My Arctic Expedition!

We did it! I am officially back from the Arctic having sledded 250km, and couldn't be prouder! A massive thank you to everyone who was also on the trip, as the fact everyone was so lovely really did it make it that bit more incredible. I'm guessing everyone who has been following this blog (or even people reading it for the first time) would like to hear about how it all went...so here goes....

Day 1

We arrived in Tromso! After getting up at 3am to get to Heathrow airport for 4:20, we finally got to Tromso in the early afternoon. Then it was a short mini-bus trip to the Villmarkssenter (everyone should go there for a mini-expedition, it's incredible). The place really was amazing, all you could see were dogs! They were kept in these little huts (see left) in their sledding pairs, and they were all ridiculously friendly. On the first day we got some of our kit to sleep in in the Lavo where we slept on reindeer skins with a roaring fire (these were almost like a teepee - see the photo below - a massive shout out to Angie who took a lot of these photos too, I'm so gutted that I lost my camera for ages, but hers are a thousand times better than I could have taken, so there's a bonus!) .



Little did I know at this point that these two would be my back dogs - Martin and Jeff!



Inside the Lavo

Day 2

We started sledding!!! First up, a long mini-bus drive from the Villmarkssenter to where we began our expedition. The dogs were loaded up in a huge truck with the sleds on the top, which really did look very impressive! The views on the drive were just amazing - they certainly started the nerves at what we were about to do! The picture to the left is a view from the petrol station on the side of the road - beats the view from our local at home any day.

When we finally got to our starting point, our sleds were lined up in order (see below) and we met our dogs for the first time. I had an adorable team of five: Latte, Mocha, Ekspresso, Martin (my dad's name! it was fate!) and Jeff. Straight away we started as we meant to go on, doing everything ourselves, from loading the sleds to harnessing the dogs up. As soon as this was done they were pulling to go!!

Although we only did a short distance on the first day, I think this was the hardest one for me. I started off with a rickety racing sled, which I just couldn't get my balance on. After falling off a ridiculous amount of times in quick succession I was just about ready to give up and go home thinking that I just couldn't do this, when one of our guides Tore said to me quite simply 'there is no such thing as can't', plonked me back on the sled, and kept on going! As this was coming from a man who had last year lost pretty much all of his fingers to frostbite, but still sledded like a champion, you knew that it was true. I must say, what he said was just perfect, as if I had given up, I don't think I'd ever have forgiven myself! Soon after my epic falling session we stopped off for our first night of camping. Before this, there were some duties to be done - the dogs had to be put on their stake out (a long metal line tied each end to a strong tree so stop the dogs running off - the photo above was the dogs on the first stake out of the trip), fed, the camp itself had to be built and our dinner had to be cooked, without any help at all! After this, we settled down to get some sleep before our next day of sledding...

Day 3

My sled full of bits and bobs

Our first full day of taking down the camp, sledding, and then setting it all back up again! This day it took around 3 hours to take down the camp and get going. I know that seems like a long time, but there was an awful lot to do! The meth burner had to be put on to warm the tent up, then we made our breakfast (porridge. every. single. day. I don't want to see porridge for a long time!), packed away our kit into our sled, fed the dogs, harnessed the dogs, took up the stake out, and we were off! My sled got swapped today with Angie's, which I was thankful for, as my new one was a lot more sturdy so at the time I was quite hopeful it would lead to less falling off.

This day was pretty bleak with sledding. And I did fall off AGAIN! This time was a little worse, as it was on a vertical drop which ended in me smashing my face and hands (having seen a doctor at home, it's just tendon damage, so will take a couple more weeks to heal!) and blubbing like a baby, how embarrassing! I soldiered on though, and we reached our next campsite at around 2:30pm. As this was completely flat, this time Tamsin dug us a toilet (to preserve dignity, y'know) which I will always love her for! That's the one part of being in the wilderness I do not appreciate at all! My job was essentially to hop in and see if it was deep enough, which some people did take photos of ha, but I am NOT USING IT as some others have suggested!! This was also the first night we had to dig our stake out in, as there were no trees to attach it to. This meant digging a hip height hole into the snow to drop a wooden board in - which had the stake out end wrapped around it - as this was the only way to secure the dogs. Digging it out in the morning was not fun! I did try and help, but as you can probably tell from the photos, am a pretty crap digger.

