I woke up sweating this morning, it felt so foreign! The sun was shining and had heated up the tent, it was so nice and cosy waking up to sunshine after a 7 hour sleep. I packed up and we set off into the sunshine. The track that we had been following yesterday had partially filled up with snow drift but we managed to stick to it. It felt like a long day today, my mind had time to wander, I started planning future expeditions. I would like to do something with Ngaio on the ocean, in a sail boat. Her dad spent a lot of time sailing so it would be pretty cool to go on one of the trips he went on or visit some of the same islands. The next adventure will have to be in a warm place, to compensate for this very chilly one!
I came up with a few crazy inventions to help with different aspects of adventure, it's amazing what the brain can come up with.
As the day wore on, the walking got easier, the sun was helping the powder compact down so the track was flatter again. I think we are following the British team because I found an M&M in the snow, they had shared some of these with us when we met up with them... detective Brando.
Today was the first day that it was obvious that we were heading down hill, it was so exciting! We got the polar bear talk today as we are nearing the coast. If we see a bear we have to bunch together, this is to show the bear we aren't happy to see it and don't want to get close to it.
I haven't seen the sea yet but today I could smell it! It is such a strange feeling to be nearly off the ice , it's very exciting but sad that it is nearly over. In about three more days we will be at the sea, I can't wait to have an arctic swim haha. We walked 35km today in about 11 hours, I'm so proud of the team for completing such a huge distance. I am pretty sore all over but in a great headspace. Tonight we left the track we were following and are heading to the icefall, the final point before we head down to the coast!