Not the Karakoram Highway

1st July
It looked like a short cut and was told so as well but after travelling 120kms over some extremely winding roads and facing some dangerous Sunday drivers we were turned back as the town we were heading to before branching west for 50kms and joining up with the KKH was close to the contested border of Jammu/Kashmir with India. We tried everything to convince the security bloke that we were 2 oldies wanting to take a short cut. No dice. So back we went about 60kms then headed west on a better road as it turned out and joined up with the KKH at a place called Abbottabad. We managed 220kms for the day but it took us 8 hours to do it.
The road across to the KKH was interesting. Heavily wooded it must be the place for families to come for a Sunday picnic as almost every corner on the windey road had a family group relaxing enjoying the coolness. We were up in the clouds on a couple of occasions then drop thousands of feet to the valley. The river just before Abbottabad meandered through a wide gravel bed. Hundreds of locals were out enjoying the clear water, washing cars, swimming and they even had a couple of big ferris wheels and a large gondola set up on the gravel for the kids. They must keep a pretty good eye on the weather.
We haven't lost mch time as the journey to Gilgit usually tas three days with the 2nd day being a short hop, however we will have to do an extra 10kms to make up for the mess today.
Watchers of “Global Village” on SBS (the best tv programme there is) may have seen an item about the polo match played on the Shandur Pass which is the highest polo ground in the world. Its played between teams from Gilgit and Chitral and includes 3 days of festivities. Well this years tournament happens to be this coming weekend and our timing is such that we will be in the area at that time. They reckon it's quite an event. Polo originated in the mountains of Northern Pakistan. We are looking forward to it