The Gobi Desert
Island School, Alexia Rutkowski, Fiction: Group 4
T
he silent land grew quieter and quieter as they traveled into it, the hot summers day
hitting their rucksacks in the sun. Sweat perched on their upper lips and foreheads.
Up the torturous hills and down the steep slopes the explorers travelled searching for
the hidden treasures of the Gobi Desert. The furious wind swept the golden sand into
their eyes but nothing would stop the determination of the explorers, the expedition had just
begun they couldn’t turn back now. The beaming sun continued to shine throughout the day and
the bright blue sky never faltered either. Camels and vans carried their supplies behind them
engraving the sand with tire tracks and footprints. Soon the powerful winds would brush all the
marks away giving the sand an untouched purity.
As the day grew on the explorers had almost reached their destination. The peak of the
flaming cliffs was visible. The stunning sunset gave the cliffs a red like brown colour. The
explorers began to set up camp for the night, hurriedly building their tents and getting
everything prepared. The morning and afternoon had been very hot, the explorers were
practically baking however, as the scorching sun set the heat vanished with it. This left the
explorers to gaze at the shining stars and the shimmering moon. As the cold crept in the
explorers hurried into their tents slowly slipping into sleep, resting and relaxing before a new day
in the desert.
The new morning started a new day in the desert for the explorers. The sun was a deep blue
with small tints of orange from the sunrise. A delight they had unfortunately missed. As the
explorers grew closer to the flaming cliffs the jagged edges of the cliffs became visible. The bright
orange mountains were crooked and staggered with big chunks missing from the sides. They stood
out like a bright neon sign in contrast to the simple blueness of the sky and the pale yellow sand.
The Explorers approached the cliffs and at last put their hands across the jagered edges. The cliffs
were hot from the sun and burned the palms of their hands; however the cliffs had such a smooth
feeling until you felt the cracks and the sharps edges where they would start to crumble at the
slightest touch.
The explorers continued to explore the flaming cliffs, amazed by the beauty of the cliffs. The
softness of the cliffs but yet the harshness of it at the same time truly pleased them. Little did
they know about what was buried inside them, their futures waiting to be changed forever. It was
that very day July 13th 1923 that would completely change the life of Explorer Roy Chapman
Andrews right there and then. It all started when George Olsen stumbled across an old nest.
The ancient dinosaur eggs lay in the sand, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be stumbled
onto. The aged eggs were cracked and harden from the sun so full of life and unknown things
but lifeless at the same time. They were full of dead embryos from all those centuries ago. A time
people always wanted to know more about. They were eggshell white in colour but overtime had
become a darker colour from the sand and dirt, they also had oval spots on them that were darker
than the shell itself.
At first they didn’t know what it was. The ancient nest laid their, covered in grainy sand. It
was made up of dry leaves, twigs and small rocks and pebbles and was the shape of a circle. It had
eggs in it, miss-shaped eggs, something the explorers had never seen before. Their thoughts were
