly south of Ulaanbaatar. Not only is this a 'purer' route across the Gobi but more important it avoids kiting into the wind-shadow of the large mountain range which lies to the South.
We've discovered how capricious the winds are in the lee of the mountains and we need to make the most of what wind we get in order to complete our crossing. We are less than 300km from Olziyt and we have a week left.”
Make that 2 days!
But only two days later, on Sep 21, they wrote:
“We are now camped within 10km of our destination after a superb day. We covered just under 82km over the best terrain we've seen so far. We could have finished the final 10km today but instead we deliberately stopped here to avoid camping close to the town. We will finish the final 10km tomorrow.”
Better luck than at the South Pole
The team reached their aim: the first power kites/buggy crossing of the Gobi dessert. The trip took 17 days. About the distance covered, Brian noted: “Our support vehicle covered 1015km on the expedition and we probably covered a bit more because of some very inefficient windward work where each km gained required about 3km of ground covered”
“This was an amazing adventure. We encountered tougher terrain than we'd expected but that made our success all the sweeter. This time I got the winds spot on (not like the 'IceKites' expedition at the South Pole).”
Brian Cunningham (L), 61, is a speaker on marketing and branding and a Visiting Professor at Manchester Business School. His most recent "IceKites" expedition, to travel by kite power from the South Pole to the edge of the continent at Patriot Hills, was thwarted at the South Pole by one of the most windless periods in the region’s recent history. Originally from Portrush, Northern Ireland, Prof Cunningham now lives in Bolton.
Kieron Bradley, 30, is a former Formula 1 engineer who now devotes his working life to designing and building kite-buggies with his company Parastorm, based in Norwich. He has worked for two years designing the Gobi-buggy which is based on his new range of alloy buggies. He also designed the ice buggies used on Brian's IceKites expedition to Antarctica in 2002/3.
Peter Ash, 34, is a garage proprietor based in Aylsham, near Norwich. A seasoned extreme sportsman, he is credited by both Brian and Kieron as the most experienced at kite buggying.
Christine Cunningham, Brian’s wife, was also on the expedition doubling as first-aider as well as recording the expedition on still and video camera. Christine is no stranger to expeditions having been to Baffin Island in both summer and winter and also Greenland. Last year Brian and Christine hiked 220 miles of wilderness on the John Muir Trail in California from Yosemite Valley to the summit of Mount Whitney.
Images courtesy of the expedition
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