beautiful journey that was the start of our travels. Although we had not crossed the Antarctic circle it make us happy to think that we had seen both Polar regions, if only briefly. The polar regions do leave you with such a desire to return and seeing the NordNordge reminded us of how the top of the world was so similar but so different to the bottom of the world - if that makes any sense!!!

After checking the internet we were on a mission to hire camping equipment. There were quite a few places renting out equipment but we were advised by Alejandro which were the best. We definitely wanted thick sleeping bags and the first down ones we had seen didn’t really fill us with confidence that they would keep us warm - me in particular! After a couple of hours we had all of our equipment, we had a 3 man tent just to give us a bit more room and a pair of fairly thick looking Norwegian sleeping

bags, a Trangier stove, a couple of sleeping mats that Alejandro had offered us free of charge and a pair of walking poles for yours truly in the vain hope that they would stop my knees from hurting so much!

The next thing left to do was go shopping and pack. We were going to leave a lot of things back at the hostel and just take essentials which basically meant that I carried the clothes and my sleeping bag and poor Rob had to carry the rest! His rucksack was considerably heavier than mine, but he said he didn’t mind as he felt that it was him who really wanted to do this trek! I did want to do it but was just a little unsure as to what it would be like if the weather threw its almighty wrath at us - we were keeping everything crossed for a little semi reasonable weather!

It hadn’t