Day 21
S83 57' 1.44", W80 32' 55.68"
///hypomania.blogged.intraoperative
The team approach 84 degrees South and have the halfway mark firmly in their sights.
“Hi good evening everyone. It’s Lou reporting in now from day 21 of the expedition.
So yes, three weeks we’ve been going for now, and it certainly feels like it. The good news is, that we’ve rolled up another 10-day food bag yesterday, so that’s two big blue sacks, with 10 days in each, that we’ve rolled up now. That means our pulks are at least – probably over 20kg lighter. And it is noticeable. Definitely seem to be losing a bit of their weight now, which is brilliant. This morning we were blessed with beautiful weather again. We’ve had a really good run of decent weather; great visibility this morning. Temperature’s pretty mild, around about -15, and a very light wind. So perfect conditions. We went out there and we went for it. Aiming to do our daily mileage of 15 nautical miles; and we managed 15.5 today. And we were
going strong for most of the day – sadly towards the end of the day, Martin’s Achilles are definitely giving him some grief. We kind of just cut the day slightly short, just so we didn’t push our luck; and we’ve been in the tent this evening, he’s been doing a lot of stretching, hopefully maintaining those so we can carry on making the great progress.
We’re now camped only three nautical miles from latitude South 84, which will be a great milestone for us. Hopefully fairly early tomorrow morning, when we get going, we’ll cross 84 degrees South; and that then puts us one degree from reaching the half way point, which is Theil Mountains. And hopefully in the next couple of days, we’ll start to see the mountains appear on the horizon, which will give us something to focus on. At the moment
there’s nothing on the horizon whatsoever, other than a flat white line, all the way around 360. It will be actually great to see something start to appear on the horizon. That will give us a real sense of progress as we watch those mountains grow in size, as we inch our way closer.
When we get to South 85 degrees, hopefully in around four or five days’ time; that’s bang on half way to the South Pole. That’ll be a real milestone. That’s our next target now, once we get across 84 tomorrow morning, is push on and get to 85 degrees South. We’re really looking forward to that.
A good day all round, and hopefully the weather holds the way it is for the next few days; till we get to 85 degrees South.
Just to finish off, I wanted to do another shout out. I’ve done a shout out for my two daughters, so far, and I also have a son – Luke. Just want to shout out to Luke, and his girlfriend Abby, who are back in Hereford. I know you guys are following these blogs, and hopefully you’re enjoying following our progress and all the battles and dilemmas that we’re dealing with out here. My son Luke is serving in the Royal Marines, and has been for around four years now as a Mountain Leader. He’s also taking on quite a significant military challenge, quite a challenging military course; early next year. So I just want to wish you the best of luck with that as well Luke. I look forward to catching you for a beer when I get back from this crazy escapade.
That’s all for tonight guys.
Onwards.”
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