Tuesday 10th September Went out for a meal when we finally got a hotel last night, little restaurant around the corner from the hotel, even before we had had a shower, just needed to eat, felt a lot better with some food inside us, back to the hotel to shower and clean up. We woke up in the morning to rain, we are certainly not used to it, had breakfast in the hotel, from the menu so went for the old favorite scrambled eggs and tomato with rice, Keith then ventured out to get some coffee, it was raining really hard now, not good. We were like caged animals, wanting to get on the bikes, but not keen on the weather, decided to give it an hour, see if dies down a little. During this time Keith had a Whats App conversation with Kristain, turns out he has raced around around the lake and the adjoining mountains, so not the first "House" in this part of China. Well the rain seemed to be easing up so we made the effort to go, after I had checked out the taxi fare to the next town! We finally left the hotel around 10:30, with a the rain still coming down, but easing up, with the first part of the day a steady climb, then a 8 mile steeper climb, finally finishing with a massive descent. With puddles all over the road and the visibility not great, it was quite difficult to get going, then a cycle path appeared on the other side of the road. This was a lot better,we only had to deal with the Nomads animals grazing on the verge, horses,sheep and yaks, just had to be a little bit careful passing them. We stayed on the cycle path until it finished, pull into a closed service station to adjust Linneys gears, all of the bikes need a good clean and a bit of maintenance,will need to sort out a short day soon. With the road starting to ramp up, we stopped for lunch at a small town, Daotanghe, before we eat, managed to get a hose pipe working at a service station and gave the bikes a bit of clean, as the rain had stopped now, With lunch over we started the 8 mile climb, Keith had done a bit of research and said we would be better on the toll road, not only do they have a really wide shoulder to ride on, they tend to be less busy. We reached the summit fairly easily, helped that the road was being upgrade and we had one side of the carriage way all to our self's, the workers quite happily waved us through. I put on an extra layer and gloves for the descent, really glad I did as it was cold, the road was an amazing feat of engineering cutting around the mountains, with stunning scenery. After around an hour of descending the road was not complete, with both directions using one side of the carriageway, with are normal swagger we elected to use the other carriage way, what a result we had at least 40 minutes descending on our own, riding three abreast, occasionally passing a few workmen who waved at us. The cam the tunnels the main one at least two miles long with lights and electronic signage,we just rode through. I did manage to get a puncture after the last tunnel, all repaired in the fast lane! When we finally had to get off the road it was a bit of an epic,as the slip road had not been built yet, road through the building site, with no problems, the workers just waving us through. The saga of finding a hotel in Huangyuan then begins, it is very frustrating knowing there are loads of hotels,but only certain ones take foreigners, some have signs outside, though we have tried some with these signs and still be refused. After about 5 attempts we finally managed to book into a hotel, we quickly got in there before they could change their minds.