BRANDO YELAVICH EXPLORER

Twenty days on an ice cap. Nothing grows here, there isn't anything colourful, except for us of course. I saw an ice halo today, its like a frozen rainbow, it was very cool! So the good news is that we have officially passed the half way mark in distance. It took us all this time to ski 277 kms, that's an average of 13.9km per day, if we were walking every day, but as we all know we had full days without walking due to the weather. Today we walked 31kms which is great! Now th

I woke up at 6am, today was to be the first of the big days. We are on a mission to make it to the summit ridge in four days. From that point we will slowly descend back down to sea level. We said goodbye to the DYE II building and started on the first leg of the day. The first leg was 90minutes, they are getting longer so we can cover extra ground and reach our four day goal. The extra walking time has given me extra thinking time, I've been planning all sorts of expeditions

We survived the most epic hurricane I have ever experienced...It was the only hurricane I have ever experienced but man it was full on. 137km per hour winds, zero visibility and snow that hits your face like a shards of glass. I found the storm pretty exciting as I waited for it to grow to its full force. The tent was flapping sooo much I wasn't sure it was going to stay in one piece, we eventually drifted off to the screaming wind. I woke up at 4am, the wind was deafening an

Today was about learning for me. I’m so used to walking at my own pace and covering large distances. It is a new experience for me to have to move as fast as the slowest team member. Something else I have learnt is that being the slowest is not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you are unfit, or that you are weaker. It can mean that you are steady and consistent. It means you won't burn out and need two days of rest, it means you are less likely to get sick becaus

The storm woke both me and Keith up at about 5am. The tent had its pegs thrown out by the wind and the front was flapping like crazy. I opened up the door into the outer tent, it had a huge pile of snow that had covered our boots and cooker. I grabbed the spade and dashed out to put the pegs back but the wind was too strong and I couldn't get the tent to stay down. I was only outside for about 30 seconds, I couldn’t get an eye on the other two tents to see if they had blown a

It was a very warm morning, I woke up sweating in my sleeping bag, thats a first! The sun was blasting the tent, it was actually very nice to be warm for once in the morning. Breakfast was 300g of oats with four dates. The team was up at 7am and packed up and away by 9am. Bridget and Hollie have quite bad colds so it won't be long until we are all sniffing... I had the first navigation leg today, it’s great to have soming different to look at other than my feet. My bearing t

Today was the first day where everything was flat, no more hills! We travelled about 20km today and made it to dog camp. It was a good day until I became sick. It feels like a tummy bug, nausea and vomiting. Dog camp is flat, theres nothing here just ice ice and more ice. The horizon is playing tricks on my mind, morphing the never ending white into hills and glaciers and houses. I was feeling so good before I got sick, its crazy how you take advantage of your body until it i

I woke up today feeling hungrier that usual, I decided to jazz up my porridge with dates, baby formula and butter, wasn't too bad! The camp spot last night was at the edge of the ice fall. Today we have been walking on smooth ice, uphill. I can't wait until we reach the half way point and start heading down. But, that is still a long way away so I won't go there in my head yet. We had our skis on by 9am , I was running late because I was frantically trying to set up my Goal Z

Bad dreams on the ice are not cool! I dreamt I was falling down a huge crevasse, gaining speed and plunging into darkness. I woke before my imminent death and felt very very glad it was just a stupid dream. It put me out a bit so today I was much more careful. What do you know, today we came across heaps of crevasses. Keith and I got ready for another day of walking, we had porridge for breakfast in the tent. We then pulled down the tent and packed it into my sled. We set off

I woke up at 0730 busting to pee. This isn't the best scenario to be in, you cant just nip outside to pee because you will get frostbite where you should NEVER get frost bite. You really don't want to pee on yourself because drying out clothes here will take a long time, plus, you will be smelly. So i’m rushing around trying to get my gear on and trying not to pee in said gear. Just one of the many things I hadn't thought about. Keith and I are tent buddies at the moment whi

I am in Greenland! This morning Keith and I woke up at 0530 and went for a walk on the snow. Our body clocks are pretty out of whack after all the travel and the time difference. I was semi tempted to find an icy pool to plunge into, but didn't come across one. I settled for a hot shower instead. Standing in the shower I tried to get my head around what lay ahead of me, but it was too overwhelming. I miss my partner so much, when i get like this in my head she can bring me ba

Fridtjof Nansen was an extraordinary person. After being accepted onto this expedition to Greenland, I decided I had better learn a bit about the man whose footsteps (well, ski tracks) we hope to follow in. His achievements are endless and woke me up to the impact one person can have on so many others. He was a humanitarian, a scientist, a polar explorer, a professor and he liked dogs. He was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his humanitarian work which included his initiativ

Im counting down the days until I set off for greenland! find out more here and track the expedition. During my walk around New Zealand I learnt things about myself that I didn't even know were possible. I learnt about corners of my mind that I would have preferred to have stayed hidden. What did I expect, walking around endless coast line, alone, with days stretching ahead of me as far as I could think. The monotonous thud of my boots in the sand, not knowing when I would s