Day 4

After sledding today we arrived at the fishing village!! This was the only day of the entire trip where I didn't come crashing off my sled (woohoo!) and it was a really stunning day of sledding.

 Day 5

Our hardest day of sledding. We did 65km, and it really was tough going. At first it was relatively flat and so easy sledding, but after a quick five minute break we had to cut through a small village, and that was just so difficult. I fell off around three times, and almost everyone came off at least once! At the end of a day that must have involved around 6-7 hours of sledding it was difficult to say the least. At one point I let go of my sled, having tipped over sideways (sled included) and the dogs just kept running, meaning I had to sprint after them which wasn't so great!! At another point I fell off again and my sled ran over my own dogs (not hurting any of them, thank god, but I still felt pretty terrible!). This was a completely new route which a Global Adventure group had never been taken on before, and the guides did in fact say that they would not be using this again, as it was too difficult for beginners. Something to be proud of I suppose, as we managed it! On this day my dogs were also changed, so I said farewell to my middle dog Ekspresso and welcome two new ones - I wasn't too sure of their names but I nicknamed them Beast and Licky! You can meet them in the photos below!! We were very glad to get to the camp and get it set up on this night, ready to sleep for the next day..

Our guides showing us where we had come on the map

Me looking knackered after such a long day!

From the left: Latte, Mocha, Beast, Licky, Jeff and Martin

Day 6

Another long day today! Not quite as far to go as the previous day, but as our second to last day we still had a fair amount of distance to cover. Today the sledding was absolutely beautiful - people were saying it looked like Narnia, not the Arctic! It was still snowing today (as it had been for the past two days) but that didn't dampen our spirits as we headed for what was to be our final campsite through amazing pine forests and over rocky downhill tracks.

That's me at the front!

Tonight we had the most amazing surprise, as we ended up at a Sami village, where a Sami lady invited us in and had cooked us dinner - what an angel! It was such an amazing surprise, it really felt like we were getting towards the end of the trip now. She taught us a little about Sami culture, how they follow the reindeer, the way they dress in reindeer skins and even how they mark the reindeer as their own - something which I had never known before but loved hearing about!

As there were no tracks to follow, the first team of dogs had to be pulled through the snow in the direction we needed to go, so that the rest of the dogs would then follow.

The Sami village



Britt-Marie (sorry if that's spelt wrong) - the Sami lady who cooked us dinner

A traditional Sami meal - Reindeer of course!

Inside the Sami house

Me putting Beast onto the stake out for the final time! You had to carry the dogs by their collars to move them - they were too strong with all 4 paws on the floor!

Me and Tamsin putting up our tent for the final time

Day 7

Our final day! Almost finished! Today we had a small amount of sledding, and then we loaded up the kit for the final time and returned to a hotel in Tromso. Although it stopped snowing today, because of so much snow-fall in the previous days the ground was pure slush, which made sledding very difficult as the runners kept sinking into one side, meaning you would have to lean to the other to try and stop your sled falling over! I, obviously, wasn't so great at this, and fell off a couple of times! In the end I got pulled up the front behind the guides (felt like a naughty school girl being pulled to the front of assembly, ha) after which no falling off until we reached the Villmarkssenter bus that marked the end of our amazing journey.

Me on the sled - no hands!



Some of Britt-Marie's reindeer

A VERY cute husky puppy at the Sami village we ended at!

The dogs being put away for the final time. I'm the one in purple, saying farewell to Martin and Jeff. I so did not want to leave them!!

Day 8

A quick dash around Tromso to get some goodies for my parents, and then home. And I have never been so glad to walk through the front door! This really was the most amazing experience I have had so far in life, and probably will stay one of, if not the, most incredible things I will ever do.
As it stands, I have raised £4010 for the RedCross by completing this expedition. Although this does mean I have reached my personal target, any extra money will mean a little bit of extra help for someone somewhere, so please please do keep the donations coming in! Thank you so much for everyone who has read this blog / helped me to achieve this / donated, this would have been pointless without your help. Thanks for reading! xxx



Well, I'm off

I officially leave in 11 hours! Finally finished all my uni work, and bought everything I'll need (and some things I probably won't) for the trek. Scary stuff!! The kit looks pretty impressive actually (if you ignore the jammy dodgers - an obvious must have!).....

