Tuesday 14th April 2009

We camped at the Pole overnight Saturday, drove South Sunday, camped again for a few hours to rest and feed the dogs then drove the sleds through the night Sunday. When we were within 4 km of Barneo's new possition (it had drifted considerably to the Soutj_west) we came to open water which we travelled along back and forth for an hour or so to try to find a crossing. We finally stopped at the narrowest part to try to figure out a way to cross using ropes and perhaps getting wet - a crazy idea really. As we stood on the edge the wind was blowing quite strong from the North and to our amazement we realized that the millions of tons of ice which we had driven over and were now standing on, was on the move and heading for a dramatic collision with the mass in front of us. We quickly jumped on the sleds and mad a loop so we were heading for a 2 metre wide point where we estimated the 2 areas would first meet and driving at speed we crossed with the first sled almost jumping the last of the closing gap and the last crossing seconds before the enormous crash took place with the pressure ridge of broken ice blocks beginning to form behind us. Half an hour later we entered Barneo - the first dogs sled expedition ever to complete Barneo / Pole / Barneo !! No helicopters for us !

Technology has lived up to it's normal unreliability during the trip so apologies for the lack of photos so far but we will make up for it in the next few days with a link for you to look at the whole pictorial journey which we hope will give some clue to the beauty of this awesome (I never normally use the word) place where man was never meant to be.