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Mongolia's Dinosaurs, Past & Present!
Tour Code: MON03A unique 16-day fossil-hunting and birdwatching tour to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, including a visit to Hustai National Park, home of Przewalski’s Horse and the secretive Pallas’s Cat.
£6,995 (Inc flights)
£6,095
Highlights
Tour Itinerary and Reports
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Summary
This exciting tour follows in the footsteps of legendary explorer and palaeontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, who led the first fossil-hunting expeditions to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in the 1920s. Andrews’s expeditions not only discovered the very first dinosaur eggs, but also opened the world’s eyes to the wonderful variety and abundance of fossils exposed in the deserts of central Asia. We now know that Andrews stumbled across one of the richest deposits of dinosaur remains in the world and a breathtaking range of specimens have been gathered from the Gobi since then, including Tarbosaurus (a relative of ‘T. Rex’) and the prehistoric villain of the big screen, Velociraptor. Dinosaurs, of course, survive to the present day in the form of birds, and Mongolia is also home to an equally rich assemblage of living species. On this tour we aim to search out both the surviving and extinct members of the dinosaur lineage by combining visits to two key fossil localities (the Tugrigiin Shiree and the Flaming Cliffs) with birdwatching in the region’s deserts and mountains. There will also be the chance to look for the rare Pallas’s Cat in Hustai National Park.
- Explore Mongolia’s Gobi Desert
- Walk in the footsteps of palaeontologist Roy Chapman Andrews
- Look for dinosaur fossils at Tugrigiin Shiree and the Flaming Cliffs
- Spectacular desert scenery
- Birds including Mongolian Ground-jay, Saxual Sparrow & Pallas’ Sandgrouse
- Visit Hustai National Park home of the rare Przewalski’s Horse
- Look for the elusive Pallas’s Cat
- Led by expert Naturetrek naturalist & local palaeontological guide
We will begin our holiday with a flight to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital, before heading south to Dalandzadgad and out into the endless rocky hills and sand dunes of the Gobi Desert. We will spend our first night in a comfortable ger camp near the Hongoryn Els Sand Dunes, the largest dune system in the Gobi. The scenery here is spectacular and the surrounding area is home to Asian Desert Warbler, Saxaul Sparrow and the enigmatic Henderson’s Ground-jay. Continuing north-west, we will come to our first fossil locality in the Tugrigiin Shiree. We will stay here for two nights and spend our time prospecting for fossils – such as Protoceratops and Oviraptor bones – in its Late Cretaceous sandstone and shale cliffs. Moving our camp east once more, we will spend four nights in the Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park, splitting our time in the reserve between looking for birds such as Altai Snowcock, Pallas’s Sandgrouse and Chinese Beautiful Rosefinch and prospecting for fossils in the ‘Flaming Cliffs’, the legendary desert sandstones in which Andrews found his first dinosaur eggs!
We will conclude our tour with two nights in a ger camp in Hustai National Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with a significant population of Przewalski’s Horse. Here, we will search the park’s grasslands, hills and lakes for birds including Demoiselle Crane, Oriental Plover and Swan Goose, and for the rare Pallas’s Cat which can be reliably found at a site nearby.
Outline Itinerary
What's Included?
- Flights
- Accommodation:
In Ulaanbaatar we use a modern tourist hotel, where all rooms have private facilities. For the rest of the tour we will stay in a mix of simple, but comfortable, tourist ger camps and where ger camps are not available we will set up our own tented accommodation. The ger camps feature comfortable twin-bedded yurts with shared toilet and showers. When camping, sleeping bags and inflatable matrasses are provided.
- Food:
All included in the price from dinner on Day 2 to breakfast on Day 16.
Dates & Prices
2025
Why Naturetrek?
At Naturetrek we craft expertly-guided group and tailor-made wildlife holidays and cruises to all seven continents. On one of our holidays, you can be assured that our passionate team will enable you to experience and enjoy the best of the world's wildlife and natural spectacles in as comfortable and rewarding a manner as possible, caring as best we can for the environment in the process. We are proud to provide:
- The widest choice of wildlife holidays worldwide
- Tours managed and led by naturalists, for naturalists
- Outstanding value and exceptional customer service
Furthermore, as a Naturetrek client, our office team are always to on hand to help you – so if you have any queries about your holiday, whether before or after you have booked, we will be delighted to answer them on the phone. Please just give our team a call!