One slight issue being that, as I was trying to get as much as possible in the sale, the coats are VERY BRIGHT haha. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but there are some rather snazzy purple and blue coats in there! Shows up a bit better in the picture to the side, thats me in all my 'get up'... someone made the comment that it looks like the dogs are rolling around laughing at me - sad but true! They really didn't like the ski goggles, both started growling at me until I took them off!

I'm getting pretty nervous about the trek now actually, which I wasn't expecting, but thanks for all the good luck messages as they really are helping :) Anyway, this is just a final (almost) post, to say thank you so much to EVERYONE who has sponsored me. That money really will change lives, and me doing this would be completely pointless without all your help, so a really massive thank you :)

I'll make sure to do one more post with everything that happens on the trek...I have a little bag to keep my camera close to try and stop it freezing up, so will hopefully get lots of great pictures to post when I'm back too! Wish me luck!! Until next time....

Sudden Realisation

It has just hit me that, despite being 20, I've never actually been abroad before without my parents (fear of flying coupled with lack of adventurousness never made it an appealing prospect). So my first trip abroad alone will officially be crossing the Arctic with a group of people I don't really know. How on earth did this happen?! Dad's first trip abroad alone was to live in South Africa for a few months to work on a gold mine....so maybe I'm just following a family tradition of starting with a bang. Either way, this certainly makes it even more of a big adventure! Only 26 days left until I board that plane...

Quiz Night!!

Well, last night was the quiz that I've been mentioning in the past few posts, and I'm happy to report it was a roaring success, raising a whopping £330!!I'm ridiculously happy about this, so a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who came!! Really hope you had a good night, and maybe even came away with some nice prizes! First off we started the quiz with the lovely compare Rhydian (the 'flame haired adonis' - his words! - in the photos) who did a fantastic job. We had 6 rounds of questions, including a Geography round which was, of course, about the Arctic. Probably one of the funniest bits for me was how Rhydian (a fellow welsh-y) had managed to work in a question involving 'Grandslam' into every round - MAYBE annoyed a few people but I thought it was brilliant! Did you know Wales won the Grandslam last weekend? You know, by beating every team? Everyone who was at the quiz certainly does now. He'd even managed to work it into the picture round, which was very impressive.

Me and the raffle tickets

As I've mentioned on here before, the pub was a little concerned about a quiz and did say that normally they weren't too keen on them as people didn't usually drink, however we had a cheeky plan! The prize for the winning team was to have their bar tab paid by Bell Exploration Ltd up to £150, and to top it off, people didn't even have leave their seats, as my Dad and his friend Richard stepped up to the bar (literally) and acted as waiters for the whole night, bless them!! They even made little flags to put on the tables saying 'I'm a-thirsty, bar steward!' (Say it out loud, you'll understand) for people to wave when they needed a drink, so the waiters would then rush over. Can't thank them enough for doing that - the pub even said they were always sure of a job there if it was ever needed as they were so hard-working! (Dad's the one on the left -  as you can see they even wore waiter suits!!) This actually made the quiz a little harder, I think, as the more prize you wanted the more you had to drink, but the more you drank the harder the quiz would be - sneaky!

The Waiters!

We also had a raffle just to top off the night, and I must say the prizes were pretty good considering they all had to be donated as it was for charity! We had....

•  A Pinny made by Lizzie-Jane (check them out, they're amazing!)
• £10 Accessorize voucher
• £10 HMV Gift Card
• £10 in Toni&Guy Gift Cards
• Champagne
• Fancy Red Wine
• A Hardback Bill Bryson Book
• £50 Meat Hamper (delivered to your door!)
• Stunning Ammonite pair
• Harmonica Lessons and a Harmonica from dad!

Thanks to everyone who donated a prize, the raffle tickets alone raise over £100 so we really couldn't have done it without you!

Me and Rhydian



 



Anyway, that's about all the pictures I managed to get (mix of camera and phone, as the camera died halfway through). Thanks a load to the Barrowboy and Banker who also let me pop round the whole pub with my bucket - everyone was really generous, sorry for interrupting your night - it's a great pub right next to London Bridge Station. As they let us have our tables with no booking fee, this meant all the proceeds could go towards the charity which really helped to bump up the total! It ended with a lil' thank you speech from myself (sorry to everyone who was there, I am the absolute worst at speaking in public, but I did my best!) and I really did mean it , this has now bumped me up to 88% of the total, and with under 4 weeks until the trek, that's a really nice place to be in :)